Tuesday, 6 April 2021

TUESDAY, 6 APRIL 2021

TUESDAY, 6 APRIL 2021

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia/Prayers

Karakia/Prayers

DEPUTY SPEAKER: E te Atua kaha rawa, ka tuku whakamoemiti atu mātou, mō ngā karakia kua waihotia mai ki runga i a mātou. Ka waiho i ō mātou pānga whaiaro katoa ki te taha. Ka mihi mātou ki te Kuīni, me te inoi atu mō te ārahitanga i roto i ō mātou whakaaroarohanga, kia mōhio ai, kia whakaiti ai tā mātou whakahaere i ngā take o te Whare nei, mō te oranga, te maungārongo, me te aroha o Aotearoa. Amene.

[Almighty God, we give thanks for the blessings which have been bestowed on us. Laying aside all personal interests, we acknowledge the Queen, and pray for guidance in our deliberations, that we may conduct the affairs of this House with wisdom and humility, for the welfare, peace and compassion of New Zealand. Amen.]

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

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

SPEAKER: Petitions have been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

CLERK:

Petition of Tobias Tahi, requesting that the House amend the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020 to include a provision ensuring that mandatory vaccinations will not happen

petition of Deaf Action New Zealand and Tu Tangata Turi, requesting that the House consider updating the Waitangi National Trust Board Act 1932 and other relevant legislation to make it a requirement to fully fund NZ Sign Language interpreted access to all Commemorations, Anniversaries, and Festivals

petition of Darryl Clarke, requesting that the House pass legislation to formally separate Exhibitions from “Mass Gatherings”.

SPEAKER: Those petitions stand referred to the Petitions Committee.

Papers have been delivered for presentation—there is a list.

CLERK: Report of the Attorney-General under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 on the Holidays (Parent-Teacher Interview Leave) Amendment Bill.

SPEAKER: Now that paper is published under the authority of the House.

Ninety-three select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.

CLERK:

Reports of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee on the 2019/20 Annual reviews of:

AgResearch Limited

Callaghan Innovation

Crown Infrastructure Partners Limited

New Zealand Growth Capital Partners Limited

New Zealand Post Limited

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise

the Commerce Commission

the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment

the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA)

the New Zealand Tourism Board

the Provincial Growth Fund Limited

the Real Estate Agents Authority

the Retirement Commissioner

the Broadcasting Standards Authority, the Electricity Authority, the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, and Kordia Group Ltd

Landcare Research—Manaaki Whenua, NZ Forest Research (Scion), New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research, and Research and Education Advanced Network New Zealand Ltd (REAANZ)

the Accreditation Council, the External Reporting Board (XRB), the Financial Markets Authority, and the Takeovers Panel

the Institute of Environmental Science and Research Limited (ESR) and the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences Limited (GNS Science)

reports of the Education and Workforce Committee on the 2019/20 Annual reviews of:

the Accident Compensation Corporation and WorkSafe New Zealand (Labour sector)

the Ministry of Education, the Education Review Office, the Tertiary Education Commission, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, Education New Zealand, Education Payroll Limited, and Network for Learning (Education sector); and the

Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Bill

reports of the Environment Committee on the 2019/20 Annual reviews of:

Predator Free 2050 Limited

the Climate Change Commission

the Department of Conservation

the Environmental Protection Authority

the Ministry for the Environment

the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.

reports of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on:

the 2019/20 Annual reviews of Crown Asset Management, the Government Superannuation Fund Authority, the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation, the Inland Revenue Department, Kiwi Group Holdings Limited, New Zealand Green Investment Finance Limited, the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission, the New Zealand Productivity Commission, the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the Treasury, the Financial Statements of the Government of New Zealand for the year ended 30 June 2020, and the Briefing on the progress of Inland Revenue Department’s Business Transformation programme (Finance sector)

the 2019/20 Annual reviews of the Earthquake Commission, Southern Response Earthquake Services Limited, and Ōtākaro Limited (Earthquake recovery sector)

Standard Estimates Questionnaire 2021/22

reports of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee on the 2019/20 Annual reviews of:

the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade

the New Zealand Antarctic Institute

the New Zealand Customs Service

the Ministry of Defence and the New Zealand Defence Force

reports of the Governance and Administration Committee on the 2019/20 Annual reviews of:

Fire and Emergency New Zealand

Statistics New Zealand

the Department of Internal Affairs

the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

the National Emergency Management Agency

the Office of Film and Literature Classification

the Office of the Ombudsman

the Public Service Commission

the Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives and the Parliamentary Service

reports of the Health Committee on the 2019/20 Annual reviews of:

the Canterbury District Health Board

the Counties Manukau District Health Board

the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board

the Ministry of Health

the South Canterbury District Health Board

the Southern District Health Board

the Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Lakes, and MidCentral District Health Boards

the Health and Disability Commissioner, the Health Promotion Agency, the Health Quality and Safety Commission, and the New Zealand Blood Service

the Nelson Marlborough, Northland, Tairawhiti, and Taranaki District Health Boards

the Wairarapa, Waitemata, West Coast, and Whanganui District Health Boards

and the: notice of motion on the continuation of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020

and the:

petition of Allyson Lock for the New Zealand Pompe Network: Fund Myozyme for Adults with Pompe Disease

petition of Edward Porter: Publicly fund Kalydeco medication for New Zealanders with G551D Cystic Fibrosis

petition of Elizabeth Hunt for Lysosomal Diseases New Zealand: Publicly fund Fabrazyme, Replagal, and Galafold for treatment of Fabry Disease

petition of Emma Crowley for Breast Cancer Aotearoa: Breast Cancer Aotearoa Coalition: Fund breast cancer drugs

petition of Janine Yeoman: Lifesaving treatment for people who suffer from spinal muscular atrophy

petition of Jeffrey Chan: Ask Pharmac to fund Osimertinib

petition of Kenneth Romeril for Myeloma New Zealand: Fund transformative treatments for multiple myeloma patients

petition of Kristin Dunne: Publicly fund Cetuximab (erbitux) for bowel cancer patients

petition of Malany Turner: Fund Kuvan and Palynziq for PKU

petition of Neil Graham for Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia Advocates New Zealand: Fund lifesaving treatments for chronic lymphocytic leukaemia

petition of Philip Hope for Lung Foundation New Zealand: Ask Pharmac to fund innovative treatments for lung cancer

petition of Rachel Brown for Ovarian Cancer New Zealand: Fund Lynparza and Avastin for ovarian cancer patients

petition of Selina Leigh for the Tahu Hikuroa Foundation: Publicly fund Avastin for relapsed or refractory high-grade gliomas

petition of Stephen Wilson: Fund Keytruda for Lynch Syndrome patients

reports of the Justice Committee on the 2019/20 Annual reviews of:

the Department of Corrections

the Electoral Commission

the Ministry of Justice

the New Zealand Police

the Public Trust

the Serious Fraud Office

the Crown Law Office, the Human Rights Commission, the Independent Police Conduct Authority, the Law Commission, the Office of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner, the Parliamentary Counsel Office, and the Privacy Commissioner

reports of the Māori Affairs Committee on the 2019/20 Annual reviews of:

Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi Māori (Māori Television Service)

Te Reo Whakapuaki Irirangi (Māori Broadcasting Funding Agency)

Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori (Māori Language Commission)

the Ministry of Māori Development (Te Puni Kōkiri)

the Office for Māori Crown Relations—Te Arawhiti

report of the Primary Production Committee on the 2019/20 Annual reviews of the Ministry for Primary Industries, Land Information New Zealand, Landcorp Farming Limited, Animal Control Products Limited (Orillion), AsureQuality Limited, Crown Irrigation Investments Limited, the New Zealand Walking Access Commission, and Quotable Value Limited (Primary sector)

report of the Regulations Review Committee on the examination of two COVID19 orders presented on 8 March 2021

reports of the Social Services and Community Committee on the 2019/20 Annual reviews of:

Sport and Recreation New Zealand

Television New Zealand Limited and Radio New Zealand Limited (Broadcasting sector)

the Ministry for Culture and Heritage and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Board (Arts, culture, and heritage sector)

the Ministry of Social Development, the Social Wellbeing Agency, and the Social Workers Registration Board (Social sector)

the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (Social housing sector)

the Office of the Children’s Commissioner and Oranga Tamariki—Ministry for Children (Families and children sector)

reports of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee on the 2019/20 Annual reviews of:

the Electricity Corporation of New Zealand Limited, Genesis Energy Limited, Mercury NZ Limited, and Transpower New Zealand Limited

2019/20 Annual review of Meridian Energy Limited

2019/20 Annual review of the Ministry of Transport

2019/20 Annual review of the New Zealand Transport Agency

2019/20 Annual reviews of KiwiRail Holdings Limited and the New Zealand Railways Corporation.

SPEAKER: I only got to 92! The bill is set down for second reading. Reports on the briefing on the progress of the Inland Revenue Department’s Business Transformation Programme, Standards Estimates Questionnaire 2021/22 and the Regulations Review Committee’s examination of COVID-19 Orders are set down for consideration. The report on the notice of motion and the continuation of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020 is set down for consideration together with that notice of motion.

The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of a bill.

CLERK: Immigration (COVID-19 Response) Amendment Bill.

SPEAKER: That bill is set down for first reading.

Amended Answers to Oral Questions

Question No. 10 to Minister, 25 March

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): I seek leave to make a personal statement to correct an answer to oral question No. 10 on 25 March.

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

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: In answer to supplementary questions on 25 March, I stated that all the documents sitting behind the Government’s Housing Acceleration Fund, announced on 23 March, had been proactively released. I should have said that the relevant Cabinet papers and the other key documents are being prepared for release, including consultation across agencies, and will be available in the coming weeks.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes, particularly the Government’s recent actions that came into effect on 1 April, including the indexation of benefits to wage rates—this means benefits will be increased by 3.1 percent, more than double what would have happened under the previous indexation to the Consumers Price Index; the largest rise in abatement levels in two decades—this means that people receiving a main benefit and in part-time work can keep more of what they earn; and, of course, the minimum wage increase to $20 per hour, which is estimated to boost the wages of around 175,500 New Zealanders across the economy, and, of course, ensure that those who are on those low wages have the incomes that will lead them to spend in their local economies, which has an impact on those local economies. We are proud of each of those.

Hon Judith Collins: Why has the Government stopped reporting on key mental health indicators, wait times, and suicide statistics?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: My understanding is that they haven’t. There has been a change in how information is reported, rather than the assertion that the member has made around there being any less reporting. I would also note that we have had one of the most significant increases in mental health funding under any Government as part of the Wellbeing Budget: $1.9 billion that’s going into creating entirely new front-line primary mental health services. The Suicide Prevention Office has been established. We are doing things that have not been done before to make sure that we’re not just improving tertiary care but primary as well.

Matt Doocey: Apologise to the inquiry submitters.

SPEAKER: Matt Doocey will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Matt Doocey: I withdraw and apologise.

Hon Judith Collins: Is she confident her Ministers have followed her Government’s instruction to be “the most open and transparent Government in history” when it comes to mental health statistics?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes.

Hon Judith Collins: Does she think it’s acceptable for health officials to prevent the release of what they view as “negative statistics” on mental health?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, my understanding is that the Minister of Health himself has refuted the characterisation of that information. I would point out that that which the member is referring to is a release that has been provided to the Opposition—an Official Information Act release. I’d also, again, point to the fact that the way the information has been gathered—but its availability, as I’ve been briefed, has not changed. If the member wishes to inquire into some of that individual information, the member should feel free to either, (a) put it on notice, or, (b) ask the Minister of Health directly.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: It is on notice.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: It was a general question, Mr Brownlee.

Hon Judith Collins: So why has the number of mental health patients being locked in their rooms on their own increased since she became the Prime Minister, after falling over the previous decade?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, no one in this country is denying that we have had a mental health crisis. What we have absolutely focused on is improving primary mental health care to ensure that we are not leaving people to tertiary care, to the point of acute care, until they get the support that they need. Imagine what would be happening if we did not have that $1.9 billion investment going into mental health.

Hon Judith Collins: With all that money going in, then why did the 2019 report only just get released, and the 2020 report isn’t ready yet?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, none of that has anything to do with the significant investment that has gone into mental health. If the member wishes to get into the detail around the release time frames of reporting, the member should feel free to ask the Minister of Health, who’s very keen to answer.

Hon Judith Collins: So what is her response to Mental Health Foundation chief executive officer Shaun Robinson, who says the mental health system is in worse shape now than it was when Labour was elected in 2017?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I, obviously, would refute that claim. Again, I, of course, encourage all mental health advocates to speak openly about their perspective of the system, but we have always said the $1.9 billion that we’re putting in across primary mental health care, across addiction services and treatment services—it’s going to take time for us to build a workforce that just did not exist. So the member might want to reflect on why it is taking us time to rebuild a mental health service that was utterly neglected under the last Government. So I would really caution the member on making assertions about a system where we’re still seeing the by-product of that under-investment now.

Question No. 2—Finance

2. BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has he seen on the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): New Zealand’s economic recovery from COVID-19 continues to be reflected in the Government’s books, as indicated in the Crown accounts for the eight months to February released by Treasury last week. The accounts show that the stronger than expected economy has flowed through to the Government’s books, with both the operating balance before gains and losses deficit and net core Crown debt lower than forecast at the half-year update in December. This follows GDP data for the 2020 year released in recent weeks that also shows the economy was larger than expected during the past year and that activity has returned, broadly, to pre-COVID levels.

Barbara Edmonds: What do the Crown accounts show about the underlying conditions in the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, they show the underlying activity in the New Zealand economy has been stronger than expected. Tax revenue in the eight months to February was $2.3 billion above Treasury’s December forecast due to these stronger conditions. Treasury reported that the strength in consumption meant that GST was 5.8 percent above forecast. Corporate tax revenue was 11.6 percent above forecast due to strong provisional tax payments. Treasury has said that this indicates that current year taxable profits are higher than was assumed back in December. Source deductions—that’s what we take from people’s pay packets through PAYE—were 1.9 percent above forecast due to the stronger than expected labour market.

Barbara Edmonds: What reports has he seen on the international context for the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: While these are strong results for the New Zealand economy, we need to remain aware that we are still in a volatile and uncertain global economic environment. There are reports of third- and fourth-wave infections in our trading partners, with new restrictions being imposed in countries like France and Germany. This is a reminder that our stronger than expected economic performance is set against the backdrop of an ever-changing global pandemic. There will be further challenges ahead this year, and some sectors and regions will be particularly tested in New Zealand, due to these global economic conditions. But we are in a strong position, and the Government will continue to invest to accelerate our recovery.

Question No. 3—Revenue

3. ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato) to the Minister of Revenue: How many New Zealanders will lose the ability to deduct mortgage interest expenses from their rental income, and how much additional revenue will this tax change generate?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Revenue): I’m advised that neither the Reserve Bank nor the IRD collect data on the number of individual New Zealanders who deduct interest from their rental income from residential premises. However, we do know from CoreLogic that investor activity in the housing market increased substantially over the past year. In quarter four, around 40 percent of all residential property transfers were to purchasers who owned multiple properties. Without a significant policy change, the proportion of homes owned by their occupants would’ve decreased further. In terms of the revenue consequences, I’ve seen various estimates from commentators, in the range of half a billion dollars or more. Any estimate will depend upon future interest rates, final design details, phasing, and how much is invested by investors in new builds. That said, the change is not about revenue; it’s a response to the housing crisis to ensure that first-home buyers and other owner-occupiers get a fair go.

Andrew Bayly: Will a mum and dad who take out a mortgage to buy a property for their son or daughter to rent while studying in another city be able to deduct the interest expense?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I would have to consider that, rather than giving an off-the-cuff answer. If the member would put that in writing as a primary question or send me a letter, I’m very happy to give him an answer.

Andrew Bayly: Will someone who has a mortgage on a farm that includes a house rented to an employee be able to claim all the interest on their mortgage as a tax deductible expense?

Hon DAVID PARKER: We are consulting on details such as that.

David Seymour: Did the Minister seriously just say that this Government introduced a major change to tax policy with no idea how many taxpayers it would affect or how much revenue it would raise?

Hon DAVID PARKER: No.

Andrew Bayly: Will a new floor extension to an existing rental property that increases the number of bedrooms count as a new build and therefore be eligible for interest deductibility?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Again, that sort of detail will be consulted upon.

Andrew Bayly: Why is interest deductibility now considered a tax loophole when it has been a legitimate business expense for many decades for businesses, farmers, and others who own property?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Homeowners don’t get it. I think most New Zealanders realise that when they hear parties decrying the housing crisis and then opposing every measure that is substantial enough to make a difference, those parties say one thing but then oppose every policy which will make a difference.

Andrew Bayly: Where an investor has a mortgage on a property that includes commercial tenants on some floors and residential tenants on other floors, will the investor be able to claim the interest from their mortgage as a tax deductible expense?

Hon DAVID PARKER: For at least part of their interest payment, yes.

Question No. 4—Housing

4. GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South) to the Minister of Housing: Will the measures in the housing package announced on 23 March help increase the supply of new builds; if so, how?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): Yes. Our housing package is consciously tilting the balance towards new builds. Amongst other things, there will be no change to the brightline test for new builds. It will remain at five years. Interest deductibility will continue to apply to new builds and there will be a larger increase in price caps for first-home grants and loans for new builds compared to existing homes.

Ginny Andersen: Will interest deductibility for new builds be available for the build-to-rent sector?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Yes. Build to rent is a missing piece of the New Zealand rental sector. As with new builds more generally, the details will be finalised through the interest deductibility consultation being carried out by Inland Revenue.

Ginny Andersen: Why is it so important to tilt the balance towards new builds?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: New Zealand simply needs more houses. We need policies and levers that prioritise house-building over investment in existing stock. Our package is aimed at helping mum and dad investors avoid competing with their kids for a first home in the suburbs, and, instead, prioritising new builds.

Rawiri Waititi: Will the housing package announced on 23 March help increase the supply of new builds for Māori; if so, how?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: As I’ve previously answered in the House, the housing package that we announced on 23 March will increase the supply of housing for Māori by the very fact that the housing acceleration package in terms of infrastructure being available to both iwi developers and also for whenua Māori land. It is the need to have the infrastructure in place that will allow the building of more houses.

Rawiri Waititi: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I don’t think she answered the question. It was about how many new builds for Māori; if so, how—new builds. We didn’t hear anything about new builds.

SPEAKER: Well, I might be over-interpreting, but I would have thought that if you’re putting in a pile of new infrastructure, it might be for houses.

Rawiri Waititi: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: A further point of order, Rawiri Waititi.

Rawiri Waititi: Yes.

SPEAKER: I just want to warn the member that I’ve ruled the question has not only been addressed, it’s been answered, and ongoing litigation is not a good thing.

Rawiri Waititi: Well, we could end up with social housing; old social houses being given to Māori—that’s all.

SPEAKER: Well, I tell you what. At some stage in the future, the member might be in a position to answer questions, and at that stage, he can do it.

Nicola Willis: When will she release the policy advice she is basing these comments on and that she claims she had proactively released last week?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: As I outlined in the correction to my answer at the beginning of this question time, it will be in the coming weeks.

Question No. 5—Environment

5. Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green) to the Minister for the Environment: What recent advice, if any, has he received about the extent and severity of contamination from New Zealand Aluminium Smelters’ operation at Tīwai Point?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): I apologise to the House. I wasn’t paying proper attention. I have received advice based on publicly available information—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I’m now going to ask the—I don’t want to go right back to the beginning and have a replay, but at least start the answer again.

Hon DAVID PARKER: I have received advice based on publicly available information estimating the likely contamination at Tīwai Point. The Government has been unable to access any detailed information from New Zealand Aluminium Smelters Limited or its owners, Rio Tinto or Sumitomo Corporation, as to the condition of the site. Central government has not been able to access the site ourselves for inspection purposes. Under the Resource Management Act, it’s local government that has the right to enter and investigate the contamination of sites. The Government has provided up to $300,000 to Environment Southland to support them undertaking an on-site investigation. Work by the regional council with the smelter is still ongoing, and I await a detailed report on the actual contamination of the smelter site.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Is he satisfied with the smelter’s treatment, management, and storage of hazardous waste, such as cyanide from spent cell liners, and, if not, why not?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I am not yet in a position to judge that. We have had some difficulties getting cooperation from the smelter in respect of these matters, although at the latest meeting that we had with the new chief executive of Rio Tinto smelters in Australasia—a meeting at which the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister of Energy and Resources, and myself were present by Zoom—there was a noticeable change of tone from the smelter, and one of the things they said was that they intend to remove all of the concrete cathode linings and take proper responsibility for them.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Has he received advice that confirms reports that up to 20,000 tonnes of toxic waste is unaccounted for and potentially buried somewhere where it could contaminate groundwater and Foveaux Strait?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The only report I’ve seen in respect of that was from Environment Southland, who recorded that statement being made by a former employee of the smelter. I have not been able to verify whether that assertion is correct or not, but I’m sure it’s one of the matters that Environment Southland will be investigating.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Do the Ministry for the Environment and Environment Southland have all the powers they need to require New Zealand Aluminium Smelters to properly clean up and remediate Tīwai Point before the company exits, and, if not, what are the gaps in the law?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, one of the gaps in the law relates to events that occurred very early in the life of the smelter, some decades ago, before environmental laws are as they currently are. As to whether we will be able to sheet home responsibility to the owners of the smelter for all of that historic contamination of the land, the position on that is not yet negotiated nor clear.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Will the Natural and Built Environments Bill, planned for consideration by Parliament next month, fill those gaps in relation to Tīwai, and, if not, when can New Zealanders expect new legislation to fill such gaps?

Hon DAVID PARKER: In respect of the part of the Natural and Built Environments Bill that is going to the select committee for an inquiry, those equivalents of Part 2 of the Resource Management Act are not likely to include the detail that the member just referred to.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Is he considering Australian-style laws to enforce remediation and site clean ups by caught companies which create the pollution?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I have sought advice and will be seeking more advice from the Ministry for the Environment as to whether our hazardous waste legislation is fit for purpose.

Question No. 6—Prime Minister

6. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by her statement on 13 April 2020, “That doesn’t mean that we aren’t looking into how we can create the smartest borders in the world”; if so, does she believe that in April 2021 we now have the smartest borders in the world?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes, I stand by my full statement that was made a year ago in relation to mandatory managed isolation and quarantine for those coming through our border, and it read: “That doesn’t mean we aren’t looking into how we can create the smartest borders in the world. If we want to be in a position where we can allow others to come into New Zealand, we need to be reassured that that can happen safely. At the moment, we can’t, which is why we’re using those facilities for everyone.” New Zealand has internationally been acknowledged for our elimination strategy in response to COVID-19, and our work at the border has been crucial to our response. It is important to note that we continue to learn and improve as we move through our response, but our announcement later today around the start date for quarantine-free travel with Australia will represent a new chapter in our response and recovery to COVID-19.

David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister think it smart that people from countries that have never had a case of COVID are quarantined for 14 days next door to people from COVID hotspots around the world?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: There are a range of circumstances for each of those countries where that may be the case. So, for instance, if we take until recently the Cook Islands, there is an example of where we had a reasonable level of confidence, of course, that there weren’t incursions of COVID, but they, at the same time, did not have PCR testing in place, and that will be a similar case in other parts of the Pacific. Of course, we’ve had health officials in, we’ve been working alongside the Cooks, and we’ve now removed that quarantine requirement. So, in each case, there will be different circumstances that may lead to the requirements that we have in place.

David Seymour: How is it possible that Australian states managed six months ago to open up to each other without quarantine, closing down their borders when hotspots appear, and yet we remain inert?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I don’t think that’s a fair comparison. They opened up to each other as a country, in the same way that we have always had movement between, for instance, Auckland and Christchurch. We have always operated like that. They, of course, have a state system that has led to different complications for them around movement. They have not all simultaneously opened up to New Zealand. They’ve had different dates. Not all states have opened to New Zealand. So I don’t think that is a fair comparison between what they have done as a country and what we have done as a country. We’ve always had free movement, except when we’ve had outbreaks.

David Seymour: How is it that Australian states are able to intelligently open and close their borders to each other based on risk, but New Zealand’s policy is completely unchanged regardless of changing circumstances for the last six months?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I would refute the premise of that question. In October, we saw some states open up to New Zealand. The opening between states has actually been at times quite independent of one another. So not all states opened to each other at the same time. Not all states have singly, at the same time, treated one another as hotspots. That’s been one of the reasons it has been more complicated for New Zealand to establish its arrangements. I would also point out to the member that no countries in the world have simultaneously had an elimination strategy whilst opening up to another country, and yet New Zealand and Australia are about to embark upon that. We also have quarantine-free travel with Niue and with the Cook Islands. So we’ve demonstrated we can, and that we will, when we consider it safe to do so.

David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister realise that what she’s about to announce is no different from having New Zealand behave as a seventh state of Australia, joining the way the other six have behaved, opening and closing to each other based on risk for the last six months?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, I think if you would follow any of the commentary in Australia, you’d see that there hasn’t always been consistent openings between those states. For instance, Western Australia still requires 14 days of self-isolation. We are talking about not just an opening to Australia but making sure that you have green zones for transit, that you have no crossover between passengers travelling from red zones into green zones, that you have complete separation at airports. It is not nearly as straightforward as the member is implying, but I think he’s also losing sight of the fact that today we announce a start date and that, equally, we will be amongst the first in the world to pursue both elimination and an opening, a matter that I think we should hold with some pride.

David Seymour: Which of the feats that the Prime Minister just listed were not achieved by New South Wales last October?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, New South Wales has at times operated a different strategy than we have, and they are dealing with one country who has a very firm elimination policy in New Zealand. We, of course, are dealing with multiple states, who at times do not use the hotspot criteria in the same way. So the member, I know, will be very pleased to see the progress we are making, but we just happen to take the view that when we do this, we need to do it safely; we need to do it well.

David Seymour: Is the Prime Minister trying to tell the House that New South Wales has not been dealing with multiple other Australian states?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No. I’m telling the member that they themselves have not claimed to adopt an elimination strategy.

David Seymour: Is the Prime Minister saying that New Zealand has achieved a better level of COVID restriction and containment than New South Wales?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No.

Question No. 7—Social Development and Employment

7. ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: What changes to welfare settings took effect on 1 April?

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment) on behalf of the Minister for Social Development and Employment: On 1 April, the 369,000 people who receive a main benefit saw their payments increase by 3.1 percent. This was the second rise in main benefits under the historic indexation to wage rates introduced by this Government. Under the previous indexation to the Consumers Price Index, beneficiaries would have only received a 1.15 percent rise. This is an important structural change and one that will mean benefits don’t continue to fall further and further behind the average wage. April 1st also saw the largest—

SPEAKER: Order! The member has answered the question.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: How much are those receiving a main benefit better off, by following these changes?

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: On behalf of the Minister, there’s a range of changes to income. For example, couples with children receiving a jobseeker benefit will be receiving an extra $13.24, while individuals receiving jobseeker support will receive an extra $7.76 per week. But these changes haven’t happened in isolation. Since 2017, the jobseeker support rate for couples with children has increased by $61.96.

SPEAKER: Order! The Minister has answered the question.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: What other changes to settings took effect on 1 April?

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: On 1 April, 830,000 people receiving the New Zealand superannuation and veterans pension received a 3.1 percent increase to their payments due to its linkage to the average wage; 60,000 students receiving student allowance will see increases of 1.15 percent, indexed to the Consumers Price Index (CPI); 70,000 people receiving supplementary assistance only will see increases of 1.15 percent, indexed to the CPI. All up, when we include the changes to minimum wage, 1 April saw incomes rise for 1.4 million New Zealanders.

Question No. 8—Transport

8. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Transport: How much has the Government spent investigating options for the City Centre to Māngere light rail project, and does he believe this represents good value for money?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): The cost of the work to date, including all of that done on the previous parallel process, is approximately $35 million. This is not an unusual spend for a project of this size, and compares, for example, to $60.6 million spent investigating options for the Pūhoi to Wellsford highway and $49.6 million spent investigating options for the western ring route. This will be one of the largest infrastructure projects embarked on in New Zealand, and we need to be absolutely certain that the plan we move forward with is the right one. Investing—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Can I ask the current member for Upper Hutt and the other member who lives locally just to stop their local battles and let us hear from the Minister.

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Investing to solve Auckland’s longstanding transport problems and getting to good solutions to rising congestion, the emissions challenges, and making sure that people and freight move freely around our largest city is one that this Government believes is worth it. We won’t kick the can down the road like the last lot did.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: When he told Cabinet that the $1.8 billion set aside so far was “just seed funding, so additional funding will be required”, did he signal to Cabinet how much extra funding he thought would be required, and, if so, what is his figure?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: As I have publicly indicated, one of the jobs of the establishment unit will be to develop the scope of the project to come back to Cabinet within six months on options to take the project forward, including indicative costings.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Did Treasury advise him that the proposed establishment unit will “dilute accountability and could result in delays due to”—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I’m sorry for interrupting the member. That practice from the member in the gallery is what I regard as dangerous. Babies will not have their feet over the edge.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Did Treasury advise that the proposed establishment unit would “dilute accountability and could result in delays due to lack of clarity around decision-making”, and are those concerns similar to the same concerns Treasury had about the twin-track process?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: In answer to the first part of the question, the member did read the media report this morning which identified those views from Treasury. As is outlined in the Cabinet paper which we proactively released on the day of the announcement last week, I don’t agree with that assessment, and I believe it’s extremely important that as we take this city-shaping project forward, we have all of the key players in Auckland around the table to develop consensus and to develop the best option to solve Auckland’s transport problems.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Will he invite the Auditor-General to critique the work of the establishment unit, in light of the Auditor-General’s intention to keep a watching brief on a process he previously described as having the potential to put New Zealand’s reputation at risk?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: The process that the Auditor-General was describing at that time is a process that was ended by Cabinet in July of last year. I do note, as the member has just said, that the Auditor-General does intend to keep a watching brief on this project, which is entirely appropriate given its scale, both financially and in terms of meeting Auckland’s infrastructure needs, and I intend to be open and transparent and constructive in my dealings with the Auditor-General as he does that work.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Can Aucklanders expect to receive a refund of the nearly half a billion dollars received through the regional fuel tax, which the Prime Minister described as “crowdfunding for light rail”?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Well, I’m pleased that the member has asked that question, because it’s very important to put on record, in contrast to the comments the member has been making publicly, that not a single dollar of the regional fuel tax goes towards the Auckland light rail project. It is, in fact, funding important projects around Auckland such as the soon to open bus-train interchange at Puhinui and the Auckland Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative Botany Eastern Busway, which will be opening in the middle of the year, giving Aucklanders in Pakuranga and Botany access to high-quality public transport. I’ll look forward to inviting along the local National Party constituency members.

Question No. 9—Workplace Relations and Safety

9. MARJA LUBECK (Labour) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: Will the increase in the minimum wage to $20 per hour help the economy; if so, how?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Yes. The rise to $20 per hour is estimated to boost wages across the economy by $216 million. Having a good minimum wage for our lowest paid workers is one of the most important things that we can do to stimulate local economic activity, because it gives the New Zealanders most likely to spend it more money to spend in local businesses.

Marja Lubeck: Why is an increase in the minimum wage important?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: We have just come through one of the most challenging years in New Zealand’s history and one of the things that many of us observed is that it was people who have been historically undervalued, like our cleaners, our bus drivers, our hospital orderlies, and our checkout operators, who kept our economy and our society going. And I believe it is only fair and just and reasonable that those people receive a fair wage for the important work that they do. It is also good for our economy. As the Young Workers’ Resource Centre business manager, Tony Stevens, said recently: “higher minimum wages stimulate the economy. We know that the lowest paid workers … spend every dollar they earn because they have to.”

Marja Lubeck: How many people will be better off as a result of the minimum wage increase?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: The increase to the minimum wage will lift the incomes of around 175,000 working New Zealanders, which means around $44 more each week before tax for Kiwis working full time on the minimum wage. I know that’s going to make a big difference for those people and their families.

Hon Scott Simpson: What was his rationale for not heeding Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment advice provided to him that the minimum wage increase be postponed until 1 August this year and be set at a figure not higher than $19.15 per hour?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: In making the decision that I made, along with Cabinet colleagues, I took into account a wide range of factors, including the fact that every single year, we receive advice and we receive views from that side of the House that an increased minimum wage might hurt economic activity or jobs growth. Actually, the record of this Government, every single year, is that we have increased the wages of working New Zealanders on the minimum wage at the same time as bringing about one of the lowest unemployment rates in the developed world.

Question No. 10—Corrections

10. SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga) to the Minister of Corrections: What actions, if any, has he taken to reduce the increasing number of assaults on corrections officers?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister of Corrections): Every single assault in prison is deemed unacceptable. Keeping Corrections officers safe on the job is a top priority, that’s why we’ve put in place a long list of actions to help mitigate risks in the prison environment—for example, more training for tactical skills such as de-escalation and reviewing cell door configuration, and retrofitting cell doors with hatches for meal delivery, as this has been identified as a point of risk. We’re also meeting with the Public Service Association and the Corrections Association of New Zealand to look at even more actions we can collectively take together to keep our Corrections officers safe.

Simeon Brown: Why did he wait until 1 February this year to request monthly briefings on the increasing number of assaults on his staff?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Since I’ve become the Minister, I’ve had briefings with and from Corrections about the assaults.

Hon David Bennett: Oh, is that it?

SPEAKER: Order! Can I just say to the Hon Mr Bennett—right through this question he seems to have regarded it as one of humour, and none of his colleagues seem to, and if he could just be quiet, stop laughing, and let his colleague ask the supplementaries, the House would be a better place.

Simeon Brown: How will these briefings reduce the number of assaults on Corrections officers, given the only next steps Corrections outlines in these briefings is to “continue to provide you with monthly Aide Memoires to update you on prisoner assaults.”

SPEAKER: I think it was “Aides Memoire”—it better have been; unless it was bad English.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Like I’ve said, no assault is acceptable and it’s important to note that serious assaults have remained static. The numbers of assaults that have increased are non-injury and non-serious assaults, but that’s not unsurprising given that Corrections now encourages all Corrections officers to report any assault regardless of how minor or trivial it may seem.

Simeon Brown: What is his response to growing calls from Corrections officers for a vote of no confidence in him as Minister because they are “so incensed” by what they see as him supporting and advocating for prisoners while ignoring staff?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Well, a couple of things: first of all, we have, on one side of the Opposition, they’re saying that prisons are not tough enough; on the other side of the Opposition, they’re saying prisons are too tough. The truth actually lies in the middle, where, as the Minister of Corrections, I’ve got to advocate both for Corrections officers and their wellbeing as well as making sure that prisoners are cared for in line with the Corrections Act.

Simeon Brown: Point of order. I seek leave to table the two most recent briefings to the Minister which outlined the next steps are simply to receive—

SPEAKER: Are these documents—

Simeon Brown: These are received under the Official Information Act, the two briefings the Minister’s recently received regarding prisoner assaults.

SPEAKER: And have they been released only to the member?

Simeon Brown: So far.

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

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

Question No. 11—Seniors

11. GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu) to the Minister for Seniors: How are older New Zealanders benefiting from increased income support which came into force from 1 April?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister for Seniors): The nearly 830 New Zealanders receiving New Zealand superannuation or the veteran’s pension saw a 3.1 percent increase in their pension rates after tax. Single superannuitants now take home almost $437 per week after tax, a more than $13 per week increase. A superannuitant couple now receives $672 per week between them, more than $20 extra per week.

Greg O’Connor: How does the 1 April increase in national superannuation levels compare with previous increases?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: The 3.1 percent increase in pension rates reflects wages continuing to increase faster than inflation, as measured by the Consumers Price Index. It’s the biggest increase to New Zealand superannuation and veteran’s pension rates in 10 years and demonstrates this Government’s ongoing commitment to supporting older New Zealanders.

Greg O’Connor: What other measures have the Government put in place to support older New Zealanders?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: In addition to their superannuation or veteran’s pension, superannuitants also benefit from the Government’s winter energy payment, which this year is worth an extra $20.46 a week for a single superannuitant and $31.82 a week for couples from 1 May to 1 October. Superannuitants whose partners have large overseas pensions benefited last year from the removal of the so-called spousal deduction. The Government also continues to work with businesses to help superannuitants make the most of their money through the SuperGold card.

Question No. 12—Immigration

12. ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays) to the Minister of Immigration: What advice, if any, has he received on the issue of split migrant families, and will he commit to allowing migrant reunification once a trans-Tasman bubble is in place?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Immigration): The Government has been receiving advice on the effects of the border closure since we closed it over a year ago as part of our strategy to eliminate COVID-19 from our communities. This has included advice on the issue of families of temporary visa holders who may have been having difficulties because of our border closure. The advice I have received has also set out where we have been able to make changes to allow some of these families to come together as capacity has allowed, including 1,000 normally resident temporary visa holders, and partners and dependants from visa waiver countries. We will continue to consider these situations and what further measures we can introduce to assist families that may be having difficulties with the border closure. It’s important to remember that we’ve had nearly 130,000 people safely come across the border and through our managed isolation and quarantine system, and the overwhelming majority of those have been New Zealanders, who have an absolute right to come home. I understand the Prime Minister will address the trans-Tasman bubble this afternoon, and I would not want to get ahead of that.

Erica Stanford: What does he say to Cameron Conradie, a mathematics teacher from the Hutt Valley, who has not seen his two sons in over a year and has no choice right now but to leave New Zealand if he wants to see his family?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I would say to that individual and many others who are in his situation that we understand the difficulties that he is in, but we also have extreme challenges in making sure that we keep New Zealand safe at the border, and our border settings, we believe, are appropriate in order to do that. As I say, it is a balance of priorities around keeping New Zealanders safe, also recognising that New Zealanders have the right to come home and go through managed isolation.

Erica Stanford: How much longer does he expect our migrant workers to stay in New Zealand without their partners and children if he won’t commit to a time frame?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Look, a lot of those families will be in different situations around the length of time that they’ve had in New Zealand. As I have said to the member during a number of question times, we are currently considering options for that. I would again stress that that is balancing the likes of keeping New Zealanders safe, and managed isolation capacity, and I believe the results to date show that New Zealanders trust our judgment when it comes to our border settings.

Erica Stanford: Does he think that it’s acceptable that migrants have to appear on TV3 news, crying over pictures of their children they haven’t seen in a year, in order for him to simply take considerations into account after ignoring the problems for nine months?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: As I have said already during this line of questioning, we acknowledge the difficult situations that those families are in. I think they would also acknowledge the difficulty and complexity of having to manage the border in order to get to the state that New Zealand currently is in, where we are considering options such as the trans-Tasman bubble. Those are complex decisions. We understand, as I’ve said, that we can, along the way, take into consideration some of those groups who are facing difficulties with the border settings, but our primary concern is making sure that we can keep New Zealanders safe, and I would stress again: New Zealanders trust our judgment on those settings.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Will the Minister allow separated couples from non - visa waiver countries, such as India, to apply for partnership visas on the same terms and criteria as applicants from visa waiver countries?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: There are already settings that we believe are appropriate for non - visa waiver countries. Again, this is about making sure that we manage the border settings to keep New Zealanders safe. In consideration of that, too, it is about the capacity of and ability of New Zealanders to come as well. These are all the complex issues that we take into consideration when we are assessing some of the difficult situations that people find themselves in.

Erica Stanford: Why is it that when his office told media on 24 February that the Minister expects to get advice on the migrant—

SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! Sorry, I’ll get the member to start the question again. It sounded like it was going out of order, but it mightn’t be.

Erica Stanford: Why is it that when his office told the media on 24 February that the Minister expects to get advice on the migrant nurse anomaly from officials in the next few weeks, nearly six weeks later, nothing has been announced?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Because that’s probably an accurate statement.

Urgent Debates Declined

Office of the Director of Mental Health and Addiction Services—Annual Report

SPEAKER: I have received—[Interruption] I’m about to deal, Mr Bishop, with an urgent debate from one of his colleagues—or was it a member behind him who’s looking guilty? Whoever it was, if it was a marginal case, wouldn’t be helping.

I’ve received a letter from Matt Doocey seeking to debate under Standing Order 399 the delay in the release of the 2018-19 annual report of the Office of the Director of Mental Health and Addiction Services and the data in the report. This is a particular case of recent occurrence for which there is ministerial responsibility. The late release of an annual report and its contents do not meet the threshold for setting aside the business of the House today. It is a matter that could be raised in the annual review debate scheduled to commence next week. The application is therefore declined.

Several recent applications for urgent debates have asserted that they meet the criteria in Standing Order 399(2) without explaining how. I would remind members of the rulings by Speakers Smith and Hunt that it is for members to make out a case for an urgent debate, not for the Speaker to discover one—Speaker’s ruling 199/5.

Applications should explain how the matter they wish to debate meets the criteria for an urgent debate, rather than simply asserting that they do.

SPEAKER: I declare the House in committee for the consideration of the Ngāti Hinerangi Claims Settlement Bill.

Bills

Ngāti Hinerangi Claims Settlement Bill

In Committee

Parts 1 to 3, Schedules 1 to 4, and clauses 1 and 2

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Tēnā rā tātou katoa e te Whare. Members, the House is in committee on the Ngāti Hinerangi Claims Settlement Bill. Members, we come first to the debate on Part 1. This is the debate that addresses “Preliminary matters, acknowledgements and apology, and settlement of historical claims”. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations): I seek leave for all provisions to be taken as one debate.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be none. Therefore, the question now is that Parts 1 to 3, Schedules 1 to 4, and clauses 1 and 2 stand part.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations): Mr Chairman, thank you. For members of the House and for those looking on, just to explain: our good friends from Ngāti Hinerangi are expecting the third reading of their bill, and that will be coming very shortly. What has happened since the last time that this House considered the Ngāti Hinerangi bill is that other laws have changed that have implications for this piece of legislation. So laws such as the Legislation Act 2019, the Trusts Act 2019, the Education and Training Act 2020, and the Urban Development Act 2020 have all changed the legal landscape that means that this legislation has to be brought into line with that. So one of those, for example, is the new Trusts Act changes the rule against perpetuities. That has to be incorporated into the Ngāti Hinerangi legislation.

So the purpose of this stage of the proceeding is to make sure all those changes are put in place in this bill, because we know that nothing less than perfection is what Ngāti Hinerangi deserves when it comes to their very important piece of legislation. So this is now about making Ngāti Hinerangi’s legislation perfect.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): The question is that the Minister’s amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 25 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): The question is that Parts 1 to 3, Schedules 1 to 4, and clauses 1 and 2 as amended stand part.

Parts 1 to 3, Schedules 1 to 4, and clauses 1 and 2 as amended agreed to.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Mr Speaker, the committee has considered the Ngāti Hinerangi Claims Settlement Bill and reports it with amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

Third Reading

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations): I move that the Ngāti Hinerangi Claims Settlement—

SPEAKER: No. I think you’re going to present a legislative statement first.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Oh, you’re absolutely correct, Mr Speaker. I stand corrected. I present a legislative statement on the Ngāti Hinerangi Claims Settlement Bill.

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

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I move, That the Ngāti Hinerangi Claims Settlement Bill be now read a third time.

E te whare e tū ake nei, e te marae e takoto mai nei, tēnā koutou. E ngā mate o te wā haere atu rā. Ki a tātou te hunga ora e hui nei, tēnā koutou. Ki a koutou hoki Ngāti Hinerangi, nau mai haere mai, whakatau mai. Nā koutou tēnei wā, Ngāti Hinerangi, nā reira rau rangatira mā tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[To the House standing here and the courtyard below, I acknowledge you both. To the deceased of this time, farewell. To the living gathered here, greetings. Greetings and welcome, Ngāti Hinerangi. This is your time, Ngāti Hinerangi, greetings to the many chiefs.]

This is a significant day for Ngāti Hinerangi and, indeed, for the Crown, and I’m honoured to move that the Ngāti Hinerangi Claims Settlement Bill be enacted into law and for Ngāti Hinerangi to finally receive the benefits of a settlement, which are long overdue.

We’re joined in the House by Ngāti Hinerangi, and they’ve come down in their numbers from Waikato. I extend a welcome to you all, and I thank you for making the journey to witness this, the final reading of your legislation for your settlement. That you are here in such force is a testament to the near-unanimous support that this settlement has received amongst your iwi, and today we can all be very proud of what has been achieved through this bill and celebrate the new beginning that it promises, both for Ngāti Hinerangi and for the Crown.

In May 2019, I was welcomed on to Te Ōhākī Marae in the heart of the rohe of Ngāti Hinerangi, to sign the Ngāti Hinerangi deed of settlement. Some four months on from the signing ceremony, I was very pleased to speak on behalf of Ngāti Hinerangi in support of the first reading of the bill, which, like many others, has been many years in the making. It has been over six years since the agreement in principle was signed, and despite the time it has taken, I’ve never had any doubt that we would get to this point. It has been a long journey and a sometimes difficult journey, but here we are today.

I’d like to reflect on some of the interactions with the Crown following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi by representatives of Ngāti Hinerangi in Tauranga in 1840 which form the background and basis of this settlement. In the early 1860s, Ngāti Hinerangi became adherents of the Kīngitanga movement. Ngāti Hinerangi joined forces to fight against the Crown in both the Taranaki and Waikato Wars. Ngāti Hinerangi were also among the forces which fought against the Crown in Tauranga at Gate Pā. The Crown acts of purchasing land such as the Te Puna - Katikati block, an area in which Ngāti Hinerangi had interests, were not investigated properly, and Ngāti Hinerangi received no benefits from the sale and were not able to retain parts of the land.

Further and sustained acts by the Crown continued to alienate Ngāti Hinerangi land, both within the Tauranga Moana and Waikato areas of Ngāti Hinerangi’s tribal rohe, including significant land loss within Matamata itself. This land loss was the major factor that resulted in the cultural and economic marginalisation of Ngāti Hinerangi. As a result of the Crown’s acts and omissions, Ngāti Hinerangi because virtually landless, lost their economy and connection with their environment, and suffered from severe social and economic deprivation. Through this settlement, the Crown seeks to atone for the past injustices that it has inflicted upon Ngāti Hinerangi and to provide opportunities for Ngāti Hinerangi and the Crown to move forward.

The Ngāti Hinerangi Claims Settlement Bill seeks to give effect to the Ngāti Hinerangi settlement package, as outlined in the legislative statement. The redress provided in this settlement went through significant changes through negotiations and in response to overlapping claims, and I believe it will go a long way towards Ngāti Hinerangi re-establishing their connection with various parts of their rohe, strengthening the identity of Ngāti Hinerangi as tangata whenua and providing the foundation for a stronger social, cultural, and economic future for the iwi.

I want to make special mention of Ngāti Hinerangi’s overlapping interests process. Ngāti Hinerangi engaged in a process which upheld their mana and demonstrated great leadership and pragmatism, particularly with Tauranga Moana iwi. This approach will provide for a long-lasting, enduring relationship with Tauranga Moana iwi in the post-settlement environment.

I’d like to acknowledge all of the people who have helped realise this settlement between Ngāti Hinerangi and the Crown. To those of you who have worked so hard to make today possible, I offer you my most sincere thanks. The late Matuakore Koperu MacMillan, or “Mac”, started the journey for Ngāti Hinerangi to once again be recognised as an independent iwi. The late Annie Uruwharangi Marsh, along with other Ngāti Hinerangi kaumātua and kuia, also over time fought for the recognition of Ngāti Hinerangi, ensuring and strengthening the history of Ngāti Hinerangi. Ngāti Hinerangi was near extinction, and now they are, as their post-settlement governance name depicts, Te Puāwaitanga o Ngāti Hinerangi Iwi Trust, meaning the blossoming of Ngāti Hinerangi. We thank them for their efforts and keep them in our thoughts today—moe mai rā.

I also wish to acknowledge the Ngāti Hinerangi Iwi Trust negotiators and others who have contributed to this team for their commitment to their people. The negotiations have been long and complex, and I acknowledge the hard work, commitment, and perseverance of all involved to achieve an enduring settlement for Ngāti Hinerangi. I want to also thank the Crown officials for their hard work in supporting and progressing this settlement. I’d like to acknowledge chief Crown negotiator James Willis for leading the Crown team, and my officials at Te Arawhiti and all agencies who worked on this settlement. This is a day on which you and they can all be very proud.

Lastly, I thank you, Ngāti Hinerangi, who have come today to see this bill enacted. I’d also like to acknowledge those who are not able to join us today. Your courage to confront the past and your endless generosity to allow the Crown a second chance is uplifting and inspiring. Your faith in the Crown and our new partnership is justified and will be reciprocated. Thank you.

When the Ngāti Hinerangi deed of settlement was signed in May 2019 at Te Ōhākī Marae, the Ngāti Hinerangi chair, Phil Smith, likened it to a new Treaty between Ngāti Hinerangi and the Crown, and in many ways that is true. This settlement signifies a new phase of partnership between the Crown and Ngāti Hinerangi. Today, we are reaffirming our relationship with hope and a vision for the future generations of Ngāti Hinerangi. The Crown is making commitments in this bill that it will honour and which signify a new phase in our Māori-Crown partnership.

I commend the Ngāti Hinerangi Claims Settlement Bill to the House. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Ko te pātai kia whakaaetia te motu nei. [The question is that the motion be agreed to.]

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou, Ngāti Hinerangi. Nau mai, haere mai. It’s an honour to rise to speak on the third reading of the Ngāti Hinerangi Claims Settlement Bill today and to acknowledge all of you here. I know that this is a long process that goes back to 1840, and the injustices that were experienced, particularly during the 19th century.

The settlement process is one that was begun under the Hon Chris Finlayson and it is being completed by the Hon Andrew Little, and I wish to acknowledge them both. I wish to acknowledge all of you who have come here today. I know it’s a long way from the Matamata and Tauranga rohe. It’s a big and special day.

I also wish to acknowledge all of the kaumātua, the trustees, the negotiators, and Te Arawhiti staff, and I see some young people are here today. I just wanted to make special mention of the fact that this is, ultimately, about taking care of the rangitahi and of the mokopuna and providing for the economic revitalisation and the recognition of your mana.

The intention of the Crown through this settlement is to restore the honour and alleviate the justified sense of grievance felt by generations of Ngāti Hinerangi and to build a meaningful relationship with your iwi going forwards. The Crown has also unreservedly apologised to the hapū and whānau for failing to uphold its obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The Ngāti Hinerangi settlement will forge a new relationship between the Crown and Ngāti Hinerangi, and it should be a real catalyst for positive change. It includes a total financial redress of $8.1 million plus interest, the cultural revitalisation payment of $200,000, a co-governance arrangement over the upper Waihou and Piako river catchments, and the vesting of 14 cultural redress properties, which includes part of Wairere Falls, which is a secret awa to Ngāti Hinerangi.

I don’t wish to go into more detail that has been traversed before in this House and that was spoken to before by the Hon Andrew Little. But I wish to commend this bill to the House, recognising your mana as a people, and I acknowledge and thank you for coming here today. I hope that this will be a strong part of your story going forwards. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Tuatahi i runga i te ara whanaunga tēnei ka mihi atu ki a Ngāti Hinerangi, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Hauā. Kua kite mai koutou, kia rongo mai ki ngā kōrero o te tokomaha kei te Pāremata nei e pā ana ki a koutou nei take Tiriti. Tērā ka whakaaro ake ki te āpōpō me ā rātou nei noho i ā rātou nei wā ki ā koutou nei mahi nunui kia kimihia, kia whai i tētehi wāhi ki te tutuki i tō take Tiriti.

Nō reira kua pā mai te whakaaro me whakahuatia te whakapāha atu o te Karauna kia kuhu mai i roto i ngā tuihituhinga o ngā pukapuka o Pāremata, ka rongo mai ngā tamariki mokopuna ki tērā whakapāha ki a Ngāti Hinerangi, ka kite mai i te whakapāha i roto i ngā tuhituhinga o Pāremata nō reira ka tīpako tērā i roto i tō ture:

“E whakatakoto ana te Karauna i tēnei whakapāha ki ngā hapū me ngā whānau o Ngāti Hinerangi, ki ō koutou tūpuna me ā koutou mokopuna. E tino pōuri ana te Karauna i tana korenga i whakatinana i ōna herenga ki a Ngāti Hinerangi i raro i te Tiriti o Waitangi.

“Ko tōna tikanga kua ahu mai te whanaungatanga i waenga i a Ngāti Hinerangi me te Karauna i ngā mātāpono o te whakawhirinaki taupuhipuhi me te mahi ngātahi i matakitea ai e te Tiriti heoi i mōnehutia kētia taua whanaungatanga i ngā tau tini e ngā mahi a te Karauna.

“Anei te Karauna e kaha whakapāha atu nei i tana kawe i te pakanga ki tō koutou iwi me te raupatutanga o te whenua i muri mai.

“Inā te nui o te whakapāha a te Karauna i aua rautaki muru whenua i kōkiritia ki a Ngāti Hinerangi i te wā o te kōkiritanga i te ngahere me te mōhio ki te tino mamae i pā ki ō koutou tūpuna i te pakanga me te raupatu.

“E whakapāha atu ana te Karauna i tana whakatairanga i te huhua o ngā ture me ngā kaupapa here nā reira i riro ai ngā whenua o Ngāti Hinerangi e toe ana me te kauneke hoki i te hekenga o ngā āhuatanga o te ōhanga me te pāpōuri o Ngāti Hinerangi i roto i tō koutou ake rohe.

“Arā noa te kaha o te pōuri o te Karauna nā āna mahi i whakakore te āheinga o Ngāti Hinerangi ki te uru ki ngā maunga, ki ngā awa, ki ngā waiariki, ki ngā wāhi tapu me ngā mahinga kai i whai ōranga ai tō koutou iwi mō ngā whakatupuranga e whai nei.

“E pōuri ana te Karauna kāore i tika tana urupare ki ngā whakatupuranga o mua atu o Ngāti Hinerangi, i ngana ki te whai i te tika mō tō rātou anō iwi.

“E tūmanako ana te Karauna mā tēnei whakataunga e ū anō ai tōna mana, e hiki anō te wairua whakamau e tiki ana kia rangona e ngā whakatipuranga o Ngāti Hinerangi.

“E anga whakamua ana te Karauna ki te whakapakari i tētehi hononga whai take ki a Ngāti Hinerangi. Ka ahu mai i ngā mātāpono o te mahi ngātahi, o te whakawhirinaki taupuhipuhitanga me te whakaute i Te Tiriti o Waitangi me ōna mātāpono.”

[Firstly, I would like to acknowledge Ngāti Hinerangi, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Hauā via the kinship ties. You have heard the messages of the many gathered in Parliament with respect of your Treaty claim. Let us think about the future generation and how they will live and reflect upon your great achievement in settling your Treaty claim.

It occurs to me that I should read out the Crown apology so that it may be recorded in the official parliamentary records, and that the children and grandchildren can hear said apology to Ngāti Hinerangi, and see the apology in the official parliamentary record, therefore let me select this excerpt from the legislation:

“The Crown makes the following apology to the hapū and whānau of Ngāti Hinerangi, to your tūpuna and your mokopuna. The Crown is profoundly sorry for having failed to uphold its obligations to Ngāti Hinerangi under Te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi.

“The relationship between Ngāti Hinerangi and the Crown should have been one based upon the principles of mutual respect and partnership, as envisioned in Te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi, however for too many years Crown actions tarnished this relationship.

“The Crown unreservedly apologises for bringing war to your people and for the raupatu of land that followed.

“The Crown deeply regrets the scorched earth tactics it employed against Ngāti Hinerangi during the bush campaign and acknowledges the profound distress war and raupatu caused your tūpuna.

“The Crown apologises for its promotion of many laws and policies that facilitated the loss of Ngāti Hinerangi’s remaining lands, which contributed to the economic and social marginalisation of Ngāti Hinerangi within your own rohe.

“The Crown deeply regrets that its actions deprived Ngāti Hinerangi of access to the maunga, awa, waiariki, wāhi tapu and mahinga kai that had sustained your people for many generations.

“The Crown regrets that its response to previous generations of Ngāti Hinerangi who sought justice for their people was inadequate.

“The Crown hopes that through this settlement it can restore its honour and alleviate the justifiable sense of grievance felt by generations of Ngāti Hinerangi.

“The Crown looks forward to building a meaningful relationship with Ngāti Hinerangi based on co-operation, mutual trust, and respect for the Treaty of Waitangi and its principles.”]

I just briefly wanted to take a moment to ensure that in the records of the Hansard the apology of the Crown was registered for the next generation of Ngāti Hinerangi, who will look back on this moment and the longstanding courage and determination and fortitude of their tūpuna represented here today in the Chamber to seek resolution of a claim that goes back to events in 1860, and the wars that took place certainly within the Waikato and Tauranga Moana. I also wanted to ensure that when they look back on the history books that this is a moment in time that they can point to and hold, to some extent, the Crown accountable to the agreements that have been reached within the settlement.

Can I also underpin that those who will benefit from this particular settlement are outlined in the legislation and, namely, Ngāti Tamapango, Ngāti Tokotoko, Ngāti Te Rīha, Ngāti Kura, Ngāti Whakamaungarangi, Ngāti Tawhaki, Ngāti Rangi, and Ngāti Tahinga. In the legislation it makes it clear, but it does not mean the hapū of Ngāti Tamaterā. That’s a very clear testament in terms of the ambition of Ngāti Hinerangi, who will benefit from all the various component parts of this particular settlement. It’s also an opportunity to ensure that the aspirations that lie ahead for Ngāti Hinerangi can flow through to the marae, the hapū, and the generations represented in those hapū who have been outlined in this particular settlement.

I want to acknowledge all those who have been involved, both on the Crown side and on the iwi side, to get to this point. It’s never perfect. It’s never a perfect process, and it’s not designed often to ensure that unity can be maintained through a very tumultuous road. However, it has been the case that as time passes, and as the commitment towards unity continues to be embraced, which has always been reflected by the negotiators and the kaumātua in this instance, the next generation will be better off for it. Problem is, we may all never get to actually tell that story; it’s going to be the kids of our kids, perhaps, that will tell the story, but we can be optimistic in that ambition.

We can also be optimistic in the knowledge that in having the historical record rectified in the way that a Treaty settlement is able to provide, by having an apology clearly expressed in person by the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, but certainly within a piece of legislation and now the Hansard record, our whole effort to ensure our local schools learn their local histories becomes a part of the living legacy that now Ngāti Hinerangi is a part of contributing to, as you move forward into the future with hope and determination.

So, for my small part—and I am fast-forwarding a number of contributions throughout the House on this particular settlement—I wish you all the very best, as hard as this task has been. I certainly wish your aspirations for the future to be one that continues to build and strengthen the unity of Ngāti Hinerangi and your relationships across borders, because that was something that also came through throughout your journey—the importance of the relationships with Tauranga Moana, with Raukawa, with Ngāti Hauā, with Wairere, with Waikato, because of the history that has impacted so significantly upon yourselves.

Nō reira, he iti taku iti hei tāpiri atu ki ngā kōrero ka whakapuare ki mua i ā koutou nei aroaro; tēnei e mihi ana ki a koutou, e tautoko ana ahau i tēnei pire.

[Therefore, this is my humble contribution to add to the messages disclosed before you; I wish to thank you all again and say that I support this bill.]

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga): Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Mr Speaker, tēnā koe. It’s always a privilege to speak at the conclusion of historic Treaty settlement bills because of the significance of them to the iwi in question—here, of course, Ngāti Hinerangi. And whilst the mechanics, if you like, of these bills often aren’t that different from iwi to iwi, there are always unique facets to them because there’s always been a different set of injustices with different facts and contexts, and that’s certainly true here in relation to this claim. And today, as far as Parliament’s concerned at least, the conclusion of this historic Treaty claim with a settlement.

Can I just acknowledge the Ministers that have been part of this. Of course, originally Minister Chris Finlayson and now Minister Little. Can I acknowledge James Willis, known to a few of us in this House, who was Crown negotiator. Can I also acknowledge iwi, who I think, as Minister Little has said, have turned out in large numbers here today, and that always makes it a very special occasion for, dare I say it, not just you but also for us in this House.

I won’t dwell long here today but I did just want to touch on the history that we see and that the Hon Nanaia Mahuta has in her apology, to some extent, canvassed in her speech in the Parliament. Of course, Ngāti Hinerangi were to become part of the Kīngitanga and then amongst forces, Māori forces against the Crown of the day, the Battle of Pukehinahina, or Gate Pā, and then also the battle of Te Ranga. And we know that between the period of about 1865 and 1868—which is a relatively dark, perhaps the darkest chapter in terms of land confiscations—there were large Crown confiscations from your iwi. Again, I acknowledge that Nanaia Mahuta has set out the apology in this Parliament just now in relation to that.

One thing I thought to say is that later this month I will, as one of the local members of Parliament in Tauranga Moana be going along to a commemoration service at St George’s Anglican Church right there on one of, if not the key site of the battle of Pukehinahina or Gate Pā, and I see the Hon Jan Tinetti nodding. I’m sure I know she’s been in the past, she may well be there as well. And I think it’s a positive thing that in more recent times, in fact really just in the last small number of years, we’ve seen something of a renaissance in acknowledgments and recollection, really, of that history and what was one—or possibly the most significant moment, certainly battle, in Tauranga Moana’s history. More and more children, not just of Māori origin, are learning the stories and the history of that, and I’m sure all members of Parliament join with me in acknowledging what a good thing that is.

So we come today, given that history that’s set out comprehensively—or relatively comprehensively—in the bill, to the redress, the apology for war, for loss of lands, cultural redress, and the financial redress. And I just mark something that is fundamentally always true in Treaty settlements, and it’s certainly true here, and that’s this: that the quantum, the amounts, in question will never, in fact, do full justice in a real sense for what has happened. But I hope and I trust that the acknowledgment and what is here in this bill, soon to be law, will nevertheless bring hope, a finalisation here on these historic claims, and a brighter future for your iwi. And now, of course, it will soon be over to you to invest what there is in the future, in your mokopuna—some of whom are walking in right now—and their mokopuna, and their mokopuna following that. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Ngāti Hinerangi, tēnā koutou. Tēnā koutou kua tae mai nei ki tēnei Whare ātaahua rawa atu i tēnei rā, te kaupapa whakahirahira kei mua i a tātou, nō reira tēnā koutou.

[Greetings, Mr Speaker. Greetings, Ngāti Hinerangi. Greetings to you all who have arrived here to this beautiful House today on this auspicious occasion, greetings all.]

Can I acknowledge you and the journey that you’ve been on. Just before, I was looking at a newsletter that you put out back in 2015, talking about the start of this journey, but I know that it had been started well before then. Can I acknowledge the part that history plays in this, actually digging into the past and actually fleshing out all of the details—sometimes the uncomfortable stuff as well—that you really have to get your fingers into and try to understand and then pass that around to the whānau to try and build a narrative, to build a story, as you have done with your settlement, as we are confirming here today in this House. So I want to acknowledge the part that your historians have played in this, the Māori Land Court, people from the Department of Conservation, people from Land Information New Zealand, and your own people. This has been an amalgamation of your journey so far and I’m stoked to be here to acknowledge your journey, Te Puāwaitanga o Ngāti Hinerangi. Let’s keep saying that, because this is a very momentous occasion and it’s the start of a very special journey for you.

I wanted to acknowledge as well that although the agreement in principle was signed a while back, actually you have been on a journey with this. There’s a lot of conversations that need to be had, and sometimes they can be hōhā. Sometimes actually turning up to those hui after hui, and, I guess with COVID, zui after zui—being able to have those hui and make sure that you’re taking all the whānau on the journey through these really big times—actually, they need to be acknowledged.

I want to also acknowledge you for what it says on your website about how you would like to revitalise the iwi. There were some really strong things on there, and I wrote them down because, actually, I believe that this is the time that we need to be setting that direction, the roadmap ahead for you, so that for the privilege of this House and for people that might be watching at home, they understand what your goals are, the whole reason that you put yourself through this—what this whole Treaty settlement is for.

According to your very good website, it says the revitalisation of Ngāti Hinerangi is to restore the mana, the pride, and your own identity that you have in yourselves, that you’ve become a leader within your own rohe. And I know that that rohe kind of is a little bit the Waikato side, a little bit the Tauranga side on that side, but, you know, you fullas work it out. But actually, can I acknowledge you as well for the role that you’ve played with our whānau from Tauranga Moana in being able to iron out some of those little issues in there as well and making sure that you’re doing it in a tikanga way. You bring honour to the process and to the people involved by doing things like that. So I acknowledge you for that.

Ngāti Hinerangi, I want to maximise your human potential—oh, I like the sound of that—your human potential and expertise developed to assist, grow, and develop your iwi, your hapū, and your whānau. Tēnā koe. You want to ensure that they have a social and socio-economic restoration of your health and wellbeing. I get that. You want some facility restoration in there as well. So being able to do some restoration to marae and do some upgrading in that area as well. I wish you all the best.

You are looking to restore the traditional knowledge systems and the tikanga that you have lost over the years. And we as a Government, we’re supportive of any initiatives to be able to revitalise our reo, revitalise our tikanga in some of the small, remote but hearty parts of Aotearoa. So that’s part of your mission as well, and I acknowledge that.

To raise the educational, the social, the cultural, and the political aspirations of Ngāti Hinerangi as well—awesome. Short-term and future long-term strategies for future development: to assist with the development of some commercial ventures as well, and to establish a centre of knowledge and learning. All of those are incredibly admirable goals and I commend you for putting that stake in the ground and actually for setting the pathway forward for yourselves.

There’ll be a lot of people around the country that don’t know your story, but you have a story to tell and it’s a story of struggle and it’s a story of loss, and it’s a story that, hopefully, when the kids go to school next year and they learn New Zealand history in schools—hopefully, some of the local kids around Matamata will learn about the story of Ngāti Hinerangi, because you can guarantee there will be some that have no idea about what your story entails and the journey that you’ve been on. But you’re here today, and all of the work that you’ve done in getting your settlement to this point, basically, that’s good fodder for a New Zealand history class. That’s good fodder for our kids to be learning in the various schools in Matamata, in the South Waikato, on our side of the Kaimai Ranges as well. Let everybody know what your story is, because it’s a poignant one and it’s one that I’m sure we will hear more of as we unpick what the history of New Zealand really has been, the “warts and all” story. No doubt we’re going to hear more and more of that coming out over time.

Can I just finish by actually sitting down. I just want to finish by absolutely saying that your presence in this House today is incredibly special, because one of the criticisms of this House is that—have a look around you—it’s very monocultural. Actually, we need to have settlements coming through here. We need to be telling our Māori stories within this Chamber, because there are also some members of this Parliament that need to hear those stories. They acknowledge it, but they don’t live in our world. They don’t understand the pain and suffering that we’ve faced. So whilst it might be nice for them to stand and give a lightly once-over kind of contribution, actually your presence in being here today, and for us to be able to take as long as we want—10 minutes—to be able to really draw out some of those stories is really important.

Every member of Parliament needs to hear stories like yours to keep it front and centre, because it’s important. It’s important for our capability as members of Parliament, as windows into the communities that we represent, to be able to continue telling the stories of hurt and loss and make sure that once it’s moved through this House we keep hearing those stories, that we can’t just let these stories be documents for a shelf in a back room somewhere, because they are stories that are meaningful and they are stories of people and of a journey.

So with that said, I acknowledge you all here today. I’m grateful to be here. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Tēnā koe, e te Māngai o te Whare, Ngāti Hinerangi tēnā tātou katoa. I rise on behalf of the Green Party as our tangata Tiriti spokesperson to acknowledge Ngāti Hinerangi in this House today and their epic journey to get to this place today. Perhaps the shortest leg of this journey has been the negotiating of the settlement that brings us here—and that has been over seven years since the mandate was recognised. Seven years of negotiating with the enemy—well done.

From the beginning, though, it has been a journey of profound hardship. At its core, it seems to me, a fight for survival. The Ngāti Hinerangi rohe extends from the eastern Waikato to Tauranga, including part of the Kaimai Range: land rich in many, many senses. And land, clearly, and life worth fighting for—and Ngāti Hinerangi did that, as we would expect any or many nations to defend their place.

Ngāti Hinerangi joined the Kīngitanga movement, after signing Te Tiriti, which, of course, confirmed sovereignty that existed in 1840, and confirmed equal rights under Kāwanatanga. And then slowly the Crown eroded that—or not so slowly if you think in contemporary terms—and pushed Ngāti Hinerangi into a position of joining the Kīngitanga movement and fighting wars to hold to that agreement to keep the lands. In retribution for standing up and fighting for the land, the Crown then turned around and confiscated 290,000 acres of land—treacherous, treacherous actions from the people in this House. That happened between 1865 and 1868—fewer than 30 years after the signing of a document that promoted peaceful relationships. It was truly treacherous, and extraordinary that the spirit of fight and of hope was not lost through that time. And while some land was returned, it was returned to individuals, not hapū—an act that actually helped aid the process of colonisation rather than redressing it.

Ngāti Hinerangi were not passive in this process. While this surveying and taking of land happened, the survey pegs were being taken out to stop the Crown and company’s treacheries. And in return for that peaceful and powerful action, what did the Crown do? Attack villages and burn crops and homes to the ground. That is the history of this country. That is the history of the actions of this House. Then, of course, the Crown established a land court that we often hear about as the Native Land Court being a conciliatory negotiating process, but actually, again, in practice individualised land and took it away from Māori and hapū and was entirely inconsistent with tikanga.

So that was the 1800s, and that carried on until the point where Ngāti Hinerangi were virtually landless in both Tauranga Moana and Waikato areas of their own rohe, through the actions of the people in this place. Then you were hopeful enough and resilient enough to enter into negotiations to get to this agreement. I really, really want to pay honour to everybody for that hope and that generosity in the face of that history—in the face of that reality.

In this process, while there may be a temptation in this House historically, particularly, to kind of be a little bit congratulatory about what a special, beautiful moment this is for Parliament and iwi, this is, I think, in terms of the settlement, extraordinary what you have managed to achieve and an indictment on the Crown yet again. When I look at the 14 sites that were previously owned by the Crown that have been returned, totalling 223 hectares—that is less than the average size of a farm in this country—I feel offence at that. And that only 31.38 acres of that are unencumbered fee simple lands. The rest of it is in scenic, historic, or recreation reserve. And I don’t say this to minimise that result from your side, because we know that no settlement between hapū and the Crown has resulted in a fair outcome. This is a testament to your resilience and commitment, but it is an indictment on this place at the same time.

And while the financial settlement has been $8.1 million—for becoming virtually landless in key parts of your rohe you are being given $8.1 million by this Crown, which is less than 0.052 percent of the annual superannuation bill—it just sits a bit uncomfortably to be celebrating the actions of the Crown in the context of this. But to finish my speech, I do want to acknowledge that this negotiation and your entire history has been to fight for a better future, to fight for justice, to fight for your moko, and the rebuilding of your identity and restoration of mana. I have not seen your mana lost in this process, and I want to acknowledge that, and I do hope that this history is told, and known, and felt in this House. Tēnā koutou katoa.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. To Ngāti Hinerangi: on this day, the ACT Party supports this claims settlement bill and we commend it to the House. That’s because the ACT Party supports the Treaty of Waitangi settlement process. The Treaty of Waitangi is a great document. It’s an example of independent people, practical people, and problem-solving people coming together to agree on what the future of New Zealand should look like. What happened afterwards was not good, and that’s why a settlement bill like this can only go some way to address the loss of land and the resulting social, cultural, and economic marginalisation of your people.

There were a number of breaches, but what’s interesting to note and what gives me hope, and I hope gives you hope, is that through your actions and your patience, you have shown us how you can build a coalition of people with a common interest—not always aligned, but over time, you’ve built a coalition to identify what’s important enough to seek a settlement and what things you might leave to the storytelling and to the “what might have been”, because the settlement is clearly for a greater good that you aspire to.

So the ACT Party supports this process you’ve been through, and we will acknowledge that it is not easy—because the Treaty of Waitangi is New Zealand’s first constitutional document, which ensures the rights of all New Zealanders and that those rights are protected equally by the law. It establishes a private property right which is the foundation of all investment and development and prosperity and wealth—those rights which give people the confidence to invest in their land, which then makes the land productive and sustains the land for future generations.

Now the Treaty of Waitangi also places significant responsibilities on the Crown to act in good faith, so where that duty of good faith is breached, ACT supports a process for redress. For that reason, the ACT Party commends this bill to the House.

LOUISA WALL (Labour): Tēnā koe te Speaker o te Whare. Ngā mana o Ngāti Hinerangi, ngā reo o Ngāti Hinerangi, rau rangatira mā o Ngāti Hinerangi, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[I acknowledge the Speaker of the House. Greetings to the authorities of Ngāti Hinerangi, the voices of Ngāti Hinerangi, and the many chiefs of Ngāti Hinerangi.]

I’m going to follow my colleague the Hon Nanaia Mahuta in focusing on aspects of your settlement that are contained in your settlement legislation. I particularly wanted to focus on the historical account, and I acknowledge my colleague Jan Logie for doing so. Essentially, one of your tūpuna signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and then in 1860 you joined the Kīngitanga, who we formed, ngā iwi o te motu, to negotiate with the Crown, because we were very worried about what was happening to our way of life and what was happening to our whenua.

So you joined the Kīngitanga in the Tararanki wars. We went and fought against the Crown and in doing so, essentially made ourselves a target. And what the Crown did was to stop the supply of fighters. So they went to Tauranga to disrupt you, and we’ve had these two big events, firstly at Pukehinahina—Gate Pā—which we won, and then at Te Ranga, where we didn’t win. And then they actually did try to destroy you. They literally tried to exterminate you, and they also stole your land and, obviously, by stealing your land, they stole your resources and your opportunity for the future.

So I want to acknowledge the 1,300 survivors, or uri, of Ngāti Hinerangi today, and I’m sure there’s more. And I see on your website you encourage people to register. But I want to acknowledge your tūpuna who, through their Wai claims, have held this Government, the Crown, to account for what we did. In the acknowledgements in your Treaty settlement legislation, I think the worst thing we did was implement the scorched earth policy, which was a military tactic—tried to burn you out, tried to burn you, tried to destroy all your assets, and actually we didn’t care about you one bit. If you all died, we didn’t care. We just wanted to get you out of the way so we could take your land. And that’s actually what the settlement legislation represents—your history and your experience of colonisation through our Crown.

I imagine all the tūpuna who died through that process and you who are left today, who stand strong, staunch—couldn’t kill you. Couldn’t take you out. Then I look at what’s written in the settlement legislation. We talk about the sham of the provisions in the Native Lands Act and we talk about failing to account fairly for the value of timber on your land, and all the acknowledgments. It’s very interesting language because it absolutely minimises what the Crown tried to do, which was a form of genocide. That’s what they tried to do—they tried to eradicate you. We tried to eradicate you—parliamentarians, the Government. So the fact that you even exist today is a testament to your tūpuna, who gave you and instilled in you a fighting spirit, and we will never, ever go away. We will forever be the mana whenua of Aotearoa. You will forever be the mana whenua of your Ngāti Hinerangi land.

As part of our truth and reconciliation process, as colleagues have articulated, you have some land back. You have some resources back. But, actually, I think, going forward it’s what type of relationship Ngāti Hinerangi wants to have with the Crown, and within that space there’s a lot of kōrero to be had. What partnership do you want in terms of the public provision of resources that the Government provides to you and what role you want to play within that context? There’s a lot of discussion at the moment about our babies, for example, about where we are, scattered amongst the Public Service, so in terms of a beginning, I think that if the Crown was genuine, then it would look at what those partnerships mean going forward, to empower you to take your mana within the context of what the Crown does—because Jan Logie’s absolutely right; you never lost your mana. No one can take mana from us. They took our land but it doesn’t mean that we don’t retain our mana.

So like everybody else here today, I join in saying sorry. We can say we’re sorry—we’re parliamentarians, and there’s quite a few Māori in the House now, and we can say we’re sorry and that we find what we did abhorrent and disgusting. And this is trying to rectify all that history of colonisation in our country. So I hope that there’s a sense of satisfaction today. It’s always bitter-sweet, because you think of all the whānau that aren’t here, those that started this journey on your behalf. But the reality is you are here, you’ll never go away, and our focus now needs to be on our tamariki, on our mokopuna and what opportunities we want to provide them.

Just like Tāmati, I went on to your website, and one of the first things it does after encouraging you to register, is ask who needs help during the lockdown because of what’s happened with COVID, and, actually, that’s the beauty of us as a collective people. We will āwhi and manaaki and tautoko each other because we love each other and we have a sense of responsibility to make sure that our needs are met.

So I say to you, kia kaha, kia toa, kia manawanui, and know that there are, I believe, opportunities for you to continue, as I said before, to develop the relationship you want with the Crown and to enable us to create that space that you want to happen going forward, because that’s what we can do as parliamentarians—help create the next phase for Ngāti Hinerangi.

So, safe travels home, and it’s an absolute honour and a privilege to be here today to speak to your settlement legislation. Nō reira tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa. Kia ora.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call. I call Nicola Willis—five minutes.

NICOLA WILLIS (National): Tēnā koutou, Ngāti Hinerangi. Rau rangatira mā ko aku mihi atu ki a koutou, nau mai, haere mai. Kua tae mai ahakoa te roa o te wā o te hīkoi kia tae ki tēnei wā, kua tae mai.

[Greetings, Ngāti Hinerangi. Greetings and welcome to the many chiefs of Ngāti Hinerangi. Although it has been a long journey, you have finally arrived here.]

Greetings, Ngāti Hinerangi. Rangatira, kaumātua, all—a warm welcome. We have arrived here at last, even though it has taken a long time—too long—for the journey to make it here. We have arrived, and today is a momentous day. For Ngāti Hinerangi, too long forgotten and ignored, today your identity, rights, interests, and mana are rightly acknowledged—never again to be ignored. Today, Parliament makes law a deed of settlement that acknowledges and apologises for acts and omissions by the Crown, that provides for cultural redress, and that provides for financial and commercial redress.

I want to focus on the law that we are signing today, and the apology it contains, that will now be set out in our statutes and our law books forever more, because, in this law, we set out the Crown’s failures to uphold its obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi. We outline the Crown’s responsibility for the outbreak of war in Tauranga in 1864, for the terrible injustice of the raupatu that followed, for the scorched earth tactics of the 1867 bush campaign, for the ongoing promotion of laws and policies that facilitated and speeded the loss of the remaining lands of Ngāti Hinerangi, and that contributed to the economic and social marginalisation of your people, that deprived Ngāti Hinerangi of access to the maunga, the awa, the Waiariki, the wāhi tapu, the mahinga kai that had sustained your people for generations. Today, the Crown acknowledges this history and says to the hapū and whānau of Ngāti Hinerangi, to your tūpuna and mokopuna, “Sorry.” The Crown has again and again fallen short of principles of mutual respect and partnership promised by the Treaty of Waitangi, and it did not respond adequately to past generations who sought to obtain justice for your people. We honour those people today. We honour their perseverance and their commitment to seeing justice be done. Today, the Crown seeks to restore its honour and, in some way, alleviate the justifiable sense of grievance felt by generations of Ngāti Hinerangi, but today we also look to the future, and from here forward may the Crown and Ngāti Hinerangi go forward in a spirit of cooperation, of mutual trust, of respect for the promises of the Treaty of Waitangi. May potential be unlocked and may a sustainable future be forged.

In closing, I want to acknowledge the leadership of those who made today possible. The Ngāti Hinerangi Iwi Trust, today is a vindication of the struggle that you have had and of the commitment you have shown. I want to honour former Minister Finlayson, who signed the terms of negotiation back in February 2014 and the first agreement in principle back in 2015. I want to acknowledge Minister Little, who signed the deed of settlement that we put into law today, and his officials. And I finally want to put into the Hansard an acknowledgment of the chief Crown negotiator of this settlement, my dad, James Willis. I have negotiated with him on many occasions, and not all negotiations have ended in settlement! I asked dad for his reflections on the settlement process, and he said that this was an example to all other iwi engaged in Treaty settlements about how to resolve overlapping claims and issues with neighbouring iwi. And he said that Ngāti Hinerangi are lovely people, good people, who have shown great patience and resilience. “Far too long forgotten and ignored, they have shown perseverance and struggle. Forgotten and ignored once, but never again.”—and I will leave you with his words. Kia ora.

RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): Ka tangohia taku pōtae. Ngāti Hinerangi, tēna koutou.

[Allow me to remove my hat. Greetings to Ngāti Hinerangi.]

Unlike everybody else in this House—they get 10 minutes. As you can see, I get five. So I’m going to try and get this out as quickly as possible. The Greens talked about being the spokesperson for Treaty claims. Because there’s only two of us, we’re the spokesperson for everything. And so, as you can see, the commitment of Te Paati Māori, tēnei rā. We are in 100 percent attendance of this reading today.

Weraiti maunga tū mai. Ngā wai tapu ko Wairere, ko Waiteariki e kore e mimiti. Te awa Waihou e rere rā, e rere rā. Te rohe o Kōperu whenua, Kōperu tangata e ngunguru nei i au au aue hā. Ngāti Tamapango, Ngāti Whakamaungārangi, Ngāti Kura, Ngāti Tokotoko, Ngāti Te Riha, Ngāti Tangata, Ngāti Tāwhaki, me Ngāti Rangi ngā hapū, whītiki, maranga mai. Ngāti Hinerangi iwi, maranga mai rā.

Kei te mihi atu rā ki te hunga kua riro tītapu ki te pō. Ngā pākeke i roto i ō rātou wā, te hunga i haere ki te pakanga, e rere ana te toto ki runga i ō koutou whenua, rātou i tū Māori nei i runga i tō rātou mana motuhake me te tino rangatiratanga, te taonga tuku iho, kei te tangi, kei te tangi, kei te tangi.

Ka hoki mai rā ki a koutou ngā maramara o ngā tua iho kua tae mai nei i tēnei rā. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou.

[Stand tall, Weraiti mountain. I acknowledge the sacred waters of Wairere and Waiteariki that never diminish, and the river Waihou that flows continuously. Indeed it is the region of Kōperu lands and Kōperu people that rumble here. Rise Ngāti Tamapango, Ngāti Whakamaungārangi, Ngāti Kura, Ngāti Tokotoko, Ngāti Te Riha, Ngāti Tangata, Ngāti Tāwhaki, and Ngāti Rangi subtribes. Rise Ngāti Hinerangi people.

I acknowledge the many that have departed to the night. The elders of their particular era; the ones who went to war, who shed blood on your lands, those who stood as Māori for their autonomy, their sovereignty and their heritage, I grieve, I grieve, I indeed grieve.

I now send my greetings to you all, the descendants of those previous ancestors that have arrived here today.]

I don’t stand here as a parliamentarian, or as the Crown, to apologise. I stand here as a fellow target, as my sister has put it. We have all endured the disrespect and the smoothing of the pillows of a dying race as history has etched. They took our lands. They took our foreshore. They continue to take our babies. But one thing we can never allow them to do is take our hearts, our minds, and our spirits.

I acknowledge you all today for being the pillars of strength for your iwi and for your mokopuna. Although the total due is only worth 1 percent—in this process, never ever should we settle for full and final settlements. Our mokopuna must continue to fight for the other 99 percent. We must overhaul the Treaty claims process and end the fiscal envelope. Would that have made an impact on the final sum? Absolutely. We must insert relativity clauses into the Treaty settlement to ensure all iwi have parity with Ngāi Tahu and with Waikato-Tainui kia mana ōrite [and be equitable with them].

We must make all Waitangi Tribunal recommendations binding on the Crown. I acknowledge the mahi, the barriers, and the difficulties that this process puts our people through. It’s a divide and conquer. I see you’ve gone through a tikanga process with Tauranga Moana.

Kei te mihi atu rā ki a koutou. Kei te mihi atu anō hoki ki a Tauranga Moana. Engari ka aroha tātou e noho tahi nei. Ka haramai a Tauiwi me ā rātou ture ka wehewehe tātou.

[I thank you all. I wish to also acknowledge Tauranga Moana. But I also pity us sitting here. Strangers came along with their laws and we were divided.]

So I acknowledge the hard work you’ve put into this particular bill. I’d also acknowledge the first time I heard about this was by a PhD student, Awanuiarangi, Morehu McDonald—was the first time I ever heard about the Hinerangi claim. So e hika mā [friends] I’ve got 15 seconds left and I know a lot of these fullas didn’t use up all their seconds—I wish I could steal some, like they stole our things! But anyway, my heart goes out to you. God bless you all. Safe travels home. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora tātou.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. E mihi ana ki ngā rangi, e mihi ana ki te whenua, e mihi ana ki te whānau o Te Puawaitanga o Ngāti Hinerangi tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Ki a koe pāpā Dave Thompson, Raukawa mā, Rāwiri, ngā kuia, ngā kaumātua, ngā māreikura, ngā whatukura o te motu, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

[Greetings, Madam Speaker. I acknowledge the heavens, I acknowledge the land and the families of Te Puawaitanga o Ngāti Hinerangi, I acknowledge you all. To you elder Dave Thompson, to all of Raukawa, to Rāwiri, to the esteemed elders, the noble women, and the noble men of the land, greetings, greetings, greetings to one and all.]

Greetings to all of you. As many of my colleagues have explained today, we’ve worked hard to make this place a warmer, more welcoming place to all of our whānau, no matter where you come from. I stand here as a mokopuna of Ngapera Pine, nō [from] Mōkai Pātea, Ngāti Whitikaupeka.

I’m standing here as that mokopuna from a small iwi, an iwi that has had a challenge in being recognised as an iwi, and I look to the comments from Whaea Dianna and the statement that says, “We were almost extinct. We didn’t know we were Ngāti Hinerangi.” And therein lies the challenge and the complexities of the information that I read today that dates back to 1840, when, while a broader member of your whānau signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi, it didn’t come to your iwi, and that’s where the problems started. So today I acknowledge those challenges.

I also acknowledge today that we have failed our whānau Ngāti Hinerangi, and I turn to you and acknowledge that we have failed you. We have failed you and we apologise.

I want to acknowledge, though, the way forward. Today is the start, once again, to reignite the flame of your whānau, so that you can determine for your own rights the way forward for your tamariki mokopuna, the way forward for your whenua, the way forward for your mātauranga, the way that you share your stories, and the way that you set up your iwi moving forward. Today we acknowledge that you are Ngāti Hinerangi, that you determine your future, and that you determine the future of our rangatahi, of our tamariki mokopuna—what they do.

Something that’s very, very important to me—and again, I go back to the words of Whaea Dianna, and she states, “It means the world because through this settlement we have a chance to build a sustainable future for our iwi and, of course, our many generations to come. It means [for us] we’ll soon be in a position to start thinking about proactive initiatives to enhance the lives of our people and of our wider community.” And there it is—albeit $8.1 million, but it’s a start to your financial sustainability. It’s a backbone for you to enable you and your whānau to determine your future.

By no means can a dollar figure ever, ever recognise the hurt, the grievance that you have endured, the time that it has taken to get here today. Nor will it acknowledge, ever, the apology that we are making, but it does enable an opportunity to reset a way forward. It gives financial security—a backbone, as I said, to you and your whānau—so that you can have those meaningful conversations, those discussions. Aspirations are no longer aspirations any more. Ngāti Hinerangi, your future will be determined by you.

In closing, I acknowledge you here today. I thank you for your patience. I apologise once again, on behalf of all of us as parliamentarians, and I encourage you to reset a way forward with the Crown, to use this pūtea to set you up for the future, to rebuild your marae, to rebuild your culture, to share your stories, and to enable a bit of a better future for your tamariki mokopuna.

Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, e mihi ana tēnā koutou katoa.

[Therefore, thank you once, twice, thrice.]

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a great privilege to stand here and be the last National Party speaker today on the Ngāti Hinerangi Claims Settlement Bill. It is a very personal moment for me, too, for I feel very, very humbled to be given the opportunity to share some thoughts on this very special occasion. My grandfather was the mayor of Te Aroha—that’s where I was born. His name was Henry Skidmore. His passion was that Thompson’s track, appropriately owned by the Government, should be where the second tunnel should be to connect the peoples of the Hauraki-Waikato with the peoples of Bay of Plenty. He didn’t know of your connection and your history.

My parents bought a kiwifruit orchard in Te Puna. It was part of the confiscation. Gold kiwifruit grows there and our family have been on that land for 50 years. But none of us had any idea of your connection to Tauranga Moana. My great-great-grandfather was a member of the 65th Foot. I have his medal. He fought against your tūpuna in the battle of Gate Pā and Te Ranga. Te Ranga is five minutes’ walk from where Michelle and our family live in Pyes Pa, right next door to the Aquinas College, where our kids go to school. Te Ranga is adjacent, right across the road—that is where the battle took place.

And here I am, as the National Party MP for Bay of Plenty, and up until recently I had no idea of your iwi’s connection to Tauranga Moana, your 160 years of pain and anguish—and for me to get the opportunity, as National Party last speaker, to stand here in front of you with my history and my family’s connection to what was your land is deeply humbling. And it talks to the better angels of this place that here you are, you have journeyed from the Waikato, journeyed through 15 years of Treaty settlement, and the last National speaker you hear is someone with connections—deep connections—to your battle, but on the other side yet did not know.

So when Tāmati Coffey said earlier that it is right that this House not only apologises but embraces the history of this country because it is who we are, it has formed who we are, and we can’t step back from it; we need to embrace it and accept it as part of the uniqueness of living in this country. But part of the reason we can is because of you and your negotiators and your community and your willingness to sit down with the Crown and negotiate an outcome which is forward-looking, as opposed to what it could have been. So we stand shoulder to shoulder with all other parties and with Andrew Little. Chris Finlayson was our Minister, who began that process. It is not partisan in this House; we are, to the best of our abilities, the people’s representatives, and we collectively stand in front of you today with humility, firstly apologising on behalf of the Crown and outlining the small redress for Ngāti Hinerangi.

But I, too, want to add my small, insignificant voice to this day, in saying that for me, being able to stand here and be part of this critical day of your iwi’s journey is very powerful for me, and I hope that you will take my words and gratitude and apology. We are a remarkable country and your forbearance and your patience and your ultimate love of whenua and mokopuna is why this House can stand here today, united in acknowledging this claim’s settlement. Thank you very much.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Madam Speaker, thank you. Tēnā koutou e Ngāti Hinerangi, tēnā koutou katoa. E ngā kuia, kaumātua, tēnā koutou, me ngā tamariki mokopuna tēnā koutou katoa.

[Greetings Ngāti Hinerangi. Greetings to the matriarchs and the patriarchs, greetings also to the children and grandchildren.]

I feel the weight of the pōuri of this debate on my shoulders as I rise to stand. I thank the member Mr Muller for his contribution about how this affects not only the Crown, not only Ngāti Hinerangi, but so many communities throughout New Zealand, those locally affected and those watching out there today to see how these discussions between the Crown and iwi go for us as a nation as we find our feet in a new era of relationship under the Treaty of Waitangi.

It’s an emotional day. It’s a day of pride and a day of promise, and a day where the apology of the Crown to Ngāti Hinerangi echoes around this Chamber in the halls of Parliament and around the country.

Before I speak about this bill in particular and about the laws that we are passing today, I want to just touch on how emotional and poignant it is to be speaking on this as the last speaker. For me as a young Māori woman with two young Māori kids, I look to these kinds of discussions and to the leadership shown by negotiators in the Treaty process as something that forges a new relationship between Crown and iwi Māori. And to be standing here speaking with you, Ngāti Hinerangi, who have forged a new way to discuss overlapping claims issues, not just with the Crown but with your neighbours as well, is something really powerful and which should be celebrated here today.

I want to thank the negotiators and the trustees of Ngāti Hinerangi for the work and the leadership in this space. Not only have you brought together your iwi, the whānau who make it up, the hapū who make it up, the marae in coming to a negotiated settlement which is robust and which is meaningful and which addresses not only what was lost but what can be gained by moving forward, you’ve also dealt with the people around you by bringing the community on board around you, and that kind of leadership is something to be really celebrated.

I also acknowledge all of the officials, all of the people who have made this work, the people who have worked on your side of the fence and the people who have worked on the Crown side as well. The work that goes into these Crown and Treaty settlements is so important not just in these situations but for all New Zealanders.

I also want to make a special mihi to the young people and the children who have joined us today. This is about your future. This is about where we go as a people in the face of this trauma which has been going on for almost 100 years, how we as a generation of young Māori move on from that, how we draw a line in the sand in that, and not forgetting those lessons that we have learnt but how we recover from that pain. You hear it in the Chamber today, that pain, that trauma, that people have lived with. But let today be a moment of healing for Ngāti Hinerangi as a whole and a moment that we can acknowledge for many generations to come as the first day of what Ngāti Hinerangi’s future looks like.

I think it’s those children in the gallery which make this so real—seeing the babies in question time, seeing the kids here today who have come all this way and have sat through a bunch of boring speeches. This is exactly—it is real. This is for you. This is about making a future where you can stand tall in your rangatiratanga, in your māoritanga, and in your identity as Ngāti Hinerangi.

I want to touch briefly on something which the previous speakers haven’t really touched on, which is the Wairere Falls scenic reserve. That site is a tapu site for Ngāti Hinerangi and an important site for all New Zealanders. In its central location, it’s somewhere where so many people enjoy. And the benefit to that site of having your kaitiakitanga, of having an overlay where you must be consulted about preserving its natural and cultural significance and its values, is so important not just locally but to everyone. The ability for you to decide how those sites are given meaning and how we tell the stories of that river, of those falls, is so important. I thank you, and I hope you hear the gratitude from the parliamentarians here, in your role as kaitiaki and protectors of that for generations to come.

Finally, I want to thank you as well, as an iwi between Ngāti Hauā, Raukawa, Tauranga Moana, and Hauraki, for finding a way that other iwi can look to to see the leadership required in negotiating these difficult situations of overlapping claims. This is a Crown process which we as Māori did not create. It is not in tikanga Māori that we have to negotiate overlapping claims in the way that we do under the modern settings, and it is something that we need to find a way through as Māori, to be able to show Parliament and the Crown how we want to do this in future in a way which enhances our mana and does not diminish the mana of our neighbours. You have done that. Congratulations and thank you. Thank you for showing leadership in the negotiation with those around you and with everyone within your iwi. That’s something you can be so proud of today.

In conclusion, I just want to acknowledge all of you who have come today for this journey. It’s a heavy day, but it’s something that all of you, I hope, will remember with fondness for the rest of your lives. Photos from today will adorn the walls, I hope, of what will become your debating chamber—the room of Ngāti Hinerangi’s discussions for the future of its iwi, whether that’s a boardroom, whether that’s your marae. It’s something to be remembered, and the faces of those who have negotiated it to this point I hope will adorn those walls. I just want to say that as you travel home, please remember this as the moment of healing, as a moment where it was the beginning of something really new and special that we celebrated with you all today. Tēnā koutou katoa.

Bill read a third time.

Waiata

Haka

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Nō reira, e tika ana kia tuku mihi atu ki a koutou Ngāti Hinerangi. Nō reira tēnā rā tātou katoa.

[It is only right for me to acknowledge you, Ngāti Hinerangi. Greetings to you all.]

Bills

Local Government (Rating of Whenua Māori) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Debate resumed from 25 March.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Local Government (Rating of Whenua Māori) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 77

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

Noes 43

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Financial Market Infrastructures Bill.

Bills

Financial Market Infrastructures Bill

In Committee

Parts 1 to 6, Schedules 1 and 2, clauses 1 and 2

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): The House is in committee on the Financial Market Infrastructures Bill. Members, we come first to the debate on Part 1. This is the debate on clauses 3 to 13 and Schedule 1, relating to the preliminary provisions and the regulations. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I seek leave for all provisions to be taken as one debate.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is none. The question is that Parts 1 to 6, Schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 and 2 stand part.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): This is a very technical bill and I don’t propose that we’re going to spend a lot of time discussing it. But I think there’s some elements of it that would be useful to just make sure that everyone is aware of what this bill is about.

My first question to the Minister—and I do acknowledge that he’s in the chair and thank you for coming down this afternoon—I suppose the first question relates to the role of the Reserve Bank and the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) as a regulator for financial market infrastructures (FMIs) and there’s–both organisations have a role in it, and that’s quite a fundamental sort of question. I know there’s been a lot of debate about it. I was just particularly interested in the Minister’s view on what the roles of the Reserve Bank and FMA are, and how that’s going to work, and how they’re going to resolve differences over time.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I thank the member for his question, and it is one that’s been raised throughout the debate. Part of it relates to the way New Zealand organises itself, so obviously when we’re dealing with prudential matters, that is primarily the responsibility of the Reserve Bank; when we’re dealing with matters of conduct, that tends to be the responsibility of the Financial Markets Authority—although when it comes to banks in their banking role, that distinction is not quite as clear. But for the purposes of FMIs, what we’re talking about here are two distinct parts of the regime.

When we’re dealing, for example, with risk management issues around any FMI, whether it’s got adequate financial resources to undertake the work that it’s meant to undertake, that is primarily a prudential matter and would then be the responsibility of the Reserve Bank. If we’re thinking about conduct such as effective disclosure, whether or not the right rules are in place, whether they’re fair and transparent, that is properly part of the FMA’s role.

The way that we deal with this generally, where there might be any overlaps, is through the Council of Financial Regulators—“CoFR”, as it’s known; it’s actually an entity—CoFR—that I have been encouraging the regulators to use more often where there might be areas of disputed territorial ground. In fact, we’ve been looking at, through the Reserve Bank amendment process, giving some more statutory recognition to the Council of Financial Regulators—which includes also the Commerce Commission, along with the FMA and the Reserve Bank—because there will be, from time to time, issues of territorial responsibility.

However, in the case of this particular bill, I think that the responsibilities are well outlined, and both the Reserve Bank and the FMA are aware of where they are. It will be, obviously, for those who operate FMIs to be able to be aware of that—all of those people already interact with both the Reserve Bank and the FMA, so I don’t think there’ll be a major problem there. But the member is alluding to an interesting wider issue around the different roles of regulators in our financial system, and I’ll more than happily engage with him on that in the future because I think there is something in that.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): I thank the Minister for that answer, which was very good. I suppose it gives rise to two issues. One is the capability of both the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) and the Reserve Bank. As we all know, this is a very detailed, technical issue that most people don’t understand well. So first question, I suppose, is to what extent can the Minister assure us that (a) there is sufficient capability and capacity in both those organisations to deal in this very technical matter. And the second question relates to his answer just before, does that mean if I’m a financial market infrastructure (FMI) and I’ve got a dispute, can I go to the Council of Financial Regulators? Is that the independent? Is there a way for an FMI to appeal to seek redress to deal with that issue if that arises from time to time?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Thank you for that, Madam Chair. I’ll take some advice on the second point of the member. There isn’t a direct route to the Council of Financial Regulators (CoFR), so that’s the first thing I can say. But that, as I said, is a potential future role of CoFR. Its statutory recognition could potentially pick something up. In terms of what they do in terms of rights of appeal and so on, I will get some advice on that and come back to the member in short order.

On the member’s first question, my answer is simply to say I think both the Reserve Bank and the Financial Markets Authority do a very good job on behalf of New Zealanders. We recently had the new funding agreement for the Reserve Bank, which I can’t quite remember the member’s position on, actually, but if I do recall there might have been some concerns raised by the member about the fact that the Reserve Bank’s budget and staffing have increased. I believe one of the reasons for that was in order for them to be able to fulfil their roles under this very piece of legislation. So I can thank the member for his rapid conversion to the importance of this piece of legislation for them. Similarly, we’ve increased funding last Budget to the Financial Markets Authority. They both perform important roles.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you, Minister, for that response. I’d just like to straighten the record slightly: the issue around the funding of the Reserve Bank was that it’s highly, highly unusual to see a 50 percent increase in the Budget without undue scrutiny. I think that was the issue that we were raising, because we are careful managers of the economy and we are also particularly concerned that we get value for money from our Public Service. That was the issue. It doesn’t necessarily mean, or should imply, that we don’t think this is an important role, but thank you for raising that issue, Minister. So I am looking forward to that answer that you said you would address.

I suppose the other issue deals with the designation. So, as I understand it, there are basically two courses, and it relates to whether you, as a financial market infrastructure (FMI), are systemically important, and then you obviously have tier 1 and tier 2. So, as I understand it, you can either elect an FMI—I can elect to become a systemically important one, and therefore tier 1—or the Minister and the regulators can impose that on the FMI. So I’d be interested to know what that process is and how he sees that working, and who will be the lead, particularly in the second aspect. Will it be the Reserve Bank in the lead of that or will it be the Financial Markets Authority?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Just popping back to the member’s earlier question that he asked, I’m informed that there are no appeal rights per se but that, within the legislation that we’re passing today and within the framework of regulation that the two regulators use, they are obliged to take into account, for example, the impact of compliance costs, do assessments overall on the impact of the changes that are being made here. So, no, there’s not a direct appeal arrangement possible, but I think the track record of both agencies would indicate that they are ones who will not be putting undue costs on those that come before them.

In terms of the second matter, as I’m sure the member is well aware, the flexibility that we’ve built into this means that, actually, both the Reserve Bank and the Financial Markets Authority are in a position to be able to do that. Primarily, it will be the Reserve Bank, I suspect, because, at that point, it is about the prudential importance of a financial market infrastructure (FMI) to the overall system.

Madam Chair, I don’t propose to take long calls here, because, actually, this bill is largely agreed, but I do think, while we’ve joked around a little bit during the process of this bill about what FMIs are, if you think about the significance of payments systems to the way we go about commerce—and I mean commerce in all its senses; individuals’ work all the way through to banks and beyond, to other financial institutions—those payments systems are genuinely important to the operation of our banking system and of financial stability. Therefore, the Reserve Bank is likely to identify those FMIs that it wants included. The ability in the law for people to self-identify is actually important, I think, for building confidence in the public, and I suspect, for those who are interested in this area, for some FMIs, there may be an incentive to do this because they want people to see them as important and systemically important. That will then be a decision for both the regulators to be able to take, but it will primarily be the Reserve Bank because of the prudential rules.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you. Thank you for the answers. I suppose it gives rise to two issues. The first one is, given the scale and significance for the financial markets of financial market infrastructures, whether, in fact, there should be a mechanism—and I’m just very keen to understand from the Minister why there is no direct mechanism for complaint. Because, whilst I have a great deal of respect for the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) and the Reserve Bank, I don’t need to remind the Minister that there have been issues, for instance, of differences of opinion between the Reserve Bank and certain insurance companies, and that has led to a long-running issue that has only recently been dealt with. So there are, from time to time, quite significant issues that arise. So my question is: why not? Why not have the ability to have some appeal right, as happens in many institutions?

The second thing is I’d quite like to understand from the Minister what the expected criteria are if the Reserve Bank or the FMA designate someone in a certain tier, or systemically important—what are the criteria they’re going to use? Other than, obviously, scale and history, are there any other criteria that have been designed, and when might we see those criteria?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): As the member will well be aware, the independence of the Reserve Bank would mean that they will go through that process. It is our job to set the framework. He has already identified the areas, in his own statement, around scale, influence on the financial system, and the importance that the regulators themselves put on those particular financial market infrastructures in their own work. So that will be their job; it is not, in my opinion, the job of politicians to create that. That’s what we do when we give the regulators the powers that they have.

On the point of appeal—I was just, again, checking with officials—there isn’t a large precedent around the world for the kind of appeal rights that the member is talking about. I think that is because there are regulatory review mechanisms and there are ways that this Parliament reviews its work; there are ways that we review the activities of the Financial Markets Authority and the Reserve Bank. So, I think, probably, it’s simply not a system that has seen itself go through the courts. Bear in mind that the basis of this legislation comes from, for example, the International Monetary Fund and their appraisal that they did of our system three or four years ago, and we’ve used a lot of international norms—and so, I suspect, for the member’s benefit, that is where this has come from. Obviously, we’ll see how the regime works, and if there is a need to come back one day, I look forward to the member’s member’s bill to put in process something of this sort.

DAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Minister. Just on the time frame, because it relates to a couple of questions I have, I believe this began, what, 2015-16, as a process?

Hon Grant Robertson: Yeah.

DAMIEN SMITH: Yeah, and, obviously, the payment system’s changed pretty dramatically since then—like, there’s no regulation or registration requirements for something like Apple Pay, as an example. So do you think the bill addresses (a) access for new entrants, (b) that international entrants are regulated, and that the Financial Markets Authority and the Reserve Bank were, sort of, totally up to speed with that sort of dynamic?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Yeah, I thank the member for his question. Just on the time frame, my history on this bill doesn’t go back quite as far as 2015 or 2016, but I do know that Cabinet made its initial decisions in April 2017 and then there was a change of Government. Obviously, we took another look at it, in part because we were wanting to make sure that it was keeping up with changing processes. So, on December 2018, we made some further decisions. It took a little bit of time to get its place on the Order Paper, then COVID happened, and now we find ourselves here in March 2021. So the wheels of good legislation have turned slowly here; I do acknowledge that.

In terms of whether or not we’re putting ourselves in a position of being able to cope with new and emerging forms of financial market infrastructures (FMIs), that is one of the essences of the bill: a flexible legislative environment that means that, actually, we can apply these to whatever FMI. So we’re not deeply prescriptive here. We’ve just had that conversation with Mr Bayly around what we consider to be a systemically important FMI. We’ve given ourselves the flexibility to be able to have the regulator, effectively, decide that.

One of the issues, for example, is when you look at some of the potential provisions in here. It has been raised—it might’ve been raised in the select committee process: cryptocurrencies and how the exchange of cryptocurrencies potentially could work. We’ve tried to create a bill that can deal and cope with that if it’s needed to, rather than dropping down to very, very detailed descriptions now. We’re providing the regulators with the space and the power to be able to regulate those without having to prescribe in law individually how those particular FMIs might work. So I think it’s a good bill in that regard, in that it gives the policy and regulatory space for new FMIs to be included within the framework.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you. So just in light of what we were talking about before, clause 78 sets out certain powers to maintain and protect financial market infrastructures (FMIs) and specifically the ability for regulators to issue directions to operators, and the removal of directors. It gives two scenarios when that can occur. One is when the FMI is distressed and the other one is when it’s appropriate given the jurisdiction of the FMI. So I suppose, just in light of that appeal process, what are the specific times that a direction can be issued, which, as you will know, is very confrontational when standard FMIs’ contingency plans are inadequate to deal with the situation?

So this becomes a point of judgment, so I come back to this earlier question. I know you gave me a response before, Minister, but there are times when it is an absolute point of judgment, and these organisations are not insignificant—when I talk about the FMIs, they’re not insignificant. They’re large financial institutions carrying a lot of risk. So again, I’m just highlighting, actually, that the bill already identifies one of the potential areas where we could have an issue. The other—I might let you discuss that.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I take the member’s point, and, again, this is probably the balance between Damien Smith’s question and the question that the member is asking: how do we get sufficient flexibility to be able to deal with any unforeseen way in which there is an issue for a financial market infrastructure (FMI) versus giving a framework to the regulators, and I would note for the member that both the purposes and the principles of how a regulator behaves are outlined in the Act. So should there be a concern from an FMI, they do actually have something to point to, and it might be useful for the benefit of members to note that, as the member has noted, clauses 77 and 78 deal with the purpose, being maintaining continuity of activities, dealing with threats to stability, ensuring a wind-down of a systemically important FMI is orderly, and then the regulator is given a set of principles that they have to use, and these include the need for an FMI’s rules to provide certainty and predictability, the need to protect the interests of an FMI’s participants and creditors, and the importance of avoiding financial risk to the Crown.

So there is actually a set of principles under which the regulators have to operate, and I think that the way in which we have drafted this legislation is so that that is flexible enough but gives everyone good guidance as to how to operate.

DAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Just to add, Minister, to the point about alignment, a lot of financial market infrastructures operate on a trans-Tasman basis, and obviously the Australians have got some pithy work done in this area. Do you think that this bill allows us to honestly say that those things have been aligned for those operators?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I certainly don’t have any advice to the contrary, and, again, we have sought through this legislation to align ourselves with international best practice across all of the different aspects of the bill. So obviously Australia is involved in those international organisations and discussions, and I have not had anything drawn to my attention. We have regular dialogue with our Australian colleagues; this has not been raised. I’m not aware of it being raised by the Reserve Bank’s or Financial Markets Authority’s equivalents, either. So to the extent that I’m aware of it I think we’ve got good international alignment, and I would certainly hope that that would mean we’ve got good trans-Tasman alignment.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you, Madam Chair. Just in that same vein, the bill provides for a financial market infrastructure (FMI) operator to be placed into statutory management under certain conditions. I suppose my question is: the bill goes on to allow for what is called the new operator scheme, which basically means that the business of the FMI can be transferred to a new operator—so I suppose it’s a pretty Draconian measure that’s the last resort—so I’d be keen to know from the Minister, you know, what are the parameters around that, on what basis and when it would take place, what would happen to the existing rights of the directors, and what would happen to the liabilities that were transferred? So they’re quite big issues, because at that point, you’re really talking about something quite significant.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, I understand the point that the member’s making, and I think the first issue to understand is that it is very much a last resort situation, and the bill, in fact, outlines the fact that you would take some time to get to this point. But what we’ve lacked from our legislative regime up to this point is the ability to deal with these in such a clear and consistent way.

So I note that—I think it’s clauses 92 to 97 that run through the duties around statutory management. It includes dealing with problems as quickly and efficiently as reasonably practical, conducting it in a way that best protects the interests of the participant and the creditors, and the statutory manager is also required to consult the regulator and comply with the regulator’s direction. So, again, you’ve got quite a clear set of principles by which someone would be operating in the unlikely event that we ended up here.

This also comes back to an earlier comment I made when we were discussing appeal rights: that there are legislatively prescribed things that, in this case, a statutory manager would have to have regard to when exercising their powers. That includes the importance of minimising costs and uncertainty and the importance of ensuring that any losses are allocated fairly and efficiently. The principles also include the importance of consulting the participants—the financial market infrastructure participants and indirect participants—on decisions wherever reasonably practicable.

So I feel like that actually does put some limits—for the member’s word that he used within his question—around the work of a statutory manager. Quite clearly, it’s a last resort option, but I think it’s important that it’s there so all participants have absolute clarity with what they’re working with.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you, and I acknowledge the Minister’s response. Thank you for that. I think of one of the issues with all bills that pass through the House: what happens with the regulations that follow that are not subject to parliamentary oversight? There is an issue around clause 31(2)(b), which is the scope of compliance costs, and it says that the regime will be largely determined by the standards set by the regulator under that provision, and the requirement to have a financial market infrastructure (FMI) contingency plan, in clause 48. So I suppose the big thing about this is the actual costs that will be levied on FMIs and to what extent we can be assured that they’re going to be reasonable, constrained, but still meet the requirements of making sure that we’ve got an active, robust market.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, and that comes back to the impact assessments I mentioned earlier on. This is exactly why the regulator has to bear in mind, take into account, costs that will fall on people. Again, this is an example, in our system of Government, of where we have these regulatory bodies. They have a job to do. It is important, when they undertake that work, that they understand Parliament’s intention. I think the bill does that. But we don’t have a system whereby we go into each and every one of those regulations, and so this is a fairly standard approach, one where we have a model where the regulators are allowed to get on and do their job.

DAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Yeah, I guess it’s important to note that no financial market infrastructures actually failed during the global financial crisis and that this is more about the plumbing around that system. But there’s a lot of oversight around the Financial Markets Authority and the Reserve Bank on the, sort of, doomsday scenarios of what happens if there’s failure, what happens if there’s—you know, these are not banking structures per se, but the banking industry has a good discipline in the sense that they’re asked to report quarterly and annually on the state of their risk management. I just noticed in the bill—do you think it’s a positive addition to maybe have a clause which actually finds the needs of those two regulators to get information back from the market place as opposed to just waiting for something drastic to happen?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I think in general both the Reserve Bank and the Financial Markets Authority are forward-leaning into the organisations that they are required, on our behalf, to monitor and regulate. You know, I take the member’s point, firstly that in financial market infrastructures we’re dealing with a hypothetical, in a sense, because this has not occurred in New Zealand. But we were certainly given strong advice by the IMF when they came out and did their assessment that we needed regulations and laws because the significance of a failure would be so high that we actually should do this. So I think, on that point, I accept what the member’s saying.

I don’t know that a specific provision is required in the law to require them to seek information. I think the framework gives them the tools they need, and their mode of operation is to lean into the sectors that they monitor. I think the point the member might be making is this is different from a bank and it is not necessarily easy to see from the outside. I guess my response to that would be to say we need to let the Act operate and ensure that we’re keeping an eye on that, and if we have a concern then perhaps we could come back to it. But I believe that we should have confidence in the regulators to do their job.

DAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Thank you. Because they’re non-cash payments, there is a scenario where these things can get too big to fail pretty quickly, and it affects the consumers and it affects the market, and that cuts across things like Afterpay, or something that goes large, privately funded over a short period of time across two jurisdictions. I just wanted to point out that with the plumbing sometimes there’s a lot of stuff that gets pushed through it, and it would be good to know in advance as opposed to when it comes out the other end.

BARBARA EDMONDS (Associate Whip—Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that the Minister’s amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 19 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Parts 1 to 6, Schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 and 2, as amended, agreed to.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Financial Market Infrastructures Bill and reports it with amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

Bills

Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): I present a legislative statement on the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill.

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

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I move, That the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Health Committee to consider the bill.

The bill before us amends the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act and is a very significant step. That’s a 1992 piece of legislation—so now nearly 30 years old. It’s a piece of legislation that has come in for a fair amount of criticism, not the least of which was from a mental health and addiction review commissioned by this Government in 2018, in a review that reported at the end of that year. As members will know, that report, known as He Ara Oranga, made 38 recommendations for change, and the Government agreed to accept 36 of them. One of the recommendations was specifically in relation to this piece of legislation. The recommendation was that the whole legislation should be rewritten, and we are in the process of doing that.

But this amendment bill touches on a small number of provisions—some of the more insidious provisions—provisions that are regarded as breaching human rights and going against the Treaty of Waitangi. So that is why we thought we should bring this on with some expedition so that we make those changes so that the law in relation to the detaining of people under this compulsory piece of legislation is somewhat more civilised than it is at the moment.

As I said, this is just one of a group of recommendations made by the committee, the review group putting together He Ara Oranga, to improve our mental health sector. There’s no question: it was very, very poorly run down over many years. When the new Government arrived in October 2017, it made a priority to get on with reviewing, doing a stocktake to see what the problems were, and actually starting to make change. I’m very pleased to see the progress that has been made.

I don’t hear a lot talked about it publicly at the moment. A lot of people are saying not much has changed; a lot has changed—a lot has changed. Nearly 400 new full-time equivalent roles have been added to our mental health system to assist people. Those with mild to moderate mental health needs actually now can get some help—all funded by the Government. There is a huge capital works programme to rebuild some of the acute facilities in our system. That work is under way. It’s not acknowledged by a lot of people. It’s not acknowledged by those opposite, who ran the system down, but it’s actually very important. Now we have yet another fulfilment of a recommendation. Add to that the establishment of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission; add to that the establishment of the Suicide Prevention Office—none of it acknowledged by members opposite.

They bury their heads in the sand because they don’t want to know that it’s happening, because they so badly ran down the system they are terrified that it’s going to now start to get better. This amending legislation is just another arrow in our quiver to improve the mental health system.

The sorts of things that it does make sure that those parts of the current legislation that are in breach of people’s basic human rights—especially in relation to indefinite treatment orders—change. We will not have them anymore. This amending legislation will do away with indefinite treatment orders. That’s what the sector asked for, that’s what the review group in He Ara Oranga recommended, and that’s what we’re doing. We’re doing that at the same time as we are doing a full rewrite of the mental health (compulsory assessment and treatment) legislation.

So those indefinite treatment orders will now go. It will not be possible to get them. It’s important because many people—particularly Māori, NGOs, clinical staff, lawyers, academics, and many others—have criticised the fact that those indefinite treatment orders represent such a breach of basic human rights and also a breach of the Treaty of Waitangi. There will not be that sort of arbitrary detention. If people are to be committed for compulsory treatment, there will be a review date. People are treated properly and civilly, as you would expect for their human rights to be properly observed. Those indefinite treatment orders will go. Any compulsory order for treatment will have to be reviewed at the end of a 12 month period, at the very least. That will make a big difference.

The second thing that this amending legislation amends is the ability for those patients who are under a compulsory treatment order who need to be transported to be transported safely. There will be some ability to provide some restraint so that it is safe for themselves, those accompanying them, and those providing the transport—drivers and the like. So that’s a safety thing, and that has been recommended. Others have suggested—brought to the Government’s attention—that, actually, in the interests of safety for those people, we need to make that change. There are those who are detained because they come under the forensic mental health services, and we need to know that as they are being transported, if they pose a risk or are a danger to themselves, they can be transported safely. There’s only a small number of people to whom that sort of provision applies, but it needs to be put in place.

The amendment enables agencies experienced with the type of transport, such as the Department of Corrections, to be able to do so, to provide that assistance, to provide whatever reasonable restraint is needed to do so, so that their staff, and, indeed, anybody else travelling at the same time, are kept safe. There are safeguards. The safeguards include to make sure that there is a requirement that it is absolutely necessary, that it is the least restrictive option, that people are kept safe, and that the use of the power to do so is reported to the Director of Mental Health. And you’d expect that in this more human rights oriented and more civilised approach to mental health treatment.

The other amendment included in this is, really, a continuation of what was provided for under the COVID legislation, and that is to allow a family member participating in a hearing in relation to a patient who is detained under these compulsory treatment orders to attend via video means or audiovisual means. The feedback on that was extraordinarily positive. Family members found it much easier for them to participate. Patients themselves appreciated having a family member present, and, actually, I think those running a particular hearing found it useful to have family members able to attend by those sorts of means. It might seem like a small technical change; actually, it makes a huge difference to those who have to go through this particular experience.

On that basis, I again acknowledge this is just yet a continuation of the incredible amount of work that is being done by this Government—the $1.9 billion programme, over five years, to rebuild our health services, which were so badly run down by the previous Government. It is very good to see this. It’s a principled piece of legislation, it’s a positive piece of legislation, and it’s a very positive programme to improve our mental health services, so badly and appallingly neglected by the previous Government. I’m very proud to stand here and commend this bill to the House.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise in support of the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill in its first reading, a bill that National would support. I was going to come down and just deliver a fairly perfunctory speech on what is a very technical bill but after that last speech from that Minister—that is a Minister under pressure who used his opportunity to talk about a bill to defend his Government’s performance in mental health and had the audacity to talk about the last Government’s performance in the mental health sector. Well, I tell you, what the public can do is go back and look at the mental health annual report for every year of the last National Government, and that will tell you numbers engaging in specialist services, that will tell you numbers engaging in community services, that will tell you waiting times, consumer experience surveys, and that will even tell you suicide statistics.

Yet under this Labour Government, who apparently, according to the Minister who’s just taken his seat, are the ones who saved the mental health sector, well, under their reporting, we’ve waited two years, Now we’ve got the annual report for 2018 and 2019, so two years in one report that is 15 pages smaller than a report that we produced for one year. No numbers engaging with statutory services, no numbers engaging with mental health services, no data on waiting times, no data on consumer experience, no data on suicide statistics. So that Minister can state his Government’s performance, but they told us they were going to be the most open and transparent Government—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! I’m waiting for the member to reference the bill.

MATT DOOCEY: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. The Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill, that National supports, goes some way for one of the Government’s recommendations. Of course, this bill will eliminate indefinite treatment orders. But I would argue, although this bill is important, that it’s a bill that got introduced under a lot of haste because there was a lot of pressure on that Minister, there was a lot of pressure on the Government, because, of course, the recommendation was to repeal and replace the mental health Act. Yes, remember those recommendations? Forty-eight of them, and only about four or five of them have been delivered. Yes, this bill goes some way towards that recommendation, but it’s very much a stocking filler.

This Government rode into power in 2017 on the back of a lot of people’s pain and mental health. They promised a lot. And yes, this bill does respond to one of those recommendations, but people turned up by their thousands from that mental health inquiry sharing their stories. Whānau and family turned up sharing their personal stories. They felt listened to; they felt heard. So where is the action from this Government? Yes, this bill goes some way, but it’s only a small step in the right direction. This Government has got a lot to live up to.

Parts of this bill it is important that we do modernise. We learnt some very valuable lessons under COVID. And under the COVID-19 Response (Further Management Measures) Legislation Act 2020, there was an ability to use audiovisual links to allow family members and some professionals to attend sessions, whether that be around assessment and care planning. And I think we’ve learnt that that is the right way forward, because what we do know is that with the recovery model, we need to put the individual and we need to put their family at the centre of that care. Anything that could improve the participation of individuals and their family in their care, the National Party supports, and that’s why we support removing the sunset date for technical and audiovisual link amendments. We think there is a move to modernise and use technology so that individuals and families can be part of their care.

We also support the part of the bill that looks to minimise the risk of harm to patient or public when transporting forensic patients who are “special patients” defined under this Act. We also agree with eliminating indefinite treatment orders. I think when you work through the current process where people who are deemed not fit to be released under their compulsory treatment order and then to be classed as indefinite, I think that doesn’t bode well for the future care of that individual. It’s not good for their human rights. And I think the ability to have that 12-month review is important because, ultimately, what we are talking about here is a time where every 12 months the professionals will check in with that individual. They’ll check in with the family as well to understand what’s going well and what’s going not so well in their care, as well.

Just to conclude, the National Party supports this bill. There’s a lot of good technical changes in this bill. But I repeat: that wasn’t normal, what we heard from a Minister today. That was a Minister under pressure. This Government has promised a lot in mental health. I hope they deliver for many vulnerable New Zealanders and their families. But when we see what was revealed over the weekend—data missing from annual reports, Government officials talking openly about taking out data because it was seen as negative to the Government’s performance—that is concerning. The public quite rightly needs to have confidence in our public sector. That Minister needs to take responsibility and ensure his ministry knows that shouldn’t be acceptable. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Early in my first term in Parliament, the inquiry into mental health and addiction visited us in Invercargill, and I can still remember quite vividly the stories people and families told about their contact with the mental health system. So when the inquiry’s report came out, one of the recommendations that they made was that the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act be repealed and replaced. What they were suggesting was that it be replaced with something that was much more modern in its approach to human rights, and it raised a whole lot of issues around consent and people’s ability to participate in decisions about their care. While it is going to take some time to work through those—because it’s really important we get them right—one of the things that’s really, really important is that there are two or three urgent issues that we need to address right now, and that’s what this bill is about. The first one is about indefinite treatment orders. These have been widely criticised because of the issue of somebody being detained and treated, potentially against their will, for long periods of time without the right to be able to be seen before a court.

So just going through what actually happens in terms of these treatment orders, what normally happens is a relative or the police or some other person will put in an application for a compulsory treatment order and a judge will need to consider that application and talk with that person within, ideally, about 14 days, about their care, what their views are, but also listen to the views of the person’s doctor and other health professionals. And if it is indeed deemed that they do need to have compulsory treatment, then a hearing is heard, where, basically, the medical team as well as the patient get to be there to consider and talk about what needs to happen. The issue is that the maximum duration of one of those treatment orders is six months, but it can be renewed for a further six months. The issue of concern is that after those six months it can be continued indefinitely, and what this legislation does is require that the order be reviewed at the end of each 12-month period instead of having somebody under compulsory treatment for a very, very long period of time.

So it’s an important bill. It makes a small change but is incredibly important for sustaining the human rights of those that are under compulsory treatment. I commend this bill to the House.

Dr SHANE RETI (Deputy Leader—National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to support this bill which looks to amend the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act, which is actually quite old. There are several things this bill looks to do, but I particularly would also like to talk to eliminating the indefinite treatment orders, and actually speak just a little bit further about how one gets to be in the position where you have a compulsory treatment order (CTO), and then what we’re trying to fix.

Now, the law recognises that people who have a mental health issue may not be competent to decide what is best for them, and so compulsory treatment orders and involuntary orders are mechanisms to help people receive that attention. What’s required here is it requires someone who’s concerned about a person’s wellbeing to make an application. The person needs to be over 18, and then that person can be assessed by a director of Area Mental Health Services. Just to be very clear of the nature of an illness that a person must have, first of all they have to have a serious mental disorder characterised by delusions or by disorders of mood or perception or volition or cognition. So, you know, it’s quite serious mental health. Secondly, they need to pose a serious danger to the health or safety of themselves or others, or have a seriously diminished capacity for self-care. Interestingly, there also needs to be services available before a compulsory treatment order can be entertained. The responsible clinician can transfer a patient to a compulsory treatment order from an involuntary inpatient order, or a CTO can be made by a judge.

To get some scope as to how many people are involved in compulsory treatment orders, we know that roughly 10,000 people a year are subject to the mental health Act, and that at any one time 102 people per 100,000 are receiving compulsory treatment. I think what I found particularly interesting—I’ve delved into this in preparation for making this contribution—in the rates of compulsory treatment orders is the regional variation across the country, more specifically by DHB and how we explain that. So as I look across all DHBs—and I’ll break it down in a moment for Māori and non-Māori—there’s quite a lot of regional variation per 100,000 population for the number of compulsory treatment orders. The highest number of compulsory treatment orders per capita is actually Northland, which surprises me a little bit. The least is South Canterbury and Wairarapa. So you’d have to sort of say, “Well, how do we explain that?” How do we explain such a high incidence of CTOs in Northland—almost three times the lowest amount anywhere else in the country? If we then look at it for Māori and non-Māori, there’s roughly a threefold—or it’s a multiplier of three—increase in Māori who receive compulsory treatment orders versus non-Māori. Again, if we look across the country, it turns out Waikato has the highest—again, that average of three—at 3.91.

Then I want to go to not the second but to the third and fourth—we might be able to explain that. Counties Manukau and then Auckland have the highest rate of Māori versus non-Māori—so again, over three times. So Māori are much more out of proportion than others. But it’s the second one that I’m interested in that I can’t quite explain, and that is Wairarapa. Now, Wairarapa has the second highest incidence of Māori versus non-Māori of CTOs. I can’t explain that. It’s not what I would have thought intuitively from what I know of the demographics of that DHB, my point here being that there’s some story around compulsory treatment orders that vary region by region that gives us the opportunity with this bill to be nuanced, to be more fine-tuned, and to reduce those disparities.

I’m not the only one pointing that out; there are a number of others. I will read here from a learned journal: “The numbers of compulsory treatment orders vary across the country. The fact that some regions show relatively low rates suggests scope exists to reduce the overall use of compulsory treatment [orders].” I look here in the last year at South Canterbury—South Canterbury is a well-performing DHB at the moment—with a total of 96 compulsory treatment orders per 100,000, and then I look at Northland at 284, and so how do we explain that? The sum of it—that is probably Māori, and again, how do we explain that? How could we have three times more compulsory treatment orders per capita in Northland than in South Canterbury? I think that needs an explanation. I think there’ll be that opportunity in select committee to delve deeper into these figures, both total comparisons across the country and Māori versus non-Māori across the country, DHB on DHB, and make some of these changes—and we are—to that indefinite time period for compulsory treatment orders. I think it will give us the opportunity to have that really rich discussion, to understand it, figure it out, and figure out what the interventions are.

So we’re in support of this bill and very much looking forward to the select committee, particularly to officials who’ll have more fine-tuned information—although this arrived as a written parliamentary question 30 minutes ago so it is kind of contemporary, although they make the point that they’re three months out from reporting the last year, but this would seem to be the latest data and it’s got some queries in it even here and now. So we are supporting this bill and very much looking forward to taking it to select committee and seeing how we can do a better job. Thank you.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour—Banks Peninsula): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise in support of the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill. I really want to acknowledge Minister Andrew Little for his genuine commitment, I think, to making the changes that are necessary so that as a society we can start conceiving and perceiving of, and orient ourselves towards, a much more health recovery and social wellbeing model of mental health. The discourse, our expectations, and the importance that we place on health and wellbeing have changed over time, and it is time, therefore, to make those legislative changes to reflect a more contemporary kind of definition.

So the amending bill here before us tonight goes some way to doing that, and it does so in three specific ways—all of which have been mentioned, but each one has an element that I’d like to emphasise. When we talk about eliminating indefinite treatment orders, it also includes, really importantly, the right to refuse medical treatment. That’s no less important when a person may be experiencing a period of mental unwellness but is nevertheless competent, than what it is for any other person.

Secondly, when we talk about minimising the harm to the patient or public when transporting forensic patients, I think it’s really important to note that this amendment allows for the least restrictive restraint, only when absolutely necessary, and it’s not related to whether a person has a mental health condition but it’s related to their offending and their risk of escape and posing a safety risk.

Thirdly, clause 5, which amends section 9 to provide for a family member or another person connected with the welfare of that proposed patient the ability to link in by audiovisual link, is incredibly important. Currently, unless a family member is able to be there in person, that proposed patient isn’t able to have that support, or a second person isn’t able to be cognisant of what’s going on and of that process. So I think those are three really important aspects.

So, again, the bill before us tonight takes an important step. It’s congruent with this Government’s commitment to mental health. I commend this bill to the House.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): I think that all of us in this House would agree that at the very least, the most basic thing that the mental health system can do is not cause more harm to the people who go through it. But perhaps the greatest irony of the original legislation which we are amending tonight as it passes, I believe, by consensus through the House, is that whilst the mental health Act, which we so colloquially refer to it as, was actually the first part of New Zealand’s health sector to legislate for patient rights, it in fact has been found by a huge number of inquiries, investigations, reports, and otherwise to undermine exactly those rights. In fact, it’s since been weaponised in way that has literally seen the United Nations Committee Against Torture—against torture—express concern at our country’s practice, which I’ll get to in a minute.

So what we regularly call the mental health Act is actually this law which outlines how and when we can detain people who are experiencing mental distress. So how does that happen? Well, the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992—which I note Dr Shane Reti mentioned is substantially an outdated piece of legislation—describes itself as “An Act to redefine the circumstances in which and the conditions under which persons may be subjected to compulsory psychiatric assessment and treatment,” The Act then goes on to define—fast forward a bit—that mental disorder occurs when someone “(a) poses a serious danger to the health or safety of that person or of others; or (b) seriously diminishes the capacity of that person to take care of himself or herself;—and mentally disordered, in relation to any such person, has a corresponding meaning.”

The amendment that we are debating tonight doesn’t do the full hog, which is outlined in He Ara Oranga, the report of the mental health and addiction inquiry. There were 40 recommendations inherent in that. And I also note that the supporting documentation that the Minister has tabled in the House today stipulates that this is one step towards a broader overall of the mental health Act, which is so fundamentally necessary if we are going to get anywhere near towards a human rights - centred approach, as was outlined as necessary in He Ara Oranga. What the Act presently allows and what this amendment seeks to change is that people declared as having this defined mental disorder—namely a danger to themselves or others or a diminished capacity to take care of themselves—are then legally allowed to be detained against their will and, as other speakers have mentioned, medicated against their will. Importantly, however, there is currently inside that Act no specific definition of what “capacity” means, which leaves it open to interpretation and therefore, as we’ve seen in that multiplicity of reviews, to abuse.

He Ara Oranga, the 2018 mental health and addiction inquiry, is often heralded in this place and the news media as kind of the first of its kind, but if you dig a little deeper, particularly into the reporting of the likes of Jess McAllen, what you’ll find is that it was not. There have been at least two other Government-triggered inquiries into the mental health system in the past few decades, and historically those inquiries have been triggered by violence and substantive amounts of trauma.

The 1988 Mason psychiatric report, otherwise known as the Gallen inquiry, was noted as being into “procedures used in certain psychiatric hospitals in relation to admission, discharge, or release on leave of certain classes of patients.” Judge Mason, importantly, in this 1988 report noted the need for bicultural services particularly to serve Māori, because the Western model—he noted at that point in time; the 1980s—did not acknowledge the breadth of hauora, of culture, of identity and the importance of recognising where somebody comes from, their environment, and who they are, as to how they behave in the world.

There was then a 1996 inquiry, again by Mason—this time into “section 47 of the Health and Disability Services Act 1993 in respect of certain mental health services.” These two inquiries, essentially, failed in the respect that they sought to pathologise and medicalise individuals who were going through the mental health system. They were quite narrow in that respect. They only looked at people who were already in the system and how that system was serving them based on preconceived notions of how it should be.

But what He Ara Oranga did, with groundbreaking terms of reference, was it sought to recognise that people are part of society and in fact life experiences may cause, may trigger, may mitigate, or may aggravate the expression of mental ill health, and it showcased a need to move away from that pathologising and, arguably, dehumanising model. It also, importantly, explicitly for the first time referenced addiction, particularly as a method of escapism away from some of the issues that people may be experiencing.

As I noted, there’s a whole lot to unpack in the mental health and addiction inquiry. There were 40 recommendations. The Government accepted 38 of them on principle. Recommendation 34 is for the mental health Act, as we colloquially bandy it about as, to be entirely repealed and replaced. This amendment tonight does not do that, but it does do the interim job of stripping away some of the most damaging and damning practices inside of our mental health system.

Importantly, actually, under the 1992 Act, family are required to be consulted before compulsory assessment and treatment, but in He Ara Oranga, the mental health and addiction inquiry, it was reported this only happens 61 percent of the time—another massive failing. And as has been noted by other speakers, this isn’t a small thing. Around 10,000 people are subjected to compulsory assessment and treatment every year, and whilst not all seclusion is compulsory assessment and treatment and vice versa, Māori are five times more likely in our mental health system to be subject to seclusion.

Page 33 of He Ora Oranga makes this discrimination and the flow-on effects of it crystal clear in terms of its ramifications for those who may be seeking to access mental health treatment, and it does so, in this quote by a kaimahi Māori, who said “whānau are fearful of our ministries, fearful of mental health, fearful of Oranga Tamariki taking their children, fearful of police who take away their dads. Whānau are on the back foot before anything has happened, just because they are Māori.”

In trying to unpack just how bad this problem is, I think it’s important to outline just how successive Governments have failed when it comes to this issue of these treatment orders. It was in 2015 when the UN Committee Against Torture expressed concern about the enormous amount of times, comparatively, that New Zealand was using this practice, which led in April 2017 to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights funding a report, delivered by our Human Rights Commission, which found that there was definitely oversight needed because there was an overreliance on goodwill for this “inherently degrading practice”—that’s a quote from the report—and there was a high use, particularly in prisons and, you guessed it, particularly towards Māori.

Then in 2009 to around 2015-16, there was a reduction in the number of people who ended up being secluded, but around 2015-16 that number jumped back up again by 6 percent. In May 2017, in response, the then National Government, actually, created a national mental health quality improvement plan, which was provided with $7.5 million to get as close to zero in the use of seclusion by the year 2020. That was last year, and in fact what we’ve seen with data released last week is that there’s been an uptick of 10 percent in seclusion in 2018 and a 9 percent increase in 2019. That’s no small number, because per 1,000 beds we went from 6.9 in 2008 to 11.4 in 2019. There is so much more to do but this is an incredibly important piece of that puzzle.

BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill at its first reading. We support the intention of this amendment, which is as follows: “to improve the protection of individual rights and the safety of patients and the public and enable more effective application of the [Act]”. So I think it’s important to outline what the change is supposed to be doing—what problem it is to be solving—but, importantly, to step back and ask: what is the Act that it is actually amending? It’s amending the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act.

Now, that Act was introduced in 1992, and the Associate Minister of Health at that time said that this was an honest attempt to achieve more regularity in the admission of people with mental disorders who themselves, in a very rare circumstance, seek committal, but it is rarely for those who pose a serious danger to the health and safety of themselves or others, and who have a seriously diminished capacity to recognise that. We’re talking about very vulnerable people. So that is what we are debating today.

When we change a law, I think it’s always good practice to ask what we are actually seeking to solve. One of the amendments that the ACT Party supports is one that was brought in under COVID, which is this idea that you’re able to enable patients and family members, people concerned with someone’s care, to have the admission looked at via audiovisual link, not needing to be done in person. I think that was a very good change to make at that time, and it’s something that we should seek to continue, and that’s what that change is about, because it looks like it’s supposed to expire; so, really, we’re just extending it.

There is always, though, an issue when an Act looks like it is to breach or come close to breaching someone’s rights under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and so ACT always takes seriously a change to a law that would limit the right that “Everyone [who is] deprived of liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the person.” I note that that was outlined in the Attorney-General’s report on this bill. And that’s because this amendment also, apart from audiovisual links, seeks to make a change that a person, while they’re being transported, could be restrained with reasonable force.

We’d like to note that, during the select committee process, we’d like the definition of reasonable force to be tested. I think it’s very, very important that, when we’re talking about vulnerable people, we are standing up for their rights and their inherent dignity. It’s the inherent dignity of every individual. So we’d like to see what that use of reasonable force would look like. But while we were reading through the Attorney-General’s report, we did note that the Attorney-General had consulted on that matter and had deemed that the rights of the individual would still be upheld even with that change to use reasonable force. So, on those grounds, we’d like to make our concern noted, but we do support the intention of the bill. Thank you.

SARAH PALLETT (Labour—Ilam): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak in favour of the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill. This bill is aiming to address some pressing issues as we move to repeal and replace the mental health Act. The initial amendments are, obviously, intended to improve the protection of individual rights, the safety of patients and the public; and to enable the Act to work more effectively. What we’re seeing here is—a few main points—as we’ve heard from colleagues in the House, one of the key points is it will eliminate indefinite treatment orders, which will require courts to review the situation of the patient or person concerned every 12 months. We have agreement across the House that this is something that’s long overdue and necessary.

The second point of importance is the transporting of forensic special patients, and I just wanted to explain a little bit about the forensic special patient. These are people who have been, potentially, acquitted of the crime on insanity grounds or found unfit to stand trial, or, perhaps, prisoners transferred to hospital for mental care. They obviously do deserve effective and ethical care and management, but what we’re looking at is that these are patients who from time to time do need to be transported, and from time to time they may need to be restrained or in some way supported in order to keep themselves or the public safe. It’s really important that this is not related to their mental health condition but it’s related, rather, to their offending behaviour and the potential for them to, potentially, attempt to escape, for example. As I’ve said, a small number of these patients do pose a risk to the public safety, and as a result, I do commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The next call is a five-minute call.

PENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): I am pleased to be speaking in support of this Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill. In doing so, I’m particularly mindful of the sensitivity of this legislation in that it deals with people when they’re at their most vulnerable, and so it’s vitally important that the amendments have the right balance between protection of individual rights as well as the safety of patients and the public.

When looking back on the history of the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992, I note that there have been a number of serious concerns raised in 2014, in 2016, and, again, in 2017 regarding the lack of alignment with the Act and the rights of persons with disabilities. When I looked at some of the consultation that had taken place in the build-up to this bill, I again note that those that had been consulted with have been NGOs, clinicians, academics, researchers, and mental health professionals, and I’m reminded that the hīkoi for hope for disabled people, which came to Parliament quite recently, stressed the need for “nothing for us without us”. So I would hope that the consultation process as it proceeds through the select committee stage will indeed ensure that the consultation is taken to people who have been subjected to the mental health Act, and, as our colleague Dr Reti noted, there are 10,000 people per year.

Given how incredibly topical and important mental health issues are for our communities, and the comments that our colleagues have spoken about, with the skyrocketing numbers of New Zealanders who are finding it hard to access the support they need, this amendment is particularly timely. We’ve already spoken today about our concerns around mental health reporting being sanitised to remove negative statistics, and where the excitement seems to be mainly around Budget allocations and announcements, rather than actual outcomes or improvements being measured, we should perhaps be at least pleased that this is something tangible that is going to occur.

So, given that, we are particularly pleased to see the amendments around eliminating indefinite treatment orders. We are mindful of the changes that need to occur around minimising the risk of harm to patients and public, and, of course, COVID has given us all the opportunity to see how we can make much better use of audiovisual links, so that amendment is also supported. So I’m pleased to speak in support of the amendment.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I call Shanan Halbert—a five-minute call.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. I take this call this evening in the absence of the Māori Party. We’ve heard vibrantly tonight that Māori are an important part of this conversation, and we know—and as a Māori man I stand here this evening knowing that me and my whānau are twice as likely as non-Māori to suffer from poor mental health—that we are overrepresented, that we are disadvantaged within the system, and that we need help. What I don’t want to hear this evening is when politics comes into the discussion that we are having in mental health. Now is the time to get on with it. Now is the time to make a difference.

I remember very fondly the 2017 election. It was my first election against Minister Coleman at that time and the challenges that he faced. But as we move forward, the difference that this bill does, and it is a step in the right direction after multiple announcements—and just going back to my colleague, the last speaker, discussing the announcements. I say: does the Youth Mental Health Group feel any differently to the $1 million that the Minister has announced towards their mental health support and running a better system? What about the $4 million dedicated to Rainbow youth mental health services? Yes, they do feel different. It’s about us making steps and more steps and more steps to ensure that we address the challenges within our mental health system that we face. We’re going to get on. We want to get on with this.

So what this bill does is it starts to make three particular steps. And the one that I find most important this evening is the elimination of the indefinite treatment orders that are outlined within this bill, the changes that it makes. It means each Māori male that is out there that is within an indefinite treatment order have hope that they can be reconsidered every 12 months, that they can be reviewed, and that hope is really, really important. When you’re in a situation of difficult mental health, you already feel hopeless, and this is another step to give them hope. So this evening, I commend this bill to the House.

Dr GAURAV SHARMA (Labour—Hamilton West): I rise today in the House to take a call on the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill. As a medical doctor who has had part of his training in both inpatient and outpatient clinics, I do support the bill introduced by the honourable Minister Andrew Little. I want to start, first of all, by acknowledging the many people who work in the mental health workforce, as well as those who are the consumers of the mental health services. It’s not easy working in the sector and it’s even harder being a patient and being a consumer of these services.

This bill picks up some of the recommendations that were made as part of the He Ara Oranga: Report of the Government Inquiry into Mental Health and Addiction. What it does is it empowers patients and their families, as well as the workforce involved in mental health services. First of all, for the patients and their families, it ends the widely criticised indefinite treatment, which is a serious breach of human rights.

The bill requires that the orders be reviewed every 12 months for as long as the duration of compulsory treatment. Secondly, for the patient’s family what it does is it allows for family members and their caregivers to be present via a video link or an audio link, which means that the family can be involved in their care and also be involved in the decision making, which wasn’t the case previously. And thirdly, for the staff members, as my colleague Sarah Pallett has mentioned, it also has a provision for the use of reasonable force or restraint when required to protect patients, and public safety, and to enable transport. This is quite key for people who work in mental health services because it makes sure that their lives are not endangered, as well as the lives of the patients and the public. So I think on all three fronts, whether it’s the patients, their whānau, or the staff, this bill is really good, and I would like to support it. Thank you.

SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): I rise on behalf of the National Party and as the MP for North Shore. I speak on the first reading of the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill. National supports this bill. We support this bill because it makes a number of important amendments, including protecting of individual rights and safety of patients and the public; it eliminates indefinite treatment orders, which we’ve discussed this evening; it also minimises harm, not only for patients but also for the public when these individuals are being transported, particularly forensic patients; and it also introduces some audiovisual aspects, and makes these amendments permanent.

The mental health of New Zealanders is one of the most important issues that this House will address in the coming decade. I acknowledge that this is a difficult and complex area, but the Government has a role to support those individuals, families, communities, and those on the front line, whether they be in social, education, or part of our health response.

We have a mental health crisis in New Zealand. We must act together across this exceptional country to take decisive action to make improvements that will build resilience, save lives, and reduce the burden that falls on our families and those within our communities when the system fails.

This bill is being created following the Government’s recent inquiry into mental health and addiction services, a report that highlights significant action is required in order to start to turn the dial. I have been fortunate in my work before becoming an MP for the North Shore to work alongside passionate clinicians within our forensic mental health unit in my own home electorate under the Waitematā District Health Board. These clinicians do amazing work under what are often very challenging circumstances, and I wish to acknowledge them and thank them for their ongoing contribution.

I also want to share my personal perspective on this bill as a front-line volunteer ambulance officer with St John Ambulance who only last week was responding to a 111 emergency call to deal with another mental health incident. Thirty percent of the call-outs that we received on the shift I undertook last week involved mental health incidents, and this reflects the significant pressure that our system is under and the critical need for action, not talk, to help our fellow Kiwis, many of whom are young men.

A special call-out to my fellow paramedics, emergency medical technicians, first responders, extended care paramedics, and intensive care paramedics, who, alongside our police, are the front line in responding to this mental health crisis and are often picking up the pieces—often when it’s too late. First responders are overwhelmed by demand and under-resourcing and the inability to provide a sustainable pathway to help people on their road to recovery, a battle that is seeing call volumes skyrocket and pressure on our community and hospital services constantly at capacity.

This bill recommends amendments that will enable a more effective application of the Act, and this is welcomed. In particular, it focuses on three key aspects. Compulsory treatment orders: the bill will remove indefinite compulsory treatment orders, something that has been criticised in terms of its potential to breach human rights. This is where a patient is required to have treatment for their mental disorder, and the changes that have been put in place allow these orders to be put in place and extended by a clinician by up to 12 months. I also acknowledge the conversation raised by my good colleague Dr Shane Reti. There is significant variation across this country in regards to the treatment that is provided to these patients, and that is a concern that we all need to work together to address.

The second aspect of the bill, in terms of amendments, is minimising the harm when these patients are being transported. Again, I wish to acknowledge our mental health workforce, those individuals that sit in the back of an ambulance when they are transporting our forensic mental health patients to hospitals and other facilities. This is a challenging role. This is a role in which many of our healthcare professionals put their own personal safety at risk and often are the subject of harm within the workplace. It is our responsibility as a system and as a House to protect these individuals who are making such a significant contribution for our country. Currently, the Act does not permit the use of force, including restraint, when transporting these patients, which, obviously, as I’ve just discussed, poses a significant risk for not only the patient but the staff travelling with that patient and also the public, should that patient leave the vehicle.

Lastly, I wish to talk about the amendment in regards to audiovisual links being allowed to be permanent. I’m pleased to see this amendment within the legislation. As we’ve all experienced the challenges of the last 12 months, I think this is common-sense legislation, and in particular around new section 34C(2), inserted by clause 8, which recognises the benefit of such technology, and I welcome that.

It is important to bring this back, I guess, as an electorate MP, to the local electorate. No community within this country is immune from the burden that mental health illness brings, and my electorate on the North Shore is no different. I, like many New Zealanders, are concerned with the slow pace of change in the area of improving our mental health services and what seems to be a lack of urgency to transform a system in such desperate need. The ask is simple of this Government: outline the plan to implement the recommendations, confirm the timeline, fund it, and execute. Irrespective of where our political loyalties lie, we require action, not talk, in this area.

As a member of the Health Committee, I look forward to rich discussion on this bill as it passes through. As we said before, the National Party support this bill. I commend this bill to the House.

Dr ANAE NERU LEAVASA (Labour—Takanini): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a privilege to take this short call and the last call of this first reading of the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill. I just want to acknowledge, again, as everyone has the He Ara Oranga work done in 2018, and I just want to acknowledge them for the equity lens that they provided, as well, in their consultations—Professor Ron Paterson, Sir Mason Durie, Dean Rangihuna, Dr Jemaima Tiatia-Seath, Josiah Tualamali‘i, and also Dr Barbara Disley.

Hon Member: They did a good job.

Dr ANAE NERU LEAVASA: Amen; amen to that. When we clinicians start off our careers in the health workforce, we swear an oath that says “first do no harm.” I think this bill adds to that, where we are trying to get to the stage where we minimise that and do no harm to our patients.

What they found in that inquiry was to, again, look at the human rights approach, promote supported decision-making, and a recovery and wellbeing model, and it is all about the equity and holistic approach to this bill. So I’ll be brief. I support this bill into the House. Thank you.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is, That the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill be considered by the Health Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Health Committee.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The House is suspended for the dinner break and will resume at 7 o’clock this evening.

Sitting suspended from 6.01 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Bills

Incorporated Societies Bill

First Reading

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): I present a legislative statement on the Incorporated Societies Bill.

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

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I move, That the Incorporated Societies Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee to consider the bill.

I’d like to start with just a little bit of context for the bill. The bill speaks to about 24,000 incorporated societies in New Zealand. What we’re proposing to do right here is to replace an Act, the Incorporated Societies Act that was passed in 1908. As they say, good things take time.

Incorporated societies are governed through a democratic process. They tend to be hands-on organisations, and you could contrast them, say, with trusts, which are typically not so democratic. The trustees of a trust are obliged to work in the names of the beneficiaries, whereas an incorporated society has a democratic process, typically committees and the like. If you put a different cut on it and look at registered charities, around 6,000 to 7,000 of these are incorporated societies in New Zealand. In fact, over 55 percent, I’m advised, are trusts; only around 30 percent of the registered charities in New Zealand are incorporated societies.

Broadly, there are two types of incorporated societies. There are those which are focused on the interests of the members, and that’s things like sports clubs, cultural clubs, recreation clubs—some marae are incorporated societies—and they’re looking out for the interests of the members of that incorporated society. So that’s about 45 percent, I’m told, of incorporated societies. The other lot, about 55 percent, are there for the wellbeing of the greater good, broadly spoken. So they could be environmental protection societies. They could be animal welfare groups. They could be industry associations, political parties, trade unions. There are a lot of different kinds of incorporated societies.

The bill that we’re putting in place does retain the best of the 1908 Act. It codifies case law to make it more accessible and it fills in some gaps where the 1908 Act, and, indeed, the case law that followed, were underdeveloped. A lot of it’s modelled on the Companies Act, so it’s brought up really in parallel with the Companies Act—for example, conflict of interest declarations. Directors’ duties in this bill are called “officers’ duties”, but they look a lot like the ones in the Companies Act.

There are some major thrusts in there. The first is that we’re reducing the minimum number of society members from 15 to 10. We are introducing formal officers’ duties. As I said, they are very similar to the ones in the Companies Act, and with that comes, of course, responsibilities. Another one which members of this House will recognise, I am sure, is we are requiring that societies include procedures in their constitutions for resolving disputes. I hazard to say that many members of this House here today will have had constituents come to them with disputes from incorporated societies within their own electorate areas or broader interest areas, because where there are not dispute resolution processes within incorporated societies, this quickly escalates. They come and seek advice from MPs. Often they get legal advice from wherever they can get it, and often these things end up in the courts. So we are requiring that there must be procedures in their constitutions for resolving disputes. The other major thing that this does is, with the exception of some smaller incorporated societies, require that they keep financial statements in accordance with accounting standards that are issued by the External Reporting Board, the XRB. That is, I think, a prudent thing to do, particularly for bigger incorporated societies.

So, as I said at the outset, the 24,000 incorporated societies in New Zealand are commonly known as clubs, associations, or federations, and they operate for no financial gain for their members. They arrange the sporting events for our kids, the coaches in our clubs, the environmental petitions that they bring, and the enriching of marae with Māori cultural values around the country—so lots of things that we could recognise as very good for our society. It’s important to have up-to-date legislation in this area.

To illustrate, if I may, how out of date this legislation has become—I mean, I can tell you it’s 1908, but, to pick an example, the maximum penalty for the late filing of financial reports as recorded in the bill is, indeed, a shilling a day. That speaks, I think, to a different time. There’s also, in the Act, a fine of up to £100 for those seeking pecuniary gain from society members. So those kinds of things can be brought into the modern era. I think where these issues, though, really touch us most as members of Parliament is around the disputes aspect. A requirement to have a disputes resolution process, rules which meet national justice standards, will help keep disputes away from the courts, and that’s, I think, a good thing. Incorporated societies like Grey Power and Citizens Advice Bureau have shown support already for having such dispute resolution processes and for keeping things out of the courts.

I’ve spoken already, briefly, about the duties for officers that parallel those in the Companies Act, sensible moves to have financial statements that reflect the XRB, and so on. All of these things have developed in a process. There was a Law Commission report written in 2013 which covered off a whole lot of these issues, and I want to acknowledge the work that’s been done by Ministers since then. Most recently, of course, Minister Faafoi has pushed this issue along, and I do want to acknowledge his stewardship of this bill up until this point, making sure that it lands in a good place, and a place where I hope it will gather widespread support across the House.

In the time remaining, I do want to also acknowledge and thank the various incorporated societies across New Zealand. I asked my office to pull together a list of some incorporated societies, just to give a flavour of the kinds of organisations in our community, and so I’ll just mention a couple of these: the Otago University Debating Society Inc., the Otago Boating Club Inc., the Otago Badminton Association Inc., the Otago Deaf Society Inc., the Otago Rowing Club Inc., the Otago Country Music Club Inc., the Otago Electric Vehicles Society Inc., and the Otago Medical Research Foundation Inc.

Hon Member: Anything further north?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I could go on. There are many. In this random sample, obviously, a few of them are close to home for me. I could go on to the Dunedin Kindergartens Inc., and the Dunedin School of Judo, and so on. But you get the picture: across New Zealand there are organisations, clubs, associations, societies that are contributing to the good in their society. The Hokitika Potters Society Inc. will be of interest to my good friend the Minister over there. The Gore Musical Theatre Inc., I’m sure, will be of interest to some across the House right there. The Christchurch Irish Society, Christchurch Women’s Refuge—I mean, many of these organisations are organisations that we know and deal with as MPs that support citizens across our society.

Kieran McAnulty: What about Masterton?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I don’t actually have an example from Masterton in front of me, but I invite the member to suggest a few—

Kieran McAnulty: There’s heaps.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: —because there’s bound to be heaps of good local folk contributing there through those things. Bowls clubs, rugby clubs across New Zealand, bridge clubs—the Levin Bridge Club, Tennis Otago Inc., Nelson Netball Centre Inc.—all of these people are contributing to our society, and it’s appropriate that they have modern legislation to support them in their efforts, to make sure that the dispute resolution processes that they need are in place, to make sure that their financial statements meet certain standards. I should mention that for smaller outfits, they will not have the same requirements on them. But we do expect, of course, transparent reporting, none the less. The decision was taken not to include all societies because we recognise that some smaller ones will not necessarily have the ability to produce those high-level accounting standards, and I think that’s a reasonable way to approach this. Of course, all these things can get hashed out in select committee, and I do commend the select committee to this work, because I think it’s very important work.

As I say, 1908, it’s taken a while to mature into this new legislation, but I think it has been well worth waiting for. Thank you, Mr Speaker; I commend this bill to the House.

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

Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Mr Speaker, thank you very much. National will be supporting this bill to select committee, where we look forward to digging in a bit deeper to some of the provisions the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs has spoken of. You can always tell a Minister is on top of his brief when, to get through his 10 minutes, he’s got to get his office to create a list of every single society in the area he’s from and to read them out. But that’s not because this isn’t important work—it is.

There are 24,000 incorporated societies in New Zealand and they are of greatly differing sizes, from the Rugby Union with more than $100 million worth of revenue, to some that will have a few thousand. So the most important thing that I think the committee will need to look at is to make sure that incorporated societies are not being burdened unnecessarily—because when there is more red tape and more bureaucracy, there is a cost to that—and that the changes that are being proposed by the Government actually are there to fix actual problems and to assist, and not merely to do some work because the Government didn’t have very much else to do at the time.

I’ve got to say that it has taken a long time for this legislation to come before the House. In 2010, the Government asked the Law Society to start doing some work, and it did so. It delivered that to us. Paul Goldsmith, as the then Minister, had a bill drafted and put it out to public consultation towards the end of 2015. It is important to consult on legislation, particularly when so many organisations can be affected. That work was done fairly quickly, and so it’s taken 3½ to four years of the Labour Government to get this here. I think the committee should get on with it quite quickly, because who knows how long it will take when we finish our work and we send it back to the House?

A couple of the parts of the proposal that have come through initially from the draft that we put together, I think, remain important. Yes, it does place duties upon officers of societies. I think it’s important to clarify this, but we should be careful not to be heavy-handed in doing so. The Minister recognised that for some of the smaller societies, not all of the provisions of the changes in the bill will apply to them, but we need to make sure that, actually, particularly for those smaller and medium sized societies that are there for public good more than anything else—the Minister mentioned rugby clubs or small rugby clubs or the organisations that help organise sport for our young people in our communities—they’re not being asked to do things that they were never intended to just because the original Act that they act under or that controls them is so very old.

Procedures for dealing with conflict of interest are important, but I’ll be looking forward in the committee to find out just how often this happens, because if you take that example over the Rugby Union, with over $160 million worth of income or turnover every year, they already will have procedures for dealing with conflicts of interest or dispute settlement, as opposed to some of the smaller societies that may never have to do so. But I do think it is a good provision that for the societies where there is a conflict of interest, board members of committees actually can declare that and then have an ability to still take part, rather than have to exempt themselves—particularly for some of those smaller ones—under certain circumstances.

When it comes to new societies, there was a suggestion earlier on of having a draft statute for them to govern them. Through the consultation procedure, I think it was clear that a number of organisations and advisers thought that that would be too prescriptive or restrictive, and now it is possible for new societies to draft up their own constitutions within the bounds of the Act to be specifically tailored to them. I think this is a good change or advance in the legislation.

The final note I’d like to make—because after the Minister’s speech, I don’t want to take too much of the House’s time. I’m eager for this to get to committee so we can get the changes in place as quickly as we can. But, ultimately, when it comes to financial statements and the proposed processes of the External Reporting Board, to bring those into line within the legislation—now, largely, this will be similar to the charities that exist in New Zealand and companies and other organisations, but, again, I want to stress that, actually, it is important that we make sure that the smaller societies are not overburdened with this. For some of them, the cost to do so and meet these standards may be greater, actually, than what they have left over in a year to use for a charitable or good purpose, and so the bill retains provisions where there are carve-outs for smaller societies. But we will want to make sure that this is done properly and that it actually is fit for purpose, and so we’ll look forward to submissions on that.

The final part I would note is there are a number of organisations that submitted during the consultation procedure, so the directors generally supported it with some suggested changes. They came through. There are others that came and spoke. Creative New Zealand said they supported the intended purpose of the legislation broadly, but they wanted to make sure there were some changes.

There will be organisations that will be concerned that it has a direct impact upon them more than others, and I see that the Minister already has made one change for one group of organisations. He must be open to a change for other organisations who find that, actually, the original Act is working for them, and there could be extra requirements or restriction placed upon them without a gain for them or the public. I hope the Minister will be open to that, because I do note that when the Council of Trade Unions submitted, they said that they were concerned that in the definition of “officer”, they would be captured by this, and they wouldn’t be able to do their work properly and it would create problems for them. The Minister conceded to their views and has a huge carve-out for trade unions.

We’ll want to look into it in the committee stage to see whether this is appropriate and why he did this for the unions and perhaps for the unions only, because others made suggestions that weren’t picked up. But there will be other organisations that aren’t unions and aren’t closely affiliated with a political party who will have issues, perhaps, with the new legislation. The committee must be open to hearing those and looking for solutions to them. Some of them will be purposefully built just for one society, perhaps, but at the same time, the Minister too should be open to those changes.

As I said, National will be supporting this to committee, and we look forward to digging in deeper to make sure there is not just burden being placed upon these societies, particularly small ones. We want a good regime that they can work in, but, actually, we should only pass laws because they’re going to help them, not just pass law for the sake of it. Thank you.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to take a call on the first reading of the Incorporated Societies Bill. I’d like to acknowledge the Minister the Hon David Clark for bringing this to the House. The previous speaker from the National Party, Todd McClay, spoke about the Law Commission report coming back in 2013, and he had a little bit of a dig at this current Government for taking a few years to get to this bill. I would just like to remind the member that the National Party were in Government between 2014 and 2017, and that was even under the glory years of Key and English, but even under the glory years, they weren’t able to get this through. I’d just like to highlight that for those listening at home.

This is certainly an important piece of legislation, and I’d like to just put the context around it for those members who weren’t here in 1908. Just a couple of things: 1908, the first Model T car, the Henry Ford, came out—the first Model T car. In New Zealand, actually, in 1908, New Zealanders competed at the Olympic Games for the first time, as part of the Australasian team, which is fairly apt today with the announcement of the trans-Tasman bubble. But just to note that and to give that context, because it has taken quite a long time for us to do a review, a revision, of this bill, but certainly very important.

I’d also like to acknowledge the various societies and sports clubs that we have in our community.

Chris Bishop: Are you ready for Friday?

JAMIE STRANGE: They really are the fabric of our community—yes, and we do have a cricket match coming up, which the member opposite is alluding to, and there are many cricket clubs who are incorporated societies. In fact, my children play football, basketball, and are involved in gymnastics. I don’t try the gymnastics myself, but this is very personal for all of us in terms of our families being involved in these societies.

The Minister went into all the detail around the bill, so I really just wanted to highlight the aspect there around the key role these societies play. I commend this bill to the House, and I look forward to it coming through the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. Thank you.

MELISSA LEE (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise in support of this bill. I’d like to commend the Minister for bringing this bill. He did actually say that good things take time. I just hope that the Minister doesn’t take another hundred years to actually bring in another good bill to this House while he’s actually here.

Hon Andrew Little: What was that member’s party doing about it?

MELISSA LEE: It was a joke. Jamie Strange sort of said he wasn’t going to have a go at the National Party, but he couldn’t resist. Let me actually say this: back in 2015, when this exposure bill was put out by Hon Paul Goldsmith, the hard work was already done. It seems typical that this Government likes to tinker, and so it has taken so long, a whole term of Parliament, and now we’re in the second term and it’s finally coming back. Just like—what was that called?—the Trans-Pacific Partnership that the Government decided to tinker with and called it the “CPTPP”; just changed a couple of letters at the front and the rest of the content was pretty much the same.

I digress, Mr Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: You do.

MELISSA LEE: I will get on with it. I guess there are many communities in New Zealand who actually incorporate societies to run, whether it’s hobbies or whether it’s actually a common interest or some real good that they want to do in their communities, and the very fact that this piece of legislation, this piece of law is so old—1908—and updating a law like this is much needed, and hence we are supporting this.

Earlier, the Minister, as well as my colleague Todd McClay, had actually said the duties of the officers in charge—the fiduciary duty of any officers in charge—whether it’s a company or whether it’s actually a trust, or even an incorporated society, are really, really important, in that they need to do what they’re required to do. And I think updating their responsibilities to make sure that it is aligned with, perhaps in terms of what those company directors have, the responsibilities that they are given as officers of incorporated society is actually a good thing. And it also provides penalties to deal with breaches of those duties, and I think it actually brings seriousness to their responsibilities when they are running incorporated societies.

In terms of the conflict of interest, one of the things that I questioned when I initially read the bill information was that, when anyone is involved in an organisation, whether it’s actually a company or a trust or anything, when there is a conflict of interest, they declare it; they actually declare the conflict. But preventing them from being involved in the decision-making process, if the committee or the board are not too worried about the conflict of interest because it doesn’t impact on the work, I think is necessary, and I think it’s probably a good move to get those people who are often in a very small grouping in an incorporated society. As the Hon Todd McClay actually said, there are some societies like rugby clubs that have humungous amounts of income versus some societies that only literally deal with hundreds of dollars or a couple of thousand.

I have also been involved in some of these incorporated societies where we were promoting films, or ethnic communities where they’re dealing with works of promoting cultural events, for example. The burden on some of these communities is that, when they need to do the accounting or the auditing, often the cost to actually deal with those are more expensive or even higher than any income that they might actually earn as a society for the work that they do as volunteers. The work that the Government has actually done in terms of changing the draft bill to where it is now I think is something where I look forward to the submission process. When small societies are not required to comply with the external reporting board accounting standards, I think it’s actually probably a good thing, but I will actually wait for the submissions process to see whether it’s actually going to work or whether it already causes a problem at the moment. But I know for a fact that, for the organisations that I was involved with, they would have much rather not have had the burden of those costs.

The very fact that this Act is over a hundred years old—I think it’s probably right to say, “Let’s get on with it.” I don’t really need to waste too much time of this House, and I commend the bill and I look forward to the select committee process, where we will hear from the communities who are affected.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): It’s a great pleasure, just as a humble member of the House, to take a call on this, the Incorporated Societies Bill, because, after all, it’s the incorporated societies in our community that are really the engine room of civil society. They provide a very important level of cohesion and coherence for activities and for people to engage in those activities, and, at the same time, it’s providing some sort of legal protection for the participants in that particular activity.

Now, I’m surprised that the member who’s just resumed her seat, and no doubt other members, are commenting on the time that it has taken for this reform bill to come to the House, because it started pretty much at the beginning of the previous Government’s term in Government and it has taken this long to come to the House. So the question is, although the previous Government had seven years between 2010 and 2017 to do the reform, do the policy, bring the bill to the House, and pass it through, they’ve left it to this very busy, active, almost overloaded Government—because we’ve got so much on, doing so many good things, we now have to do yet more. So it is very pleasing to see this.

My story behind this bill is this: I was running an incorporated society, happened to be a trade union at the time, and I noticed that the original legislation was dated 1908. Of course, we know the significance of 1908. It was the Blackball dispute on the West Coast. It was very much the crucible of the Labour Party, one of the founding events of the great Labour Party that has contributed so much politically, socially, economically, and otherwise to this country. So that was 1908, and here we are now in 2021 and still we have the Labour Party contributing so magnificently economically, socially, politically, culturally, and otherwise. But the point I was making is that in 2010, I was running an incorporated society and a lawyer at the same time, received my notification through the Law Society that a lawyer—a very good lawyer from Napier: Mark von Dadelszen—had been commissioned by the Law Commission to do a review of the Incorporated Societies Act, and he put a call out to all the lawyers across the country, which at that time numbered about 9,000, might have been 10,000 then. And I was talking to him about this last week, and he told me, actually, that he got one response from that call, and it was from me. So I take great credit for the content of the bill and the policy that underlies it. I’m going on the word of Mark von Dadelszen—a very fine barrister in Napier. The issue that I particularly drew to his attention was actually about amalgamations, because we were a trade union, we had amalgamated with a number of trade unions that were also incorporated societies, and the palaver we had to go through to do that made it extraordinarily difficult and cumbersome. So I’m very pleased to see in the bill provisions for amalgamations of incorporated societies in a way that respects the wishes of the respective members of the amalgamated incorporated societies but doesn’t create too much of a hassle.

Two other points I just wanted to make. I’m very pleased to see the reference now for the provision of tikanga in constitutions of incorporated societies, and I think that’s going to be great. So many Māori organisations are incorporated societies, and they can actually write in the relevant tikanga for them, depending on what the kaupapa of the incorporated society is, and they are allowed to call themselves not just whatever it is incorporated; they can call themselves whatever it is mana tuku as well. So there’s a recognition in this piece of legislation for incorporated societies to carry a name that is relevant to those who are running it and the kaupapa that they are engaged in. That, I think, is a great step forward.

Finally, the point I wanted to make too that I think is very welcome is the dispute resolution clause, or the requirement that in constitutions there will need to be a dispute resolution clause. You know, the incorporated societies, most of them are reasonably modest and humble organisations, and they are a great training ground for people to learn about propriety of decision making and those sorts of things. But also when things go awry, when people fall out, when decisions get made that are unpopular, in some cases it can create this huge response that is completely out of proportion to the origin and the nature of the dispute. And people go off to court and do all sorts of things—although that mainly happens in the racing industry, it is true, but it can happen in other incorporated societies as well. This modernising bill that is the product of both the previous Government and this Government I think will give us the opportunity to provide something really good for incorporated societies. So the litigation risk is heavily minimised, and people can sort out their affairs and their disputes without too much drama. On that basis, I commend the bill to the House.

Dr ELIZABETH KEREKERE (Green): Tēnā anō koutou ki a koutou. [Thank you all again.] Community, voluntary, and tangata whenua sector organisations play many different roles, including direct provision of services to individuals, whānau, and groups but also to the environment, offering mutual provision of support and self-help by members to members, advocacy, education and resource, and community business.

The sector brings many benefits that are often unfunded but are just as important as the official roles they hold. These include the building of civil society; the strengthening of our democracy through the spreading of information; the discussion of topical affairs and taking action on those; contributing to the economy; supporting people who are affected by social, economic, environmental, health, or disability problems; job creation; skills development, research and development; and the building of culturally diverse and connected communities.

The Green Party envisages a strong and independent tangata whenua community and voluntary sector within Aotearoa that contributes in ecologically and socially sustainable ways to enhance our social, economic, cultural, spiritual, physical, mental, and economic wellbeing. We would hope that central and local government will play a constructive, enabling role and the sector is generally respected and valued for what it contributes to our society.

Describing the 1908 law as incomplete, inaccessible, and unclear is quite emphatic, but still quite an understatement. For those of us who have worked in the community and voluntary sector for many, many years, along with me you’ve probably written a whole tonne of convoluted constitutions and worked really hard to make it work within the Act that we’ve had to deal with. So the Green Party welcomes this new bill that will replace it and acknowledges the report from the Law Commission of 2013.

We support using the Māori legal frameworks—Māori? I slipped that in. “Modern”—modern legal frameworks, and incorporating the case law that has been built up over the years. But we’d just like to comment quickly on three kaupapa. Number one: we’re interested that a new legal provision also recommended by the Law Commission is that an incorporated society may express its tikanga now in the constitution. Now, many of us always have, and the Law Commission—I quote, “This express recognition of tikanga or culture in the statute will encourage the courts to give greater weight to it when they’re interpreting constitutions.” We note, however, that while targeted stakeholder consultation was done with Māori on this bill, no formal process for assessing whether the policies comply with Te Tiriti o Waitangi was done, and we’ll be encouraging absolutely our Māori organisations to be contributing that whakaaro during the select committee process.

Secondly, individuals, families, groups of people often come together to form organisations to carry out purposes not recognised by other institutions and that may oppose existing Government policy or social norms. The risk taking and innovation is a key characteristic of many community organisations. It puts them at the cutting edge of our social and political, economic and environmental development, and that’s really, really important. So we want to acknowledge the need for the independence of incorporated societies. No incorporated society should be penalised because they look out for and advocate for their members on the issues that they represent. Given almost every incorporated society will outlive the Government of the day, no organisation should have their funding or charitable status threatened because their advocacy challenges the policy of whoever happens to be in power at the time.

Thirdly, we welcome standardising transparent and clearer financial reporting for incorporated societies—absolutely. I have to say, my mother signed me up as a junior member of the Māori Women’s Welfare League when I was 15, and the first thing they did was make me the treasurer. I have been doing books for 40 years, somewhere or other, and depending on what organisation we were in and the scale of our operations, the intricacies and the accounting you need to learn or the money you had to pay for sometimes very—maybe, if you’re lucky—asset rich, but usually cash-poor organisations. So we still have a concern that financial reporting will still be a burden for some of those smaller ones, and we see that “small” has been defined as operating payments of below $10,000, assets of below $30,000, and that it is not a donee organisation under the Income Tax Act. We’re hoping that rather than the Minister using their powers to change these thresholds later via an order, we can do it this time; we can make it really, really sensible for those small organisations now. I am so very mindful of those thousands and thousands of volunteers out there who could do without the extra paperwork.

When this goes to select committee, again, we’ll be listening for the submissions from the legal and accounting sector to see how much of an actual concern or risk these small organisations are in the scale of things. The community, voluntary, and tangata whenua sector is the lifeblood of our country. They could do with an incorporated society Act that reflects this. So on that basis, I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

DAMIEN SMITH (ACT): First of all, we’re not going to go back through the history of the bill; we’re just going to try and go forward. ACT’s going to support this bill on the first reading, so we have clarity about that, but there will be a few challenges in the select committee. We certainly agree with the Green Party member Dr Elizabeth Kerekere in terms of hearing from the legal profession.

What happens in the accounting profession, because a lot of people on these boards are actually doing it as professional accountants and lawyers but not really actually charging. But there’s one thing that we have observed which goes back to the society’s powers in an administrative and financial sense, and, you know, there’s some simple questions about what happens when you buy, sell, or exchange property, or you enter a lease. I think under this new format that’s not quite—the arc hasn’t quite been drawn where it matches up. That also begs the question is that surplus assets—if a club sells land, let’s say it’s got a car park or a building or a farm, then what is it that happens to that asset? At the moment, the law proposes it requires surplus assets to be pointed towards a charitable trust. I mean, that’s their property right and it should be respected. So in that sense, we see that as a step backwards because the individual society should be able to decide where money should go under its constitution.

So if you look at Part 3 Administration of societies and you look at the examples of the society’s powers in a financial sense, I don’t think the implications of that on a practical day-to-day level have really been thought through, and what the directors and executors and employees of those organisations would have to face in terms of trying to implement this document. So in the select committee we’re looking forward to hearing from the professionals around that area.

I also think that there’s a horses-for-courses scenario to be built into this, which is, you know, some of the examples that have been raised are very small or they’re very big, and there needs to be some more thought put into that particular part of the process.

So ACT will be supporting the bill on its first reading. But we look forward to a really rigorous analysis in the select committee stage. Thank you.

NAISI CHEN (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise in this House extremely proud, actually, to be able to speak on this bill because I am a huge beneficiary of the Incorporated Societies Act. I recognise my colleague Elizabeth there, talking about her experience of joining an incorporated society at 15 years old and becoming the treasurer. I reflect on my own journey, especially to do with the music side of my life in terms of being able to join orchestras and choirs that were formed under the 1908 Act. I remember last time when I got up to speak in this House and I commented about how that particular Act was passed before I was born. I got quite a bit of flak from my colleagues about it and so today I can safely say that the Act is old enough to have been legislated before everyone in this House was born. I can say that without any controversy. But that just goes to show just how old the Act is.

As an MP and a candidate beforehand, I think we’ve all been privileged to build long-lasting and meaningful relationships with many incorporated societies in our respective electorates and communities and I, especially in the Chinese community, am no exception. Through my journey of interacting with these incorporated societies, I realise there are some very, very exceptional societies out there who do so much mahi for our community. They are a place where our community can gather, and especially for a migrant community, they are a source of information. People feel like they have a sense of belonging when they come together and meet every week or every month, and they also sense a collective voice so they can find some sort of strength and unity. But obviously we know through our experiences that not every day is a smooth-sailing day and sometimes incorporated societies do fall, and that’s where I think that this bill, in terms of the dispute resolution mechanisms that we are putting into it, is going to be extremely helpful so that we can actually spell out what happens when things aren’t always so right.

Just continuing on with the music analogy, I learnt when I was singing in a choir that we are only as good as our weakest singer. What that means, I think, in terms of our community as well is that this bill will ensure that the bottom line gets strengthened so that no incorporated society falls through and that, starting with this bill, there are mechanisms in there to make sure that we strengthen each and every society that gets incorporated under this bill, to make sure that they all have the facility and the knowledge to run themselves as very smooth societies.

I’ve always recognised that there is also a need for training, no matter whether it’s in the governance space or the leadership space. I think it’s really important that now that we’ve prescribed all of these inbuilt mechanisms to run a society properly, I really do look forward to popularising this bill, which will, hopefully, pass and become an Act, so that incorporated societies, through this upgrade of our law, will be able to upgrade their infrastructure internally, and so that their people will be trained to be better governors of these different organisations so that our community collectively will find strength. On that note, I commend this bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call Maureen Pugh—five minutes.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand in support of the Incorporated Societies Bill tonight in its first reading. As we’ve heard from many of the speakers on this bill, most of us have had some experience in our own communities about being involved in incorporated societies. I do note the many examples that have been given tonight. But I’d just like to run through some of the 23,000—I’m not going to read them all—incorporated societies that do appear on the register. What they do is they represent sporting bodies like New Zealand Rugby—that has a reported income of $162 million a year—and then it ranges back to things like the war memorial societies, with maybe $5,000 or $6,000 income a year. This bill covers a huge range of activities—cultural, sporting, education, a lot of social services, incorporated societies, philanthropy organisations, emergency relief, environmental protection, animal protection, and religious. So when we’re talking about this bill, we’re actually talking about a huge influence that incorporated societies have in New Zealand.

It’s no secret, as the member who’s just resumed her seat, Naisi Chen, also said, that this Act is very old—1908. It does need modernising, and the language does need to be more appropriate for 2021. I note in it that it still refers to the fines that must be paid in shillings, and I would even hazard a guess that there would be some people in this House tonight who don’t even know what a shilling was, or never got to spend a shilling.

Kieran McAnulty: What’s a shilling?

MAUREEN PUGH: It’s a shilling.

Kieran McAnulty: Is it the same as a threepence?

MAUREEN PUGH: It’s more than a threepence.

Kieran McAnulty: Is it?

MAUREEN PUGH: Yes it is. It’s about four times more than a threepence. As you can tell, the language does need to be modernised.

I think one of the cautions that we need to have with a bill like this, too, is that we know that there are some financial responsibilities that people who hold the officer roles in these societies need to be responsible for. This bill seeks to put those in the same category as directors and have the same responsibilities as they do. But I think we’ve also got to be really careful that we find the balance between the responsibilities that directors have on companies versus the benefit that some of these smaller organisations have in our communities and that we don’t make it such an onerous process that we scare a lot of our volunteers away from being involved in these organisations, because, as many have said tonight, they are very core to some of our smaller communities and some of our bigger communities because of the role that they perform in those communities.

I think the select committee is going to have its work cut out for it as we progress this bill through the House in finding that balance between the fiduciary responsibilities and the ability for smaller organisations to be able to be maintained without the onerous obligations that may come with it, especially with organisations that have very small incomes that then have to be responsible for expensive audit fees.

So we will need to keep that in mind as we progress this bill. But there are some aspects of it that I think are very worthwhile, and, again, I think the select committee will turn its mind to the detail around the minimum number of members that must be involved. At the moment, the bill is proposing 10. Whether or not that’s going to suit a huge amount of smaller communities, I think the select committee process will flesh that out as it calls for submissions on this bill.

The House is in agreement, and no doubt that’s because we’re supporting it because it was actually initiated by the National Government a few years ago. It has taken its time to work its way through on to the Order Paper, and we certainly will be taking an active part in the committee process. I commend the bill. Thank you.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call Arena Williams—five minutes.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. Ki te Whare e tū nei, tēnā koe. Ki ngā mema Pāremata i tēnei pō, tēnā koutou katoa.

[Mr Speaker, thank you. To the House that stands here, I acknowledge you. To the members of Parliament this evening, I greet you all.]

I rise with a sense of responsibility to take the call of the Māori Party, who are not here tonight.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! You cannot say that any member or party’s not here.

ARENA WILLIAMS: Aroha mai, Mr Speaker. In the absence of the Māori Party, I will be taking this call to speak on an issue which—[Interruption] sorry—is of great importance to many Māori organisations who organise themselves as incorporated societies when they become post-settlement governance entities. I’m talking, of course, about organisations which have gone through a process of representing their iwi and have become organisations which require a legal character, require a body, to represent those members or beneficiaries, and an incorporated society is a common vehicle for them to do this. This is a particularly important bill for ngā iwi Māori o te motu because of the way that litigation, because of these incorporated societies rules being out of date and not fit for purpose in the current governance environment, has created needless litigation, needless disagreements, between whānau and hapū and iwi Māori. It’s something which I think many governors and leaders within te ao Māori will be very keen to see progressed by the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, and would commend his efforts in this area.

I wish to make three points in my brief contribution, and the first is the power of bringing tikanga into the rules of the incorporated societies. The second is about clarification of the roles of governors in incorporated societies, and the third is in clarifying the need for dispute resolution provisions. But first I want to congratulate those Māori organisations which have organised themselves as incorporated societies who have brought us to this point, who have changed the law through case law, with time, with effort, with the effort of volunteers, and with a considerable amount of money, to clarify the rules in this space for everyone who uses incorporated societies—none more so than very sophisticated iwi organisations like Te Whakakitenga o Waikato, which through the years, between 2016 and 2020, saw a number of heavily litigated disputes which were of no value to the iwi itself but were born out of a piece of legislation which was not fit for purpose and hadn’t been properly clarified by Parliament to meet modern requirements of organisations which, through the development of case law in this area, have come to owe the duties akin to those of company directors to their members.

That litigation was sophisticated litigation. It required a number of hours to get to the heart of the issues in those cases, and this raft of measures would allow organisations in the position that Te Whakakitenga o Waikato was in at that time to progress these issues much faster and with much less time and effort and money spent, particularly with the introduction of the ability to include tikanga in the rules of the incorporated societies. This is something that I think the Minister should be commended on with action in this area, because it brings the ability for members to bring disputes about their rules within a tikanga Māori framework, which is so important for the iwi organisations that use these. It also provides an avenue for the courts to inquire into whether tikanga was perhaps followed, and that, on this side of the House, is something that we Māori Government members support and want to see the Minister interrogate further and the select committee do more work on at the select committee stage. That is why—and my apologies for my error in my introductory remarks—I commend this bill to the House.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. I rise in support of the Incorporated Societies Bill, and I want to thank the Hon Dr David Clark for his work bringing it to the House, and also referring it to the Economic Development, Science, and Innovation Committee, which I am a part of. I can’t wait to get into the select committee process.

Like many of us, in fact probably all of us, we have been involved in incorporated societies. So I think we all have a lot of information and a lot of listening to do in our communities. I just want to speak briefly on three points tonight: I want to speak around the historic nature of the legislation that currently exists; I want to talk about the reach that incorporated societies have around our communities; and, I want to talk about modernising the bill. At the moment, it’s a bookend kind of piece of legislation. How do we actually modernise what we have?

We’ve been down memory lane already tonight several times, I know, but I have some more fun facts from 1908; I know a couple of you remember them well. The first train to travel on the main trunk line in the North Island—it was actually called the “Parliamentary Special”—so that was actually 1908. So appropriate—so appropriate.

The year 1908 was also when Ernest Rutherford was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Kieran McAnulty: Big Labour man.

GLEN BENNETT: That’s right, of course. So, you know, 1908, and we’ve heard lots of other information this evening around 1908; I’m sure all our history teachers are really grateful for the work they did educating us, with Google as well.

But, anyway, we’ve talked about the 24,000 different incorporated societies: this is everything from sports and education, health, Māori organisations and marae, you’ve got animal welfare groups, religious organisations, environmental, welfare services, music, theatre, the list goes on and on and on. I know for a lot of us, we’ve been on those types of incorporated societies. Where else would we have such a diverse and rich array of lamingtons and sausage rolls that our nation loves? It is because of the work of incorporated societies, I believe, but I digress.

So incorporated societies encompass all aspects of our society. They are so important for the work, for the fabric of our communities, as the Hon Andrew Little said earlier. So when the legislation was created in the year 1908, they very much focused on creating a society and they very much worked on how to wind up a society, but kind of the bits in between—they had the bookends right. So I guess we’re working with this piece of legislation to maybe put some books into that bookshelf for the bookends at each end. Because it left and it leaves, today, societies with the challenges of figuring out some of their own common rules, how to act in good faith, and looking at what they believe to be in the best interests of a society. We’re helping with that work as we take this through the House.

So, like I said, I look forward to being on the select committee, talking this through, working this through. I appreciate all sides of the House, all parties, so far have supported us going to select committee. I can’t wait to hear what our communities have to say, and for them to be heard, for them to be valued, and, hopefully, some lamingtons and sausage rolls on the way.

So this is a historic piece of legislation that’s about to be changed. This reaches into all parts of our community and this is around modernising the bill. I commend this bill to the House.

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): I rise to support the Incorporated Societies Bill in its first reading. As a number of speakers tonight have said, the Incorporated Societies Act is more than 100 years old and it’s silent on many important areas of governance. It no longer gives the right level of direction for governing and administrating a society in today’s conditions.

The proposed changes set out in this Incorporated Societies Bill will help ensure New Zealanders can better run their societies and give them greater certainty in the processes to use. It also sets out a framework for dealing with disputes and grievances, which the current Act does not do. Given the important role that incorporated societies play in New Zealand, it’s important that we ensure the rules governing them are fit for purpose in today’s conditions, are sensible, straightforward, and easy to comply with. In the spirit of bipartisanship, I think it’s quite sensible that the Government has seen fit to carry on the work the previous National Government did in developing and releasing the first draft of this legislation for consultation, and I look forward to seeing the progress of this bill through the House.

The Minister, in his opening remarks, referred to a number of incorporated societies, and they were all good and worthy of mention, but one in particular that caught my ear was the Gore Country Music Club Incorporated, which incorporated back in 1972. I just have to mention the importance of that as an illustration of the value that incorporated societies give to our communities. The Gore Country Music Club has had a core role in developing the New Zealand Gold Guitar Awards, which has been going for 46 years. We’ve got the Tussock Country Music Festival coming up on 29 May to 6 June. I’d recommend everyone go to it. It’s quite an epic.

In developing those connections that incorporated societies do, I just note that because of the Gold Guitar Awards in country music, Tamworth, in New South Wales, Australia, and Gore formed a sister city relationship back in 1992, and that’s continued to flourish over the years. The Tamworth mayor, the sister city chairman, and Tourism Tamworth regularly attend the festival, and the Mayor of Gore regularly attends the Tamworth music festival, which is usually in January, I understand. Hopefully, with the trans-Tasman bubble, we might be able to see them back in Gore for the music festival this May and June.

Look, just moving on from that, there’s three good reasons, I’d say, that this proposed legislation addresses. Firstly, the rules and regulations surrounding incorporated societies should be up to date and applicable to 2021 and not 1908. As a number of other speakers have mentioned today, the 1908 Act requires fines to be paid in shillings. This bill will put into place a framework that’s suitable for our modern conditions.

Secondly, a modern law is necessary to give guidance to New Zealanders who volunteer to run not-for-profit organisations. Given the role they play in New Zealand, it’s important we ensure that rules governing them are fit for purpose, straightforward, and easy for them to comply with.

Thirdly, this piece of law has a good background in multi-party support over a long period of time and with genuine community consultation. Through submissions and consultation with stakeholders, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has noted significant support from the voluntary sector for reforms of this nature, and because the proposed reforms are extensive and the structure of the 1908 Act doesn’t provide a strong base, it’s best to start afresh.

So this Incorporated Societies Bill will bring the existing statutory regime into the modern age. The New Zealand Institute of Directors welcomed the introduction of the bill, noting that “The Bill overhauls governance structures and arrangements for societies. Governance duties are set out in one place for the first time, helping to provide certainty for those leading societies. There are also new conflict of interest rules, which are essential for boards.” Committee members and officers of incorporated societies have duties similar to those of a director under the Companies Act 1993. However, those duties have been developed through case law, not the 1908 Act. This rule will provide people elected into governance roles a clear understanding of what they have to do with the law, and that’s very useful.

Anecdotally, I understand that auditors have experienced instances where organisations have been adversely impacted due to poor governance, not aided—I would say—by the 1908 Act. Auditors have also seen instances where incorporated societies have got into serious financial difficulties or even been subject to financial mismanagement or even fraud due to a lack of appropriate accounting disciplines.

There are no cases where it is acceptable for an officer of an incorporated society to place a personal financial interest ahead of the interests of the society without first disclosing the conflict. Therefore, leaving it up to individual societies to make their own conflict of interest rules is negligent compared to the option of including it in a statutory regime, and that is why we need this legislation.

The proposed legislation also gives clearer guidance to New Zealanders who take time out of their lives to run not-for-profit organisations, which is such a core part of the fabric of this country. The more than 24,000 incorporated societies in New Zealand are an essential part of our social fabric. They provide a range of valuable services at both a community and national level, including sport, culture, education, health, and animal protection.

The Law Commission noted in a report which led to this legislation that “The largely voluntary space in which incorporated societies operate is an important part of New Zealand society and of the economy. Uncertainties and difficulties in the current incorporated society regime not only create significant problems for particular incorporated societies, but also create uncertainty and difficulty for the sector as a whole. … Much of the law of incorporated societies [is currently found] not … in the statute … but in the case law … Case law is not particularly accessible or useful for most Incorporated Societies because in general the people that run societies: (a) may not have the funds to take legal advice about what case law exists; (b) [may] have limited legal training; [and] (c) if able to obtain legal advice, may find it difficult to determine what the case law may mean for the society and its application to resolving a current [dispute] in a cost-effective manner.”

Given the vital role that the societies play in New Zealand, it is important we ensure the rules governing them are fit for purpose, sensible, straightforward, and easy to comply with. This is a good start for a piece of law that has been developed over a period of time and with genuine community consultation, and largely this bill has been well-thought-out. It will strengthen the governance organisations that hold together our community, and it modernises and clarifies law governing incorporated societies. So I’m happy to commend this bill to the House in its first reading.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): We’ve heard it all tonight about the importance of incorporated societies, particularly around rugby clubs and leisure groups, and so on, but I would also like to tautoko those who have talked about the importance of incorporated societies as part of the third sector in holding Government and other organisations to account. There is one being formed at the moment in my own electorate of Taieri, where a bunch of residents are concerned about a proposed landfill that is being proposed at Brighton Beach, near a creek, and rather than try and go through the process and the system as individuals, they have an understanding that their collective voice will have more impact, and they are going through the process of forming an incorporated society, which is the right thing to do, certainly in terms of being able to get advice and share information and share the collective passion for protecting their patch in the world.

So that is just an example of the sort of third-sector use of incorporated societies that really adds to New Zealand’s mana and reputation internationally as a transparent society—and, in fact, to our ranking as No. 1 out of 180 societies last year ranked by Transparency International. It is not just our public sector; it is also our third sector that shows this level of transparency and good governance. But, as we’ve heard tonight, the law is out of date, and we also need to have better governance structures within incorporated societies, and better accountability. We also need them to be fair to the officers who take on the roles—that they understand what their duties and obligations are, which is only fair. We’ve heard that we need proportionality on the financial reporting, and I’m sure that will form a good part of the submissions that come in to the select committee, which is the rightful place to have that discussion. I would encourage all incorporated societies to make their submissions around that so we get that level of proportionality correct in terms of being able to get the accountability that’s needed, the stability that’s needed, but also to make it fair on those societies, to not over burden them, and to allow for the great diversity in representation that we need on these societies, because, every time we add a layer of governance, we may exclude people. So we need to get that proportionality right, and it will be great to see that at the select committee.

Just one final comment from me is around A and P shows. Having part of my electorate be rural, these are a really important feature of the rural calendar, and we’ve had them in Balclutha and Middlemarch and Northern Taieri. There was some discussion, at several points of the long history of this Act, about including A and P shows into the legislation. In fact, they have been carved out; they will remain under the Minister of Agriculture and the Agricultural and Pastoral Societies Act. The submission made by the Royal Agricultural Society, on behalf of its 96 A and P society members, stated that all its members wished to remain firmly under the Agricultural and Pastoral Societies Act. So, for anybody in my electorate who is concerned that this is going to make changes to those A and P bodies, that do such a fantastic job in putting on events that promote farming and rural life and bring our communities together, you don’t need to worry; you are still being governed under the Agricultural and Pastoral Societies Act. There is some concern that that Act is outdated and incomplete and inconsistent with modern governance principles and practices, but I am sure there will be another opportunity to look at that, and, in the meantime, for the other incorporated societies that are captured by this bill, I do commend it to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is, That the Incorporated Societies Bill be considered by the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee.

Bills

Social Security (Subsequent Child Policy Removal) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment) on behalf of the Minister for Social Development and Employment: I present a legislative statement on the Social Security (Subsequent Child Policy Removal) Amendment Bill.

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

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: I move, That the Social Security (Subsequent Child Policy Removal) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the bill.

The Government has committed to overhaul the welfare system following years of neglect by the previous National Government. Our vision is for a welfare system that ensures that people have an adequate income and standard of living, are treated with and can live with dignity, and are able to participate meaningfully in their communities. In November 2019, Cabinet endorsed a long-term welfare overhaul work programme to build towards that vision. As part of this work programme, we continue to explore the removal of ineffective obligations and sanctions, as recommended by the Welfare Expert Advisory Group. The short-term focus of that work is on the sanctions that impact children, their families, and whānau.

Initial progress on this review of obligations and sanctions included the repeal in April 2020 of section 192 of the Social Security Act 2018, which previously sanctioned sole parent beneficiaries who did not identify the other parent of their child. The Government has also made progress in other areas of the welfare overhaul, such as the introduction of the Families Package in 2018; a permanent $25 increase to main benefits in April 2020; the indexation of main benefits to increases in average wages from April 2020; an increase to abatement thresholds for main benefits in line with minimum wage increases in April 2020, with further increases announced in February 2021; and a range of other initiatives, including those implemented as part of the Government’s response to COVID19.

We’re taking further steps to put children first by removing the subsequent child policy from the Social Security Act 2018. The subsequent child policy was introduced in 2012. It currently impacts eligibility for sole parent support, as opposed to jobseeker support, and places obligations on parents to return to work earlier if they have an additional dependent child while receiving a main benefit. If a person has a subsequent child while receiving a main benefit, that child is only considered when setting work obligations until they reach the age of one. Work obligations are then based on the age of the person’s youngest non-subsequent dependent child. In effect, after the subsequent child turns one, that child is ignored for the purposes of setting work obligations and eligibility for sole parent support.

The policy’s primary focus was on requiring parents to return to work as early as possible after having a subsequent child. However, there is no evidence to suggest that the policy has reduced time on benefit or improved financial or social outcomes. In fact, it disproportionately impacts Māori and women, has contributed to increasing complexity in the welfare system, and has reduced flexibility for parents to spend time with their child or children. The Welfare Expert Advisory Group recommended the removal of the subsequent child policy. It noted the policy is an aspect of the system that does not support women’s roles as carers. In our manifesto, the Government committed to removing the subsequent child policy in 2021. In July 2020, Cabinet agreed to the policy’s removal and the Government publicly announced this decision.

Approximately 9,000 people and their families will be impacted by the policy’s removal. For these people, the removal of the policy means increased flexibility to spend time with their children in the first thousand days of their lives, which is a critical time period for a child’s long-term development. It also means increased equity and simplicity in the welfare system, a reduction in stress and a positive impact on mental health and wellbeing, and eligibility for additional financial assistance for some clients. For those parents who do want to work earlier, they will still have access to employment support and be supported to transition into the workforce.

The Social Security (Subsequent Child Policy Removal) Amendment Bill contains two parts. Part 1 will amend the Social Security Act and Social Security Regulations to remove provisions relating to the policy and to make related consequential amendments. It comes into force on 8 November 2021. Part 2 sets out transitional provisions related to the removal of the policy, and it comes into force on 11 October 2021. This will allow for a 28-day transition period prior to the policy’s removal, and the transition period will also extend 28 days after the policy’s removal to ensure equitable access and equitable treatment across a range of timings. These transitional provisions allow the Ministry of Social Development to treat new applications or clients with a change in circumstances consistently with the removal of the policy to avoid multiple changes to their entitlements over a short period of time. This will improve the client’s experience for those affected by reducing complexity for affected clients and will ensure that the treatment of specified client scenarios in the transition period aligns with the policy intent of the initiative.

The changes in this bill reflect the Government’s commitment to supporting the wellbeing of New Zealanders and enabling everyone who is able to to be earning, learning, caring, or volunteering. I commend this bill to the House.

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

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a bit of a pity to be standing in this House with the Government unwinding what was an important part of the changes that were made to the welfare system in the fifth National Government. I want to just explain a little bit about why that change occurred, because you wouldn’t have heard it from the Minister who’s just resumed her seat.

The subsequent child policy in 2012 was about reducing long-term welfare dependency, and the important part was to align the expectations of those on main benefits and those in paid employment. Currently, if you are in employment and have a child, then you’ll get paid parental leave for 26 weeks and you’ll get parental leave for a total of 12 months, so the removal of the subsequent child policy was about actually aligning it to someone who was on benefit and in work. I’m somewhat puzzled as to why the Government thinks there should be a playing field that’s not level—so, basically, putting more emphasis on a person receiving benefits, and they have different choices available to them than the person who’s in paid employment.

Look, for any parent, juggling parenthood and work is incredibly difficult. Transitioning from being a sole parent on a benefit into work is bloody difficult, and I know I’m not the only member of this House who’s been through that. But the core of this issue is about the wellbeing of children over the long term. So when you introduce a policy, the question always has to be: what problem is this policy attempting to solve but also what problem will this policy create?

I think that it’s a sad day in this House, because the impacts of long-term welfare dependency, particularly on children, are harsh. Of the children, and there are thousands of them in New Zealand who live in material hardship, 60 percent of them are in benefit-dependent homes, so to put measures in place that keep their parents, keep their families, dependent on benefits is just plain wrong. It is totally and absolutely wrong to remove the expectation, to remove the aspiration, of that family being a working family, and keeping them as a benefit-dependent family is plainly and simply wrong.

If you look at any of the evidence about the impact of welfare dependency—and I’m pleased that the members opposite are hanging their heads in shame, because they know what this does. I want to give you some quotes about long-term benefit dependency, because that’s exactly what this does. The general expectation to be looking for work in the benefit system makes an important difference to how long someone stays on a benefit. We already know the evidence says if you go on to benefit under the age of 20, your lifetime on benefit is likely to be 14 years. Unfortunately, what we’ve seen in the last 12 months, with an increase in nearly 80,000 people going on to the job seeker benefit, is that many of them have been there for 12 months already.

This is a quote from the work that was done in 2011 by the Welfare Working Group, Reducing Long-Term Benefit Dependency: “There is a growing consensus that joblessness is particularly harmful to mental and physical health. There is increasing evidence that long-term benefit receipt has harmful effects on confidence, skills and future employability.” But this is the one I would like the Government members to listen to: “For parents with dependent children, long-term benefit receipt is strongly associated with poor results for children. Children raised in long-term benefit dependent families are likely to suffer adverse health effects, poorer educational achievement and reduced aspirations.”

That’s what the Government is doing with this bill. They are destining the next generation of children, instead of them being with an expectation or an aspiration of being in work with higher incomes and greater opportunities, with three times as much income coming into a household if you’re in work—three times as much. But, no, the Government would rather keep those families down and the children of those families locked into long-term poverty and reducing their opportunities. I think that’s just entirely wrong.

But what I also suspect it is signalling is a significant change in how Labour sees the welfare system, because the current principles of the Social Security Act—and I want to just put them on record for the House, because I think it’s very relevant to this bill. The Social Security Act principles currently are that “work in paid employment offers the best opportunity for people to achieve social and economic well-being:”. This Government wants to talk about being the Government of wellbeing. Well, that says it right there: work in paid employment offers the best opportunity for people to achieve social and economic wellbeing.

The priority for people of working age should be to find and retain work. So I fully accept for a household where there are already children—this bill is about the subsequent child and obligations that should be in place when that child turns one, which is no different from any other working family up and down this country when their parent gets 12 months’ parental leave. But, no, the Government wants to tip the balance the other way and potentially trap that family in long-term benefit dependency, which is a lousy future for that child.

These are the principles of the Social Security Act. I think what we are seeing is the signal with this removal that just seems to be very arbitrary.

Here’s another one that talks about the outcomes for children: “One in five children spend at least seven years of their childhood up to the age of 14 in households that rely on benefit income.” As I said, if someone is in work, they’ll be earning three times—it might be more than that now—what they’d be getting in a benefit. So how is that better for children? How is that better? No, no answer. No answer from the other side.

At the end of the day, a family will be worse off on a benefit than they are in a household that is working for that child’s benefit, for the family’s benefit, and for their future prospects, and if there is anyone watching this debate who says “Oh, this is an opportunity to bash beneficiaries.”, it is not—it is not. I’ve been there. Don’t grin at me from the other side. It is bloody hard to pick yourself up with a young baby and get back into work. It is incredibly difficult, but the opportunities afforded from the families who work through that, the opportunities for them and their children are far greater.

That is what the National Party holds dear to—the aspirations and future for every child in this country—and the Labour Party, by repealing this provision for subsequent children, is destining more Kiwi kids to a life of poverty, a life of hardship, fewer educational achievements, and poorer health and social outcomes. How is that the big Labour Party dream of child wellbeing? It is totally and absolutely not, and that’s why it’s just devastating to stand and speak in this House for a massive step backwards for some of the most vulnerable children in New Zealand for whom, for a period of time, their parent or parents aren’t able to create an income. Instead, they chop it off at the knees, provide fewer opportunities for that family to be in work, fewer obligations, fewer expectations, and, unfortunately, lower aspirations—welcome to the Labour Party.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is actually a real pleasure to stand and speak on this bill. I want to acknowledge and congratulate Carmel Sepuloni for bringing this bill to the House. It is one of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group report recommendations, and it’s something that my party has very, very clearly said in our manifesto that we will do. I am very proud that we are doing this tonight. We have heard from the Hon Louise Upston, the previous speaker, that the removal of the subsequent child policy will force children into poverty and take away the aspirations of families. Well, hang on a minute, what does this bill actually do, as opposed to the dramatics that we heard across the floor?

This bill is not about taking the aspirations of families away. This bill is recognising that if a subsequent child is born, at year one, once that child hits the age of one, then mum—we’ll say “mum” in this instance because it generally is mum—is required to ignore the fact that they have had that child and to have full work-ready requirements. Irrespective of what happens in that household, irrespective of how many other children there are, irrespective of the circumstances of that particular family, the subsequent child policy says, very clearly, “You have to go out to work.”

Now, I have been a single mother, as has the Hon Louise Upston. Both of us, I believe, only had the one child, and we know how hard it is to be single mums. I was on the DPB and then a working mum. Now, my aspirations never disappeared, ever, and the aspirations of people never disappear just simply because there is a punitive process in place. It just doesn’t work.

The Opposition tell us that they care so much about the first 1,000 days of a child’s life. They tell us this constantly, and they constantly say to us that the first 1,000 days—which is the first 24 months—is so very important. Well, whose children are they talking about when they talk about the first thousand days? We want all our children to have the choices, and we want the parents to have the choices. If it is best to stay at home and look after your baby and you’re a single mum, then that is what you will be able to do under this piece of legislation.

Why is that important? It’s because our children deserve the best, and what’s best for our children is not the State saying, “Get off your butt and get out to work, regardless of whether you can afford child support, childcare, or any of those things.”; it’s actually about whether you as a parent can manage to work when you have another child. That is it, quite simply.

What we know is that the first thousand days are very important. This removal aligns that child policy really well so that we enable families. If they want and if they’re able, and if they’re able to manage it, they can go out to work. They do not have a punitive response at that point. They do not have difficulties with achieving and keeping a benefit.

Let’s just talk about what actually happens at the moment—how the law actually works. I’m just going to step through a scenario. Mum has one child and receives a sole parent benefit currently. Mum has the following work obligations, currently, at this point. She has the work preparation obligations of the first child if the child is under three, she is at home, is caring, but is doing work prep—OK? So that’s the first step. The second step: part-time work obligations if the child is aged three and above to 14 years, and then, after 14 years, full-time work obligations if the child is 14 years or over—OK? So that’s what’s in place at the moment.

Now, if mum has a second child—or a subsequent child, as we call it—once that child turns one, then they have to go to step three: full-time work obligations. That’s how it works, and that does not take into account anything to do with the family circumstances or what’s best for the children or for the children of that family, so you might as well say that the second child doesn’t count as a child for the purposes.

We’re not removing the aspirations of these women and these parents—we’re not doing that. We’re not taking anything away. We’re actually enabling people to make choices for themselves and to support their families. They have the option—the option—to go to work if that suits their family circumstances, and, believe you me, that will suit many women’s circumstances, but some it will not. Removing something that is standardised is the best way forward.

This bill has two parts to it, and they’re coming in on two different dates: 8 November and 11 October 2021. So we’ve got two parts. We’re going to be in a hurry to get this legislation managed and through the House to ensure that this is in place to support our families, and it’s really important we do this because the transition period—sorry, I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself; spitting a little bit I think, sorry. It’s really important we do this so that the transition period—sorry—

Hon Member: Say it; don’t spray it.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: I won’t spray it. The transition period very clearly enables our families to know where they sit. If we don’t run the transition processes through, what will happen is that people will get notice upon notice upon notice from Work and Income, and the difficulty with that really means that families won’t know where they stand exactly. So the transition period comes in on 11 October, and that will support our families to understand where their obligations are.

This is a rather small piece of legislation in terms of what it actually purports to do—or, rather, the bill is rather small. But the changes that it brings in place are really about supporting and valuing our families as parents, and it also supports us meeting some of the needs of our most vulnerable families.

I guess, if you could imagine the situation where you are on a sole parent benefit, you’re not necessarily having the support of a wider family or whānau, you’re not necessarily having a good social structure around you, and then you have a second child—and don’t even get me started on contraception in this country and the rights of our mums to carry children or not—and somehow you are punished for that. You’re not supposed to be able to have another child while you are a beneficiary, apparently, and you’re required to go out to work after one year. That, to me, smacks of beneficiary bashing, and I will say that—I will say that. It does not enable anyone to do better by forcing a person to go out and do that work, particularly if you are a single parent, you are on a sole benefit, and you are lacking in resources.

One of the things that I’m delighted about is that we are removing the subsequent child proportion, but the other part that we are doing is putting in place the training incentive allowance again to support mammas into work. Thank you.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. It’s a real tragedy that we are even standing here tonight talking to the Social Security (Subsequent Child Policy Removal) Amendment Bill in its first reading. We’ve heard a lot of commentary from the Government side of the House tonight about how kind this is to people on benefits because it takes away the subsequent child policy that’s been in place for quite a few years, but I think it’s worth noting the reason that that was in place.

The subsequent child policy was around employment support that was provided by the Ministry of Social Development earlier in a parent’s time, or lifetime, because we recognised the disadvantage in long-term benefit dependency. In fact, the member Angie Warren-Clark, who has just resumed her seat, mentioned training incentives, but that was the whole point of having this subsequent child policy introduced. It was because it incentivised people on a benefit on get retrained and to re-enter the workforce. It doesn’t matter what research you look at, families that are trapped in benefit dependency have much poorer outcomes in the long term, and my colleague Louise Upston mentioned a few of those earlier.

The research and the facts do not lie. In fact, I will quote from the OECD, actually. They wrote that paid work is the most effective way of reducing the risk of family poverty, enhancing child development, and generally giving children the best start in life. It sets an example. It sets a routine. It sets up an obligation on parents to get up in the morning, to get their kids up in the morning. It teaches them about the responsibilities you have in going to work and earning for your family. In fact, in 2010, the Welfare Working Group actually highlighted a few things that we should be turning our minds to.

There is powerful evidence out of that working group document to suggest that long periods spent on a benefit and hence a low income is associated with a range of adverse social and economic outcomes, especially for young adults and children. These adverse outcomes may be transmitted across generations and become entrenched in communities. The most effective thing that Governments can do is to break that cycle and give people back their independence. While they are dependent on the State for their income, for their livelihood, they have lost their independence. Empowering people to be independent is a far better investment than reducing some of these benefit support systems that we’re talking about tonight.

I was pleased to hear some of the members mention the first thousand days—lovely to see the Labour Party picking up some of the language from National Party policies. The first thousand days, of course, is the most important part of a child’s life from conception, the only time in a human’s life when we get the chance to build a brain. So supporting people through those first thousand days—mums and their babies and their dads and their siblings—is crucially important. It doesn’t mean that you do not have to go to work. It does mean that you get supported at home. But it’s lovely to see that policy spreading out across this House.

But what we don’t see with this subsequent child policy being removed is what is replacing it. What is the plan going forward that is going to give these families the key to escaping their long-term benefit dependency? There is nothing in this—all it does is take something away, and it gives nothing back. It has no alternatives for the people who are affected by it.

The Government would be far better off if they focused their attention on creating jobs and supporting businesses so they can grow and employ more people, and in that way, we’ve actually got somewhere for single parents to be able to go, or families that are dependent on the State. Give them work to go to. Give them back their pride and independence. We don’t need them to be totally reliant on the State for every dollar they are spending.

There is no way this country can afford to keep bashing business and supporting the social sector, because we are going down the gurgler quite quickly, and you will see that in the fiscal reports. But supporting the creation of jobs is probably the most effective way of empowering people and giving them back their independence. We heard that this is only a small piece of legislation, and it’s granted that, yes, it is only a small piece of legislation, but actually it’s a giant leap backwards for a lot of people that have no prospect of breaking out of that cycle, and there is no support indicated in any of this.

I take note of a comment that was also made about benefit bashing. Benefit bashing is something that that side of the House likes to talk about. We like to talk about empowering people. But I recall—and this is what brings it home to me—having a heartbreaking conversation with a group of teens who were still at school. They were part of a youth council. I was asking about one or two of them who were missing from previous meetings that we’d had. Their ambition was to go off and get on a benefit so that they didn’t have to go to school. Their solution to doing that was to get themselves pregnant. I couldn’t believe that this was a deliberate, conscious decision—that they would go out and do that. There is something gravely wrong with a system that does not have ambition for its young people. You take away their ambition and you’ve taken away their hope.

This is another giant leap backwards for this country. I feel for the people who are entrapped by it, and I feel that one day we will wake up and see that we have made some terrible decisions in this House. I am grateful that we will have on record our opposition to this stupid type of legislation that is going through. It’s a giant step backwards. We will not be supporting it.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. I rise in support of the Social Security (Subsequent Child Policy Removal) Amendment Bill. I just have to say, as someone who has been in the community sector my whole adult life, who’s lived a life walking alongside people who are struggling, I’m here to rise and support this and also the Hon Carmel Sepuloni in the work that she is doing around welfare reform. Now, the Hon Carmel Sepuloni comes from a part of my electorate. She comes from Waitara, was raised there, and I know that she’s committed to our welfare system—not making it a handout, but ensuring that it is a hand up for people, which I haven’t heard much about from the other side of the House tonight.

But I really want to spend a little bit of time and bring up three points tonight around this piece of legislation. Firstly, yes, National, the first thousand days—I don’t think you invented them, but that’s OK. They’ve been around for a long time, but we appreciate that you’re at the table now. You’ve come to the party.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! The member will keep the Speaker out of the debate.

GLEN BENNETT: Apologies. Secondly, I want to talk about the possibilities, not the problems, and how the policy enables people, and, thirdly, I want to speak about my own experience and what I’ve seen in the communities where I have spent many of my years living, working, serving, and understanding what goes on.

So this first thousand days: being a mere male, it took me a little bit of time to discover that, actually, it was from conception, not birth, because, obviously, there’s so much involved in that process. I know speakers have already mentioned it from both sides of the House tonight, but these first thousand days are around loving relationships formed around healthy foods—kai, fluids, etc.—and safe and secure spaces for them. It’s also about playtime. A huge part of the first thousand days is playtime, and, of course, then there’s the healthy environment. All of these things are around individuals, around parents or a parent holding that space, holding that loving relationship, providing—even on a mere struggle of a Work and Income benefit—healthy, decent food, and safety and security that that parent is responsible for, which obviously is also around housing; and also that playtime and the environment that that child lives their first thousand days in.

Now, this needs to be done by someone who has time and availability for their child, and hence here is why I support—

Simon Court: Where’s the father?

GLEN BENNETT: —this piece of work. Well, I didn’t say if it was the mother or the father, so we don’t know, and we don’t assume. For myself, I don’t, and hopefully you don’t assume, either, who is raising that child, as long as those thousand days are loving and they are cared for.

Now, we look at this piece of legislation, and the policy currently impacts eligibility for sole parent support and places obligations on parents to search for and move into work earlier if they have an additional child while receiving a main benefit. Now, I’ve heard tonight conversations around removing the aspiration for a parent to get off a benefit, around people being disempowered by this piece of legislation, and, for me—as I mentioned earlier, the Hon Carmel Sepuloni—it’s all about the hand up: how we encourage people to value the time spent.

I want to come to the value of volunteering, the value of unpaid work. This can be in charity work; this can be sports clubs. In earlier speeches this evening, many of us talked about incorporated societies and talked about the value of volunteering and being members of different societies and groups, and this is the same for a sole parent. Where he or where she is committed to those first thousand days, they are committed to the whole life of that child and committed to the unpaid work of caring for their loved one. Of course, this turns it into a possibility and not a problem.

The value of unpaid work has been so undervalued and underpaid for so long, and this is when I come to the space of a mother, who often has been undervalued because of her role, and the most important role in the life of a child—and for those single fathers out there as well. I really believe it is. So we need to look at the possibilities, not the deficit model of “this is going to ruin things”, but, actually, the inspiration and aspiration for a solo parent to give back, to support their child, to support their community, to be on a school board of trustees, to be on the local playgroup or kindergarten association body—these are all part of it.

Now, the third thing I want to talk about is in my own community and what I’ve seen. For me, working and living in a State housing part of New Plymouth for many, many years, it was a daily occurrence to walk alongside people, alongside solo parents. For anyone who says they give up or for anyone who says that that solo parent absolutely and utterly chose to be pregnant and wanted to be there, wanted to just be on the benefit for the sake of it so they didn’t have to work, I haven’t seen that. I’ve never been a solo parent, but I have been a foster parent, and now I am a foster grandparent, and I’ve done nights—many a night having a young under-three-year-old, under-two-year-old, stay under my roof. I struggled, and it was not easy. So for anyone who says this is an easy option or that someone is being a solo parent just for the sake of it, just to get a bit of cash, I am offended by that, because that’s not what I see in my community. I see the young people that I’ve walked alongside who, through whatever circumstances, have had a child and are doing what they can to give their child the best start in life. So I support this piece of legislation.

I know of a young mum who runs a free op shop out of her carport in her home. She is on the solo parent benefit and, off the top of my head, I know she’s got one under two; her second may be just over two. But she’s chosen, as part of her service to her whānau, her service to her community, and her need because of her struggle, to establish this free op shop where people give her clothing, give her kitchenware, bric-a-brac, and small pieces of furniture, that she then cleans, sorts, and deals with and distributes amongst the community as a service, as a solo parent who is doing her best to empower her community, to build our society. I believe that she is doing far more than people, often, in this House do or talk about when it comes to the narrative and the rhetoric when it comes to pieces of legislation like this.

So, in closing, I just want to say that we as a Government, we as the Labour Party, want to enable individuals, families, and whānau to thrive. We want to recognise the value of unpaid work, and that includes caring and being caregivers. We as a society need to value this, need to own this, and need to support this piece of legislation.

I’m on the Social Services and Community Committee, and I look forward to the submissions. I look forward to hearing the stories from sole parents themselves, telling us about how they’re achieving—not that it’s a deficit model, but it’s an aspiration model for them to live their lives.

So, please, I’d like to say the first thousand days are so important—we all agree on that. Secondly, let’s look at this from a possibility perspective, not a problem perspective, and how this piece of legislation will impact in a positive way on our community. Finally, I’ve seen it, and I know many of us here—and if you haven’t experienced working and walking alongside whānau who may be sole parents, please find someone in your community to learn and listen from. But I support this piece of legislation, and I look forward to listening to the words in our select committee on it.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. I’m rapt to stand in support of the Social Security (Subsequent Child Policy Removal) Amendment Bill. This is an overdue change overturning a cruel policy implemented by the previous National Government.

I want to start by acknowledging that our caregivers are precious. They nurture our future generations. They do important labour in our society that often goes unnoticed. It’s a full-time, often all-consuming gig. We should support it and treat it as such. Our parents and caregivers should be celebrated and supported, not punished.

I’m incredibly disappointed by the rhetoric that implies that parents and caregivers outside of paid employment are simply lying there doing nothing. They’re actually doing some of society’s most important work, and to imply otherwise does a disservice to the many people who have raised this. It’s a disservice to our ancestors as well. Perhaps in a colonised, Pākehā-framework state of mind, caregivers are not part of our community, but, rather, a burden to our welfare system. I disagree. So we’ll be rapt to support this bill into the first reading.

I also want to acknowledge this side of the House’s comments around the so-called negative effects of benefit dependency, because the only negative effects of being on the benefit come from benefits being too low to begin with. All the research tells us that incomes are one of the largest and most important determinants of health, and consecutive Governments who have kept benefits far too low have created the conditions for people on the benefit to struggle. It is not the caregiver’s fault, while they’re providing incredible labour to our society.

The history of this bill is rooted in racism and misogyny and assumes that people are simply having children to avoid doing labour. I would make the challenge to caregivers who are taking care of multiple children that it is hard, hard work. I had the small privilege of caring for my teenage brother for a year and a half, and that was exhausting on its own. I can only imagine what it must be like to raise multiple tamariki.

Despite the National Party quoting so-called research that shows the negative effects of long-term dependency, what the research tells us about work-test sanctions and sanctions overall in the welfare system is that they do not work. They do not work to support our whānau into employment. They do not support people into aspirational empowerment situations. We’ve got multiple research that supports this, including the Australian Journal of Social Issues, that found that work obligations do not support people into work. The Ministry of Social Development’s (MSD’s) own modelling has shown that there’s no evidence that the status quo is achieving desired outcomes to help people into employment.

In fact, if we go all the way back to 2017, when we had a National Party Minister for Social Development, the Hon Anne Tolley, their Parliament’s social policy evaluation and research unit found sole parents in particular found themselves back on a benefit within two years of being obligated to take up work because of this sanction. What this shows is that this policy is not rooted in evidence. It shows that it’s rooted in arbitrary prejudices about people on the benefit. It shows the disconnect from this House about the lived experience of people on the benefit, and it’s disappointing to hear people who have firsthand experience of being on low incomes talk about it in this way when the truth is that people on the benefit are struggling to make ends meet and doing more work than many of us in this House, I would reckon. It’s a shame that this House is being co-opted by a neo-liberal ideology that takes away people’s right to dignity and it takes away the dignity of caregiving itself.

I want to give a shout-out as well to all the people on the benefit who spoke out against this policy over the course of many years. In my time at Auckland Action Against Poverty before entering Parliament, I worked alongside people on the benefit to submit to the Welfare Expert Advisory Group’s public meetings, and we heard very clearly from people on the benefit that these work-test obligations were not working. People on the benefit have been generous in sharing with us their lived experience about our broken welfare system and calling for changes themselves, and it’s overdue that we are discussing these changes just now. I’m excited to be on the Social Services and Community Committee with my colleagues on this side of the House, who I know will be listening with care and duty to the submitters in the weeks to come.

I want to also speak to the idea of work seminars and these work obligations that we place on people, because the reality, having worked at the front lines, is that they’re simply not fit for purpose. People on the ground have told me that they feel pressure to take up any job, no matter how unsuitable, out of fear of losing their benefit. Caregivers often are forced into work that provides irregular hours and often is far away from home. Caregivers tell us that they have to then fork out money for childcare, which results in their sometimes being worse off than when they were on a benefit. Work-test obligations simply make no sense when caregiving is, again, a full-time gig that should be treated as such.

We should be supporting our caregivers to nurture a future generation of people who are healthy and are thriving. People should be allowed to look for employment on their own terms. In fact, MSD’s own research also tells us that when supported living payment recipients who have no work obligations do find work, they actually stay at work for longer and they find work that pays better, because this set of people on the benefit who do not have these obligations can find people within their own terms, and that is what the Green Party wants for all people on the benefit.

We support this piece of legislation, but we recognise that the problem isn’t the subsequent child policy, but the idea of obligations and sanctions in the welfare system overall. All that we do with these punitive obligations, whether it’s removing 100 percent or 50 percent of people’s benefits, is put people into hardship. What removing people’s benefits does is create the conditions where children are missing out on food and people not being able to pay rent at a time when benefits are already acknowledged as being too low to survive.

The Green Party believes in having a welfare system that provides unconditional support, a welfare system that does not carry these punitive sanctions and obligations, and a welfare system that allows people to live with dignity. This piece of legislation is a small step in the right direction, but we’re very clear that we want to see not only all the Welfare Expert Advisory Group recommendations implemented as soon as possible but a guaranteed minimum income that ensures that caregivers are able to find work on their own terms and that we value the work that they provide for our society. I look forward to future sittings of this bill and our select committee process, and I hope to hear from people with the lived experiences, instead of a neo-liberal narrative that is not grounded in evidence. Kia ora.

KAREN CHHOUR (ACT): Well, I’d just like to let you know I have had the lived experience of growing up in a benefit household and also a household where, when it first started, we were working, and I can tell you that being in a benefit-dependent household is not all it’s cracked up to be. I’m not saying single parents and people on a benefit are bad parents; I’m just saying it’s a lot harder on a benefit to raise a child. So when you’re having a child on a benefit, yes, it is hard. It is lower than the wage you get when you’re working, and it’s never going to be the same as a wage when you’re working.

We are living in a time now when child poverty is a major problem in this country. We have a Government talking about how we want to solve child poverty, and one of the biggest causes of child poverty is being born into it. So why are we focusing on making it a priority to create ways to keep people dependent on the State, instead of helping them gain their self-esteem, gain their sense of independence, and gain some skills to get out in the workforce?

It’s like it’s shameful to want to go out to work. It’s like you’re telling working parents they’re neglectful for going out to work because they’re missing out on their kids’ first thousand days. What’s the difference between a working parent and a parent on a benefit? Shouldn’t they both have the same chances to be with their children?

A working parent gets 12 months; a beneficiary parent gets 12 months with this—it brought it equal. When they first brought this in in 2012, they tried to make it so that the beneficiaries and the working parents had 12 months at home with their children. Working parents would love to stay home for three years, but sometimes they can’t, and they feel forced to go back to work. Are we now saying they shouldn’t go back to work? Are we saying that they should feel bad for going to work and leaving their children and not spending the first thousand days with their kids? And why should one have more than the other?

I think the balance of 12 months for beneficiaries and 12 months for working parents made it kind of fair, and I was glad that they still allowed for those 12 months. It’s not until they’re three years old they have to go look for part-time work obligations, and I know it’s tough at the moment with COVID. I know it’s really hard to go out there and find a job, and there are lots of parents going through that at the moment.

We must understand that the longer we are out of work, the harder it is to get back into the workforce. We feel like we don’t deserve to be back in the workforce. Our self-esteem gets lower and lower—and I’ve been there myself—and then it’s really hard to get yourself out of that funk. So part-time work obligations, I think, are a good stepping stone to get back out in the workforce, get your confidence, and gain the skills that you are going to need when you have to go into full-time work.

Solo parents are not bad parents—they are some of the best parents out there. They provide for a mother and a father, or we have solo fathers that become mothers as well. I’m not saying solo parents are bad parents. I’m just saying we need to be helping these people to get back into the workforce, gain the skills, gain the self-esteem, and get their independence back, and it’s not kind to keep creating situations where we’re keeping people dependent on the State. It is hard to get out of that mind-set, and it’s hard to get back into the workforce the longer you wait. I just would like to see more effort going into helping these people get the skills they need to better themselves and to better the lives of their children. Thank you.

TERISA NGOBI (Labour—Ōtaki): Kia ora, Madam Speaker, and can I just say it is a privilege and honour to be able to take a call on the Social Security (Subsequent Child Policy Removal) Amendment Bill. I also want to mimic the words of some of my colleagues just to thank the Hon Carmel Sepuloni and her office for looking at not only this punitive piece of policy but, actually, the whole of the welfare system as it is at the moment.

Currently, as we’ve heard, if you have another child while you’re on benefit and that child turns only one year old—still in nappies, some still breastfeeding. But if that child turns one year old and they’re your subsequent child, you are then forced to undertake part-time or full-time work obligations. This essentially means that what they’re saying is “The child doesn’t matter. It is around getting you off benefit.” It is around putting the work obligations first, and not the child, or that one-year-old.

Working at Work and Income during the welfare reforms—I was there in 2012, when the National Government brought in the welfare reforms—this, along with a whole suite of punitive legislation, was sad to see. I saw firsthand the damage it did to some of our communities, and most of all to our sole parents and our tamariki. It was confusing to sole parents to go from, one minute, encouraging you, supporting your child, to “That’s it, one year old—whip them out the door and you go to work.” Also, you worried about that rushing to make sure that you get to work, all the while wondering about your baby “Are they OK? Are they coping without me?”, because, let’s remember, they’re one year old—they’re just a baby.

You’re talking about a one-year-old. Like I said, some of them are still breastfeeding, so you’ve got to wean them off your breast. That takes time.

I’ve got three children; I know what that looks like. It takes time to wean them off your breast, and let’s also mention the fact that they encourage breastfeeding. They say that’s the best thing for your child, but we’re saying “That’s fine until that child is one, then it no longer matters—just get them out the door and get you off benefit.” We are supposed to be a supportive Government coming from a strengths-based place, and this, as it currently stands, is not strengths-based.

A sole parent, like I said, being forced to wean their baby off breastfeeding, to quickly find day care, to organise two-plus children—one of them, again, is only one year old—dropping them off to day care while you go to work, and all the while, while you’re at work, trying to focus on your mahi and not be worried about “How’s my pēpi doing? Are they being looked after OK? Do they need a kai?”, because māmās know best, right? So that’s another worry. Not only are you having to rush and do that, but how productive are you, really, while you’re going out there to work? I say that that is not support. That is not a strengths-based approach.

That is not putting the child first, eh—the child at the centre. I remember when those welfare reforms came out, they were all about it, and, actually, it’s absolutely the opposite.

This is not about looking after māmā and pēpi and tamariki’s wellbeing. This is not about supporting them into work, actually, and it’s not sustainable. Rather, this is going to ensure that those māmās stay and remain on benefit. It’s harmful to the sole parent and to the children but, ultimately, to our society as a whole. We deal with the aftermath of what that looks like for those māmās and those pēpis and that whānau.

The amendments in this bill will lead to better outcomes for māmā and pēpi and, again, our society as a whole. Sole parents can use the time that they need to go out there, undertake any employment training, further tertiary—really proud, again, that this Government is bringing training incentive allowances back. They’ve got options to look at what they want to do to get into a job that they’re going to want to wake up every day and work towards. That is going to ensure sustainability—if you get up and you go to a job that you’ve worked towards or you know. That’s going to show sustainability. That breaks some of the intergenerational benefit—whānau staying on benefit. That is the good role model to your child: taking that time needed, rather than being rushed and, actually, kind of bullied into getting off the benefit, and not worrying about the time it needs to take to have a relationship with your baby and also having that time to find meaningful employment and longevity in employment.

I’ve heard about the thousand days, and I’ve been to many Nathan Mikaere-Wallis workshops—a leading child professional—and many other professionals in my social services career. I can tell you that along with the thousand days, they also talk about the time needed for māmās and pāpās to have their relationship and build that time with their babies. That is critical, that is key, and that is what makes a difference to tamariki and their families growing up. That is going to make all the difference, when they have a trusting relationship with their parent, and to be able to say, “You’ve done that at one year old. Now, out the door, off you go, and find work.” is not enough time for a trusting relationship.

We know that when they do have that time, this leads to great outcomes as our tamariki grow, knowing that they have someone at home that’s got their back. While their mum still has their back, when they have to go into work after they’re one-year-old, it’s not the same. That’s not the same amount of time.

I feel like this, again, is a punitive approach as it currently stands, and I worry about how at this moment māmās are worried, and that then leads to their babies being worried, eh? We know our babies feel what we feel, so when those mothers feel pressured, they feel rushed, they feel forced into taking up jobs just in case their benefit gets cut or halved or sanctioned, and so they have to take whatever comes, regardless of how hard it might be to get your kids there and to organise yourself as a solo parent, that’s worrying in itself, and actually, again, that is not what we are about as a society. That’s not what New Zealanders do. We care about ourselves, we care about each other, we care about our māmās, our pēpis, and our pāpās, and that’s how it should be. So this amendment to this legislation does that.

I’m really proud of this Government for recognising this current sanction needs to be changed. Currently, the biggest number of people affected by the current punitive policy are Māori and women—no surprise there, right? Already our most vulnerable whānau, and we’re already putting more pressure on them.

Amending this puts the child back at the centre. It puts the child back in the focus of where we should be looking, especially given what this Government’s trying to work towards, which is making sure that everybody is supported, that everybody gets a good chance at life, and that everybody feels that they have a place to stand. This change to this legislation ensures a strengths-based, mana-enhancing change to the policy for those that are coming in on the system.

I know, again, from working at Work and Income, both when the welfare reforms came in and then more recently, I saw the people I served that walked through those doors. For the most part, when they walked through those doors, they were at the lowest parts of their lives. That was their last resort. Nobody goes in wanting to take Government financial assistance. You know, I see them. Sometimes they feel demoralised. They feel ashamed for having to ask for financial assistance.

Again, they’re at their wits’ end. They’ve tried everything else, and they have to take assistance for their babies and for their whānau. We shouldn’t be treating people at the lowest points of their lives negatively or more punitively. We should be, again, supporting them to see a positive way forward.

When you treat people like that, that makes them want to undertake those great opportunities of work-based training to get off benefit, and, actually, when they do take those jobs, they’re able to sustain longevity in terms of their job careers. Again, like I said, it’s changing for some of them the ongoing cycle of intergenerational benefit and they’re also being fantastic role models to their babies and contributing to society, and I’m sure that’s what we all want. So I believe the changes to the Social Security Act are going to make a massive difference in terms of the mana for our māmās and pēpis. Kia ora.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): A five-minute call—Simon Watts.

SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): I rise on behalf of the National Party and as the member for the North Shore to speak on the first reading of the Social Security (Subsequent Child Policy Removal) Amendment Bill. National opposes this bill. We oppose this bill because the amendments will not reduce the risk of poverty, nor will they enhance child development, nor—most importantly—will they give our children, our mokopuna, the best start in life. Instead, the impacts in the amendments will impact a large number of people. Some 5,400 sole parents will have their work obligations changed, and these amendments will cost nearly $4 million to implement, $4 million that will come from Ministry of Social Development baseline budgets—$4 million that will be cut from front-line services.

The proposed amendments are obviously Labour Party election promises, and the sad irony here is that they will simply not deliver the outcomes we need as a nation. Paid employment is the best way for our families and our children to transcend hardship and poverty. I acknowledge that this is a difficult and complex area, but Government has a role to put in place the frameworks to support individuals, families, and those within our communities to make important, life-changing transition from welfare to work.

Poverty and hardship is a significant problem and one that is growing for a large number of New Zealanders, many of whom are our most vulnerable. Real change can positively impact the social fabric of our local communities, but failure will impact our front-line health services, our education systems, our schools, our social services, and our police and justice services, and, most importantly, failure will impact the aspirations of our children. Our social security system needs incentives that align with the outcomes of a future New Zealand, not just for this generation but for generations that follow.

In my electorate of the North Shore, we have some people within our community—as there are across the country—that have a permanent dependency on our welfare system. In my home electorate of the North Shore, my local community expect that this House takes action on the things that they can’t influence—the things that will make their lives better, such as creating more time for parents to spend with their children to aid their development. They don’t want more government in their lives; they want a path ahead, cleared of the debris that slows them down, so that they can get where they are going and bring their families with them.

We must put our families at the centre of our policy solutions around social services and put in place the stepping stones to allow them to make a better future for themselves and their families. What people who are suffering from hardship and poverty need is hope, but hope is not a strategy in and of itself. What we need is a realistic pathway to move from welfare into paid employment, something that is recognised by the OECD as the most effective way to reduce the risk of child poverty, enhance child development, and give our children the best start in life.

When I walk the streets of Belmont, of Campbells Bay, of Castor Bay, of Devonport, and of Sunnynook—communities who aspire to be great—I hear our communities are concerned about the slow pace of action to address the key issues facing this country, issues for which there are solutions but are lacking action by this Government to implement, and they are becoming impatient. We must act with an increased sense of urgency to implement tangible change that reduces long-term benefit dependency, something these amendments will fail to do. Madam Speaker, thank you.

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): This policy, previously introduced by National, has been extremely punitive and cruel, and has done more harm than good, already marginalising predominantly Māori and, yes, wāhine. By removing this policy, parents and caregivers can do exactly that—parent and care-give without fear of ridicule and shame. This policy smacked of beneficiary bashing. It is actually shame—whakamā—that is taking our whānau out and killing us. It’s the shame of being able to be too whakamā to ask for help. It’s the shame of being too whakamā to ask for addiction support, to sit there and say, “If I put my head up, I’m going to be noticed for all the things that I don’t want to be noticed for.” In fact, what we’ve done is create a generation of those that are too scared to ask for help when they’re most vulnerable.

So we stand in acknowledgment of Minister Carmel Sepuloni and the Government for bringing this bill to the House. It’s good to see the Government implementing some recommendations from the Welfare Expert Advisory Group. However, we do implore that it goes further, and we need it to go fully further in realising more of the recommendations. We make acknowledgment to the Welfare Expert Advisory Group’s hard work in providing recommendations to the Minister. In 2019, the group released its report Whakamana Tāngata, restoring dignity to social security in Aotearoa, which identified that incomes are inadequate for our people, including those receiving benefits and those in low-paid work. Current levels of support fail to cover even basic costs for many of our whānau, let alone allowing them to meaningfully participate in their communities.

Many of my esteemed colleagues to my left and opposite have referred to those on the ground, those who have the reality of living in these situations, and it’s that that we need to talk about. Our whānau haven’t rocked up to the Work and Income New Zealand office and willingly said, “Put me on a benefit.” These are whānau who have endured all sorts of situations from economic unemployment and redundancies to relationship issues, and we actually need to put faces to our people here. There are hundreds of thousands of our whānau living in poverty in Aotearoa, and material hardship is increasing. Around 200,000 tamariki are living in poverty. So it’s really concerning when I see our colleagues to my right talking about giving Māori back our independence, especially when they’re the first to shun mana motuhake the minute we mention it.

Te Paati Māori’s income policy, Oranga Tangata, talks about the importance of raising the minimum wage to $25 per hour and legislating for an annual increase to keep up with the costs of living. We talk about guaranteeing pay equity for all of our Māori nurses and our teachers, doubling baseline benefit levels, individualising benefits, removing all penalties and sanctions and work-test obligations, cancelling income support - related debt and ensuring that additional grants do not need to be paid back in future, and raising abatement rates for benefits and student allowances.

In short, when we talk about our whānau here that are enduring all sorts of situations, we’re talking about people like myself who have also been single parents, who have also sat there and had to talk about and think about, “How am I going to get through the night? Where’s my next $5 for my bread and milk going to come from?”, and the last thing we need is people out in our community judging. We will never ever be able to address poverty and the complex social issues that come with that if we keep making it a shame to be able to reach out and ask for help. What needs to happen—and Te Paati Māori will continue to say and bring faces and places and voices to this House—is we need to continue to advocate for low-income whānau. It’s important the Government works to support low-income whānau through implementing the rest of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group’s recommendations.

I’d also like to ask that we take time to actually talk about what it is that we, as whānau, in the first thousand days, and it was talked about very clearly across there with Terisa Ngobi. We have with us whānau that belong as pā harakeke. We don’t exist just in the 999 days or the thousand days; we exist before we’re born. How we decide to actually look after our whānau and our pā harakeke and how we decide to whakamana our whānau when they need it, including our tamariki, is really important for this House to contemplate. For those that are sitting there making it seem so easy to be on a benefit, I suggest you go out there and look at those who are volunteering and still doing everything they can to get ahead.

Kia ora. We’d like to commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): What an absolute privilege to have been in this House tonight to listen to this debate. This is a bill that I am proud to rise in support of, but it’s a bill that is obviously opening up some deep and some serious issues in our thinking about our pēpi and our thinking about parenting and our thinking about what it is to value our whānau and to value the most vulnerable members of our society.

It has been such a privilege to listen to my colleagues in the Greens and in Te Paati Māori and to my colleagues in Labour who have talked about their experience as professionals dealing with beneficiaries dealing with the shame that people feel when they have to come and ask for State help, and to listen to the experiences of solo mums and dads—particularly the mums—talking about what it was like to put themselves and their children through those difficult early years. It has been a privilege to hear my colleague Ricardo Menéndez March across the aisle talk about his experiences in listening to the various submitters, and to hear from the member Debbie Ngarewa-Packer her speech. Colleagues, I am grateful to be here.

I was lucky as a mother. I never had to make the choice between a benefit or a job—I was lucky. But one of the divisions that has opened up tonight in this House is around the valuing of parenting and the valuing of the hard work that is parenting. I remember the first day I chose—because I had that choice—to go back to work. I had three little kids, and I was doing two mornings a week. My youngest was 11 months old. I left him and I went in, and, after about the first morning tea, a young woman who’d just started in our office came up to me. She said, “You must be finding it so hard.”, and I thought, “What a nice young woman. She’s valuing the fact that I’ve left my babies for the first time.” I said, “Oh well, we’ve found a really nice babysitter. It’s all right.”, and she said to me, “No, no, I mean concentrating, having had all those years off with children, doing nothing.” I nearly fell over.

I have done jobs that society considers prestigious and difficult. I have never done anything as difficult as looking after small children. I have never done anything as difficult, sleepless night after sleepless night, as maintaining my temper in the face of tantrums and remaining the adult with three under 3½ and a very frenetic six-year-old. We need to value parenting and the difficult work that it is, and what I worry about in the debate is that we have seen a lack of value placed on parenting and lip service paid to the importance of the first thousand days, but not a real appreciation of the value of the unpaid work that we do as parents, and I do not think that it is a coincidence that most of that unpaid work is done by wāhine. I am sorry to say it, but it is the fact. So I see a division opening up, and I worry about it.

I see also a certain amount—and I am sorry to see it—of blaming of beneficiaries for being where they are, and we need to think about that. There has been a constant rhetoric from across the House about the need to get people off benefits and how that is best for children. Well, that’s lovely, but what about when it’s not possible? How exactly do we do this with this policy, that’s been in place since 2012?

This policy has had nine years to show us that it works, and the empirical evidence is that it does not. More parents have not ended up in paid employment as the result of this punitive piece of legislation. More whānau have not ended up better off as a result of this punitive piece of legislation. When you talk about wanting to make results, I suggest we have a look at the last nine years, and we see that there haven’t been any, so let’s start with the facts.

Now let’s go to the next set of facts, which include the importance of those first, fabled 1,000 days. Let’s talk about the importance of what actually happens in those thousand days. When a baby is born—ignoring those previous nine months—its brain is essentially smooth, it is undeveloped, and it is small. It is in those first two years of life that children’s brains become incredibly more complicated. If that child is not provided with stimulation and with security, above all, that child is not going to develop to its full potential.

Now, I am not saying—and here we come across another part of this debate, which has been really interesting. There is a cringe factor. There is a fear factor in talking about the way in which we parent and the encouragement of mothers who want to work to work. I support my sisters—literally, my sisters—who want to work when their children are small. But when you do it, however you do it, what we need is stability.

If you have a child who you want to stay home with—if you have a child who, for example, does not really cope in a childcare situation—then you need to think about the possibility of staying home if possible, because the fact is attachment theory proves that in those first three years, in fact, children need some regular, steady attachment to one or two people in their lives for optimal development. Now, that could be just about anyone, but if you want to make the choice that you’re the mum or you’re the dad and you stay home, then I say that is actually going to add to our society.

Attachment theory is said by psychologists to be at the basis of all good development. It is not merely a child’s emotional ability to attach to one person and to maintain a relationship; it goes throughout their entire lives. It forms the basis of their educational achievement and of their intellectual ability, as well. If you want on pure economics to come up with a policy that will add to our society’s wellbeing, privilege those days. Privilege the ability of parents to stay home with children, if that is what they choose to do.

There’s an old saying “A stitch in time saves nine”. There is evidence upon evidence upon evidence that if you put money into a child’s early development, you will reap the rewards. We can pay $100,000 a year to keep someone in prison, or we can give that parent the ability to look after the child early on.

This debate is one which is opening some serious issues in the way in which we think about parenting and the way in which we think I poverty and the way in which we want to blame the poor for their situation. I ask that we step back from that and that we actually consider the best interests of society in the round. We take away the blame that we want to attach to poverty because if we can blame someone, then maybe it won’t happen to us because, clearly, it was their fault in some way and we can avoid their mistakes. Let’s step back from it and let’s think about the long-term good of society. The long-term good of society is we have children who are rounded, who are whole, and who understand what it is to love and be loved. If the best way for your particular pēpi is for you to stay home, then by all means let us, finally, make the investment in our beneficiary parents—the investment in our children and in our future—because that is how we will build back better, and that is what the Labour Government is trying to do.

We are putting into place a range of measures which will, in the round, contribute to the looking after of our children, the power of our whānau to raise good children for a good society, rather than to build more prisons—it’s up to us. What are we going to do: the $100,000 a year to keep them in prison, or the money to keep the ability of whānau to look after their babies at home?

For those reasons, I commend this bill to the House.

PENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): I rise to speak in opposition to the Social Security (Subsequent Child Policy Removal) Amendment Bill. As fairly recent to the grandparent phase, I’d like to acknowledge the important work that parents do for our young children. I think it’s already been acknowledged today that it is one of the hardest jobs in the world but certainly one of the most rewarding, so I give a shout-out to all those parents who are sleep-deprived and who might be in front of the TV now.

Returning to the Social Security (Subsequent Child Policy Removal) Amendment Bill, under the current policy, if someone has another child while they are receiving a main benefit, work obligations are based on the age of their youngest non-subsequent child from the additional child’s first birthday. This means a parent is required to look for or enter work once their youngest child turns one. The bill proposes to remove the subsequent child policy, also known as the additional dependent child policy, from the Social Security Act 2018 and the Social Security Regulations. As has been mentioned earlier, it was the fifth National Government that introduced the subsequent child policy in 2012. The purpose of that policy was to reduce long-term welfare dependency and align the expectations of those on main benefits and those in paid employment.

I’ve listened to a lot of the speakers on the other side of the House this evening talking about how important those first thousand days are, but they seem to only be important to those parents who are on a benefit. I think that both the aims are equally important—the issue of parity and equity. An expectant new mum or parent on maternity leave from employment has to return to the workforce often after a year’s leave, but this bill differentiates the expectations of a new parent on a benefit. The last thing that I want to see in New Zealand is mothers, particularly of young children, being pitted against each other, risking festering resentments about each other, and this signals a differentiation that we shouldn’t underestimate in terms of what it means for either parties.

The aspect of dependency is an incredibly important one for us to be looking at, and there is a huge body of evidence about the negative impact of long-term welfare dependency. I will read from some of the findings from the 2011 Welfare Working Group report, Reducing Long-Term Welfare Dependency. They state, “for most working age people, paid work is beneficial to overall well-being, and long-term absence from paid employment can be harmful.” They’ve also found that “There is growing consensus that joblessness is particularly harmful to mental and physical health. There is increasing evidence that long-term benefit receipt has harmful effects on confidence, skills and future employability.” We must keep central to this discussion the children, and their findings that “For parents with … children, long-term benefit receipt is strongly associated with poor results for children. Children raised in long-term benefit dependent families are likely to suffer adverse health effects, poorer educational achievement and reduced aspirations.”

The Welfare Working Group’s report, Long-Term Benefit Dependency: The Issues, in 2010, noted that “People out of work for long periods are likely to find it hard to return to work, as skills and confidence erode.” and “There is powerful evidence to suggest that a long period spent on a benefit, and hence a low income, is associated with a range of adverse social and economic outcomes, especially for young adults and children.”

The National Party absolutely believes that paid employment is the best way for families to break the circuit of hardship and poverty. As well as the financial benefits, the social and developmental benefits to both parents and children should not be underestimated. Confidence, new friendships, social relationships, greater participation in the community, and greater self-worth are all tangible benefits from being in employment. National’s social investment approach based on early interventions, when the subsequent child policy was introduced in 2012, included additional employment support for those on benefit, and also introduced training, childcare, health and disability support services, and wraparound support for young parents at risk.

I relate the impact of this proposed policy change on the wonderful parents in my electorate of Invercargill who I know had children while on benefits, and I watched how they transitioned away from dependency into employment. They became wonderful role models, and the impact and the responsibility that was transferred to their children was absolutely tangible. I also look to my previous role at Southern Institute of Technology, where there were many second-chance learners, and the difference in those people, often young parents, who were gaining qualifications to gain employment, and the aspirations they had and the changes you could see in the pride that they had as they progressed through. So I see this policy as condescending to those people whom I have watched pull themselves off the benefit, transitioning into employment through qualifications and becoming wonderful role models for their children.

If we have a look at the numbers, 5,400 sole parents would have their work obligations changed, 2,500 on jobseeker support would move on to solo parent support, and 1,000 partners of people on main benefits would have their work obligations changed. These are not insignificant numbers.

If we refer back to that evidence of the harm of long-term dependency on the welfare system, and we look at the almost 10,000 additional people potentially impacted by the harm of long-term dependence on welfare support, we are seeing almost 10,000 people who could be consigned to those negative impacts, but they are not the biggest concern that I have. The biggest concern I have is the number of children attached to each of those numbers that I’ve quoted.

I want to go back to that piece of evidence that came from the 2011 Welfare Working Group that said that children raised in long-term benefit-dependent families are likely to suffer adverse health effects, poorer educational achievements, and reduced aspirations. To those on the other side of the House that think that that is a wonderful thing to do to those children, I would say: take a very long, hard look at what you are proposing for them long term. I can see no better reason to oppose this policy change in this bill than the children of those long-term beneficiaries.

STEPH LEWIS (Labour—Whanganui): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’d just like to start this evening by commending the Hon Carmel Sepuloni for bringing this bill to the House and for her continued work to overhaul our welfare system. This bill shows our commitment and our vision for a welfare system that ensures people have adequate income and an adequate standard of living, that they are treated with dignity, and that they can live in their communities in a way that enables them to participate meaningfully in life.

I’ve heard members from across the House tonight say that the changes the previous Government made enabled families to spend more time together, yet the issue that we’re debating tonight actually forces parents to go back to the workforce, ready or not. They’ve also talked about people on benefits a lot, and the insinuation is that if you are on a benefit, you want to be there.

I’d just like to remind the House that life happens, and my family learnt that the hard way, firsthand, when my dad died. My younger siblings were just five and six at the time. My mum lived a 30-minute drive from the nearest main centre, in a small rural community. Babysitters weren’t exactly plentiful or readily available. Forcing parents to go back to work before they are ready or able or have the necessary support systems in place harms families. It doesn’t protect them.

The first thousand days, as we’ve heard this evening, are important. They are the most crucial, and that’s something that I’ve been particularly mindful of since becoming a parent. I want to acknowledge the contribution of my colleague Dr Emily Henderson. Recounting sleepless nights as a parent is something that I have recently gone through, and even now, on the occasional night, I still go through. It’s hard work. This bill is about ensuring that families can make decisions that are right for them and that they are not being forced back into work before they’re ready.

Last year, I spoke to a single mum in my electorate. She had been at home and been forced to go through the back-to-work checks and been forced to make that decision, whether it was right for her and her family or not, and she said to me that she was struggling to make ends meet and it was hard and that she was being forced to look for work that wasn’t right for her or her children or her circumstances. But what gave her hope was that last term, the Government brought back the training incentive allowance, and she was then supported to be able to go out and get qualifications that mean that she can now apply for work that is going to give her family more security, higher wages, and better long-term prospects.

She’s not trapped in a situation where she is being forced to apply for just any old job, be it low-skilled, be it within her skill set, or whether it is right for her or her children. She is not being trapped in a situation that will lead to long-term poverty and hardship. She’s been able to make choices that will see her and her children better off. Seeing the hope on her face, and the pride when she talked about it—that’s a moment that’s going to stay with me for a long time to come.

Forcing a parent to go back to work after a subsequent child turns one places huge financial pressure on families, and, again, this is something I know, having had to fork out each week for day-care fees. I am so grateful for the support that the day care provides me and my husband as we raise our daughter, but a benefit does not cover childcare fees. Currently, until a child turns three, they’re not eligible for any subsidies to help with the childcare costs. So when a parent’s got two children under the age of three, that’s a huge financial burden that’s being placed on them. At the moment, that creates more pressure in an already difficult situation.

I’d also like to acknowledge the work that our social service providers do in our communities, and not one of the social service providers that I’ve talked to in my electorate has praised the subsequent child provision. All of them have told me stories of single-parent families who are struggling.

Last week, I went and visited Birthright in Whanganui. Birthright is an organisation that works together with sole-parent families to support them, and they told me about stories of providing single parents with clothing and with kai, bringing them together and teaching them to bake together and to cook together, organising activities for the children and parenting courses—providing any kind of support necessary that single parents need just to help them get ahead, to help them keep their sanity in an already tricky situation. So I want to thank organisations like Birthright for the work that they do in our communities to support, in particular, our single-parent families.

Work obligations do not support people into work, and my colleague across the House, I think, has already acknowledged that tonight. But what does support people into work is actually providing them with opportunities to upskill, to retrain, and to transition in their own time in a way that is right for their families and giving them those pathways to make those choices. I know that my community in the Whanganui electorate is not the only one with interesting stories to tell or share, and not the only one with people who have been through tough times. We can all share stories where we know that this provision has harmed families, and we can all share stories of amazing organisations in our communities and the work that they are doing.

Everyone knows that it is hard being a parent. It is hard to juggle raising children. I’ve only got one, and I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to be a single parent and to have to raise multiple children and being forced to have to look for work and go back to work, whether you’re ready or not.

Somebody commented earlier this evening about children of beneficiaries and people on benefits, saying that if they’re not in work it has long-term impacts on their mental health. Well, so is forcing them back to work, whether they are ready or not. But being forced into work every single day when you’re by yourself, getting the kids up, getting them ready, making breakfast, getting them dressed, making lunches, getting them into cars, doing multiple drop-offs, going to work, and then, at the other end of the day—rinse, wash, repeat—doing pick-ups, after-school activities or childcare activities, coming home by yourself, cooking the dinner, getting through bath time, getting through bedtime, and doing all the washing and all the other household chores that are required. That takes a huge toll on somebody, and where in that day does a parent get the ability to have their own time for their mental wellbeing, let alone to spend quality time with their children where they’re not tired and where their child’s not tired?

Those first thousand days are crucial to a child’s development, to developing—as we’ve heard tonight—the strong bonds and feeling safe and secure, and I take my hat off to all parents who do that juggle, but especially to single parents. We need to be supporting them; not punishing them. Let them decide what is in the best interests of their family, including deciding whether they are ready to go back to work. This bill does that and allows parents to spend more time with their children. I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Social Security (Subsequent Child Policy Removal) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 77

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

Noes 43

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is, That the Social Security (Subsequent Child Policy Removal) Amendment Bill be considered by the Social Services and Community Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Social Services and Community Committee.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The House stands adjourned until 2 o’clock tomorrow. Good evening.

The House adjourned at 9.55 p.m.