Wednesday, 12 May 2021

WEDNESDAY, 12 MAY 2021

WEDNESDAY, 12 MAY 2021

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia/Prayers

Karakia/Prayers

SPEAKER: Members, in light of the fact that it is Rotuman Language Week this week, I’ve asked Ingrid Leary to say the prayer.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Gagaj 'Ḁitu, 'ḁmis 'uḁ'uḁ'ḁkia 'äe 'e reko ḁlalum 'atakoa ne 'ḁmis pō 'e 'otomis mḁuri. 'Ḁmis 'uḁ'uḁ'ḁkia 'äe 'e reko måür 'on Sḁu Hån ta Elisapeti ma far la 'äe la muḁ'ḁkia 'otomis hḁifäegaga 'e terḁni te 'i. La pō la 'ḁmis la a'sokoa 'amnåk tūtū ne Rī Tḁunå' te'is 'e 'ou poto ma 'inea, 'e hḁiäf'ḁkiga, hḁihanisiga ma huḁg vḁivḁi se 'on lelei ne hanue te'is Niu Sirḁgi. 'Emen.

[Lord God, we thank you because of all the blessings that we receive in our lives. We thank you for the life of Queen Elizabeth and ask that you guide our discussions today. So that we may carry out the purposes of this House of meeting through your wisdom and knowledge, in mutual respect, mutual care and humility for the betterment of this nation New Zealand. Amen.]

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

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

SPEAKER: Members, no papers or select committee reports have been presented. No bills have been introduced.

Petitions have been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

CLERK:

Petition of Tatum Dyer, requesting that the House pass legislation to remove GST on sanitary items in New Zealand

petition of Jarno Noordermeer, requesting that the House remove the requirement for wearing face masks in public transport out of alert level 1.

SPEAKER: Those petitions stand referred to the Petitions Committee.

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 of her Government’s statements and actions?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): [Uses sign language] Thank you, Mr Speaker—in acknowledgment of New Zealand Sign Language this week. Yes, in particular our announcement today for pay parity for early learning teachers. The Minister announced today that Budget 2021 will see funding of $170 million over four years to help deliver pay parity. This builds on the $151.1 million provided for improving teacher pay in Budget 2020. This will see certified teachers on the lowest pay in early education and care services take another large step towards pay parity with their equivalent in kindergartens. These changes will address difficulties with recruitment and, we hope, reduce turnover in education and care services, enabling teachers to provide the consistent and secure relationships children need. This is an important part of our economic recovery plan, further shows our commitment to addressing inequality by delivering salary increases to lower-paid workers and supporting pay parity while carefully managing our way through the impact of COVID-19 on the economy, the books, and on our people.

Hon Judith Collins: When she told media on Monday that she plans to have public engagement on the He Puapua report, when will that public engagement take place, and what form will it take?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Actually, this is the very issue itself that Ministers are yet to consider. But that is why He Puapua were asked to come together and to provide not only their expert opinion on the delivery of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples within New Zealand but actually how we as a Government should engage with the people of New Zealand—

Hon Member: When?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —in responding. I hear the member’s call for a time line on that, and whilst I can’t provide that today, I can tell you it will not take the nine years that it took National.

Hon Judith Collins: Does she endorse her Minister for Māori Development’s statement last night that he would first talk to Māori to “see where they see things are going, particularly in terms of the constitution … We want to get their view and then we want the public’s on where we go in terms of the partnership.”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I would be very surprised if, had the National Government fulfilled its commitment in its Cabinet minute in 2014 to set up a pathway to fulfilling the declaration—I would’ve been very surprised if that did not involve engagement with Māori, because, after all, it was meant to be about a pathway to seeing the declaration lived up to within New Zealand, and it is a declaration on the rights of indigenous people. So, somehow, the idea that you wouldn’t talk to Māori about that seems slightly farcical to me.

Hon Judith Collins: Does she in any way accept the view in He Puapua that New Zealand has two spheres of governance, the Kāwanatanga sphere that represents the Crown and the rangatiratanga sphere that reflects Māori?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I see that as a reflection of the basic principles of the Treaty of Waitangi that’s being reflected there by the members of He Puapua. However, again, you know, I come back to this very simple premise that we spoke about a little bit in the House yesterday: it is 2021. You know, in my view, I think New Zealand generally accepts that we have a relationship between the Crown and Māori that does make us unique. I don’t think we should be afraid about seeing further progress in the way that we build and improve that relationship. My question to the National Party would be: you seemed willing to see that progress in Government; you seem wholly unwilling from Opposition.

Hon Judith Collins: Is this dual Government model what her Minister for Māori Crown Relations was referring to yesterday when he asked her if she agreed with the “comments made at the Iwi Chairs Forum in Porirua on Friday that when kāwanatanga and rangatiratanga work together in partnership, we’ll see great things happening.”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I see that all that the Minister for Māori Crown Relations was reflecting are the three principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Can you please give your view on whether the Leader of the Opposition’s continued attack on Māori is racist?

SPEAKER: There’s a couple of things about that question. One of them is the “you” in it and the other is, I think, asking for a view on a matter which is well outside the Prime Minister’s responsibility.

Hon Judith Collins: Does she agree with former Prime Minister David Lange, who stated that “Democratic Government can accommodate Māori political aspiration in many ways. … What it cannot do is acknowledge the existence of a separate sovereignty. As soon as it does … it isn’t a democracy.”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I have no doubt that, if David Lange had the ability to remark on what we are doing as a Government in the area, for instance, of health reform, he would applaud it. What the member characterises as separatism I characterise as partnership, and it is just unacceptable, I would hope, for any member in this House to stand by while we have a health system or systems across the board that lead to different outcomes for different people in New Zealand. Our job as Government is to make sure that we see opportunity and the potential of all New Zealanders realised, and our current systems do not always achieve that.

Rawiri Waititi: Point of order. Mr Speaker, I seek your guidance and advice. Over the past two weeks, there has been racist propaganda and rhetoric towards tangata whenua. That not only is insulting to tangata whenua but diminishes the mana of this House.

SPEAKER: I thank the member for his point of order. I think I relatively ineloquently made comments in this area last week, and that is that we are a House of Representatives, that there are a broad range of views within the House, and part of my responsibility is to allow those views to be aired. Many things in the time that I’ve been a member of Parliament have resulted in discomfort to other members because the views are very different, and there are almost certainly some views that were expressed earlier in my career that would now be regarded as out of order for the reasons that the member has expressed. In my view, we are not at that point now.

Hon Judith Collins: Is it her—

Rawiri Waititi: Point of order.

SPEAKER: I am going to warn the member that—no, the member will sit down when I stand up—litigation or relitigation of points of order or decisions on points of order is in itself disorderly, and now that the member has been warned, it would make it deliberately disorderly. So I am asking the member to make sure that if he has a point of order, it is a fresh and different one.

Rawiri Waititi: Fresh and different point of order, Mr Speaker. When it comes to views of indigenous rights and indigenous peoples, those views must be from those indigenous peoples for the indigenous rights of our people. They can’t be determined by people who are not indigenous. So what I am asking, e hika mā, to this House—tēnā koe e te Pirīmia—is that if we find this attitude acceptable in this House, the constant barrage of insults to tangata whenua, then I find this House in disrepute and—

SPEAKER: Order! Order!

Rawiri Waititi: —Te Paati Māori—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member’s mike’s off, so he will resume his seat. [Member performs haka] Order! The member will now leave the Chamber.

Rawiri Waititi withdrew from the Chamber.

Hon Judith Collins: Is it her Government’s position that article 2 of the Treaty is “exercise within the Crown’s right to govern” as in the Cabinet circular, or in partnership with the Crown, as her Government is now stating?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I absolutely stand by the manifestation of the idea of partnership in the way that we are reforming the health system. There has been sentiment from the National Party when they were in Government that suggested they viewed these matters the same way. I note that the document that was part of the Māori health strategy released under the last National Government, He Korowai Oranga, states, “Enabling whānau, hapū, … and Māori to exercise control over their own health and wellbeing, as well as the direction and shape of their own institutions, communities and development as a people, is a key thread of He Korowai Oranga.” Again, as I’ve said, we as a nation have been making progress. There is a lot of work to be done. I would encourage the National Party to return to the position they once held of the idea of partnership, because I see this as a lead from—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: It’s just an answer, not a speech.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —the Leader of the Opposition that is fundamentally taking us backwards.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: No lecture required.

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I’d just like to ask the Hon Gerry Brownlee to stop coaching me. Thank you.

Hon Judith Collins: Does she agree with He Puapua that our current Government does not reflect the Treaty and that honouring the Treaty requires a rebalancing of the Crown and Māori spheres of governance?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, a demonstration that this was a report—a group that we brought together to provide us with ideas, advice, and their views. It was not a Government report. As that statement then demonstrates, the member cannot have it both ways. I’ll say again what I said last week: we have not yet considered the report, including the views that sit within it.

Question No. 2—Infrastructure

2. SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote) to the Minister for Infrastructure: What recent reports has he seen on infrastructure?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister for Infrastructure): Securing the economic recovery in New Zealand is being supported by the Government’s commitment to building infrastructure for the betterment of New Zealanders’ lives. Today, Te Waihanga, the Infrastructure Commission, has released its consultation document He Tūāpapa ki te Ora, Infrastructure for a Better Future. This is the legislated requirement that the Government created last term for the Infrastructure Commission to produce a 30-year strategy to help meet our infrastructure needs. The Government is committed to tackling the long-term challenges facing New Zealand and laying the foundations for a prosperous future.

Shanan Halbert: Why is an infrastructure strategy required?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: There are lots of organisations who plan and deliver infrastructure, whether it’s roads, power lines, or hospitals, but there is no one organisation that looks across all sectors at our needs and the issues that we face. What the consultation document highlights is the scale of New Zealand’s infrastructure deficit that has been built up over many decades. This Government has committed $49.8 billion in infrastructure, but even with that we recognise that there is more to do and it must include a more strategic approach. This strategy will help identify what is holding us back and look at the system that leads to the infrastructure we need to build a better New Zealand for everyone.

Shanan Halbert: What is the process for the finalisation of the infrastructure strategy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Decisions we make about our infrastructure can affect us for decades or even centuries. Some of the problems we have now, such as difficulties with water pipes around cities such as Wellington, congestion in our cities, or unaffordable homes are the result of decisions made in the past. The document is a step towards a better future. It sets out the challenges we’re facing and proposes solutions. Te Waihanga is now asking New Zealanders what they think. Consultation is open for six weeks, and from this feedback a 30-year strategy for New Zealand’s infrastructure will be developed and published in September.

Question No. 3—Housing (Public Housing)

3. CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central) to the Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing): Is she aware that nearly all commercial lease agreements include transparent criteria for rent reviews; if so, will she consider requiring residential tenancy agreements to include agreed criteria for rent increases?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing)): Noa’ia e Mauri, Mr Speaker. While I have no responsibility for commercial leases, which sit under the justice portfolio, I am advised that there is nothing in law requiring the rent increase criteria in commercial leases the member has asked about. Rather, these are often negotiated as part of a commercial rent agreement that, typically, covers a much longer period than a residential rent agreement—usually five to 10 years. This Government has already made changes to encourage longer-term residential rent agreements, including removing no-cause terminations and limiting rent increases to once a year. We know that, if rental agreements can be agreed over a longer term, it is more likely that these types of agreements would be made between landlords and tenants, if they so wished.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Do any of the things that the Minister has just listed actually limit the amount that landlords can raise rents by, or give renters any certainty about what their rent will be next year?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: What I can say is that we have made multiple changes to improve the security and rights of renters, including limiting rent increases to once a year and banning rental bidding. We are monitoring what happens with rent rises and will take action if necessary.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Would she prefer a system like in Ireland and Scotland, where an independent Government agency sets maximum rent increases each year, or a system where renters and landlords negotiate maximum annual rent increases collectively, like in Sweden?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: I can’t speak to what happens in other jurisdictions. All I can speak to is our aspiration for renters in New Zealand to be in homes that are warm, dry, and affordable, and what I can speak to also is our programme to support renters to have much more ability to deal with the issues that confront them and to be able to deal with them in a way that gives them certainty and power. If a tenant thinks that their rent is too expensive and not in line with the market, they have the opportunity of going to the Tenancy Tribunal.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Does the Government’s current practice of collecting rent data when bonds are lodged for new tenancies, but not when landlords increase rents during the course of a tenancy, provide an accurate picture of whether rent increases are fair and affordable?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: My view is that the information that the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development uses, which is Stats New Zealand’s rental price index, is a much more accurate and complete view of rent changes and prices.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Will the Government consider restricting rent increases to match the restrictions on wage increases for nurses, teachers, and social workers?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: What the Government will consider is continuing the work we are doing to ensure that we improve the security and rights of renters and tenants by limiting rent increases to once a year and banning rental bidding.

Question No. 4—Education

4. ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour) to the Minister of Education: What is the Government doing to address wage inequality amongst early childhood education teachers?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Today I announced that qualified and registered teachers on the lowest pay in early learning education and care services will take another leap towards pay parity with their equivalents in kindergartens. Pay parity for education and care teachers is a manifesto commitment for this Government. It’s also reflected in the early learning action plan. It will address the obvious gap that has emerged between teachers in early education childcare centres and their equivalents in kindergartens. We started progress last year by lifting the minimum levels of pay, and we’ll be continuing to work towards that over this term of Government.

Angela Roberts: Why is it important for the Government to address early childhood education pay parity?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The Government believes it’s only fair that teachers with the same qualifications, carrying out the same work, and with equal degrees of experience should be paid comparably. That has not been the case. Over the nine years before the Government took office, the pay increases that went to kindergarten teachers were not passed on to teachers working in other forms of early learning. That has created a significant wage gap in that area. That is one of the things the Government wants to be able to address. We are committed to lifting the income levels of those lower-paid workers whilst also dealing with significant issues like pay equity and pay parity, and today’s announcement is further evidence of that.

Angela Roberts: What does today’s announcement specifically do to ensure pay increases for teachers in education and care centres?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Today’s announcement does two things. First, and most immediately, from 1 July it increases the funding rates for education and care services to ensure that the next increase for kindergarten teacher pay, which kicks in this year, will flow through to education and care services. The second thing that it does is introduce new, higher rates of funding from 1 January 2022 for the services that agree to pay their teachers up to the equivalent of step 6 on the kindergarten teacher salary scale, meaning a teacher in early learning and care services that has six years’ worth of experience should be being paid step 6 on the kindergarten teachers’ salary scale. That’s a significant change, and it could see some early learning teachers get pay increases of up to 17 percent.

Question No. 5—Infrastructure

5. ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato) to the Minister for Infrastructure: How many shovel-ready infrastructure projects have not yet begun construction, and what is the total number of shovel-ready projects?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister for Infrastructure): As I have said to the member in previous replies on this question, we’re making good progress. The very latest I’m able to tell him in the House is that as at 31 March, 115 Infrastructure Industry Reference Group (IRG) projects have started construction. That’s an increase of 48 projects during the month of March. A total of 106 IRG projects have pre-construction work under way, such as consenting, design, and procurement, and there are 10 projects that are still undergoing due diligence or other contracting activity. The total number of IRG projects that have been approved is 231. I would note for the member that this has shifted around a little bit, as some larger programmes have been broken into smaller projects for ease of procurement and contracting.

Andrew Bayly: What is the Minister’s definition of “shovel-ready”, given that the large number of projects he listed a year ago as shovel-ready have no shovels in the ground?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As we’ve discussed previously in the House, when this work was first undertaken, in April last year, the statement made in the Cabinet paper that’s been released was that projects should be ready to go or near ready to go within six months. By the time we came to finalise the projects, the construction environment was very different, the COVID environment was very different, Cabinet had progressed its thinking, and 12 months was seen to be a more appropriate time frame.

Andrew Bayly: How many shovel-ready projects have been completed?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I would need to get back to the member on that, but all of the projects were significant projects that were required to be done in communities. The member shouldn’t concern himself too much with that number at this point, because the projects are contributing significantly to regional development, and will do so for some time.

Andrew Bayly: How many shovel-ready projects are not expected to proceed?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The only projects that are happening are the ones that have been contracted, and that is the 231 that I mentioned before. There may be more—as I’ve said, we’ve got the 10 projects that are still going through due diligence.

Andrew Bayly: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked the Minister how many shovel-ready projects are expected not to proceed. I don’t think he addressed that issue.

SPEAKER: The issue was certainly addressed.

Andrew Bayly: Does he anticipate, in his role as Minister for Infrastructure, receiving a letter from the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister in charge of the implementation unit regarding his failure to deliver shovel-ready projects?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: When the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Infrastructure commune, it’s a true meeting of minds. I’m sure, at some point, they will talk to one another. One of the things they might talk about are the excellent projects taking place in, for example, the Port Waikato electorate, where the Sunset Beach community hub and lifeguard facility projects are under way, the Lake Kimihia project is under way. What the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Infrastructure might discuss is the fact that the local member doesn’t seem to support these important community projects.

Question No. 6—Health

6. Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei) to the Minister of Health: What recent announcements has he made about new hospital facilities in Northland?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): On Friday, I had the privilege of opening two new operating theatres and a cardiac catheter laboratory at Whangārei Hospital. The cardiac catheter laboratory is expected to treat around a thousand patients a year, and the two new operating theatres bring the total number at Whangārei Hospital to eight. I also announced the Government’s commitment to see out phase two of the Northland DHB critical capacity and compliance stage two project that will address the shortage of in-patient bed capacity and see the accreditation of a laboratory. This is a significant investment into Whangārei Hospital after nine long years of underfunding.

Dr Emily Henderson: What will these new facilities mean for the people of Te Tai Tokerau?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Northlanders will no longer necessarily have to go to Auckland for lifesaving heart procedures like angiograms, angioplasty, and the insertion of pacemakers. These new facilities mean that Northlanders can be treated closer to home and closer to whānau. This will benefit those 1,000 people I talked about in the answer to the primary question, but this will also alleviate pressure off the three Auckland DHBs to whom those patients would otherwise be referred.

Dr Emily Henderson: What other investments are being made for healthcare facilities for people living in Te Tai Tokerau?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Other projects approved for this region so far include the Bay of Islands Hospital redevelopment, the Kaitāia Hospital remediation, a linear accelerator bunker and equipment at Whangārei Hospital to provide radiation treatment for people with cancer, and buses to provide mobile surgical and lithotripsy services.

Question No. 7—Social Development and Employment

7. Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: Does she have confidence that every single recipient of the Emergency Housing Special Needs Grant is staying in safe and humane accommodation?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Noa'ia 'e Mḁuri. I’m confident that the vast majority in receipt of an emergency housing special needs grant are in appropriate and safe accommodation. But where people feel they aren’t safe, I do encourage them to contact the Ministry of Social Development (MSD).

Hon Louise Upston: Is the reason she had to tell MSD in Rotorua, “let’s stop using altogether” certain motels because, after four years, the Minister has failed to establish any processes to ensure motels are suitable for people to live in?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I just want to remind that member that the emergency housing special needs grant was actually established under the previous National Government, in response to a homelessness problem that had been largely ignored. Many of the developments that have taken place since that special needs grant was first established have seen improvements—improvements like a navigational service to support those in emergency accommodation to access other social supports they might need; housing brokers, that we put in place, that weren’t in place previously, to support people to be able to negotiate other housing, to find other housing outside of emergency accommodation. It is not ideal having New Zealand families in emergency accommodation, but it is a failure of previous Governments to invest in housing that has led us to this situation.

Hon Louise Upston: Is the reason a mother with four children had to stay in a motel for eight months, surrounded by gang members and violence, because, after four years, she has failed to establish any process that would tell MSD who is staying where?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: The vast majority of people who are in emergency accommodation, where they receive an emergency housing grant, are actually able to move out of that emergency housing within six months. There are others that have more complex issues that make it harder to be able to put them in more secure housing. What I do acknowledge is that, in some instances, people have come forward and said that they don’t think that the emergency accommodation that they are in is appropriate for them, and that is where MSD will support them to move to something more suitable. I’ll also note that recently there was a story on the Manners Street, Wellington, emergency housing motel. The people that were interviewed there said that it wasn’t an issue with the people that were in the emergency accommodation. They felt safe. It was the people they saw out on the street who were not in accommodation.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Can the Minister confirm that officials from the Ministry of Social Development have been on the ground in Rotorua with fellow officials from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, officers from Rotorua Lakes District Council, and representatives of iwi, working on long-term solutions, because we are part of the Government that is committed to finding solutions to homelessness?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I can absolutely confirm that that is the case. As I said, we inherited a housing problem. We need to ensure that all of the relevant Government agencies, Ministers, local government, iwi are working together to ensure we have long-term solutions, and that work is certainly happening.

Hon Louise Upston: Can she provide an assurance to families who currently have nowhere to stay and might approach MSD that she will urgently implement a system that will prevent children from being put next to recently released prisoners and gang members?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I can go further than that. I can assure people who go to MSD who are homeless and have nowhere else to stay that MSD, under our watch, will support them to get into emergency accommodation so that they don’t need to live in their cars or on the streets.

Hon Louise Upston: By what date will the Minister commit to stop putting children in motels?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: As I’ve already said, our Government takes the need to meet the housing demand in this country seriously. We only wish that previous Governments had spent time building houses instead of selling them off. So we are working at pace. We are committed to 18,400 new public housing and transitional housing places within four years, and that is a darn sight better than what the previous National Government did.

Question No. 8—Building and Construction

8. TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North) to the Minister for Building and Construction: Noa'ia 'e Mḁuri. [Uses sign language] Thank you, Mr Speaker. What recent reports has she seen regarding building consents?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister for Building and Construction): Kia orana. Noa'ia 'e Mḁuri, Mr Speaker. I’ve seen a report from Statistics New Zealand that shows that a record 41,028 new homes have been consented in the year ending March 2020-21—an all-time high. In March 2020-21 alone, 4,128 new homes were consented, the highest number since the 1940s. A decade ago, the annual number of new homes consented was 14,611. Ten years on, the annual number of new homes consented has risen by 181 percent. These figures show that the Government’s commitment to responding to increased housing demand is delivering the warm, dry, safe, and durable houses that New Zealand needs.

Tangi Utikere: What does the Statistics New Zealand data show for regional New Zealand?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: While the data shows the annual number of new homes consented in Auckland is at a record 17,495, we’ve also seen record numbers of new homes consented in the regions, including Waikato, Hawke’s Bay, Taranaki, Manawatū, Whanganui, and Tasman.

Tangi Utikere: How is the Government supporting the building and construction sector to build on this growth in consents?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: As a Government, we are committed to supporting the sector through continued investment in trades training and apprenticeships, our building legislative reform programme, and improvement to our planning system by repealing and replacing the Resource Management Act. We are also ensuring that we have capacity to meet the increased demand. Through the Construction Skills Action Plan initiative, more than 9,300 people have taken up education or employment opportunities in the construction sector since 2018.

Question No. 9—COVID-19 Response

9. CHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Minister for COVID-19 Response: Does he agree with the Prime Minister, who said yesterday, “In part, that is because, yes, we really were at the front of the pack in terms of securing agreements with companies for the delivery of vaccine”, and is he satisfied with the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Yes, the Prime Minister was absolutely correct yesterday when she signalled that our objective of keeping New Zealanders safe from COVID-19 was a key factor in securing a diverse vaccine portfolio last year so that we can ensure that everyone in New Zealand is able to get a free vaccination. In relation to the second part of the member’s question, again, yes. As of midnight last night, we have so far delivered 388,877 doses of the vaccine across New Zealand. That’s an increase of 83,000 on this time last week. DHBs are generally tracking ahead of their national roll-out plans. Progress continues in the lead-up to the nationwide roll-out of the vaccine to most New Zealanders from July onwards.

Chris Bishop: Why was a pre-booked 81-year-old turned away from her appointment in Auckland yesterday, and is it acceptable that seniors are being turned away when turning up on time for their pre-booked appointments?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: In answer to the second part of the question, no. My understanding is that in that particular case that vaccination clinic was taking a mix of bookings and walk ins—people coming in without appointments. They had more people walking in without appointments, which meant that they became congested. I understand there was a health and safety issue and so they closed the centre for a short period of time and the woman concerned was affected by that. I think that is very regrettable. It is something that I know the people doing the vaccines work hard to avoid, and I’m sure that they will have learnt from that experience.

Chris Bishop: Why was a border worker in Rotorua told they had to travel to Tauranga to get a COVID-19 vaccine and that there wasn’t a vaccination centre in Rotorua, when, in fact, there is?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Well, I think the last part of the member’s question probably answers the first part of his question, which is they were clearly being given wrong information. Without knowing who gave them that information, it’s very difficult to comment.

Chris Bishop: Why were pre-booked people told that the East Tāmaki vaccination centre had run out of COVID-19 vaccine doses last Thursday, when it had not, forcing people to book in for their vaccine appointments again?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I don’t have responsibility for what all 5 million New Zealanders say to other New Zealanders around the availability of vaccines.

Question No. 10—Pacific Peoples

10. INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) to the Minister for Pacific Peoples: What recent announcement has he made about supporting Pacific languages in New Zealand?

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Minister for Pacific Peoples): Noa'ia 'e Mḁuri. It is with immense pride that I stood with the Rotuman community and the Hata collective on Sunday at the Auckland Museum to mark the launch of Rotuman Language Week, the first of nine Pacific language weeks this year. This year’s Rotuman Language Week theme is Tutur häk ne måür lelei, or, in English “the four pillars of life”, including health: Fak'ata, spiritual; Fakforo, physical; 'Os A'häe, psychological; and Hạikạinagaga, relationship with people. Tutur häk ne måür lelei reminds us that Pacific resilience is about more than just physical health. We must also nurture the other aspects that make up our entire beings. This recognises that for Pacific, language, culture, and identity is the cornerstone of our wellbeing.

Ingrid Leary: Why is it important to celebrate Rotuman Language Week?

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: Pacific languages, cultures, and identity are essential to the health and wellbeing of Pacific peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand. Language is fundamental to providing Pacific peoples with an anchor to their identity, confidence, and safety as we navigate our way through the economic and social challenges ahead post the COVID-19 pandemic. The Rotuman language has been identified as vulnerable on Unesco’s list of endangered languages. The 2019 Wellbeing Budget provided $20 million over four years toward the support of Pacific languages and cultures. This will fund initiatives critical to increasing the use and value of Pacific languages.

Ingrid Leary: What type of support is there for Pacific languages?

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: The Pacific language weeks have extended activities throughout the year, with language funding support provided by the Ministry for Pacific Peoples to enable year-long language learning initiatives, which are led by our Pacific communities throughout Aotearoa New Zealand. The ministry supports Pacific languages with a number of funding streams such as the Provider Languages, Community Languages, and the Youth Languages funds. Languages funding has been hugely successful in raising awareness and increasing the use of Pacific languages. In 2020, the Community Languages Fund supported 344 community groups and reaffirmed the Government’s commitment to ensuring that Pacific languages continue to thrive in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Question No. 11—Finance

11. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Minister of Finance: Will Budget 2021 cut taxes for middle-income New Zealanders?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Budget 2021 will continue the Government’s investments to secure the economic recovery and improve the wellbeing of all New Zealanders. In terms of specific policy areas that may or may not be in the Budget, the member will have to wait just eight more sleeps. However, what I can say to the member is that we will not be adopting ACT’s plans, because they would require enormous cuts to public services, like the winter energy payment, that would hurt the most vulnerable in our society. However—

SPEAKER: Order! I think the Minister has answered the question.

David Seymour: Is the Minister saying to New Zealanders that, if they wait eight more sleeps, they might discover the Budget will relieve them of the taxes he charges?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As I said in my primary answer, the member will have to wait to see the details of the Budget. However, I can tell the member that we will not be adopting ACT’s alternative budget that has been released, because that would hurt the most vulnerable in our society and would diminish public services. But I do congratulate the member on repackaging his manifesto as an alternative budget and entrenching his position as the real Leader of the Opposition.

David Seymour: When the Minister said that ACT’s alternative budget would cut public services, could he point to one example he used to form that opinion?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, I mentioned the winter energy payment in my comments, but the example, I would say, is that, if the member wants to change the balance of income that the Government gets, it will be unable to deliver the quality public services that New Zealanders rely on.

Andrew Bayly: Will Budget 2021 impose more costs on small businesses?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: This Government is very proud of its record of supporting small businesses. All the way through COVID-19 small businesses received support from the Government, including the creation of the Small Business Cashflow (Loan) Scheme. I would invite the member to reflect on the fact that, possibly for the first time in history, in the surveys done by Mind Your Own Business during the 2020 period the Labour Party got more support from small businesses than the National Party did.

David Seymour: Did the Minister use winter energy payments as an example in his previous answer because he was aware when he gave the answer that ACT’s alternative budget cuts middle-income taxes by $1,200 to $2,200 while making no reductions to public services such as police, health, education, transport, fire—

SPEAKER: Order! Any one of those 15 questions.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No. The reason I did that was because I have real concerns as to whether or not ACT’s alternative budget adds up, driven by the graph on page 8, where the member’s just got his numbers plain wrong.

David Seymour: Does the Minister really think that arguing about a graph is a substitute for giving New Zealanders no hope of tax relief while prices rise and he freezes the wages of the public sector?

Hon Chris Hipkins: Ask Paul Goldsmith.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Most of that question is wrong, but what I do think is that accuracy in these documents is important, and if the member wants any advice on that, I suggest he contacts Paul Goldsmith.

David Seymour: Does the Minister understand that, while I’m asking the questions, he’s answering to the people of New Zealand, and some of them would like to know if he’s likely to cut their taxes?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As I said to the member, we have a longstanding tradition in this Parliament where the Budget is given on Budget day, and in the period leading up to that time people are welcome to speculate. What I have said is this Government recognises the importance of investing in public services, of looking after the vulnerable, and there ain’t no way his plan adds up to that.

David Seymour: So, that’s a no.

SPEAKER: Well, no, there’s no—

Hon Grant Robertson: Mr Speaker—

SPEAKER: Order!

Hon Grant Robertson: That’s not a question.

SPEAKER: Order! That’s not a question.

David Seymour: Point of order. Mr Speaker, I seek clarification. I thought the point of supplementary questions was to clarify previous answers, and it’s been very difficult to understand what the Minister’s trying to say. I just wanted to make it simple for him.

Hon Simon Bridges: Point of order.

SPEAKER: Well, let me deal with the first one, first. I know the member’s not that keen on being here, but! There might have been a slight inflection at the end of the member’s question, but it didn’t mean it was in the interrogative. Simon Bridges—point of order.

Hon Simon Bridges: Oh, that’s all right.

SPEAKER: No?

Question No. 12—Housing

12. NICOLA WILLIS (National) to the Minister of Housing: Is the Government on track to deliver the 800 KiwiBuild houses she estimated would be built in the 2020/21 financial year, and will that include completion of the 176 KiwiBuild homes contracted by Kāinga Ora for construction by Ormiston Rise Development?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The forecasted 800 KiwiBuild homes outlined to the member in the answer to written parliamentary question No. 3946 on 9 March were on track for delivery in the current financial year. However, as the member is aware, the Ormiston Rise development was placed into receivership last Friday, and this does call into question whether these homes will be completed by June 2021, but I’d like to stress it does not necessarily call into question whether these homes will be completed. However, I do note that many of the purchasers of these homes were working to an October 2021 move-in date, and the latest advice I have is that expectations are still that the first homeowners will move in in quarter four, 2021—that is, between October and December 2021.

I’d also like to take the opportunity to clarify a couple of points for the member. Firstly, since the answer to her written question was lodged, the number of KiwiBuild homes for stage one at Ormiston has been reforecast to 173 because three properties were transferred into stage two of the development, due for delivery in 2022, and, secondly, KiwiBuild does not contract homes for construction. Under the Buying Off the Plans programme, KiwiBuild provides underwrites to enable homes to be delivered by private developers.

Nicola Willis: Did she discuss additional financial assistance for Ormiston Rise with officials during the “intensive discussions” she had with them over the weekend and on Monday, and, if not, what was discussed?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Yes, I did ask officials whether or not there was any request from the receivers for additional financial support, because, of this development, 173 in stage one are KiwiBuild homes, and 190 of the properties are included in that stage. The answer that I got from officials is that the intensive discussions had actually been happening between officials and the receivers, not me—I don’t get into either intensive or intense discussions—but in terms of those conversations, it was very clear that finance was not the issue or the reason why the receivers had been called in. In fact, the finance is looking secure and, in fact, the financier has an equity interest in the development, so is, therefore, highly motivated to complete this development. I think what the member and all members of this House should be aware of is that many of these homes are very near completion. Many are very close to the code compliance stage of development, so there is a lot of sunk cost and everybody is highly motivated to realise the value and complete this development.

Nicola Willis: Well, if it wasn’t financial reasons that meant the receivers were called in, what was the reason?

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I’ll let—strictly it’s not the Minister’s responsibility.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: No, she gave the answer.

SPEAKER: She might have referred to it, but it’s still not—have a go.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Oh, I’m happy to talk to that because of course this is something that came up in discussions, and something that I would have asked my officials of what that was. The lenders and the financiers at Ormiston Rise became concerned about construction progress, and construction has been paused for a period of around two weeks for that progress to be evaluated.

Nicola Willis: What does she say to the KiwiBuild buyer in the Ormiston Rise development who said, “One of the reasons why we went with KiwiBuild is because it is run by the Government. It should be safe.”, and does she commit to KiwiBuild buyers in Ormiston Rise that their houses will be completed on time?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I’ve addressed many of the issues that the member raised in that question, but I am happy to answer it because that person has also written to me and I’m in the middle of writing a response to them. So what I can say to them is that the Government does stand behind this project. As I’ve explained to the member in a previous answer, finance is not the issue—that finance is looking to be secure—and what I would ask that member is not to scaremonger for political purposes. There are a group of first-home buyers that don’t deserve for their anxiety levels to be taken up further.

Nicola Willis: Does she commit that the KiwiBuild homes in the Ormiston Rise development will be delivered on time?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: As I’ve intimated in previous answers that the member’s asked in this line of questioning, we have had pauses to construction for a couple of weeks, although I haven’t received official advice of what the delay might be. I would expect there will be a delay. When you do pause construction, that tends to occur. But, as I said, the advice I have had is the first purchasers can expect to move into the properties in quarter four of this year. The expectation of most of the purchasers that I’ve been in communication with was an October move-in date.

Nicola Willis: Supplementary.

SPEAKER: No, the member’s used all her supplementaries.

Speaker’s Rulings

Allegations of Racism—Use of Word “Racist”

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): Mr Speaker, point of order. Mr Speaker, I acknowledge that I am actually seeking your leeway to raise a point of order related to question No. 1 in the House today. I required some time to go through the Speakers’ Rulings. So I wanted to ask that—recently you have ruled in this House about your interpretation of Speakers’ rulings 44/1 and 44/2 regarding allegations of racism. Mr Speaker, I am asking could you further reflect on those rulings, especially 44/1, because that came from 1998 and, effectively, rules that no member in this House can ever be racist—which is actually not reflective of a House of Representatives and does not help towards raising the standard of debate in this House when we start to undermine debate as including harmful, racist narrative.

SPEAKER: Speaking to the point of order, the Hon Michael Woodhouse.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think this a very important issue, and it’s been raised two or three times in the last month. To the last point that Ms Davidson just raised, the Standing Orders are very clear that, while accusations of racism are not to be levelled, it is entirely within the Speaker’s prerogative to rule matters out and to judge them, or for a member to take offence. In respect of Speaker’s ruling 44/1, I would suggest to you that Speaker Kidd’s ruling is enduring, because it goes to the question of the perception of things that are interpreted in questions or in speech comments that may or may not be the intention of the speaker—and it’s very clear, in that second sentence, or third sentence: “I understand the feelings of members who feel that the policies or views of other members are objectionable. They must be permitted to criticise those policies or views in strong terms.” So that goes both ways. But to automatically presume that because a certain line of questioning, which you’ve ruled is in the Standing Orders, should be ruled out because somebody has a perception that it carries with it an inference I think would demean the quality of the debate and the freedom that we have, the privileges that we have, in this House to engage in robust but reasonable debate in accordance with the Standing Orders.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Point of order, Mr Speaker. I do feel that this is a point that needs to be addressed. The purpose of this House, we all agree, is to scrutinise and hold to account the executive. Now, the executive appears to have some policy initiatives which are racially explicit—that means that they need to be debated by this House; that can often be uncomfortable. I, personally, would prefer that they weren’t, but to somehow restrict the House from being able to debate the executive’s policies with charges of racism was rightly ruled out by previous Speakers. If anything, the influx of racially explicit policy on the part of the executive makes it more necessary that we are able freely to debate them.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): Having just had a quick read of the Speaker’s ruling in question, I think the overall objective here was to get members debating the substance of an issue rather than using labels in order to characterise one another. I think members expressing concern about sentiments being expressed on one side of the House or another is absolutely legitimate; it is a legitimate part of debate. I think what Speaker Kidd—and, in fact, I think he maybe even references that in his ruling—suggests is that using a single word as a lazy shorthand to characterise a member’s concerns isn’t the way to go; that, if you have an objection with what someone is saying, elaborate on that, debate it, rather than simply throw labels at each other.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Speaking to the point of order, I want to echo exactly what Mr Hipkins just said then, and also what David Seymour said in his contribution. The simple reality is that we have a political constitution in this country, in the sense that it’s for the Parliament to decide our constitutional arrangements, and the reality is that the Treaty of Waitangi, signed between Māori and Pākehā settlers into New Zealand, is something that will always be, and has always been in the time we’ve had parliamentary democracy, the subject of intense debate in the Parliament. That’s the reality, and we should not inhibit debate around that in this House.

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I acknowledge—and am asking genuinely for your guidance—we have the Speakers’ Rulings available to us that are procedural. I am also looking for your guidance on how we can have genuine debate without marginalising entire groups of communities, including tangata whenua, who feel that the standard of debate in this House is not at all welcoming or inviting to actual democratic debate on the important issues of how our country comes together in the future.

SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I am going to say that, in this point of order in particular, I’m going to rule strictly that it will be heard in silence. There are some comments that are just not helpful.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): The House is, in fact, about to—or I suspect; unless there’s something else about to happen that I don’t know about—engage in an hour of debate where members can do exactly that; they can raise whatever issues they wish to. The issue around the word “racist”, I think, falls into a similar category as the word “liar” or “hypocrite” or other such labels, which are also not allowed to be used in the House. Though members may deeply hold the view that what somebody on the other side has said fits one of those descriptions, those are descriptions that we can’t use. We are encouraged to engage in debate that is a little more sophisticated than that.

Hon JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): Speaking to the point of order, I think there are a number of issues that need to be disaggregated, one of which is that the Treaty is a legal instrument between two peoples. If they were peoples of the same ethnicity, it wouldn’t be conflated with race, and yet that is how it’s been conflated in the House.

The second issue is that the tone or certain labels that get used in question time, or have been used in question time recently, are offensive to some members but, under the rules of the House, under the procedural rules that the Hon Marama Davidson was referring to, we’re unable to say that we take offence, because it’s not directed at an individual member of Parliament. So we can’t, within the procedures, say that we take offence to something that another member has said as part of question time.

I think the third component here is that, ultimately, we are talking about the tangata whenua, the indigenous people, who are in a minority in this House and, therefore, are unable to express the offence that has been taken by the narrative or some of those labels that are being thrown around as a result of other members of the House, due to the nature of those procedures. That is why we are raising the point as a point of order within the rules around question time.

SPEAKER: I’m getting close to being able to rule.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): Mr Speaker, I think the challenge that’s being put down to you is trying to work out how you, in fact, deal with debate on policy that is formulated, essentially, on race, without offending those who consider that such a debate should not take place, and that there should be no question about the basis of the policy itself. And that is, I think, the fine line that you’re being asked to walk, and we look forward to your consideration of that.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Point of order, Mr Speaker. I am one of those indigenous peoples, and I sit here in this House as a representative of others as well. And when we have politicians that say that they speak for my race that I belong to, I find that they’re not actually speaking for me. So I would actually like to be able to have the debate that’s being held. While we do all know that some people find things offensive, others actually believe that we do need to have this debate, and this is what this House is about. I do not find some of the comments that have been made as being racist, but, rather, looking at ways of working through solutions to the issues that have been put in front of us. And the representatives for the minority walked out of this House. They didn’t abide by the rules of this House, and, therefore, they have walked away from the people that they said that they want to represent.

So I think it’s very important that we consider—

SPEAKER: Order! Come right back to that rather than reflecting on what happened.

NICOLE McKEE: I would like to be able to continue to have a debate on the laws that go through here—an open and honest conversation on every piece of legislation that we debate in the House. Thank you. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order!

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Speaking to the point of order. I think Mr Brownlee has summarised the position, the dilemma, that you have to confront. The implication of the points of order from Ms Davidson and Mr Shaw are quite troubling, because they are asking you to go beyond Speakers’ rulings, essentially, which are that you can’t call someone, directly, racist, but that labels should be interpreted as, essentially, racist, or some language should be interpreted in that light even if it’s not intended in that light. Actually, I point out that no examples have been given around the language that some members—Green members—have found offensive. So we would put it to you, from the National Opposition, that the current Speakers’ rulings around improper language more than suffice, and we should allow robust and free debate in this House.

SPEAKER: This is the last contribution.

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Minister for Courts): Mr Speaker, there are various worlds here, and they’re colliding because the system here is not an indigenous system. I’m not trying to defend what’s occurred; what I’m saying, which I think has been demonstrated here, is that there are certain issues of debate within this House where there’s a duty of care in how we approach it. How it’s handled in this House also has rippling effects on the wider community. And for minority groups, including myself, it is quite painful to sit in here knowing that, whilst it is a robust House here, where all things are open for debate, there’s a line that often crosses here. And I think it’s no different from us also being careful about sexual harassment and abuse, that we’ve often talked about.

SPEAKER: I want to thank members for what I think has been a useful discussion. I’m going to make a ruling now but reserve the right to come back again if I think it needs to be updated. My starting point—and I go back to comments that the Hon Dr Lockwood Smith made around hypocrisy in the past—is that there is a difference between calling an individual a racist and criticising either a policy or a view as being racist. I think that’s essentially the point that the Hon Mr Brownlee was making: that some people in this House have the view that some policies are racist. Some people have the view that other members’ views are racist. In my opinion, ruling that out would be excluding the rights to free speech, which we value substantially.

On the question of just the use of words, Speakers can and have regularly ruled specific words out. Calling someone a liar, I think, is one which is pretty straightforward with the expressions that happen in this House. So I think the essence of my ruling is asking people to take care as they express themselves, to think of the wider consequences when they do, but I am not going to ask one part of the House to refrain from suggestions that some policies are race-based or, effectively, racist, and I’m not going to stop another group in the House expressing the view that other members’ views—not the members themselves but the views expressed—are, in fact, racist. I think that will get the balance about right. It will leave the freedom of speech, but it will stop people saying that individuals are racist, which I think most members would find offensive.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Speaking to that, if I may. I do appreciate your indulgence, Mr Speaker, but you have just made a comment that—I infer from it that what you have said is that, while a party may have a line of speaking or questioning that is racist, it’s still within the Standing Orders. I find that very troubling, so could I ask you: if you have examples of speech that you believe met that definition, then please forward it to the shadow Leader of the House. Or, alternatively, if that wasn’t what you wanted to imply, could we have that clarification too? I mean, we’re talking about subjective assessments of what people think people are saying and then the offence that they take from it. If I have heard you say that, I am very concerned about it.

SPEAKER: I want to indicate that if people had listened carefully to the reactions of some members in the House today, we would have seen—we could see—that some members view the approach taken by others as racist. It’s a genuinely held view—clearly genuinely held. We saw it from the Māori Party today. We can argue about whether they are right or wrong, but I think it gets really hard if they are not allowed to express their views. I want to also say that I took some inferences from questioning today that a major party viewed a possible policy direction in exactly the same way. I don’t think either side should be refrained from expressing the view, as long as it is not personalised to members.

Now, I’m quite willing to continue this discussion later on in my room, if people would like to, and I’d certainly welcome any considered notes on it, because, as I indicated before, it is a very important area. I’ll reiterate something that I said yesterday. That is that I think—[Interruption] Mr Bennett—that matters which might have been seen as not being racist in New Zealand 20 or 40 years ago are now, and having members call things like that for as they see them is something which I wouldn’t want to prevent.

General Debate

General Debate

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister for Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

I’d like to start by saying that I acknowledge the contribution of Nicole McKee in that debate, and I agree with her entirely except for one point: don’t ever think that a party that gets 1.2 percent of the vote actually represents the views of Māoridom.

You can tell when the National Opposition is at a low ebb: it’s when they’re flailing in the polls, it’s when the caucus is leaking, it’s when the whispers of leadership coups become a cacophony, and it’s when you can smell their fear. So their strategy is to create a distraction, to draw the attention of the country away from all their problems, and to create a problem where none exists. See, it worked for Don Brash back at the turn of the century—in 2004 they had a desperate, unpopular leader of a divided National caucus; so his tactic was to push the big red race button at that bastion of racial diversity, the Orewa Rotary Club!

So it’s no surprise to anybody that, a few weekends ago, we saw Judith Collins open the National Party leaders’ playbook to the chapter titled “What to Do When Your Prime Ministerial Aspirations Go Down the Gurgler”, and she read Don Brash’s footnotes; after all, if it worked for one uncharismatic leader, it should surely work for the next one! So Judith Collins dove head first into the politics of division and, in doing so, she tried to rewrite history: Te Tiriti o Waitangi. You see, Judith Collins is opposed to partnership with Māori on our terms. She’s opposed to Māori asserting their rangatiratanga in health. She’s opposed to Māori asserting their rangatiratanga, for Māori to come up with solutions to care for our most vulnerable children. She’s opposed to rangatiratanga when it comes to Māori developing ideas to improve Māori outcomes in prisons. She’s opposed to Kāwanatanga working in partnership with rangatiratanga. In other words, article 1 of Te Tiriti o Waitangi working with article 2 of Te Tiriti o Waitangi to achieve the article 3 promises of ōritetanga, or equity.

So, as Minister for Māori Crown Relations, I talk about walking across the bridge that is Te Tiriti o Waitangi from the non-Māori world into the Māori world. I talk about getting to understand why we as Māori think, feel, and speak as we do, because all Māori have already crossed that bridge, and we speak the language and know the customs of the non-Māori world. There should be willingness of politicians to cross over into the world of the Treaty partner. But here’s the question: does Judith Collins even want to cross that bridge? And if the answer is no, I question the place of anyone in New Zealand politics who does not attempt to cross that bridge and understand the Māori world. And I ask this question: aside from the member of Tauranga, what other Māori bridges has Judith Collins walked over?

You see what disturbed me the most about Judith Collins’ speech wasn’t the speech itself, it wasn’t the idiot in the audience who called out “That’s apartheid.”; what disturbed me the most was that Judith Collins agreed with that idiot.

Working in partnership with Māori is not, never was, and never will be apartheid. It is inconceivable, in 2021, that a New Zealand politician can confuse rangatiratanga with apartheid. Apartheid is the oppression of people; rangatiratanga is the empowerment of people, and it is a guarantee of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Rangatiratanga is what my great-great-great-great-grandfather Whetoi Pomare signed his hapū and his descendants up to in February of 1840. When Judith Collins later said, “Is that what those chiefs thought they were signing up to?” My answer is “Hell, yeah. That’s exactly what they were signing up to.” The disparity between Māori and non-Māori outcomes is a direct result of Te Tiriti being ignored—Kāwanatanga, assuming total power and control, and rangatiratanga being sidelined.

As we heard at the Iwi Chairs Forum at Porirua last week, when Kāwanatanga and rangatiratanga work together in true partnership, we will see magic happen. That is the spirit of partnership and nationhood promised in Te Tiriti o Waitangi, not the divisiveness we hear when political parties are at a low ebb, flailing in the polls, and there are rumblings of a leadership coup.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Justice): Mr Speaker, thank you very much. It’s a great pleasure to take the baton from my colleague Kelvin Davis, after his precise commentary of the troubles of the Opposition, to talk about what New Zealanders actually care about, and that is the positive direction of our country.

I would like to start with a number, and that number is 4.7. No, that is not Simon Bridges’ self-assessment of his soon-to-be-released book; it is the unemployment level of New Zealand, which went down 0.2 of a percent last week. What that is showing is that the efforts of this Government to make sure that our economy is ticking—keeping people in jobs and making sure that people can pay their bills—are paying off, because at 4.7 percent—15,000 people more in employment—well ahead of our OECD comparators at 6.7. We don’t like to compare ourselves to Australia too much, but their unemployment rate at the moment is 5.6. So unemployment heading down and more New Zealanders in employment is a real indicator that this Government is focused on what matters to New Zealand, and that is making sure that we are keeping New Zealanders safe from COVID. We’re making sure that our economy is recovering and that we are focused on the future and things that will set up a positive future for New Zealanders as we go ahead and work ourselves out of the ravages of COVID.

I’d also like to mention something else, and that is Aaa—again, not Simon Bridges’ self-assessment of his soon-to-be-released memoir, but the rating that Standard & Poor’s have given New Zealand. That is an upgrade for New Zealand post-pandemic; the first country to get an upgrade post-pandemic, and our first upgrade since 2003—another indicator that the decisions that this Government is making and the leadership of our Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister, Grant Robertson, are working and making sure that in the midst of a global pandemic, our economy is strong and we are supporting New Zealanders to make sure that we can have a better future. And it doesn’t stop there with Standard & Poor’s, because they went on to say, and I quote, we have “very strong institutions and policy effectiveness”—the Government will take credit for that, along with our “robust fiscal position when compared with its peers”. And that, again, goes to the discipline that we have showed over the last 12 months in making sure that we are supporting New Zealanders and their companies and their employers in the job with the likes of the wage subsidy to make sure that our economy is ticking.

But we are not out of the woods yet. If anyone opens the paper, or if they watch the news at 6 o’clock, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage. We are in a very privileged position, to enjoy the settings that we have got now, but that comes with difficult decisions. We did make the decision to close our border on 20 March last year, and at a time between then and now we would usually have let about 7 million people arrive in our country. The latest figures that I have are that we’ve let in just a little over 220,000. That has obviously had an effect and caused difficulties for many sectors and for many families, but it is our best line of defence to make sure we keep the ravages of this pandemic outside of New Zealand. We’ve set up managed isolation facilities, and, again, I want to take my hats off to those in our Cabinet and in our caucus who have set up these institutions to make sure, again, that New Zealanders who want to come home can and that they can do it in a safe way.

I want to address one of the difficulties in amongst that, and that is the inability of some families to get together and reunite because of our border closures. There will be a protest coming to Parliament tomorrow. I want to acknowledge the difficulties that that situation with the massive drop in arrivals has created for some families and also for some sectors. But we have, over the last year, made sure that critical workers can come into New Zealand—whether they be critical health workers, the likes of Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme workers—the primary industries and building construction have all had critical workers come into New Zealand, because we have taken decisions to keep our economy ticking. That’s because we are focused on making sure we are keeping New Zealanders safe. I think that you saw the decisions that we made before the election, and the trust and confidence that was put in us in and at the election, and made sure that we are in this very privileged position. But, again, I do not want to say that we are out of the woods.

In the last seconds, I want to make a personal note of tribute to a former colleague of mine Andy Gibb from TVNZ—a top-class editor, a world-class editor, who we farewelled. My love to Liz and the family. He was the best of the best at TVNZ, and we will all miss him.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Associate Minister of Health): I want to accept the Leader of the House’s invitation to characterise the Opposition’s behaviour in detail; more than with a single lazy label. The behaviour we’ve seen in the House recently is intended to generate a suspicion of Māori aspirations and the Crown’s efforts to partner with Māori to meet them. It is divisive. It is desperate. It underestimates New Zealanders, and it is a political strategy that, in order to succeed, must play into fears, insecurity, and, yes, maybe racism. It is ultimately cynical. It is cynical because there are numerous examples where the National Party, when in Government, implemented these similar policies—those policies that they now label as separatist. Most significantly, it displays a poverty of ambition and imagination for our country and our people.

This, on the other hand, is a Government focused on the issues that matter to improving the lives of New Zealanders. And thanks to our strong public health response to COVID-19 and the efforts of our front-line workers, including those at the borders and our health system and in our managed isolation facilities, we are in a strong position heading into Budget 2021 to accelerate our economic recovery. It also means we are able to make meaningful investments in public services as we build back better.

I was very proud to be able to make the first pre-Budget announcement with Minister Andrew Little and Peeni Henare on Sunday at Kōkiri Marae. Budget 2021 will deliver a better cervical-screening test and a major upgrade to breast cancer screening systems that will save lives. Every year, about 160 women develop cervical cancer, and about 50 die from it. The tragedy is that almost all cases are preventable if found at an early stage. Our cervical cancer screening programme, as it is, prevents about 70 percent of cervical cancers, but these benefits have not been equitable. We know there are persistent inequalities around cervical cancer and that wāhine Māori are particularly more likely to die from cervical cancer.

Budget 2021’s investment of up to $53 million to complete the design and implementation of a new HPV test, which is the cause of 99 percent of cervical cancers, will make a real difference. The new test, which will replace the current smear test, is a simple swab that women will eventually be able to take themselves. The development that I’m most excited about is that routine smears will move from every three years to a five-yearly interval. These things combined will help reduce—

Dr Deborah Russell: Great.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: Ha!—the barriers to getting screened. The move to HPV screening is predicted to prevent about 400 additional cervical cancers over 17 years and will save around 138 additional lives. About a third of the lives saved are those of wāhine Māori.

We’re also investing in new technology for our breast cancer screening programme that will make it easier to reach communities that might otherwise miss out by making the screening programme opt-in rather than opt-out, and supported by modern technology. About 271,000 women who are currently unscreened will join the screening programme.

We know there is far more work to do to address inequalities in health. That’s why this Government is establishing the Māori Health Authority, not just with a focus on policy and reporting but also with the ability to commission services. The authority will give Māori a voice and influence how our system needs to perform better for Māori. It will have joint decision-making rights to agree national strategies, policies, and plans that affect Māori at all levels of the system. And it will work with Health New Zealand to ensure that the service plans and commissioning of health services drive improvement. This is what real partnership looks like.

On this side of the House, we believe in the Treaty partnership, and we won’t be distracted from making progress by the desperate tactics of the Opposition. The Government is united and focused on getting on with the job of leading New Zealand’s recovery from COVID-19, and that’s in all of our interests.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT as part of this general debate, and, of course, next week is Budget week. There’s a prayer most commonly attributed to St Francis of Assisi, and it says, “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Now, I think if Grant Robertson was around in the time of Assisi, it would read quite differently; it would say, “Lord, grant me the credit for the things I cannot change, the courage to ignore the things I could, and someone really good at marketing to hide the difference.” That’s what it would say if Grant Robertson was around 600 or 700 years ago, and that sums up the Government’s approach to this Budget. It’s very happy to take the credit for things it cannot change—the fact that New Zealand’s isolation has been the best possible defence against a viral pandemic; the fact that we live in the “Adrian in Wonderland” era of modern monetary theory, where you just keep printing it and everything’s going to be OK; and, the fact that our terms of trade give homage to what John Clarke, or Fred Dagg, used to say, we don’t know how propitious are the circumstances, with milk prices near record highs.

That’s the backdrop for this Budget, and it’s easy for a Government to say, “Well, we’re not doing as bad as countries that are actually physically connected to the rest of the world. We can pay off the debt while interest rates remain low—or at least afford to keep it where it is—and while we’ve closed the border, everybody has a job because we’re starving this monetarily and fiscally primed economy, with cheap money, of labour.”

The problem with all of that is that if we mistake good luck for good management, then we actually don’t turn our minds to the real problems—and they’re many. Middle New Zealand is feeling increasingly squeezed from every angle: all the prices going up—petrol and electricity, food, rent, rates, they’re all going up.

And what does this Government do? It says we’re going to do nothing in the form of tax relief. The Minister of Finance did everything he could to avoid saying it, but they’re going to keep taxing New Zealanders hard. Even then, they’re going to put a freeze on New Zealand’s most hard-working public servants, with no pay increases for three years. And you think about the meanness of that. We live at a time of great uncertainty, and yet they’ve decided this is the time to go three years out in their freezes on pay. I’m getting emails from principals in the Epsom electorate, who will tell you that even the Secretary for Education can’t tell them what this freeze means, because, the truth is, it means no more money.

Enter into this environment the ACT Party—10 MPs, one-twelfth of this Parliament—putting forward real solutions. Some kind people say that I’m the Leader of the Opposition. I want to tell you that ACT is the “Leader of the Proposition”, because we have the ideas to get New Zealanders engaged in honest conversations and supporting better ideas for tomorrow. Our alternative Budget would give a generous middle-income tax cut to those middle New Zealanders who are being squeezed. We would deliver tax cuts of $1,200 to $2,200 for middle-income earners. We would ensure that the roadblocks that this Government has put in the way of wealth and job creation are removed—a relentless focus on business, productivity, investment, jobs, and growth that this Government can barely bring itself to utter.

That’s the kind of thinking that this Parliament needs; not how do we lock ourselves off, borrow, hope, and pass around what money is left, hoping on the part of the current Government’s politicians to get re-elected. The real question is how we create the conditions for growth. I’m proud to lead an ACT Party in this House that does the work, presents the ideas, and shows middle New Zealand a way forward based on creating more wealth rather than politicians constantly competing to divide it. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): That previous speaker, David Seymour, from Leader of the Opposition to “Leader of Proposition”—I’d say “Leader of Irony”. I know irony is not allowed in this House, but to stand here remonstrating about how he was going to drop tax and, in the next breath, demanding that we increase the salaries of all public servants—just not quite sure how they pair off, but he will know that!

But what I’d like to do today is what we all do: whatever occurs, people talk about the economy and wanting everyone to do better, wanting more, for those in New Zealand to do better. But there’s a group I’d like to discuss that I don’t particularly want—I don’t think anyone here wants—to do any better, in fact we want to really economically destroy, and that’s organised crime and gangs in this country. That’s a group that only when we destroy them economically will actually be able to successfully stop the encroachment that they’re making within New Zealand. I remember standing at a tangi of a very good friend of mine, and standing there with a kaumātua, and we stood there and looked at some of the people there and he made a very profound statement. He very forcefully said, “There is nothing good about gangs”, and that really struck me, just his forcefulness, what he’d seen it do to his particular community. And that’s what we need, as New Zealanders, to understand—there is nothing good about gangs. There is no apology for them. So what that means is we must do what is necessary to depower them, to take away their sphere of intimidation, and we do that by taking away their money.

Simeon Brown: Your Minister Marama Davidson thinks there is. She’s got plenty of—

GREG O’CONNOR: There are other things we can do—and I hear a squeaky little voice over there saying, “Put them in jail.” Actually, the problem is, if you go to Southern California, the prisons are run—in most places in the world, prisons are run by gangs. The way you actually do it is to get the assets off them, and very good this week to see the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill is being proceeded. Police have been actually quite successful in New Zealand at taking away the finance from gangs. In fact, the only way you do stop a gang is by taking their money away. In my time, there have been two gangs which have basically been destroyed. Both those gangs—one in the South Waikato; another one in Nelson—they were actually destroyed by other gangs, because they took away all their assets, for reasons that they’d been infiltrated by police. So you can actually destroy a gang if you take away their assets, there’s proof of it.

So what this legislation will enable us to do—and it’s the first time, and it’s something I’ve been advocating strongly for—is actually meaningful asset seizure. So if you front up in a big, flash piece of bling—and it’s about bling—and you have been unemployed and you can’t prove where it came from, authorities—police—can take it. That is the type of activity and that is the type of response that will actually make a move on these gangs, because it’s all about money. There’s many apologists for it, but it’s actually all about money. I’m aware of someone I know very well who has actually been approached and offered some significant money to join a gang. That’s how they’re getting people. So, unless we talk about and focus on the money, everything else we do is basically rhetoric. Scaring the heck out of the public of New Zealand is not going to do it, because it actually works in their favour because the more fear that is generated among the New Zealand public around gang activity, the more successful they are. I do warn particularly those who think that they’re doing the best for the public of New Zealand by scaring the heck out of the public, you’re actually working for the gangs in doing that.

There was a member of the 501s, I’m aware of, recently complaining to his ex-colleagues in Australia about his inability to get anyone in New Zealand to take a bribe. That is why we have got a real opportunity, because where money becomes so prevalent, and it’s happened in so many places around the world, the actual amount of cash available, the ability then to corrupt, that is when you really have lost it with organised crime. We haven’t in New Zealand yet, and if we can now, with effective legislation of the sort that is actually being proposed here—ensure that we actually get the money away from gangs—first thing we’ll do with that is we will stop the recruiting; there’ll be no incentive for young men and women to join gangs, because there’ll be no money in it for them: those young men and women who become the jailbait for those at the top. There’s been some very good seizures; New Zealand Police have done some great work seizing assets. You can go right down to the middle, right to the local dealer who is driving on a flash Harley that he’s got no way he could ever have been able to legally afford.

So this is some really positive work that we need to support. I hope we get it right across the House to actually get the finance, get the money, and get the power away from these gangs.

MELISSA LEE (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is really interesting listening to the speeches that were made by Government members. It’s quite interesting to note that when a Government talks about being kind and nice and, you know, sometimes their characterisation of members opposite are really uncharitable and unkind and quite nasty sometimes. I have to say, I’m rather disappointed in some of the speeches. I won’t go into that, but I will actually talk about what this Government is not delivering.

A crisis not talked about by this Government is actually the growing threat of cyber-security in New Zealand. From ransomware attacks on our largest commercial enterprises to scammers stealing money from the bank accounts of elderly New Zealanders, it is something that we must talk about. We must do more to combat the malicious threat of cyber-security to all New Zealanders. As I rise to speak today, members may be aware that, globally, Microsoft, Salesforce, and other major digital platforms are facing significant outages. Certainly, there will be significant questions as to the impact that will have on operations not only to New Zealand but in other countries as well, not just to Government, but also companies, regardless of whether a cyber-security question has actually arisen for New Zealand consumers.

Over the past year, there have been countless examples of failures by our own Crown institutions; one of them happens to be the Reserve Bank. The data breach in January—I mean, the reputational damage internationally was avoidable, and it is shocking that the Governor of the Reserve Bank has failed to take full responsibility for that data breach. The loss, over the summer, of deeply sensitive personal information by parole officers of three dozen individuals, whether victims, witnesses, or offenders alike, is an aberration of the principles of justice. The cyber-security incident at the Health Research Council, at a time where our health systems are under the constant strain and threat of the pandemic returning to our shores, was not acceptable. More must be done about this. This, in particular, has meant that the very information required for the Health Research Council’s annual report was lost, and that actually resulted in the fact that our Parliament was not able to scrutinise them in the annual review process, and that is a shame. That is something that this Government should have made sure that we could have actually done, and it is a failure.

Democracy is directly at risk without robust cyber-security plans. A lack of cyber-protection by any Crown entity is an affront to the taxpayer, an affront to democracy. The reason I say this is because more and more we rely on technology, more and more we rely on the internet, more and more people are doing education, banking, health, all online. Since December, when the House resumed for the 53rd Parliament, I have been constantly agitating and arguing for more accountability and cyber-resilience from the Ministers and institutions. The Ministers opposite, I’m sure, would actually notice at least 650 parliamentary written questions that I have lodged so far on this specific subject matter. But we don’t seem to get too many answers, and it seems like the Ministers and Government departments don’t seem to be too interested in this subject matter, and yet it impacts on our lives so much so.

We are at a crossroads in history for the security of our cyber border and our data. If the Australian Government and the Prime Minister of Australia can spend $1.6 billion on cyber-security uplift during the pandemic, we could do much better than what we are doing. New Zealand must do better. More money, more education, more resilience is essential. More accountability is vital.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Today, I want to start my debate by acknowledging the passing of my dear friend Nancy Langton. Nancy passed away last week and has left us all, in the Labour Party, in the Bay of Plenty, grieving for her passing. She took some sparkle from this world. At 80 years, Nancy succumbed to cancer and left us too soon, actually. I want to name her in this Parliament to acknowledge her energy and her courage and her kindness. I send my aroha to her partner and husband, Russell—61 years, their relationship—and to her wider family. Nancy spoke with courage and she spoke her truth without hurting others. So today in this general debate, I have her sitting on my shoulder as I talk about matters that have deeply troubled me in this House recently.

I want to mihi to our Māori colleagues in this House who have had to listen to divisive statements from the Opposition who have thought that equity of outcomes are a separatist agenda of the Labour Government. Where Labour have sought to address the inequalities of outcomes, the Opposition tells us that we are doing something different. They are setting us up to divide a nation.

For example, we have just recently announced the Māori Health Authority reform and the Māori health reform. We have done this because Māori life expectancy is lower than for non-Māori; mortality rates are higher for Māori in nearly all ages. Māori health status remains unequal across almost all chronic and infectious diseases as well as injuries, including suicide. When we take off our rose-tinted glasses and look at equity versus equality, then the evidence for a Māori health authority is clear and the discussion about a separatist organisation, us doing things in a divisive way, is something that I find distasteful.

We have heard today lots of conversations about the difficulties of talking around policies that support equity. I think it is really important that we acknowledge that these might be uncomfortable conversations for some, but we should continue to have those conversations.

Simeon Brown: Yes, let’s have a national debate about it.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: And we should continue to have time to listen to each other—

Simeon Brown: And a national debate.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: —and not yell over each other and not make it harder for us to have honest conversations.

I want to come now to the second matter, and the second matter is in regards to the code of behaviour that the MPs across this entire House signed in the last term, and new members, as they’ve entered this House, have signed up to. The code of behaviour was a piece of work that I did alongside a cross-party membership, so all parties were represented. There was the Hon Anne Tolley chairing that group and we had the unions, media, Parliamentary Services, and Ministerial Services participating. I want to just, at this time, without going into lots more detail, remind the members of this House what that code of conduct, or code of behaviour, says. It says that we should “show that bullying and harassment, including sexual harassment”—

Simeon Brown: Well, the Speaker’s failed on that one.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: —“is unacceptable.” It says that we must “speak up”—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Simeon Brown will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Simeon Brown: Withdraw and apologise.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Don’t do it again.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: —thank you, Mr Speaker—“if we observe unacceptable behaviour.” It says we must “use our position of power or influence to help others, and avoid harm.” It says we must “act respectfully and professionally.” It says we must “behave fairly and genuinely, treating others the way we would like to be treated.” It says we “encourage diverse perspectives, and the free and frank expression”—

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

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National): Today, I want to speak about the crisis that is in the dairy industry, in the workforce, and the lack of any approach that this Government’s taken to support a fundamental industry that has been the backbone of New Zealand during the last year—an industry that was needed by this Government to provide the foreign exchange for our country going forward. They simply ask to have a new generation of farmers that want to be members of the New Zealand dairy industry to come in and be part of that industry, and the Government has said no. It has refused that request, and that goes to an important role that this Government is undertaking in our primary sector workforces. They are deliberately wanting to unionise the workforces in our primary sector, and I will follow that through as we go through this debate here today.

Let’s start with the New Zealand dairy industry. It sought to have at least 500 places—well, it sought to have some places allocated out of the 500 places a fortnight that managed isolation and quarantine has just been allocated. That would have initiated the ability for dairy farmers to meet their new seasonal requirements that are coming up as we go to 1 June. We’ve got calving coming up. It’s an important time of year and we need that workforce here.

There has been some additional Recognised Seasonal Employer workers, but that will only really cover those that will leave in the next year anyway, but there has been no attempt to assist the dairy industry. And if we look at the briefing to the incoming Minister, there’s some very important directions given to the Minister of Agriculture. They are that the Ministry for Primary Industries’ long-term goal is to reduce the industry’s reliance on migrant labour by employing New Zealanders.

If we look at the other part of the briefing to the Minister, he has the specific request that there is less of a reliance on migrant labour. The Minister has been told to not let migrant labour into our primary sector, especially into our dairy industry. And the result of this week’s negotiation, which didn’t work, is a reflection of the Minister following the goals he’s been set, and those are to stop migrant labour coming into our primary sector. That is to the detriment of the New Zealand primary sector and New Zealand as a whole. We should be welcoming migration, we should be welcoming people that want to make their future in New Zealand, and we should be welcoming people that want to become part of New Zealand’s best industries—its dairy and primary sectors—and make their future and lives here for them and their families.

Now, farmers are disappointed in that decision, deeply disappointed, and they are rightfully requesting that the Government relook at that decision. If there isn’t a renewal process for the existing farming sector that has migrant labour in there, you can potentially see it going from 2,000 to 4,000 dairy farm workers this year that are in need of renewal of their applications to work in the sector. That would see a huge hole in the New Zealand workforce in the primary sector and a shortage there in the dairy sector.

If we look at a sector that has about 40,000 employees, and if the borders remain closed, that shortage could increase by 1,300 employees. And if there’s a non-renewal, that peak would be about 5,000. Those are the DairyNZ numbers and DairyNZ has done a great job in looking at what research can be done and putting that argument forward.

However, the Government has declined to act and they’re doing so with a specific purpose in mind. They have brought in their fair play agreements in the last week. They’ve noted that 10 percent of a workforce, or a thousand people, or a public interest test would be enough to create a fair play agreement. In the dairy industry, where there’s 21,000 employees, that equates to only 5 percent of those employees—1,000 people—needing to sign that document, basically asking for a fair play agreement, and then the New Zealand dairy industry workforce will be unionised.

That is the true goal that we are seeing from this Labour Party. They are against migrants coming in. They want to unionise that workforce. That will be to the detriment of New Zealand’s best industry, and we will not, as a National Party, support that. We support there being the ability for migrants to come in. They are the future of the industry. The history of the industry’s shown that migration has been so important to the success going forward.

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

RACHEL BROOKING (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to speak about one of my favourite topics on this positive moot of working together and partnership, and that is relating to resource management. I want to discuss today in this debate both the working together that we need, in terms of infrastructure and town planning and other planning, and also with mana whenua. So there’s been a problem in terms of different parties involved and how we develop our towns and our cities—haven’t always talked together. This has been a long-term problem, so we need to align all of these silos that have occurred. We’ve had infrastructure and town planning not really talking to each other for a long time, and ending with a housing problem.

How this works—and I think it’s important to spend a little bit of time on this relationship between infrastructure and housing—is that it’s no good to just say we need more houses; we just need to build more houses on a piece of land somewhere. The piece of land somewhere needs to have infrastructure around it, and sometimes that infrastructure can take a long time and the funders of that infrastructure aren’t necessarily talking to the town planners. That infrastructure is more than roads and pipes, although, of course, those are very important. We need to think of things like schools and hospitals. We need to think about stormwater. There’s an awful lot going in on the infrastructure piece. Also, when we’re thinking about infrastructure and houses, it’s important not to just think that when we talk about this we’re meaning greenfield land. If you want to make an area that’s already existing denser, there are consequences for the infrastructure. If you put in a whole lot of extra high-rise apartments, for instance, then that is a lot more people flushing the toilets. So you might need bigger pipes. You might need another school. There’s a lot going on there.

There’s also been difficulties in our resource management system with mana whenua not being particularly involved. I’ll talk about that in a minute. And then, of course, we’ve had central and local government not always talking to each other, and sometimes councils missing opportunities to work together as well.

There have been some mechanisms—longstanding mechanisms—in the Resource Management Act to enable some of what hasn’t happened enough, and that is that working together. So in section 33 of the Resource Management Act, there’s an ability for a council to transfer its powers to, say, another council or an iwi authority. But, unfortunately, perhaps in this last year or two, there may have been one or two examples of a section 33 transfer, but, certainly, nothing in the almost 30 years prior to that.

Then, also, just introduced, I have to note, by the last National-led Government, sections in the Resource Management Act that allow for mana whakahono a rohe. These are important documents that enable councils and iwi authorities and tangata whenua to work out how they’re going to work together.

So there’s a lot to do in this space, and I’m really excited and privileged to be part of a Government that’s going to make long-term, big, fundamental decisions but also some more short-term decisions to try and resolve some of the problems of siloed approaches and agencies not working together enough.

So, in the short term, we’ve heard Minister Woods talk recently about the $3.8 billion Housing Acceleration Fund. This is a massive amount of money, and it is to fund that infrastructure that I was talking about that will enable the houses that we need. Also, in the last term of Government, the National Policy Statement on Urban Development was updated to really try and get some more intense development in our existing urban centres.

But, in the long term, there’s a lot to do with resource management reform, and one of the key pieces of that will be the strategic planning legislation. So this will take a 30-year view of both infrastructure and plans—so something that you can put on a map—and it’s really important that the asset owners, the infrastructure owners, are involved in making those long-term plans. So that is central government and local government and mana whenua as decision makers. So working in partnership creates opportunities to do better.

CHRISTOPHER LUXON (National—Botany): I want to talk today about how this Government’s total failure to deliver is impacting the very, very good people of Botany. I don’t know how you all feel, but I can tell you how I feel: I feel like living in New Zealand, under this Government, is like walking the main street of Disneyland at the moment. As you walk down that main street, you see a candy store, you see an emporium, you see the saloon, and you get to the end of the street and you look back, and you think “It looks shiny and nice.”, and what you see is a facade, and there’s Mickey behind the facade having a smoke, saying “Go away, kids.” That’s kind of how it feels like with this Government.

This is a Government that likes making announcements and declarations. It’s a Government that likes making announcements about announcements, and it actually doesn’t solve problems, and it doesn’t get things done. It thinks that by talking about it, it’s actually doing stuff, but I can tell you that there is a very big difference between the word “activity” and the other word, “achievement”. They are two very different concepts.

Let me tell you about the great people of Botany, because it is a wonderfully diverse area. Over 50 percent of those people were born overseas, but the one thing that unites them is they are really hard-working. They have come to New Zealand. They’re giving it a go. They’re backing themselves. They’re getting ahead. They want to get things done for themselves, for their family, for their community, and for this country. But I’ll tell you: this Government doesn’t care about them. It doesn’t care about the 130,000 people out in East Auckland, and I’m here with my fine colleague the great member for Pakuranga, but out there are 130,000 people—bigger than Dunedin, bigger than Tauranga—and this Government, frankly, doesn’t care about them.

How do we know they don’t care about them? Let’s just take a couple of topics. Let’s take health for example. What I can tell you about health is that we had one overnight health clinic there in Botany servicing the whole of East Auckland, and, lo and behold, the district health board didn’t fund them, and that service was withdrawn. We have to go outside of the whole of East Auckland to go and get any healthcare services. It’s unbelievable. Then we get told “Don’t worry—don’t worry. It’s all good. Forget about the emergency overnight clinic service. Go to Middlemore Hospital emergency department.”

Simeon Brown: How’s that going?

CHRISTOPHER LUXON: That goes great for a while, and then we get a letter saying, “Actually, no, don’t come to the emergency department, because we’re chronically overwhelmed.” If you want to spend 2½ hours, on average, waiting to be seen, that’s not the place you want to be.

The next thing is you look at our vaccination plan, and it’s an absolute shambles. We’re the 116th country in the world. We’re second from the bottom in the OECD. The Minister—I heard him congratulating himself the other day, just two days ago, saying we did 16,000 vaccinations in a day. Well, if you had some ambition and some aspiration and you actually wanted to be world class about it, you’d follow the example of Israel and you’d be running at 80,000 vaccinations each and every day—every day, every week, every month. That’s not happening here.

When you juggle your work commitments and you make an appointment, you sort of expect to get the appointment validated. You don’t expect to wait for five hours at the Highbrook facility in East Tāmaki in Botany. Then an 81-year-old woman comes in yesterday with her daughter, makes the time to come in and do it, and she’s not seen. She’s turned away because there’s a whole bunch of walk-ins. It’s a shambles. It’s a messy set of signals being sent out to the public, and it just underscores that there is no system, that there is no plan, and that we can’t get things done.

Then, on top of all of that, you would have thought the biggest single thing you’d want everyone focused in this country around is getting the vaccinations rolled out, so that we can actually secure the country and actually open it up and actually get the country moving and seize on opportunities that we have. But, lo and behold, we go and announce a health restructure, right on top of a vaccination plan. Now, I don’t know about you, but that just doesn’t feel like people are going to be focused on the right stuff. A lot of distraction from healthcare workers that are in our system at the moment, and that is the wrong time, wrong approach, to be undertaking a massive health restructure.

But if you just think about health—mental health, another one. You know, one in five Kiwis tell us that they’re going to have a mental health disorder over their lifetime. We have 9 percent of Kiwis telling us that, each and every week, they experience some psychological distress. So this Government, again, waltzes in, promises to spend $1.9 billion. Lo and behold, our wait times have gone out 41 percent. If you’re a young person or a young adult or a child wanting to see mental health services in Botany, you can’t access them—you can’t. You’ve got to wait another week because of the way this Government has run those services.

It’s quite a unique capability to be able to spend more money and to be able to get less for it. That’s what’s actually happening here. You see it in health, and I’m going to talk a little bit, in the time I have, around education as well, because that’s the most startling statistic I’ve had since I’ve come to Parliament. You know, 58 percent of our kids are going to school 90 percent of the time. That’s 300,000 kids that aren’t making it to school. When they get there, they’ve got maths, reading, and science scores that are some of the lowest in the OECD, and this is a Government that is spending more per pupil in funding but actually delivering less for it.

So it’s a rather unique set of circumstances, and I just would say that, at the end of the day, we actually need our Government to back New Zealanders who want to get ahead. We want them to back people to get ahead, who want to take a chance and make something happen. We don’t want to live in the main street of Disneyland; we want a Government that can actually get things done. Thank you.

IBRAHIM OMER (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Today or tomorrow marks the end of Ramadan, which is a fasting month for the whole Muslim community all over the world, including the 50,000 Muslims who live in New Zealand, and can I just say congratulations for surviving the whole month without food and drinks from sunrise to sunset.

While New Zealand has taken a collaborative approach in fighting COVID-19 and eradicating the virus from the country, I’d also like to give you an insight into my culture about working together. I come from a community-oriented mind-set, which is deeply rooted in my culture as an Eritrean. It is simply the foundation and driving framework we use to achieve collective goals. We have heard a lot about “this Government, this Government, this Government”, bashing the Government. But this Government is proudly focused on taking a collaborative approach in everything it does—literally everything it does, with no exception. This was particularly underlined through the announcement of the series of hui following the Government’s announcement to implement all the 44 recommendations from the Christchurch terrorist attacks. After the announcement, the Government has set out a series of hui from all over the country—about, I think, 34 hui. A lot of members from the other side of the House actually attended the hui, and one of them was Mr David Bennett, who was just there and who attended every session in his home town of Hamilton, and I really want to thank him for that.

There was no way the Government would have achieved what they’ve achieved in the last few months without working with the community, without collaborating with the ethnic communities. The Minister responsible had set out his plan and ambition and things that he wanted to achieve in the next few months—about three months—and it was achieved in three months because of the approach that’s been taken to get it done. The hui and the sessions were around helping the community to understand the key concerns and the priorities relevant to the community, and answering questions about the implementation of the report’s recommendations. They also provided information and initiatives already under way, and outlined how to communicate and to contribute to the broader work programme that’s under way.

The size and the scale and transparency of the hui is something that I’ve never seen, and I’m really, really proud of that achievement. Not only was the responsible Minister there, Government officials from each Government department were there to help with that. But the thing that I am the most proud about is the approach the Muslim community took. In December, we sat down with the Muslim community in Christchurch, and the Ministers asked to discuss the plans that were ahead of us for the three months to follow, and one of the leaders stood up and said, “We don’t want to do this ourselves. We don’t want to do this alone. We want the other ethnic communities, multi-faith and multi-ethnic communities, to be involved with and be part of it.” To me that encompassed the partnership and working together.

Through the hui we had the opportunity to hear suggestions that were big concerns to the community, obviously, that otherwise wouldn’t have been brought up to the attention of the Government. This was also highlighted by the common calls we heard for, (1), more cultural awareness in the education system; (2), looking into the portrayal of Islam and Muslims in the media. Had we not embarked on this consultation and worked in partnership with the Muslim, pan-ethnic, and pan-faith communities, we wouldn’t have known this.

The other thing is, one of the speakers from the other side of the House mentioned the issue of threats on cyber-security, and, rightly—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The member’s time has expired.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to get to rise on behalf of the Green Party to take a call today, on International Nurses Day. As a daughter of a nurse, and as somebody who has had family members that have hugely benefited—and possibly lives have been saved in recent years—through the intervention of nurses in our public hospitals, I want to do a massive shout-out to them.

It’s a shout-out that I suspect is reflected and shared by most New Zealanders, because we know that, over the last year, nurses have even gone above and beyond what they were already doing. And that was a really tough job to begin with in the face of shortages in the sector and, you know, rising levels of violence and complexity in terms of people’s healthcare needs, and the underlying struggles in the organisation of our health system that have led to the need for us to have a comprehensive reform. They do tough work and then they got a pandemic on top of it. And, you know, they were going to work every day, putting themselves on the line, and looking at those stories overseas, you know, I really want to acknowledge the Government—as I suspect most of the country do—in terms of what we have managed to avoid in terms of the pandemic over the last year. We are lucky and there is no denying that. But those nurses were still going to work, looking at what might be coming, and the fear for themselves and their families that they were putting at risk. So I wanted to acknowledge that today.

I also did want to put this in the context of the discussions we’ve been having over the last week in terms of pay for our Public Service and the mixed message that I think has been sent around: yes, we support and love and appreciate our public servants, and the fact that the public sector pay guidance said that there should only be pay rises for those over $60,000 and under $100,000, in exceptional circumstances—I really want to bring in the fact that that is most nurses in that situation, and that at the moment, just while that conversation is happening, the nurses are balloting on whether to strike over an offer that they’ve been given in terms of their latest round of pay negotiations. So this has been quite sensitive timing. And I really hope that the message they’ve taken from the last week is that they have massive public support.

I was incredibly pleased to see that as the result of, I think, partly through our petition—that had over 20,000 people sign it in just a few days—saying that they wanted the Government to come in behind the public sector workers, all of them, and absolutely prioritise those earning under $60,000, because we do need to address inequality. But that couldn’t be at the expense of the ability of our nurses and teachers and border workers and social workers and Department of Conservation staff and all of the other public servants who have been keeping us going through this time, that they shouldn’t be the ones who had to pay for the rise for those under $60,000—their own colleagues.

We could increase our pie to make sure that everyone was fairly paid. And I want to acknowledge the intervention, too, obviously, and possibly more significantly even than our intervention, of the unions and the voices that they brought through of all the public servants who were really distressed by that communication in the meeting yesterday, that had the Government agree to the review of this in one year’s time—as opposed to putting it stuck in place for three years—and also to say that cost of living increases were not off the table. The Greens would like to have seen more generous thinking than that, but I want to acknowledge that collective action and the support of New Zealanders really significantly was about acknowledging our nurses and our teachers and all of our Public Service and the difference they’ve made for us, and how much we are going to need all of them over the next coming years. I look forward to some better pay results as a result of these discussions.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

District Court (Protection of Judgment Debtors with Disabilities) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour): I move, That the District Court (Protection of Judgment Debtors with Disabilities) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

According to the Office of Disabilities Issues, we have 1 million New Zealanders who are disabled. That’s 24 percent of our team of 5 million. The vision of the New Zealand Disability Strategy 2016-2026 is that, and I quote, “New Zealand is a non-disabling society—a place where disabled people have an equal opportunity to achieve their goals and aspirations, and all of New Zealand works together to make this happen.” This bill is not a major legislative change, but I do believe that this bill aligns with the vision of the New Zealand Disability Strategy.

The spirit of the bill is in its name: protection of judgment debtors with disabilities. It will prohibit the seizure of any item from a judgment debtor with a disability that is necessary for their care, support, or independence, or to promote their inclusion and participation in society. At present, the principal Act requires judgment to be exercised by the bailiffs to act fairly and reasonably. The principal Act does not prohibit the bailiffs seizing property that enables independence of disabled persons such as their modified mobility vehicles. The system has proven that good judgment has failed our disability community, as in the case of ’Epalahame Tanginoa, where the mobility vehicle was seized by the bailiff due to a judgment debt, resulting in his hospitalisation because he could not afford the taxi or have proper transport to attend medical appointments. I know that it was ’Epalahame’s wish that this does not happen to anyone else.

In the spirit of working together, I want to thank Mr Soane Foliaki, senior solicitor of the community law centre, South Auckland, for bringing this matter to my attention and for his advice in the initial drafting of the bill. I’m grateful to my Labour caucus for approving this bill to go into the ballot. I am grateful to the Green Party for their firm support of the bill. I’m grateful that ACT too has supported this bill, and I’d like to make a special mention of Simon Bridges in his leadership for his National Party caucus to support this bill.

Hon Member: You’ve done a great job.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI: Thank you. I acknowledge New Zealand First. New Zealand First is no longer in Parliament, but they too supported the bill at first reading. It’s an example that it is possible to work together in this House and I look forward to the tautoko o Te Paati Māori in this reading.

This second reading is the opportunity for members of the Justice Committee to report back on key aspects of what they’ve heard during select committee. I firstly want to acknowledge the submitters that took the time to provide feedback to the select committee, and I want to name them, because I think it’s important. I believe it is important that they believed it so much that they needed to voice their opinion: Age Concern New Zealand, Auckland Disability Law, CCS Disability Action, Disabled Persons Assembly, Financial Services Federation, FinCap, Human Rights Commission, Te Ope Whakaora—the Salvation Army New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa Territory, Kapo Māori Aotearoa and Blind Low Vision New Zealand, Parents of Vision Impaired New Zealand, and to individuals Angela Desmarais, Anita Easton, Arihia Hartley, Curtis McNab, Kay Robertson, Lisa Cowe, Lucia Bercinskas, Sean Kirton, James Parlane, Tania Strauss, and Kate Cosgriff. I repeat that I wanted to acknowledge and have their names recorded in Hansard as my expression of gratitude for their choice to engage in making law that contributes to the protection of disabled persons in Aotearoa.

I take this opportunity to thank the chair, Ginny Andersen, and members of the Justice Committee and officials for their leadership and due diligence in examination of the bill. They have enhanced the bill and have unanimously recommended the House pass the bill with amendments.

So these amendments are clarification of the definition of “disabled person”. Initially, the bill as drafted stated, “disability has the same meaning as in section 21(1)(h) of the Human Rights Act 1993.” The committee proposed the insertion of new section 167(5), giving a definition of disability that aligns with section 21(1)(h) of the Human Rights Act 1993. This will allow the wider disability community to be included in the group that the bill will provide protection for.

The committee also provided a definition for “mobility device”. It would also insert a definition of mobility device that aligns with section 2(1) of the Land Transport Act 1998.

The committee also specified the circumstances where property cannot be seized from a judgment debtor. Initially as drafted, the bill only referred to the judgment debtor with disability. However, the committee were concerned that this would not prohibit seizure of property from a judgment debtor who was the principal carer to a person with a disability. So I thank the committee for their inclusiveness and their concern, which they have proposed a new subparagraph 167(2)(a)(iii) to cover any item necessary for the care, support, or independence of a person who is in the care of a judgment debtor. So thank you. Thank you, select committee. You’ve really done fantastic work on this bill.

The select committee also notes that it does not prevent the repossession of goods provided for a credit contract pursuant to the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act. However, they make an important point to lenders and industry bodies to be informed about the provisions of the bill and what the rights and responsibilities of creditors and debtors are.

This bill codifies the need for the rights of disabled New Zealanders for bailiffs in primary legislation. For comparison, as I’ve stated in the first reading, the District Court Act of 2016 currently specifically says the bailiff can’t take a tradesperson’s tools to repay a debt, because they are vital to their livelihood. Items that a disabled person needs to support them should be protected—should be protected. It is the right thing to do.

I want to acknowledge the people that I’ve spoken with. Again, I’ve said in first reading and again here in the second reading that they had reminded me that a disability is a disability; it is not an illness. It is not something that they can take medication to be cured from, and to remind us all here in the House and in Aotearoa that it is a disability and it’s not an illness. I have made an effort to speak with the person—I’ve mentioned his name, ’Epalahame Tanginoa—about this bill, because I remember him saying on the media, on Stuff, that he would not like anyone else in New Zealand to experience what he had gone through. I hope to make it to ’Epalahame by the third reading, and I am confident that the House will support me in this.

Often with these members’ bills, it’s about relationship and engagement. Through my engagement with this bill, from conversations with members, I’m proud to know that people across the House actually have a passion for vulnerable New Zealanders to do well and to be provided with the system to ensure that they are kept safe here in Aotearoa, and that when we see that it’s the right thing to do, we put all politics aside and say “It is the right thing to do. We must do this.” So I conclude, as I started, with the vision of the New Zealand Disability Strategy 2016-2026: “New Zealand is a non-disabling society—a place where disabled people have an equal opportunity to achieve their goals and aspirations, and all New Zealand works together to make this happen.” The bill is not my bill. It belongs to all of us. I, therefore, commend the District Court (Protection of Judgment Debtors with Disabilities) Amendment Bill to the House. Mālō ’aupito.

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

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga): The member Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki is well placed in her confidence about this bill. Of course, she doesn’t actually, let’s be honest, need the National Party’s support in this Parliament, but she can, I think, be confident of a clean sweep in the Parliament, because National is supporting this bill. As she said, it’s not the biggest bill in the world, but it is a good bill, and so we stand here, in what’s going to be a very brief call, actually, and congratulate the member for bringing this before the House and for getting it, shepherding it, through not quite yet to conclusion but to, I’m sure, a successful conclusion.

I want to say, a former member who used to sit where you sit, Madam Speaker, from time to time, Ross Robertson, used to say, “Courtesy is contagious.”, and, you know, it is true that whether the member had been courteous or not, I’m sure we, in the end, would support this bill anyway. But a little bit of sugar helps the medicine to go down, and she engaged with us early.

Hon Poto Williams: All the lines today, Simon.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: That’s right. This is what I get paid for. She engaged with us early, and has been really good to deal with in terms of this bill and any concerns that we might have. In the end, the intent of the bill, as I said at the first reading, is very hard to quibble with: protecting people with disabilities who owe money from forfeiture of that relevant property, whether we think mobility scooter or something they need for communication, with the world around them.

So that, in large part, is a large part of the reason why we support the bill, although I think, through the select committee, we’ve improved it. We’ve ensured that the intent and the reality—the mechanics of it, if you like—gel and work together well.

Like the member, I’d like to tautoko the disability community. She’s already made the point, but what we know is that people with disabilities make up a very significant proportion of New Zealanders. It’s not an illness; it’s different from that, and we just remember that, and we in this House want to make sure that the work we do makes life better for disabled people in New Zealand.

There were a few terminological, I suppose you’d call them, wrangles in the committee about various bits and pieces and definitions, and the like, and I possibly led some of those for the Opposition and frustrated my colleagues on the other side of the House. But, in the end, I’m not going to run through those; they’re mere quibbles when it comes to this bill. As I say, it’s a good one.

I really don’t have much more to say. Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki is, like me, a believer, and I therefore want to quote Matthew 25:23.

Hon Aupito William Sio: Ha, ha!

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: He likes this—I could include you in this, as well—

Hon Aupito William Sio: No, no, no.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: It’s not me speaking, by the way, when I say this; it’s our good Lord, Christ the saviour, right, just in case you’re thinking that I’m saying this: “Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful with a few things. I’ll put you in charge of many things.” National supports this bill.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, I feel enlightened by that speech. That was an enlightening speech in general. The District Court (Protection of Judgment Debtors with Disabilities) Amendment Bill—first of all, I would like to acknowledge the member in charge of this bill, Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki. Thank you very much for bringing this to the House. In the same level of acknowledging the member in charge of the bill, I think it’s important that we take note of the person who also brought this instance to our attention.

So we know that ‘Una Tanginoa, who was a member of the public, was put in a situation where they were left without their mobility device. In this instance, it was a van that had been specifically modified for his disability. He’d been a victim of a rugby injury and is a quadriplegic and he needed this van in order to go to the doctor, to get out of the house, to do his daily duties. So once he got behind on paying his rent the vehicle was repossessed. When he managed to get a lawyer and go back to court and have the vehicle returned to him, what the judge in the case did say was that it wasn’t an illegal ruling. So that really drew attention to this particular anomaly in the law and it’s been largely the reason why this member’s bill has been drafted.

So what this bill does is it amends the District Court Act 2016 to protect disabled people who are judgment debtors—people who owe money under a court order. And it does so by expressly prohibiting the seizure of goods of a judgment debtor with a disability where an item is necessary for that person’s care, support, independence, or even to promote their inclusion and participation in society—and all members agreed that that was the right thing to do.

This is a somewhat belts-and-braces approach, because, as committee members learnt during the course of considering this bill, although existing operational practice, both in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and operational guidance for bailiffs there is provision here for unreasonable seizure of property. This bill, in fact, codifies the protection of disabled judgment debtors into the District Court Act. So it will help to ensure that bailiffs respect the rights and the needs of disabled New Zealanders, therefore being a belts-and-braces approach to what’s already in place. As the District Court Act currently stands, there is no specific protection. So what we are doing—what the member’s bill is doing—is to protect the basic rights of disabled New Zealanders, and it’s good that we’ve got agreement from across the House. This bill will ensure that such an event does not happen again by making it clear in the District Court Act that bailiffs cannot seize such items.

I won’t go into detail of all of the submissions that we received, but I will say that we are particularly blessed in the Justice Committee. We are particularly blessed because we have an abundance of lawyers. Now, some people may think that that’s not a good thing—and maybe on occasions I would tend to agree. But it’s also a good thing, because we have a wide range of infinite knowledge around the legal profession and I think that that knowledge and that background that members bring to the Justice Committee came to the fore in looking at how this bill can be improved. We saw two changes to the bill, which I felt made it a better bill in itself.

The first one was to amend that a disabled person in the care of a judgment debtor—it would not just cover items of that person, but also if you are a principal caregiver. So quite often, as in the case of the person who brought this bill in, Mr Tanginoa, he had someone who lived within the home, whether it’s a caregiver or a family member who assisted him on a day-to-day basis. So this amendment in the bill will mean that it covers items that another person would need to ensure that the person who has the disability has full access and they are not prevented from that in that way. So several submitters we heard, including Age Concern New Zealand and Auckland Disability Law, argued a scenario where a person who has a disability would be impeded by the fact their caregiver would be penalised in the way that I’ve outlined. The committee considered this issue and agreed with the concerns and so it now covers a disabled person who is in the care of a judgment debtor and the bill has been amended accordingly.

Secondly, we looked at the definition of “disabled person”, and so we had quite a robust discussion in this space, and it was a learning experience too for members to see the different definitions and where they sit. The Justice Committee considered all of the different definitions and we heard from different submitters. We amended the bill, changing the definition of “disability” from that laid out in the Human Rights Act to—and I’ll quote because I think this is important—“disabled person includes a person who has a long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments that, in interaction with various barriers, may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others”—in new section 167(5) set out in clause 4(2). So that was the other significant change that we made through this bill.

An interesting issue came up in discussion for members: there was a concern that there might be a perverse result from making this change in law. There was a concern that somebody who had a disability may potentially be prevented from getting credit, from being able to be entering into a lending situation, if there was a provision that those items could not be repossessed. So some members of the committee raised that issue and we got quite good advice back. They were advised that the bill does not prevent repossession of goods provided for in a credit contract pursuant to the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act. Also, in the event that a lender did decide to undertake a civil debt enforcement action to the courts, there are other options available to get back that debt, such as attachment orders that deduct money from wages or salaries. Interestingly enough, that was the very point that Mr Tanginoa made—that his preference was for those deductions to come out of his weekly income as opposed to repossessing an item which he relied upon to participate in society. Other items not essential to the debtor with the disability can still be seized. They are not protected by this bill, and that’s important to note. It’s not all items; it’s just those that are identified as being critical to enable that participation as the bill defines. So for those reasons laid out, the committee did not recommend amending any changes in relation to that.

I’d just like to wrap this up by stating that this bill fits in very well with the Government’s wider plan to target debt-related poverty. We know a large number of New Zealanders are very affected by debt-related poverty. We’ve had instances where there’s predatory lending and we’ve made quite significant changes to the credit contracts Act in order to be able to ensure those people who can be preyed upon in situations of poverty—and I think this nicely adds to that suite. We brought forward changes under the Credit Contracts Legislation Amendment Act to strengthen protections for vulnerable borrowers. One of those examples was the red trucks you see travelling around.

So, I would like to finish up by acknowledging the excellent work of Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki at representing her community, at bringing everyday people in our community who encounter issues—to bring a bill to this House and change the law to ensure that we are doing the best we can as parliamentarians. I commend this bill to the House.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on the second reading of the District Court (Protection of Judgment Debtors with Disabilities) Amendment Bill. I just want to acknowledge Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki, the member in charge, who has brought this bill to the House, and her intent to seek to make positive changes to provide better protections for people with disabilities who owe money under a court order, and the protection that this bill will make.

This has gone to the best select committee, and I do just want to acknowledge Ginny Andersen for guiding this bill through the select committee process as the chair of the Justice Committee. We don’t always agree on everything in the Justice Committee, but she does do a good job chairing that committee fairly and giving an opportunity—

Hon Simon Bridges: Good feijoa muffins on that committee.

SIMEON BROWN: I’m not going to comment on feijoa muffins. That is an inside joke, and some jokes should remain inside—shouldn’t they, Dr Nick Smith. Anyway, this bill—he’ll be speaking later.

This bill will amend the District Court Act 2016 to protect people with disabilities who owe money under a court order and to prohibit the seizure of any item from a judgment debtor with a disability. We’ve made some important changes, I think, in this bill, which also increases the scope to those who have the important role of also caring for those with disabilities and protecting them so that they’re able to continue to provide that care and support for that person who has a disability so that those assets and those people’s names are also protected.

This is about ensuring that people with disabilities are able to continue living their lives independently and to promote their inclusion in society and their participation, and that is something which I believe all members of this House support. I commend the bill to the House.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): It’s an absolute pleasure to rise in support of this bill as a member of the Justice Committee. I want to tautoko all of the speeches of, firstly, the proposer of this bill, Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki, our chair, Ginny Andersen, and our two National Party colleagues. Simon—blessed are the peacemakers, I think, is also something we might want to consider, for they shall inherit the earth. But I do believe that it is Mr Simeon Brown whose speech takes the muffin this evening.

Simeon Brown: No, mine’s the icing on the muffin.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON: Oh, that’s the icing on the muffin, Simon.

This is a wonderful bill. It’s a small bill, but it’s very significant, and it is part of this Government’s commitment to—

Hon Simon Bridges: It’s like Simeon Brown.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON: Like Simeon Brown—maybe. It is part of our commitment to make this country a place that does not disable people with impairments.

The statistics are, as my colleagues have already said, quite staggering: 1 million to 1.2 million Kiwis are estimated to live with disabilities. That has profound implications for the way they live. People living with disabilities are much more likely to be unemployed: 45 percent in employment, as opposed to 72 percent of the non-disabled population. They are much more likely to have lower education: 30 percent of women living with disability have no educational qualifications, as opposed to 15 percent of non-disabled women. Disabled children are much less likely to play sport or participate in other social activity. These are matters that are relevant to this bill because this bill is about preserving people’s means of participation and inclusion in society.

There are two matters that we specifically have done in this bill, and I want to deal with them in turn. The first is to change the definition of “disability”, and this is the major change from the first reading. This has been mentioned before, but I really think it’s well worth taking a little bit of time, because what has happened on the recommendation of a number of submitters—in particular, I would like to mention Kāpō Māori Aotearoa and Blind Low Vision New Zealand in their joint submission. It is also tautoko-ed by the Office for Disability Issues.

What we’ve done in this is replace a fairly standard definition of “disability” with the definition in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This is significant. New Zealand ratified the convention in September 2008 without reservation. This bill thus takes us further down the path of fulfilling our obligations under that convention. It fulfils some of our obligations under article 4 to take into account, protect, and promote the human rights of people with disabilities in all policies and programmes. It also furthers our obligation to recognise, in article 3, the dignity, autonomy, participation, and inclusion of people living with disabilities, and, in articles 19 and 20, to regard living independently and personal mobility as objectives.

It is an important little bit of legislation that we are bringing to this House this afternoon. It is particularly important, because while it may seem simply to repeat language, there’s a serious purpose behind the language. My colleague Ginny Andersen has already quoted it, but the substance of it is a philosophic change from what’s known as the medical model of disability, where it’s something to be treated and got rid of, through to a model that sees disability on a social—it’s called the social model. It sees it as something where you may have an impairment that is a medical condition—for example, if I take off my glasses, you’re all a blur because I’m quite short-sighted. But the point at which an impairment like my poor sight becomes a disability is when society fails to accommodate and enable me to live a normal life by doing this and putting my glasses on. That’s the difference. I’m not disabled. I live my life because I’m able to use my glasses. That’s the social model of disability. That’s the model we’re seeking to bring in here. It is the model that says “You may be impaired, but we will facilitate you to live a life that is not disabled by the way in which we treat you in our society.” We are an inclusive, we are a facilitative, society.

The second part of this legislation that we’ve brought in—and I pause here so that we can all take in the importance of the UN convention having been brought into law. We can all tautoko the idea of the social model of disability and we can all tautoko the inclusion of that definition because it is very significant, and in that moment, I would actually just like to recognise we are in Sign Language Week. I would like to actually acknowledge the work of people like my constituent Kim Robinson in his work to bring sign language interpretation to Parliament and to all significant events in New Zealand.

I would also like to acknowledge my debt to the Tiaho Trust in my home district of Whangārei and the work of people like Jonny Wilkinson, the great disability advocate who has spent time with me and talked about the social model as opposed to the medicalisation of disability. Thank you, Jonny, and thank you, Kim, for the work you both do.

The next part of the legislation that needs talking about is the extension of the definition of who is a debtor under this legislation. One significant thing that was brought to our attention by a number of submitters—especially Age Concern and the Auckland Disability Law group—is the need not to stop at the person who actually is disabled, or person living with a disability, because that person may not be the legal owner of the equipment that is necessary to enable their participation and inclusion in society.

For example, we’ve already discussed the mobility vehicle as a possible thing. Often, it is the parent who owns the mobility vehicle. I’ve already spoken about how children living with disabilities are often much more limited in the activities they’re able to participate in in society, and as a mum, and as parents in this House, we know how important those sporting and social opportunities are for our kids. Mobility and the access to a mobility vehicle for the parents of those children to facilitate them to grow up and have good lives is a really crucial extension, and that is why we are really proud that we took the advice of our submitters. We extended the definition of “debtor” to include not only the person who is disabled but the person who owns the equipment that is necessary to the disabled person—to the principal caregiver for a disabled person.

The final thing that we talked about, as previous speakers have spoken about, was that we did this bill hard, I think it’s fair to say. We did not leave a stone unturned in the consideration of it. It may be that there is some bearing on the fact that some of us were in our first bill. This was, in fact, I think, my first bill ever to work on. So we made sure we considered every aspect of this, and that is reflected in the discussion that we had on section 167 in clause 4 of this bill. There was some discussion as to where we should leave the definition of items that are protected property. At the moment, it says, “any item … necessary for the care, support, or independence … to promote the inclusion and participation” of the person—e.g., mobility vehicles. We considered whether that needed to be widened to include technology such as communication devices. We feel, at this point, that that definition is wide enough to enable bailiffs to take proper consideration of the needs of debtors and their dependants.

We note with pleasure that the Ministry of Justice has stated that they will undertake education of bailiffs, which will get them up to speed in using this Act. On that basis, I am really happy to commend this bill to the House.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s also a real treat to get to rise and speak for the Green Party on the District Court (Protection of Judgment Debtors with Disabilities) Amendment Bill, a member’s bill brought to this House by the member Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki. I just want to note that this is the second of her members’ bills that I’ve had the pleasure of speaking on, and I like this member’s style—they’ve both been fabulous bills. Unfortunately, the last one didn’t have the universal support I thought it should have, but it is wonderful to see the support in the House tonight for this piece of legislation. I really want to acknowledge the simplicity of it and the importance of it. It’s not a massive change. It’s not complex. It’s addressing a very specific problem, but, while doing that, it does help change the way that our institutions and society are structured to disable so many people, unfortunately, and I really want to acknowledge that.

What the bill does—if people are just tuning in to this and have missed the very good speeches before me that I’d recommend they probably listen to—is that it amends the District Court Act 2016 to prohibit the seizure of goods of a judgment debtor with a disability where the item proposed to be seized is necessary for that person’s care, support, or independence, or to promote their inclusion and participation in society.

I really think it probably just makes immediate sense to a lot of people that there’s a really big difference between seizing somebody’s massive TV that they may have spent too much money on and seizing a mobility aid that is essential to that person’s participation in society and health. This piece of legislation makes sure that we recognise that difference, and there is no chance for somebody’s ability to, basically, have their human rights met to be compromised by the seizure of goods through our debtor process—also acknowledging, as I think the member concerned raised, that at the moment, bailiffs can’t seize a tradie’s tools, because that would undermine their ability to earn a living and pay back the debt. So if we can make that recognition, then this is very, very obvious and clear to me that we probably should have done this a long time ago. But it is really fantastic.

I also want to acknowledge—while I have no idea what people in this House have been talking about when they’ve been referring to feijoa muffins; I’m not on the Justice Committee, so I’m not in on the joke—the work of that committee that has made amendments to the legislation. It’s really clear that people, while absolutely supporting the legislation, did still interrogate it and make sure that it was the best that it could be, and that is Parliament working at its best, to my mind.

So the changes were to ensure that the definition of “disabled people” was extended. The original definition was the same as in the Human Rights Act 1993. The new definition has been expanded to include people who have “long term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairments that, in interaction with various barriers, may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.”, and, as has been mentioned by a previous speaker, this really is bringing that social model of disability into our legislation. I think that is progress, and is consistent with our international commitments.

We’re also clarifying that mobility vehicles may not be seized and that caregivers who are caring for people who require—so the caregiver owns the mobility device, even if they’re not using it. Their goods cannot be seized, so as to ensure and protect the human rights of whoever they may be caring for. I think they are very sensible amendments to the legislation.

I also too want to acknowledge that it is New Zealand Sign Language Week this week, and acknowledge Kim Robinson and the many Deaf advocates that I have seen that have been calling for us to remove the barriers to their participation in our democratic institutions, for there to be permanent sign language interpretation for Parliament at every stage, for our news to have sign language interpretation, and for public meetings that people may attend to engage on a democratic level or gather information to be able to be a full member of society—so that we ensure that they have access to interpretation.

We have a very long way to go. That is just one community, but because it is New Zealand Sign Language Week it felt appropriate to bring their calls for change into this House while we’re all on the same page, committing to removing one disabling law. So I hope we can see some more change for people who have been disabled by the laws and policies of this place, and, on that note, I’m very pleased to congratulate the member and commend the bill to the House.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to first acknowledge the previous member Jan Logie’s comments acknowledging sign language and its place in our week this week. It has been very useful, I think, for the members in the House to engage and to use sign language and to learn what we can to acknowledge something which is so special about the official languages of our country and of our culture here in New Zealand.

Now, this bill is very important. The previous speakers have said that it is small and it is technical, but it’s important because it deals with what I think is the most fundamental of all human rights, and that is the right to dignity. We in New Zealand celebrate our right to dignity, and it is a right that I think gives effect to all other human rights. Where one group may suffer from a disadvantage in enjoying their rights to dignity, then we all suffer.

This bill is brought in the context of a Government which is committed to bringing together a team of 5 million to tackle COVID and to stamp it out in this country. Central to that strategy has been the belief that every person in our community has their part to play and that every single person is a contributing member of that team. Central to that belief is that everyone deserves to be treated fairly, and that’s why it’s so important that this change—which, again, is technical and minor—is about ensuring that every person in our team of 5 million can enjoy that fundamental right to dignity.

So I want to address two points here. The first is how this bill does protect that right to dignity, and the second is about who the bill protects. I want to then touch, at the end, on what it doesn’t do and the effect that it will not have on lending and repossession of goods.

But to this first point about the protections that it offers to disabled people, it’s really important to acknowledge here that essentials to life are already protected from bailiff seizure for judgment debtors. If a bailiff was to go to the home of a person who was subject to a court order to pay debt that they may owe, whether it’s for something like unpaid rent or whether it’s for something like court fines, a bailiff would not be able to seize things that you and I would consider essential to our own lives—things like food, things like our children’s clothing. But before this bill, it wasn’t clear whether or not they could take something which was essential to the life of someone with a disability.

I’m thinking here about an example that one submitter raised with us, which was a spa pool, which was essential to care for their child, who had a form of cerebral palsy. Those things are essential to our children or to people in our community who have disabilities to be able to live their lives in the way that they see is good and in the way that they see is dignified.

So to extend the same protections that you and I have from confiscation of goods and things that we own which are absolutely essential to our lives, it’s important that we make this step to acknowledge those things which are necessary for the judgment debtor’s care, support, and independence and to promote their inclusion and participation in society. That’s at the heart of this bill, and that’s why it has the support of the House. I think that it’s not just about kindness; this is the right thing to do. It makes the rights of those with disabilities equal to those of others in our communities, and that’s why it’s important.

If I turn now to the community which this bill would primarily affect and who it protects, when the bill came to the Justice Committee, the protections added were specifically with regard to seizing property from a judgment debtor with a disability. Now, the committee considered that as unnecessarily limiting, because many of these situations concern parents with children who they care for who have these sorts of goods in their homes that are essential to their living, and also older people.

My own father lives with me. He’s 88, and he has a number of things around our home which are valuable, like mobility aids, which could not fairly be taken from him if we were trying to promote his inclusion in our community and to let him live a life that he sees as dignified. But under the old law, if I was held to account in a court in that way and I was subject of a judgment order to pay my debts, those things around my house would be fair game for confiscation. That’s a double whammy of unfairness, where a person with a disability by reason of their age or by reason of a disability that they were born with is punished for the debt incurred by those who care for them. That’s simply not right, and this bill addresses that.

I particularly want to acknowledge the submission of Age Concern New Zealand and Auckland Disability Law, which put this very clearly. They argued that it could lead to the scenario in which something essential for the care of a disabled person was taken by a bailiff because the carer was in debt, and that would be manifestly unjust.

I’d also like to touch on one of the quibbles, as the member for Tauranga called it, which was brought by submitters. I think it was a very seriously held concern about the bill’s potential effect on lending and repossession of goods. I want to make it very clear for anyone who may be listening who’s concerned about, perhaps, a chilling effect on lending to people with disabilities that that is not what this bill does. We had a lot of discussion about this at select committee, and it comes down to this. The submission as it was put was that lenders, or second-tier and third-tier lenders, or shops which sell goods to people on, say, hire purchase arrangements, or Afterpay if you’re paying online, would be disincentivised to sell goods to people with disabilities, because they would have to actively ask a person if they were disabled and then wouldn’t be able to extend finance to that person. That’s not the case, and I want to be really clear on that. It’s not the case, because that’s not how judgment debtor orders work.

In this situation that the bill addresses, a court order has to be made whereby any and all debt that a person has incurred can be addressed by a bailiff seizing any property that they may have under their control in order to pay for that debt. That’s not like a situation where, if you go to any shop on the main street and pay with Afterpay or with credit, that shop can secure the lending against the item. That’s called a registration on the Personal Property Securities Register, and in that situation, that lender will still be able to recover any debt that you owe by reclaiming that particular item. I know there was a lot of confusion in this. There was some confusion at the committee stages. But I thank the officials for their advice on this matter, which turned out to be quite simple after all.

I’d finally like to comment about this Government’s commitment to addressing the economic injustice which arises from unfair debt practices. Predatory lending is something that this Government has taken action against, and it disproportionately affects people with disabilities. I want to commend, in particular, the faith-based organisations and the churches, which are also acting against predatory lending practices.

I’m thinking here in particular of the Manurewa Salvation Army, which I’ve had the pleasure of meeting with several times now and seeing the practices of their Good Shop bus, which goes out to the homes or people in Manurewa. They go to the homes of people who might not otherwise be able to get out to the shops. Often these are people with some form of disability—one of the 1 million to 1.2 million New Zealanders who live with disabilities daily. Their practices have meant that the unfair practices of, essentially, second-tier or third-tier lenders going out in vans to these people’s houses no longer has the same kind of sway that it did.

It’s those NGOs and those faith-based organisations which are leading in this area. We can take our cues from them by supporting this bill, which appropriately acknowledges the right to dignity of all people, including disabled people, in New Zealand.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): I rise to speak on the District Court (Protection of Judgment Debtors with Disabilities) Amendment Bill. Just before I get started, I’d like to assure the Hon Dr Nick Smith that there were no chocolate chips harmed in the making of some feijoa muffins.

I’d like to commend Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki—and I apologise if I’ve pronounced that wrong; it’s my first attempt—for this bill that you have brought before the House. The bill came about because there was a disabled person who had their mobility van seized by a bailiff. By doing so, this not only restricted the support and independence that that person needed but also they could not participate in any activities outside of their home. So it was really important that this was brought to the House. Originally, this bill was just about preventing the seizures of items needed for the debtor’s care and support or independence that promoted their inclusion and participation in society, but it now includes looking after the dependants—the disabled dependants—of a judgment debtor, and I think that’s one of the most relevant things that we were able to do within the select committee process.

It’s actually amazing that we had to legislate for this. This being one of my first references within the select committee to look into, I was really quite surprised that we were even having to look into this, because I thought people would be protected already. I mean, the bailiffs, after all, do have some discretion. They can’t take essential household items like stoves and fridges, but they also have a job to do, and businesses need to ensure that they can get their goods back or that they can get payment for their goods, and the court judgments do need to be enforced in some way. For the creditors, this bill is actually not going to prevent the repossession of goods that are provided in a credit contract. As the members across the floor have stated, there are actually other avenues that the creditors can take as well.

So this bill really is about protecting those people with disabilities and impairments, and that’s why it makes it so easy to support. Currently, the law does not prohibit the seizure of items that people with disabilities or impairments own, like mobility scooters and vans and specialised vehicles, hence the member brought this to the table for us to debate.

We also need to look now at the number of seizures that may occur, because in this COVID climate, we have a lot of job losses, we have a lot of rises in the cost of living, and we have a lot of people that are unable to meet their debt, more so than ever before. In fact, just this week, I had a phone call from a gentleman on a different topic, but he is struggling. He is disabled, and he told me that he had to figure out whether or not he was going to pay an application fee for a Government service or eat his meal on Wednesday night. So there are so many people out there struggling that, regardless of whether you have a disability or not, we need to do what we can to support them.

It was an eye-opener, I found, for me as well on the number of different things that could be seized and the concerns that people with disabilities and impairments actually have. Our select committee discussions brought about the issues that I was not previously aware of—for example, that change in definition for “disability”. It was noted that impairments were not defined in the current definition of “disability”, and this bill will make changes to make sure that impairments are defined so that people who are impaired rather than disabled will also not have some their items or property potentially seized. There is a difference between the two, but there is no difference when it comes to being able to access the ability to join in society and partake.

I also would like to take the opportunity to thank the officials that came before the select committee, time and time again, to give us their valued advice. One of the things that was brought up was those with low-vision impairment and those with hearing impairments or disabilities actually needing access to their phones, and phones being a part of those items that should not be seized—that people depend on them, in some cases, to communicate with the outside world. It was really, really important that we did address that. We have, I think, found a right balance here in that it’s necessary for the judgment debtor’s care, support, or independence, and it promotes their inclusion and participation in society. That’s where we will have just a little bit of difference about how a bailiff can enforce the law once it goes through—and I am confident it will go through, because you do have support around the House.

It gives some clear guidelines. When we look at promoting inclusion and participation in society, it gives support or independence to the individual. That means whether it’s a phone, whether it’s a car, or whether it’s a mobility scooter, it will depend on the individual whether or not that gets seized. There are some concerns—and they have been addressed—about whether or not those people with disabilities will actually be able to get credit once this law goes through. There are questions about how they may be able to secure their loans. Will they even get loans? Will they get loans at different rates, perhaps higher rates? Effectively, it’s going to be up to the creditor to perhaps seek another form of security from the debtor or find an alternate way of collecting from them.

We need to make sure that if we have a scenario where mum or dad might have a debt, but their child has a disability, and the bailiff turns up and wants to seize the car, that is stopped because we need to make sure that child can go to school or can go to the doctor, if that’s needed. We need to make sure that those with impairments of hearing or vision, as I mentioned before, still have access to those essential items and that they can communicate with others and, as I keep repeating, participate in society. This will happen if they can meet the criteria that has been mentioned within the bill. So, on that note, the ACT Party supports this bill, and we also commend Anahila for the work that you’ve done on it.

LOUISA WALL (Labour): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Tēnā koutou katoa. Firstly, I’d like to again recognise my colleague Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki for a bill that obviously created quite a bit of discussion in the select committee. And so I particularly want to commend the 21 submissions from groups and individuals, and also the eight submitters who chose to speak at the select committee about the relevance of this particular legislation to them. I’m not a member of the Justice Committee, but I know that the Justice Committee is incredibly hard-working, so I’d like to acknowledge colleague Ginny Andersen and members of that committee for the diligence that they practise. In terms of this particular bill, I can see that it did create quite a bit of discussion.

From my reading of the report from the Justice Committee, essentially what they have done is broaden the definition of a “judgment debtor”. The original proposition from Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki was that this was about a disabled person and solely about the disabled person. In fact, the scope that the select committee have chosen to increase also now includes the carer of a disabled person. The reason the committee did that, in fact, was because it’s about how the property of a disabled person, or the family of a disabled person, or the person caring for that disabled person is used, because sometimes it isn’t actually the disabled person themselves that owns the property. So we then started to focus on the use of that property, and the instance that actually brought this kaupapa to this Parliament was a vehicle that a disabled person had that was then—through a judgment debtor, being determined to be a judgment debtor—taken from that particular individual. So I want to commend the select committee on their work because, in fact, it would have been neglectful if you hadn’t highlighted that sometimes it wasn’t the disabled person themselves who owned the property but members of their family, or those providing care to them. So I think you’ve closed what could have been a loophole that, in fact, would have negated the whole intention of this piece of legislation. So congratulations for highlighting that.

I also think the change to the definition of disabled person—so just for members of the public’s knowledge, a disabled person is now going to be defined as “a person who has long term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments that in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.” I think that definition actually speaks to the commitment that the select committee had, again, ensuring that the broadest definition of property, or as I framed it in my first reading speech, the tools that disabled people need to live full and active lives. We’re talking, potentially, about a lot of devices today, not only wheelchairs and the different modifications with that but being able to use speaking devices so that instructions can be delivered, or tools that enable people, actually, in their everyday lives, that some of us take for granted—they will be included in the definition. We all know that definitions are incredibly important, because if we don’t get the definitions right, then there may be things deemed not to be property that can then be confiscated through these judgment debtor issues. So I want to commend, again, the select committee for ensuring that all property that disabled peoples may have that are going to actually help remove barriers to them leading full and participative lives will be covered by this piece of legislation.

The third issue that was highlighted by the select committee—and they chose not to make a recommendation in terms of an amendment to the proposition—was about the effect on lending and the repossession of goods under the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act. Colleagues across the House, I guess, have differing opinions, which is why you didn’t come to an agreement about what an amendment should be. But in listening to colleague Nicole McKee, who has previously spoken, I guess some of the consequences are that lenders won’t lend to people with disabilities, or their families. I find that an incredibly problematic proposition, actually, because that would reinforce a discrimination that we’re trying to address. So I’m hoping that there will not be an opportunity for lenders to now not lend to peoples with disabilities because this legislation is progressing through the House.

I’m hoping, actually, that there will be a broader conversation within the community about how we better support peoples with disabilities to have access to the tools they need, as I said before, to live full, inclusive, participatory lives. I do think, though, as a consequence of highlighting this in your select committee report back to the House, there needs to be further work. So I’m hoping that people like Paula Tesoriero—who’s our disability commissioner, who works at the Human Rights Commission, and I know she’s been actively engaged in the progression of this bill through the House—will now think about the implications of this being in a report that this Parliament has received, and actually proactively working with lenders to make sure that there isn’t an issue. Because, always, we are aware sometimes of unintended consequences, but in highlighting this you have actually said, “This isn’t unintended.” You have highlighted it as an issue. And I think we have to get ahead of the game and engage with the sector to make sure that there aren’t going to now be barriers to people who need support to buy these particular tools or property, that if you are a person with a disability, you have access to the resources—like any of us do, in terms of the choices or the way in which we want to live our lives.

So it’s an absolute pleasure to talk to tautoko this kaupapa through the House this evening. I hope that the disability community, through the specific focus of this bill, feel like this Parliament is actually giving effect to some of their needs and aspirations, because we don’t really have many bills that are specific to the disability community.

And again, I want to thank my colleague Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki, and actually highlight the relationship that she has with many of the people in our community who are advocates for peoples with disability. It was through her relationship with community law that this issue was brought to the attention of the House in the first place. I think it really speaks to the motivation behind this bill—I mean, this is a real issue for a real New Zealander in a community that will actually not solve their issue, but they’ve used their experience to bring it to this place so that we can make sure that it doesn’t affect other people in the future. I always find the selfless acts of New Zealanders who allow their experiences to be used as a platform for this legislative reform incredibly empowering, because what that speaks to is the fact that we live in a society that continues to evolve.

It was quite interesting, when I looked at the definition from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, because, also, fundamentally, they talk about disability being an evolving concept. I think that our responsiveness as a Parliament to the needs of peoples with disabilities through the progression of this bill—and it seems to be unanimous—makes a bit of a statement about our commitment to making sure that we use the power that we have for good, and that in this particular instance we use it for our disabled community in a way that, hopefully, will empower them and ensure that they know that their needs are a priority for us. Nō reira, tēnā koutou katoa.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call. I call Joseph Mooney, five minutes.

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise as a member of the National Party to support the District Court (Protection of Judgment Debtors with Disabilities) Amendment Bill. I want to take the opportunity to commend the member Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki for bringing this bill to the House. This is an important one, and it’s apt that in the week of sign language we have this bill and we speak on it here today.

The bill makes a compassionate and common-sense amendment, a relatively simple amendment to the District Court Act 2016 to protect those with disabilities who owe money under a court order. Although it’s simple, sometimes a simple amendment to an Act can make a significant difference to people’s lives, and it’s appropriate that we make this amendment, as those with disabilities in our communities already face significant challenges and difficulties in their day-to-day lives. I can attest to that, as I have extended family members who have lived with disabilities and continue to do so, and I know that there are big challenges that they face in dealing with day-to-day lives that those of us who are fortunate to not have disabilities do not face.

It is a pleasure to rise to speak in support of this amendment. It makes a meaningful contribution to protecting those New Zealanders who have a variety of disabilities should they come in contact with the court system in terms of being judgment debtors. I want to acknowledge also the disability commissioner’s advocacy, which has helped give visibility to this important issue.

Further, although I’m not a member of the Justice Committee, I’m aware that they have applied some careful thought and attention to these amendments, and I note that they have recommended changes to the initial bill which extend the definition of those protected—importantly, recognising that often it is family members and other support members in the community who make sure that the disabled members of our community are able to live fuller lives. As a nation, we are reliant on these whānau and family members for, for example, helping make sure our disabled members of our communities are able to get to the shops, able to get to medical appointments, able to take their children to school, and many other facets of their lives. We are often reliant on their support for making sure that these things are done, and that is a big contribution they make to our community and our country, as it would cost our State significantly more if we didn’t have that support from those family members. So I want to take this opportunity to thank all of those family members who make such a very big contribution to our community and recognise that the amended section of this bill protects the items that are “necessary for the care, support, or independence” of disabled persons or the principal caregiver for a disabled person, to ensure that those people are able to be fully included and participate in society.

I note that the bill also has taken a rather elegant approach to the definition of a disabled person, rather than simply referring to the definition in section 21(1)(h) of the Human Rights Act. Its definition is “a person who has [a] long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairment … that, in interaction with various barriers, may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others”. That, I would say, is a broad and inclusive definition which is in accordance with the definition and intention of section 21(1)(h) of the Human Rights Act.

It is important that we get the balance right in terms of protecting various interests in our society. It’s important that we care for those who are vulnerable in our society, and, certainly, those with disabilities, as I’ve spoken to earlier, are much more vulnerable than others. I want to acknowledge, finally, all those who have advocated for that support and protection. I thank again all those who care for those members of our community, and commend this bill to the House.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour—Northland): [Uses sign language] Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to take a short call this afternoon on the District Court (Protection of Judgment Debtors with Disabilities) Amendment Bill. I just want to start by acknowledging my colleague Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki and thanking the member for bringing this member’s bill to the House in response to an issue which happened in her rohe, in her area, of Papakura—of South Auckland. I wasn’t involved in the first reading of this debate, so I went back and I traversed the Hansard. It was really interesting to read the situation which brought about the action that the member took in bringing the member’s bill to the House. I just want to acknowledge Mr Tanginoa for his courage to share his story and his experience in the hope that it would not happen to somebody else, and also, too, Mr Soane Foliaki, who was the lawyer and worked for—or maybe volunteered for—the community law centre in Papakura.

For those listening in tonight, I just wanted to take out a part of the member’s first speech on this, where it talked about what had happened in Mr Tanginoa’s case, where he—unknown to him—had actually incurred rent debt to the amount of $5,117. His landlord had taken that to court to get recompense for it, and an order was given. What happened in his case was his modified mobility vehicle was seized—first it was clamped, and then it was seized. What happened also in his situation is that his health deteriorated, and, because he didn’t have access to that vehicle, he actually ended up in intensive care in Auckland hospital and was in a very precarious situation. It’s just fortunate that he survived the ordeal.

While this is what might seem to some people a minor amendment that we’re making here to the legislation, it actually really does impact people’s lives, and that’s what we heard from the submitters, who made strong submissions. And I really want to acknowledge our select committee for the very thorough process that we went through. For parts of that, I actually subbed the member out so she could come over from the Environment Committee and sit in front of the Justice Committee, so I didn’t hear the entire process but I did hear a good lot of it.

In terms of the submissions, we had 21 submissions, and eight submitters gave oral evidence. I did just want to also acknowledge one of the contributions from the member Greg O’Connor—oh, you’re in the House tonight, Greg—where he actually talked about—[Interruption] Sorry; I didn’t expect him to be here as I was speaking about this. [Interruption] I know, right? And happy birthday, by the way. Happy birthday, Greg.

In his contribution in the first reading of this, he said that, often, for the people who are employed to be bailiffs, it’s a job; it’s about putting food on the table for their families. It’s a difficult job to do. I’m sure there’s not a lot of feel-good in it. The way the law currently is—which we are seeking to change—it requires them to use their judgment and their discretion, and I think that that’s a really unfair burden to put on them in what is already a difficult job. Really, the hope is that with the amendments to this bill, we make it explicitly clear so that they don’t have to exercise that good judgment around what things they can and can’t take in order to satisfy these orders.

I do really want to acknowledge those people who do that work, and I hope that this bill is going to also help you do your job better and make it an easier job to do and also protect the people who we have spoken so much about tonight. So I just want to thank the committee, I want to thank the member, and I want to commend the bill to the House.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National): I just want to take a short call and join with other members of the House, as a member of the Justice Committee, in support of this bill. I want to acknowledge the bill’s sponsor, Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki. Can I also acknowledge that it is Sign Language Week and it is entirely appropriate and good fortune that we are debating a bill about disabilities, when we acknowledge that group of New Zealanders.

The first thing I want to say is that I’m a real optimist and quite excited about the degree to which technology, actually, is of huge support to those New Zealanders with disabilities. Actually, the way in which really smart people have been able to generate voice messages for those people that cannot speak, for those people that are blind, the development of technologies that assist, whether it be those that have wheelchairs, man, there’s been a revolution over time in that sort of technology that is able to support the tens—hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders that have disabilities.

Now, this bill quite sensibly makes an extension of the limit to which the bailiffs are able to confiscate property where there are unpaid debts. The current law does quite rightly prohibit those things that are essential to life. But, actually, with the development of so many things that people require with disabilities, the member who has sponsored this bill wants to push that boat out a bit and extend the limit on bailiffs to a broader range of people and to a broader range of products, and National supports that.

The only thing I’d want to add to this debate is a bit of a challenge for the Human Rights Commission that there is a risk with this bill. The risk with this bill is that nobody is compelled to lend their money. If the product of this bill is that those lenders are more hesitant to provide the finance for people’s cars, for their computers, for the other things to support them, we will have achieved the opposite of what we have sought with this bill. So my plea is that I would like the human rights commissioner—and I’ve got a lot of respect for the work of Paula Tesoriero and their team—actually, to keep an eye that the Human Rights Act and the requirement not to discriminate is acknowledged so that we ensure that the intent of this bill to actually extend the support for those people of disabilities is followed through. I don’t think it’s a huge risk, but I think it’s important that the finance companies that provide these services do know that Parliament’s intent is to further protect people with disabilities and not to limit their access to finance, and that’s why there will be an ongoing role in ensuring the success of this measure and ensuring it does not result in discrimination and less access for finance for these sorts of services.

The select committee’s got a good job on the bill. I hope we can facilitate its passage as quickly as possible. It is a good bill, and it will help those New Zealanders who do require the support of additional technologies and services to be able to fulfil and do all the other things that New Zealanders take for granted.

TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Very pleased—[Uses sign language] My sign language is rusty, but that’s OK, because actually New Zealand Sign Language Week is another reminder that it is an official language and we should use it as much as possible. There are people out there that rely on us actually bringing profile to sign language, so I just want to acknowledge that first off.

I’m very happy to stand and take a call on the District Court (Protection of Judgment Debtors with Disabilities) Amendment Bill. Now, not sitting on the Justice Committee, I’m looking at this bill as an outsider, but it seems like common sense. This is a member’s bill in the name of my very, very good colleague over here, Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki, who has brought forward this member’s bill. I really enjoy members’ bills because it’s a chance for us as non-executive members to be able to advocate for something that we see in our community that needs addressing. She has taken an issue which was presented to her, and she has carried it through this House, and that’s exactly what the role of an MP is to be able to do. So I want to acknowledge the person that brought it before her, and I want to acknowledge her work, and also the work of the Justice Committee in ushering this bill through the House. Can I also acknowledge all members of the House for supporting this bill. This is not a major change, this is not big legislative change here, we’re talking about a fix to what is essentially a gap in our law, and it should be acknowledged. Because, actually, whilst it’s only a small fix, this is going to change the lives of many people. In fact, I say a small fix, but in terms of life and death decisions, it potentially is something that fits into that category.

This bill would amend the District Court Act 2016 to protect people with disabilities who owe money under a court order that would prohibit the seizure of any item from a judgment debtor with a disability that is necessary for their care, for their support, or for their independence, or to promote their inclusion and participation in society. Now the District Court Act allows bailiffs to seize property from a judgment debtor provided that they act fairly and reasonably in doing so. The bill would codify existing practice and make clearer the existing protection against unreasonable seizure of property that is provided for in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Any discrimination on the grounds of disability would be a violation of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and currently the Act does not expressly prohibit bailiffs from seizing property that disabled people may rely on, such as mobility devices. But things are about to change, and as I said before I acknowledge the support of the whole House in ushering this through. It is, of course, vital that we protect the rights of our disabled community around the country. I think I heard my colleague say earlier that actually, of our team of 5 million, 24 percent are deemed to have a disability, so I acknowledge that.

What this bill is going to do is it is going to—sorry, through the select committee process, that’s what I wanted to focus on, just a couple of the changes that came through in the select committee process, of which I’ll note that the committee received 21 submissions on the bill, the vast majority of which—18—supported the bill’s intent. The committee heard from eight oral submitters and, actually, some of those submitters had some very important things to say, which actually have led to amendments to the initial version of this bill. As the bill came to the committee, the protections added were specifically with regard to seizing property from a debtor with a disability. This meant that they didn’t cover items owned by those debtors without disabilities themselves but who were the principal caregiver to a disabled person. Now, several submitters, including Age Concern New Zealand, Auckland Disability Law as well, argued that that could lead to a scenario in which something essential for the care of a disabled person is taken by a bailiff because the caregiver who owns that thing is in debt—things like an accessibility van, things like a mobility scooter. The committee considered that issue and agreed with the concerns, as you’ve heard from other submitters tonight, that the law should cover any item necessary for the care, support, or independence of a disabled person who is in the care of a judgment debtor, and the select committee have agreed to amend the bill accordingly.

The second amendment that I wanted to talk about was the actual definition of a disabled person. In many bills that go through this House, we take great care to actually define, put in place proper definition, agreed definitions, as to what constitutes things like the definition of a disabled person. In the bill as it came to the committee, the definition of disability had the same meaning in the definition of section 21(1)(h) of the Human Rights Act 1993, but there were two submissions that came before the committee which argued that the definition instead should be taken from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, because it is a broader social model of disability, as opposed to the narrower, more clinical one that’s outlined in the Human Rights Act. The Auckland Disability Law submission noted that it believed that the legislation should align its definition of people with disabilities with that in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Article 1 – Purpose, which subscribes to the social model of disability rather than the medical model as seen in the Human Rights Act. It focuses on barriers that may negatively impact participation in society, which fits well with the purpose of this bill, and would allow better inclusion assistive equipment that is not limited to medical purposes. So they recommended that the Act have that definition of disability. The Justice Committee considered that argument and agreed that the definition was indeed preferable in this case, because it would allow for the wider disability community to be included in that group that the bill would provide protection for. The committee therefore amended the bill, changing the definition of disability from that that was laid out in the Human Rights Act.

As I said before, it’s vital that we look after the rights of our disabled whānau here in New Zealand. The District Court Act, as it currently stands, has no specific protection for disabled people so the items that they need for their care are not seized. As my colleague Willow-Jean Prime, the MP for Northland, said just before, actually this is not a job that anybody really likes to do. I have a couple of friends who, in their past, have been those people that have gone around being debt collectors. It isn’t the most pleasant job in the world and they’ve relayed that to me on many occasions. It’s a very harrowing process to go and be the person that knocks on somebody’s door and tells them that, actually, they are going to be confiscating some of their property—in some cases, all of their property. It’s a very tough situation to have to go through, but there needs to be a line drawn: a line drawn between what’s acceptable to seize and what’s not acceptable to seize. What this bill does is it sends a very clear signal out there to bailiffs, to those people that go out into properties and seize items, that actually when it comes to looking after the rights of our disabled community up and down Aotearoa, that actually it’s not acceptable to take those things which our disabled whānau depend on. Whether it’s the debtor themselves or a person that is dependent on them for those services, for a mobility van, it actually makes sure that it sends a clear message that it’s not acceptable to be able to seize those things.

So I want to make a final mihi to my good colleague Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki. She will go down as the person in this House who has the hardest name to pronounce and that many members of this House have tried to grapple with but have failed on many occasions, but may they get it right. And when we have languages like we’ve got this week—it is Rotuman Language Week—in acknowledgment of some of our Pasifika languages, hopefully some of our—when it becomes Tongan language week—members of this House will be able to refer back to the good old mālō e lelei, but also practise their Tongan trying to say her name. Thank you to the Justice Committee for their consideration of the bill, thank you to all of the submitters who have put effort into this, but most of all thank you to the gentleman that presented his case to this MP right here, to bring this case before the House. I commend it. Kia ora, Mr Speaker.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Rights for Victims of Insane Offenders Bill

Second Reading

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): I move, That the Rights for Victims of Insane Offenders Bill be now read a second time.

This bill is about victims’ rights, and it’s another step to ensuring that victims are at the heart of our justice system. This bill gives victims a voice when they haven’t had it before and gives them rights that they don’t currently have. For too long, there’s been a vast gap between how victims of crimes of sane offenders have been treated and those of insane offenders, and I believe that’s wrong. There should be equal rights for victims of crime so there isn’t a difference whether the person committed it as a sane or insane person, and whether or not they are being dealt with by the justice system or the health system.

A victim, through no fault of their own, has had their lives impacted by the actions of another. The fact that someone is found to be insane doesn’t change the enormous harm that victims and their families suffer. This bill proposes a new finding of “proven but insane”. It changes the finding so victims don’t hear the phrase “not guilty”. It also gives victims a voice and it provides victims information to help them keep themselves safe. What it doesn’t do, and one thing that the select committee was very careful about, is disadvantage or harm the person who committed the act.

Providing equivalence for victims whether the person who caused the harm was insane or sane, and dealt with by the health system or justice system, seems like a no-brainer. Can I tell the House that it hasn’t been that way. I want to give my thanks to constituent Graeme Moyle, who has doggedly pursued improvements to the system so that no other victim would have to go through what he and his family have gone through following the death of his brother Colin. The person who killed Colin was found not guilty on a count of insanity. Colin was killed in 2007, and Graeme has been fighting for change since then. Graeme, if you’re watching, I fought for you for 12 years, and the finish line is now very close.

I want to give a very special thanks to all parties in this House for supporting the bill at first reading unanimously. It is unusual, and I’m very grateful for that. I also want to put on record my thanks for the enormous efforts of the members of the Justice Committee, so very ably chaired by Ginny Andersen, of the officials, and of parliamentary counsel, because this was, indeed, a very complex issue to be dealt with through a member’s bill, and I appreciate the amount of time and energy that was committed to doing this.

What I’d love to say is that I think examples like the select committee, through this bill, are examples of Parliament operating at its best. I only wish that more members of the public were able to witness some of the important and collegial problem-solving work that is done in select committees, often behind doors. I also want to put on record my particular thanks to the Minister, the Hon Andrew Little, for his support and for allowing his health officials to give the full remit to improve this bill in the select committee process. I think it’s fair to say that drafting a member’s bill that alters four pieces of legislation was very complex, and the bill is in far better shape now than it was when I first introduced it to the House.

I want to thank those who have submitted on the bill. Victims that we heard from were very courageous, and I know that many of the submissions moved those who were on the select committee. Victims shared their stories and their experiences. Some shared their stories for the very first time. What was also very special was that the victims, even of some absolutely horrendous actions, were very generous and very clear about the fact that any changes we made to the legislation did not cause any disadvantage or harm to the special patients.

I’d like to go through some of the changes proposed and agreed unanimously in the select committee. The first one, as I mentioned, is the most significant, and that is the change to the finding that we will now know, if this bill passes through all stages, as “proven but insane”. I do have to say that my first attempt was quite clumsy. Instead what I had was “the acts or omissions are proven but the defendant is not criminally responsible on account of insanity”—which, let’s be fair, is a mouthful. To get it to “proven but insane” is very clearly understood, and I think that’s really important for any victim, who doesn’t now have to hear the words “not guilty”. It’s very clearly a better recognition. There’s no doubt about the person that committed the act or who did the act, and I think that’s really important for the victims and being able to heal from this horrendous act.

The four pieces of legislation that are amended are the Criminal Procedure (Mentally Impaired Persons) Act 2003, the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992, the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act 2003, and the Victims’ Rights Act 2002. So in terms of changes to the first part of it, which is, of course, the most important—changing the finding to “proven but insane”—there were some other changes that were made that actually weren’t intended in the drafting, from a policy perspective. Again, I’m very grateful to my colleagues on the select committee, who used their legal expertise to make sure we got this into the right place.

The second significant change is around victims’ rights. One of the things that we heard more often than anything, I think, was the fact that victims wanted to have a voice. They wanted to be able to have the equivalent of what in the justice system is providing their victim impact statement. Again, in the original drafting of the bill, it was at a later stage in the proceedings, which wasn’t necessarily what victims wanted, but they did want their voice heard. So what, in the select committee, we improved it to was, basically, creating a new class of victims, where the victims of defendants, if the court recorded a finding of “proven but insane”, were also able to make a victim impact statement in court. At that stage, it would be in the deposition hearing, which I think is a significant improvement.

The third part of the changes was really about providing information to victims so they felt informed and, in some cases, could keep themselves safe. We were quite clear about what the scope of their submission would be. Some of that was around decisions for leave, which, of course, sit with the Director of Mental Health and, in some cases, the Minister. It was making sure that the victim had the ability to provide a submission, if they so chose, and it also, as we heard from the Director of Mental Health, was useful for their process in terms of providing leave or approving leave, because what we heard in one instance was a victim, basically, then bumping into the person, the special patient, when they were on release. That was devastating both for the victim but equally for the special patient, and that’s why we wanted to make sure in the select committee process that we were doing what was in the best interests of both.

There are a number of other changes, which I won’t go through the detail of, but that provides the gist of it in terms of the first area, changing the finding to “proven but insane”, which is so exciting because that’s what I wanted to do initially and we just couldn’t find a way to draft it. So we did in the select committee—victims having a voice and being able to keep themselves safe if they knew that a special patient was on release. We hope that this bill gives victims and their loved ones comfort, knowing their voices have been heard by members of Parliament, and that action has been taken. I’m very optimistic that the unanimous support of this House will continue for the readings to follow, and I’m very grateful for the support of this House. Thank you.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to. Members, it’s come time for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.

Sitting suspended from 5.57 p.m. to 7 p.m.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The House is resumed. When the House rose for the dinner break, we were on the second reading of the Rights for Victims of Insane Offenders Bill, and I call Ginny Andersen.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. The aim of this bill is to better align the treatment of victims of offenders found legally insane—those who are legally insane—with victims of regular offenders in our justice system. I want to pause here for a moment, because in terms of the law and the way that that term “insane” is used can be perceived as being quite offensive to many people in New Zealand today. So in terms of unpacking that term, the defence of insanity is regularly used within a courtroom setting when someone is seen not fit to stand trial due to their mental state. So while that term is used throughout the discussions in this debate, I think it’s important to make clear that it is not intended with offence but merely a reflection of the legal terms that we are faced with using.

This is a sensitive and incredibly important area of law that requires a delicate and accurate legislative approach, so it is good that the committee took the time to consider it so fully and worked together so well and also was resourced to do so. I’d like to firstly acknowledge Louise Upston, the member in charge of the bill. Advocacy on behalf of victims is incredibly important, and she’s done an excellent job in this space. I would like to also acknowledge victims and their whānau who came before the committee and who spoke to the committee members about their experiences. I’d like to also acknowledge those victims who did not come before the committee but are yet still affected by this particular area of law. I’d like to acknowledge the committee members, in one of those instances where committee members work together incredibly well to produce what I think to be a far better piece of legislation than what we initially started with, and I think that’s a sign of democracy working well in New Zealand. I’d like to also acknowledge the Minister of Health, Andrew Little. He gave full remit for officials to provide advice on this particular piece of legislation, and that, from my experience to date, is rare on a member’s bill. I would like to, off the back of that, thank the officials that provided extensive advice and time to deal with this complex bill. I think members only need to pick the bill up to see it’s a substantive piece of legislation, much more so than the typical member’s bill that we are looking at on a day-to-day basis or week-to-week basis.

I think it’s important to outline right at the start why the Government is supporting this bill at second reading. This bill reflects Labour’s values. It promotes justice and transparency while respecting survivors of crime and their communities. Mental health is pivotal to many of this Government’s policies. Since we supported the bill at its first reading, it has had extensive and significant work done by the Justice Committee to improve and to ensure it will have positive outcomes when implemented into law. It also tries to obtain a far more victim-centred approach when the court is considering cases involving defendants around those who are unfit to stand trial or acquitted on account of insanity. At the select committee stage, victims and their families and the advocates of those groups told of some of the most devastating experiences that I have heard in a select committee experience, with offending committed by people who had been judged to be legally insane. While this bill cannot undo or mitigate the things that these people have experienced, we hope that it can alleviate some of the most difficult elements of dealing with this complex and challenging area of our law and our legal system and also the tradition for people in the future.

The Justice Committee heard from numerous submitters on the bill, including victims of insane offenders, their families, and their advocates. The submitters, who were overwhelmingly in favour of the bill, recounted to the committee some very strong examples and also looked at how they felt when the verdict of not guilty due to insanity was provided in the courtroom setting. When we supported the bill at the first reading, we expressed some reservations about the specific drafting of the bill that we were keen to see examined by the Justice Committee. This is a substantial bill as a member’s bill, and significant changes were made.

So I think it’s important, that I—and I apologise that it’s long, but I think it’s important that we outline all of the areas that this bill will be amending and identifying to change the current legislation. We will be renaming the verdict of “not guilty on account of insanity” to “proven but insane”, requiring notification to victims when an insane offender is being considered a leave of absence, giving a victim the right to submit their view to the Minister when an insane offender is being considered for a leave of absence, requiring notification to a victim when insane offending is being considered or for short-term leave, giving the victim the right to submit their view to the Director of Mental Health when the insane offender is being considered for short-term leave, giving victims the right to make a submission to the Mental Health Review Tribunal when it is reviewing the patient’s condition, ensuring victims are notified and giving them the right to submit when leave with a greater degree of autonomy than had previously been considered for a special patient under the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act. It also amends the Victims’ Rights Act to make it clear that the definitions of “offence” and “offender” include offences and offenders where the verdict of proven but insane has been returned. Finally, it gives victims of insane offenders the right to make a victim impact statement at disposition hearings. The select committee received 66 submissions, and, out of those 66 submissions, 55 supported the bill, with five more supporting the intent but not the—sorry, I lost my way. The Justice Committee unanimously recommended significant amendments to the bill that fundamentally changed how it will operate. And I think it’s important that the key amendments are outlined below.

First of all, the commencement date. This was something that we debated quite considerably. The committee members were unified in agreeing that we would give a longer term for the commencement date because of the significant nature of the changes that we were making at select committee. So that has been extended to 1 July next year. The main change, which will make the most difference in terms of victims, is a new verdict for insanity. In the bill as introduced, there was a version that the member in charge of the bill, Louise Upston, outlined initially that was longer. The purpose of this change has been condensed to be removing that “not guilty”. The purpose of this change is to remove the upsetting not guilty element of the verdict, which is distressing to victims because there is usually no doubt that the person committed the act or admission, and the verdict makes it seem like this is not the case. To accompany this new verdict, the bill also recommended adding a two-step trial process to the Act. The committee agreed that renaming the verdict was an important thing to do; however, they felt it could be better achieved, and not require a new trial process, by simply renaming the verdict to “proven but insane”.

The next main change was requiring notification to victims when an insane offender is being considered for leave of absence. The Justice Committee examined section 50 of the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act, which provides that the Minister of Health may grant a leave of absence to a special patient from a hospital or community, subject to conditions specified in the section. We decided that the bill should require that victims of persons found to be insane be notified when the special patient is being considered for a leave of absence. This would, in the committee’s estimation, prepare the victim for the possibility of the patient getting greater autonomy or being released. This bill has made significant changes in this space.

I want to acknowledge the big one that I haven’t had time to get to: victim impact statements, and also enabling victims of those offences to be able to make a victim impact statement. This is a long pathway, the interaction between the justice system and mental health treatment and the provision of mental health care. We have a lot more to do in this space. I see this is a good start. I see this is a collegial start. And I would like to see this level of cooperation in an area that affects so many New Zealanders’ lives to continue happening for many years to come. I commend this bill to the House.

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

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National): I want to begin my contribution on this bill by acknowledging three Nelson people who told their stories to the select committee as it considered both the bill but also the select committee report on Wendy’s petition. Now, Wendy Hamer is a Nelson mental health nurse that was brutally attacked in her work. She was punched, she was kicked, she had boiling water poured over her, and her attacker told her it was his intention to kill her and that he would get off on an insanity plea. The insult that was added to the injury was not only the “not guilty by insanity” plea but the fact that legally she had no entitlement to make a victim impact statement to the court, and then, worse, was that the offender was soon placed, without any consultation or involvement with her, back in her very community, supermarket, and the like.

Now, Wendy’s petition was launched in Nelson—actually at my caravan at the Nelson market—and over 1,500 people joined Wendy in her plea to this Parliament to change the law. Her presentation to the select committee—I think all members will acknowledge—was incredibly powerful and I want to acknowledge the work of Graeme Moyle with Louise Upston in Taupō, who has brought this bill and helped drive this significant change.

I also want to pay tribute to Sarah Preece, another Nelson woman who presented to the committee and had an equally horrific experience. Sarah was brutally raped in her home by a man who had presented to Nelson Hospital A & E but had not been able to get any attention for a matter of hours. He walked out of A & E, told a number of people that he intended to rape, invaded this woman’s home, brutally assaulted her, and raped her. And just like in the case of Wendy Hamer, when the matter went through the court process, no opportunity for a victim impact statement, no opportunity to be consulted at all on where the offender was placed. And then even more insulting was that the offender had access to all of her medical records, but none the other way round, showing how deficient the system is, being focused on the offender and not the person who is the victim.

Now, I even had a third case in the same period come to my attention, a Mr Mark Watts—he presented to the committee—where he was viciously assaulted with a machete to the head to the point where it was within millimetres of him dying, and he suffers a permanent disability and head injury as a consequence. I do want the Parliament to note the select committee’s report on Mark Watts’ case in that it highlighted a very real problem and inconsistency in law in enabling an assailant to walk free in such an assault. The person who committed the assault against Mark Watts had a head injury and the judge said he was in the impossible position in that they did not meet the legal criteria under our Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act, so was not able to have the person criminally accountable, but nor able to put any compulsory treatment order. In such an extraordinary assault, the person walked free and has gone on to commit further offences against others. The select committee noted it was not able to deal with that deficiency in the law. I’ve written to the Minister of Justice at the time and while I welcome the changes that we have made in this bill, I do want to bring to the House’s attention what the select committee has got to say about that case and ensuring that that gap in the law is also fixed.

The fact that I have had just three cases in recent experience in Nelson highlights how significant the law changes proposed in this bill are. I’ll give the House the statistics: back in 2000, there were four cases in New Zealand of a plea of “not guilty for insanity”; last year, there were nearly 40—38. My view is that there are many more of those cases. It is possible that the stabbing incident that occurred in Dunedin on Monday may be another that falls into this category. I want to congratulate Louise Upston on such an important member’s bill. It’s actually very unusual for such a complicated issue to be resolved through a member’s bill. That’s only been possible because of the Government’s support of its officials, and I, too, want to commend the chair of the committee and the support of officials that have enabled us to proceed with this reform.

The balance that this bill attempts to strike is so that we improve the rights of victims of such assaults where people suffer serious mental illness, while rightly balancing these rights so that those who are unwell are still able to get treatment. The challenge moving forward on this, in my view, is equal to our criminal justice system. I’m proud to be part of a Government that, with the criminal justice system that was excessively focused on the needs of offenders, had to give it a heavy shunt with victims’ rights legislation. And what we are doing with this bill is playing catch-up and grabbing that mental health system and giving it a shunt so that there equally is a greater recognition of victims’ rights. The provisions in this bill that provide for victim impact statements, the provisions in this bill that require consultation and notification for those victims of such crimes, and the change in the language from “not guilty by way of insanity” to “proven but insane” are all improvements.

But the point I’d make to the House is that unless there is, in parallel, a culture change within the Ministry of Health that deals with these challenging special patients, then the reforms in this bill will not be successful and that is something that Parliament needs to continue to monitor.

I want to make one closing point. In my own experience of working with these cases in Nelson, and as we’ve heard the evidence from the select committee, I can’t help but reflect on the long-term challenging issue for New Zealand of a small number of very challenging people that struggle to live in the community, because I don’t think there’s a member in this House that would prefer that rather than dealing with the aftermath, we actually prevented these assaults and serious cases occurring beforehand. In my view, while the de-institutionalisation that occurred through the 1980s and the 1990s was right, there is a small group of people who are absolutely struggling to live unsupported out there in the community, and we need to develop new models to make sure that those people have a living environment in which they do not get caught up in the sort of offending and cases that we saw before the committee and the increase that we have seen in the number of cases.

Again, I would commend the bill to the House. I’m proud to have been a member of the Justice Committee that has worked on this bill and made it a better bill to address a very real issue. Again, I want to acknowledge those brave submitters, particularly Wendy Hamer and those that supported Wendy’s petition. It is not often that you’re able to see through an individual constituency case that highlights a real flaw in the law that a petitioner’s launched and then the Parliament unanimously takes on board the message and makes substantive change in the law that, in my view, will both make New Zealand safer but also ensure that victims of some of these awful cases get a fairer deal from our justice system. This is a good bill and it deserves the support of every party and MP in this House.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): It’s an honour to rise and speak in support of this bill. I was a member of the Justice Committee that has brought it this far, brought it home to this House. I hope we see it now through to its final stages, and that it is law, because it should be. This is an important change we are bringing about, but it is a momentous change and that is primarily what I want to talk about today.

But I want to start by talking about those 66 submissions we received, and I want to thank those extraordinary men and women who came into our select committee room, sometimes via Zoom but often in person, and told their trauma to us and did us the honour of having the courage, did New Zealand the honour of taking their pain and using it to try to create a better system for those who came after them.

Some of that testimony was amongst the most harrowing I have heard—I think any of us have heard. I am sitting tonight beside a colleague who does not normally sit on the Justice Committee, and she’s just remarked to me that although she comes from the health profession, how harrowing that testimony was. It reduced many of us to tears on occasion, and I just want, again, to thank those brave men and women, father, mother, brothers, and sisters for what they did, for us and for New Zealand. What they did was to remind us of the fact that the people who have suffered are victims, as they are called after verdict, and complainants beforehand—how they have not been put at the centre of our justice system, how we have too often regarded them as tools of the prosecution or the defence, instruments of evidence from which determinations are made, and we have neglected to give them respect and to protect them and to respect them.

This bill is one of a number that are before the House at the moment, and it is part of taking this bill on as a bill that has come from the other side of the House—is entirely in keeping with Labour’s determination that we will see victims and complainants properly respected and the justice system balanced so that everyone who comes within it is treated appropriately.

There is also another group of people who very much need to be thanked because, as has been said by previous speakers, this bill is unusual in that we kept going with it. It was flawed when it came to us, the concept was very much appreciated but it had major flaws. The Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Justice—the Ministry of Health in particular—have put their full weight behind it and we have given what I understand to be an extraordinary amount of time and energy to the process of turning a good idea into a workable process.

I particularly want to thank the officials who worked with us. I think there were between 11 and 13 versions of this bill brought to us—every single one picked over, gone over. That is how hard we and the officials worked. There are whole charts devoted to this bill, showing the different stages between the mental health and the criminal justice system, because the fundamental thing that this bill tries to do is create an equivalence between two quite different systems: the criminal system, the criminal corrections system, in which offenders become prisoners and are then subject to easily understandable and chartable stages toward release; and the medical system, in which patients vary in their ability to recover and the steps they need to take, and those steps can be widely varying.

There is very little equivalence between the two systems, and the way in which the officials worked on finding ways to create an equivalence that would honour the victims is remarkable. I particularly want to thank Dr John Crawshaw, the Director of Mental Health and Addiction at the Ministry of Health; Adri Isbister, who is the Deputy Director-General, Disability for the Ministry of Health; and Matthew Mitchell, the manager for courts and tribunals and policy, Ministry of Health. They worked with us over a long period and did an extraordinary job.

Now, my colleagues have already outlined in detail what this bill does. Fundamentally, it does these three things. It creates a different verdict of “proven but insane”; it creates a notification process, as I’ve said, between the two parallel systems, between probation and corrections and the hospital system; and it creates the possibility of a victim impact statement. And it’s those that I want to devote the rest of my submission to, because bearing in mind the significance of what we are dealing with in terms of trying to put victims at the centre of what we do, the reality is that is actually a philosophic conundrum for the adversarial system. I do think it is really, really significant as we look toward bills like the Sexual Violence Legislation Bill, which looks at how we treat and try not to traumatise complainants/victims during the trial process.

As we look towards those sorts of discussions, we need to think about the ways in which this bill actually makes some significant changes to the adversarial system. The first way in which it does this is by creating this thing called the “proven but insane” verdict. Verdicts in this country are “guilty” or “not guilty”. Not guilty does not mean innocent; not guilty means that the right level of evidence wasn’t there. What we’ve done here is to create a third verdict. We are almost moving in the direction of countries like Scotland or some of the inquisitorial countries, which are much more interested in what was actually found. So in Scotland, for example, you have “proven”, you have “not proven”, and you have “innocent”. So you have “definitely guilty”, “dunno but not up to the threshold”, and “definitely innocent” verdicts. In creating this new verdict, we are doing something profound. We need to recognise that.

The next way in which I think we are actually even more profound in this bill—and it is so important in terms of how we see this adversarial system developing in a more humane but also a more accurate model—is in the victim impact statement. Now, for those who don’t know, a victim impact statement is one of the still very few ways in which we allow someone who was the proven victim of an offender to make a statement as to the impact on them of what’s happened. In a normal case, where you’ve got a judge who has a sane offender before them, who’s been found guilty, that victim impact statement is essentially evidence for the sentencing judge. It’s a point at which the victim is able to be in the adversarial system because they are still a tool. They are still something that is useful to someone else. Not so, when you allow a victim impact statement from someone whose offender is insane, because in that case, there is no sentence. This person is a patient. To describe them as offenders is actually wrong. They do not have the mental element.

So who, I ask you, is this victim impact statement useful to? It’s not useful to the judge. It’s not useful to the prosecution, because the sentence is a foregone conclusion. What this is doing is making the victim a stand-alone person in the courtroom, with rights of audience of their own. That, Madam Chairperson, is a profound change.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Or Madam Speaker.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON: Oh, Madam Chair, I am so sorry—Madam Speaker! Goodness me, I’m being carried away with my own excitement over this. But it is; it is a profound change. And I do think that when we look towards the further changes that this side of the House and I hope that side of the House and that side of the House want to make, we need to think about this. An adversarial system is flexible, is malleable. It can cope with the rights of all persons before it. I commend this bill to the House.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Madam Speaker, that’s the first time that I’ve heard that side of the House, that side of the House, and this side of the House—the House is now a triangle, and I’m really enthused to hear about how there is a recognition that we don’t just have this adversarial model in the House anymore and, in fact, we may have the opportunity to collaborate in more inquisitorial ways, as put forward by the previous member, Dr Emily Henderson.

In turning to the bill, the Rights for Victims of Insane Offenders Bill, I want to acknowledge Louise Upston, who has done—from my understanding in listening to contributions tonight—a phenomenal job in shepherding this through the Justice Committee. I also want to commend the Justice Committee for a very thorough report. This is not my portfolio—I’m speaking tonight on behalf of Golriz Ghahraman for the Greens in the justice portfolio—but I do, of course, have some interest in it from the perspective of the Greens spokesperson on mental health.

The Greens will be supporting this bill at second reading, particularly after having had conversations with the member in charge, Louise Upston, and in reviewing what is available and the changes that have been made with regards to the complexity and nuance throughout that select committee process. And I do just want to acknowledge how complex and how nuanced this process was, and how finely balanced this procedure had to be in order to get to this place. I also want to acknowledge the member Louise Upston for her recognition of the fact that in the first drafting—the first cut of this bill when it was first presented to the House—there was some clumsy drafting which, in turn, could have presented some challenges.

As has been noted by a number of other speakers tonight, what we fundamentally need is a justice system that moves far more to one that is restorative and away from the adversarial model that does not recognise, in turn, the value of, the experiences of, and the importance of victims and survivors of criminality in our society. What this piece of legislation does is it enables that voice to be actioned through a victim impact statement.

But, as has already been noted, importantly, in changing the way that there is a recognition of the verdict shifting from “not guilty on account of insanity”—and I’d just like to note the points made by my colleague Ginny Andersen about how what we’re talking about here, in the framing of the rhetoric “insanity”, is a very legal term, as outlined in the four pieces of legislation that this bill amends. So that is the changing or the renaming of the verdict from “not guilty on account of insanity” to “the acts or omissions are proven, but the defendant is not criminally responsible on account of insanity”. And that is a recognition of some of the kind of basics that law students throughout this country learn when they go through and learn about criminal law. That is the basis of actus reus, the action of committing the crime, and mens rea, that is, the mental component or the intention to or the competency and capacity to commit that crime. So it can be found here that the action has been committed and, effectively, that this has been undertaken and therefore is a victim of this crime, but still that the offender can be found insane and therefore not criminally culpable.

I also want to acknowledge, particularly, the submissions of the likes of JustSpeak, who spoke about here, in creating a better and more restorative justice system, that we needed to make sure that we did not create a system that was vulnerable to political influence. Here I note some of the changes that have been made, particularly around the ability of victims’ submissions to impact outcomes. And I want to quote, actually, directly from the commentary from the Justice Committee, where it says, and I quote, “Enabling victims to make a submission directly to the Minister implies that the Minister is expected to weigh the victim’s submission against clinical advice provided in support of the application. This could increase the risk of a patient being detained for longer than necessary, known as arbitrary detention. This would further increase the likelihood of administrative review of Ministerial decisions regarding changes of status or discharge.”

Importantly, in reflecting on this concern—as highlighted by a number of submitters, including those that supported the intention but not necessarily the original drafting; the likes of JustSpeak, who, and I note, mentioned the Law Commission’s review of this very area of the law—the Justice Committee went on to state, and I quote, “We consider that the risks of arbitrary detention and administrative review would be mitigated if the Minister were to receive the content of the victim’s submission and the context of a report provided by the Director.” Now, that is the fine balance that we’re grappling with tonight, in that the Justice Committee did grapple with and made some quite substantive amendments to the bill that we are debating tonight as a result of hearing from those submissions.

But I just—I think, at the core of it—really want to highlight how potentially problematic it is and how perhaps, actually, folks beyond this Chamber and I, in fact, wasn’t even aware of until I read this bill today, that actually our Minister, our Minister of Health, from whatever administration is in charge of Government at any given time, has, ultimately, the discretion over whether people are granted leave or granted change of status order if they are criminally insane offenders. That feels like something that is particularly vulnerable to potential political influence. And I note that the JustSpeak submission notes exactly that as a potential outcome, that they’ve started to see some creep on per some academic reporting on the issue. So if we’re looking to move away from that form of system, I know it’s probably outside of the scope of this bill, but if we’re looking to move away from that kind of system then, in fact, those responsibilities should sit with somebody who is not a political appointee.

Now, just in concluding the Greens’ contribution tonight, I do really want to acknowledge Wendy Hamer, in particular, who the Hon Nick Smith has noted is from his former electorate, and to note that, in reading her contribution, in reading what she has been through, and I’m sure is extrapolated throughout the many others who went on to sign on to her petition, is that what we’re talking about here are some pretty harrowing circumstances, and there evidently is a need for change. But the contribution of the Greens is that that change needs to be finely balanced, and it does need to meaningfully embody the kaupapa, as laid down by this Government, on a properly restorative justice system. At present, we are comfortable with that conversation and this bill progressing into the committee of the whole House stage. At this second reading, the Greens commend this bill to the House.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you, Madam Speaker. All victims of violent crime should be treated with respect and compassion. The rights of victims of insane offenders have not been adequately protected in law. I want to make three points tonight. The first is about the new verdict of insanity. This bill was originally brought to rename the verdict of “not guilty on account of insanity” with “the acts or omissions are proven but the defendant is not criminally responsible on account of insanity”— and I’ll return to that later. The second point I want to talk about is how the bill clarifies the way that victims of insane offenders should be treated under this proposed legislation, but also in previous legislation. And the third point I wish to talk about is the place of victim impact statements, and particularly in relation to the comments of the member for Auckland Central.

But, if I can, before I turn to my points, make some thanks, because this has been an unusual piece of legislation that the Justice Committee has considered. It’s had the full remit of health officials. It’s had a huge number of questions and of iterations, as my colleagues on the committee have spoken about, and so I want to acknowledge some of the people who have engaged so collegially in that debate. The first person to acknowledge is Louise Upston, for bringing this bill to the committee. It has taken a huge amount of effort and a willingness to engage and to find common ground between the members of the Justice Committee, and I really commend her for that and her approach there. She’s someone who has proven herself to be worthy of respect of all of the committee members and I thank her for that contribution.

I’d also like to thank the Minister of Health, and the chair of the Justice Committee, Ginny Andersen, for their work in continuing to develop this member’s bill in a way which upholds the values of people like me and the Labour Party. It’s our view that the bill in its current state upholds justice and transparency and improves an area of legislation where victims were poorly served. It strikes that balance well and that’s why we support it tonight.

I also want to give what might be an unusual thanks, but I hope you’ll indulge me, to the officials from both health and justice who had to sit together and find a way to work and give their advice together at the table where they were coming from very different policy perspectives—particularly to the director-general of mental health, who faced a barrage of questions from the select committee members. Sometimes we’re more used to argy-bargy in this place than our officials are, but he managed to approach our questions with an open-mindedness and a spirit of helpfulness that was much appreciated.

I also want to take the opportunity to thank both the Office of the Clerk and parliamentary counsel for their work on this. I think when you’re trying to amend four pieces of legislation, which work completely differently, as a parliamentary counsel drafter that that task is momentous and, without the full remit from justice, it was complicated. But they came up with a very significant change to very old tenets of common law that in its drafting is simplistic and it’s elegant and their work on that will aid significant reform in this space. The Office of the Clerk also had to deal with very difficult subject matter that often required finely balanced decisions about what evidence was heard in private and secret, and the rights of victims to be heard in a way that was respectful and did not retraumatise them, particularly women who were providing us with evidence about matters which were extremely difficult for them to discuss, some of which concerned parts of court decisions which were hard for the clerks to determine how to hear. And so I really thank them for their work, particularly the principal clerk of the committee.

After that shopping list of thanks, let me turn to my first point about the new verdict for insanity. Now, you’ve heard from my colleagues about how this is a departure from our common law. I just want to touch on what accompanies this new verdict. The bill, as it was introduced, also recommended adding a two-step trial process to the Act, which would have ascertained whether the offences were proven first and whether the person was insane. The committee agreed that renaming the verdict was an important thing to do, but we felt that it could be better achieved and not require a new trial process by renaming the verdict to “proven but insane”. That decision was difficult to make and it was something that was negotiated heavily, but I think it strikes the right balance between centring the victim in the process around giving the victim the kind of recognition that is appropriate when they have suffered at the hands of an offender in this way, but still promotes justice and transparency in those processes. The committee also made this change for the process of avoiding trial, which is used in some cases of insanity found in section 20 of the Criminal Procedure (Mentally Impaired Persons) Act and that was, I think, the right decision to come to.

The second point I want to touch on is how this bill clarifies the way that victims of insane offenders should be treated going forward. We’ve heard about the evidence of Sarah Preece in this, and I cannot stress enough how important her submission was in influencing the way that the committee members thought about this piece of legislation, not only the issue as a whole but how the actual mechanics of this bill should work. Sarah told us in committee how she was failed by her contents insurer, which paid her so little money that she was unable to afford to replace her bloodstained carpet or her dining table that was cracked when her attacker slammed her head against it. That wasn’t right in law when it happened, and the insurer misinterpreted their role in providing her with cover. What this bill does is it makes it crystal clear that where offending and violent offending has happened to someone, that they should be covered and that just because their offender lacked the mental capacity to be found guilty in the traditional sense, that compensation that should be owed to the offender through private insurance should not be negated. It doesn’t seem like a big change, but it is a very, very significant change for the individuals who have to go through something like this, and I’m very happy that the committee arrived at a situation where we would be addressing that.

The third point I want to make is the place of victim impact statements. On this, we’ve heard that the committee recommended amending the Victims’ Rights Act to allow victims of insane offenders the opportunity to make victim impact statements. I want to touch particularly on the issue of victim impact statements not being used to inform clinical and judicial decision making about the fitness of a person to stand trial. I have benefited from several conversations with my colleagues, not just those in the Justice Committee, about this issue, which I see is very finely balanced.

I agree with the member for Auckland Central’s comments that to create some sort of chilling effect, which risked arbitrary detention, is a very unintended consequence of this bill and is certainly not the outcome that we want to see. I do think that Ministers who hold the health portfolio, and responsibility for this, have a duty to consider these issues of release of this particular class of offender very carefully so as to not confuse the issue with any political sentiments of the day, which is hard to do in these situations where often there is public outcry about a case that has garnered media attention—like the case of Sarah Preece, for example. I think, though, that this bill strikes the right balance. It creates a system where victim impact statements are about centring the victim in the court. They’re about giving a victim standing in the court as their own person, not just, sort of, an incendiary of a process which has happened between the Crown and the offender and by not introducing those victim statements at a point at which clinical decisions are being made and at a point at which judicial decisions are being made, we avoid that harm, we reduce it to something that is absolutely manageable for the Minister who already exercises these sorts of powers in other decision-making capacities.

I’ll, finally, conclude with a reflection that this law did need to change, but our ultimate goal still remains: to keep all New Zealanders safe, including those who are mentally ill, and protecting people from violent offending in this way still remains the priority.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): I stand on behalf of the ACT Party in support of this bill, the Rights for Victims of Insane Offenders Bill, and I, along with my colleagues across the House, will join in commending the Hon Louise Upston on producing this bill and working so tenaciously with the Justice Committee. The member knew what she needed to do, and that was make some quite substantial changes, but she stuck to it, and this omnibus bill, which will require multiple Acts to be amended, was definitely a trial. It was no easy feat, but the member was steadfast in her ideals, and her passion is definitely noted. This bill should now be able to move through the processes quickly in order for that achievement to be made.

The purpose of this bill—and we have to always keep going back to the purpose, because when we are debating, it’s the purpose of the bills that we have to keep referring to—is to ensure that the victims of legally insane offenders are treated the same way as other victims of crime. We wanted to make sure, of course, that there was a victim-centred approach to the way that we deal with offending. One of the first bills that I came across during my new time in Parliament was the one that we just debated before, the District Court (Protection of Judgment Debtors with Disabilities) Amendment Bill, and this one, as well. I arrived, once again, in the middle of it.

My experience with going through the select committee process has really been one of turning up and being a submitter and leaving again, not actually being part of the changes—and, boy, did I get a lesson by fire in this one. That’s because we had so many different bills that we had to consider, and how potential changes that we were going to make could affect other pieces of legislation. I’ve never been in that situation before, and I learnt a great deal from that. I hope to be able to take those learnings into other bills and work again across the Parliament with other parties to produce what we hope will be good laws.

The realities of today totally surprise me, and when I spoke to others about the lack of rights that victims of insane offenders have, they were just as surprised, as well. The victims’ grief is not different just because the perpetrator is insane, and I would like to take the time to thank all of those submitters that came and gave us their stories. And the submitters were not just victims. We also had submitters who were family members of insane offenders that recognised what was happening and wanted to be part of that victim-centred approach.

I’d like to thank all of those submitters for their input. They turned up. They turned up to speak of some harrowing stories, as we’ve heard, that they put to pen and paper, and to relive it, both in written form as well as verbally, must have been a very hard thing for so many of them. I’d like to thank them for their understanding—their understanding of the process that we have to go through and the time that it takes to do so, because a lot of them are actually needing support now, but realising that we have to go through that process and understanding it—I credit them for that. The reasoning that they gave us, it wasn’t just about them; it was about everybody who comes into contact with crime through this avenue, and that is with an insane offender. But most of all, I’d like to commend the submitters’ bravery—the bravery of them to tell us their stories and, as I mentioned, both to put it in writing and to verbally appear before a bunch of strangers and tell us some of their most intimate details.

The common theme that we heard from those submitters was how it felt to hear those words “not guilty”, and that came from just about every single submitter that we had. It’s amazing, really, how changing a few words can change a person’s life for the better, and I’m proud to be associated with a bill that has achieved that. The words that were changed—from “not guilty by way of insanity” to “the acts or omissions are proven but the defendant is not criminally responsible on account of insanity” to “proven but insane”—was all a bit of a mouthful, but we worked through it and we got to the end point. This, effectively, makes a huge difference to the lives of the victims. To be able to hear “proven but insane” is so much different to “not guilty by way of insanity”, and, effectively, this brings these victims in line with victims of other crime.

It gives them the opportunity to actually have a voice—the opportunity to be heard. It gives them the ability to be counted in or counted out of receiving updates or updating notifications about what’s happening with the offender. They never had that before. It allows victim impact statements to be submitted. Usually, in the court process, a victim impact statement is able to be given at sentencing, but with an insane offender, often, in those cases, there is no trial, so there’s no ability for a victim impact statement to be given. This allows for a victim impact statement to be given at the disposition hearing point, which is before a trial would take place. It also means that, should they choose to receive it, they will be told when an offender is on leave from the institution that they are secured in. If they are released back into the community, the victim has the option of being advised about that. We did hear stories, as Hon Louise Upston told us, of a victim bumping into an offender in the supermarket. We’ve also heard of banging into people in the street. Being aware that an offender is out on leave would be helpful, and bring it in line with when sane offenders are given parole.

What we have here now is a bill that recognises victims and gives victims opportunities to know more. I hope that this bill, in the stage that we’ve gone through with the select committee, actually gives some comfort to those victims that their often intimate sacrifices, their unwanted lifelong emotional and physical scars, their personal safety and wellbeing can be recognised now and acknowledged legally, as appears to be happening with cross-party support of the bill. I say “now” because it looks like we do have full support, and it’s going to go through. On that, I thank the Hon Louise Upston for her tenacity, for her drive, and, in that respect, the ACT Party commends this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Before I take the next call, I just want to welcome the students and supporters of Halfmoon Bay School here to Parliament, and to thank them very much for their hospitality to the Speaker’s Outreach Programme last Friday, where they resoundingly beat the members present who were there in the debate—I’m looking at you, Rachel Brooking, and I in the debate. And now we’ll return to our advertised programme.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker, and thank you for the opportunity to take a call in relation to the Rights for Victims of Insane Offenders Bill. I first want to acknowledge the contributions across the House today, and I do think that when we are all echoing a similar message across the House, it’s clear there is a need for change. The sentiment in the House today also reflects the sentiment at select committee, where we worked really collegially together to ensure that we got the best bill that we could coming into this process. So I just want to reflect that as well. I do want to reflect on the contribution of Louise Upston, the member in charge of the bill, who I know has been advocating in this space, actually, for a number of years now, and—as my colleague Arena Williams has also acknowledged—the advice and information that we received from multiple departments in relation to this bill.

This is a bill that aims to ensure the equivalent treatment of victims of legally insane offenders with other victims of crime, and it also seeks, as colleagues have outlined, to develop a more victim-centred approach when the court is considering cases involving defendants found unfit to stand trial or acquitted on account of insanity.

Now, as a member of the Justice Committee, I do want to reflect on the submissions made on this bill, which have had a significant impact on my thinking in what I consider to be a complex area of law—as they should. We listened to the most horrifying accounts of what has happened to some individuals and to their family members and also the impact of our justice settings on their lives. As members have outlined, we had a number of submissions in relation to this bill—a significant, overwhelming number in support of the bill; a minority who supported the intent of the bill but believed it should be carried out in a different way; and a smaller group—actually, quite a small group—who opposed.

I want to spend some time on some of the key issues that we considered at select committee and actually reflect on the tensions we heard, because I don’t believe that this is an easy, straightforward set of changes that we’re making; these are hard changes that touch on some significant tensions. The changes do address the rights of people who have suffered, sometimes, the very worst of things done to them and their family members, but it also does address the principles on which our criminal law frameworks are built. I also think that it touches on an overlap between areas that, in my view, are sometimes siloed in our legal system.

Firstly, I want to acknowledge those submitters. There were several who submitted on their own behalf and several who submitted because their family members had gone through these horrific experiences. We received submissions about home invasion, about rape, and about experiences akin to what I would call torture, and we heard about the devastating impacts on individuals who’d gone through these sometimes unspeakable experiences. The acts described were horrifying to hear about, and I can’t imagine what those individuals and families went through or, actually, what they continue to go through. But what I was aware of as they spoke was the profound courage of those individuals and families who not only told their stories but were also seeking, through really respectful and really reasoned arguments, to be acknowledged and to be heard as part of the justice and health responses when these horrific acts do occur.

The other thing that I reflected on as we went through the select committee process was that this is an area of overlap between the health and the justice system. It’s an issue that occupies a really complex, sensitive, and, in fact, an often grey space where health issues intersect with justice issues. While it’s easy to say that these are two distinctly separate areas of law, in reality we know that this isn’t the case. Mental health issues too often exist within a justice framing.

I did want to touch on the Attorney-General’s report going into this process, which hasn’t yet been touched on by other colleagues, where he, in part, considered section 23(5) of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, which is the rights of persons deprived of liberty to be treated with humanity and dignity. The view of the Attorney-General was that any limit on that right should be rationally connected and proportionate to the objectives of the change.

He was referring, when he considered this, to the release of individuals into the public space, and the ability of the victim to be heard. He noted that the victim’s views are not determinative and that there doesn’t appear to be a legal requirement to provide a substantial amount of personal information to the victim. He notes that the bill’s victims’ rights provisions are consistent with the requirement that persons deprived of their liberty under mental health legislation be treated with humanity and respect for their inherent dignity. And I do think that that’s important to note.

I did also want to touch on one change that the bill itself makes, which is the requirement for notification to the victim when an insane offender is being considered for a leave of absence. Now, this is an issue that was highlighted several times by submitters who felt like they weren’t considered as relevant to this process as it stood and, often—as a few people have mentioned this evening—were surprised to find out retroactively that their offender had been granted leave. Several of those individuals reflected on the fear of that. One particular who I recall described how she found out the individual had been granted leave by seeing him across the road. So the proposal is that the Justice Committee examine section 50 of the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act, which provides that the Minister of Health may grant a leave of absence to a special patient from a hospital into the community, subject to conditions specified in the section. The committee decided that the bill should require that victims of persons found insane be notified when the special patient is being considered for a leave of absence. This is an absolutely critical piece of the bill and was significantly important to submitters.

As I reflected on the number of submissions that came to the committee, I wanted to speak about one in particular, which was the Chief Victims Advisor to the Government. She noted that there was significant harm and ongoing trauma and fear that these individuals suffered, which was the same as individuals who had been offended against by someone who had not been found not guilty by reason of insanity. She also referenced international law, which again I’ll mention, as it hasn’t been referenced in presentations tonight. He referenced the United Nations Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and the Abuse of Power, which sets out New Zealand’s obligations to allow the views and concerns of victims to be presented and considered at appropriate stages of the proceeding, where their personal interests are affected. In her submission, at the very end, she ends by saying that New Zealand has an opportunity now to develop legislation, policy, and practice that both acknowledges the offender was mentally incapacitated but also provides a voice for victims, which is critical.

I’m going to end by saying again that I don’t believe that this is an easy area of reform. It does require balancing between victims’ rights and those of the accused but also a nuanced approach that recognises there is an overlap here between the justice space and the health system. There is much to do, as my colleague Nick Smith has mentioned, in way of preventative action as well on this front. So I thank, once again, the submitters on this bill to select committee. I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I call Nicola Grigg—five-minute call.

NICOLA GRIGG (National—Selwyn): Madam Speaker, thank you. It’s difficult at this stage in the evening to think of anything new or original to say on this bill, but suffice to say that I too rise in support of the Rights for Victims of Insane Offenders Bill. As has been canvassed this evening, this bill will rename the verdict of “not guilty on account of insanity” with the verdict “proven but insane”, therefore acknowledging and confirming the offender did commit the action in question and also ensuring victims of legally insane offenders are treated the same as other victims of crime.

As I’m sure this House will acknowledge, National has a long and proven track record of creating legislation that is victim-centric and puts them first, and this is another example of that. So I acknowledge my colleague the Hon Louise Upston for her work in bringing this piece of legislation to the House and for her advocacy as it’s progressed. As has also been discussed, huge credit must also go to the many victims, families, and advocates who appeared before the Justice Committee. It takes a certain amount of mettle to propose and advocate for a law change. I think we’d all acknowledge these things don’t tend to happen quickly. In fact, I understand it’s taken 12 years since Graeme Moyle first walked into Louise’s Cambridge office for this bill to make it this far. But the tireless efforts of people like Graeme and their willingness to share some pretty horrendous, deeply personal experiences must also be acknowledged.

As is so often the case in life, words matter. They really matter when a victim is told that the person who offended against them is not guilty, for whatever reason, and they are left with the impression that the court has found no crime has occurred, despite having been proven by evidence. It may seem nuanced to some, but the word change recognising an offender committed a criminal act is a small form of closure for some victims. So too will this bill increase the rights of victims. For too long, victims of offences committed by insane offenders have not had access to the same kinds of support as other victims. This has been a longstanding unfairness in our justice system.

In 2019 and 2020, 40 people were found not guilty by reason of insanity. That’s 40 different families, 40 different groups of friends, and 40 different communities who have been left with a sour taste in their mouths, who have had their loved one grievously harmed or killed, but that has somehow been discounted in the eye of the law. Now, I referred a moment ago to these changes giving victims of crimes committed by insane offenders the same rights as victims of other crimes. With the passage, hopefully, of this bill, they will be entitled to give a victim impact statement to the court. Further to that, victims will also be notified if and when an insane offender is being released from a secure health facility and back into the community. Thirdly, and thankfully, victims will have a right to make a submission to the Mental Health Review Tribunal assessing an insane offender’s condition prior to being released, just as other victims can submit to the parole board before criminals are released from prison back into the public.

As has also been discussed, there have been a number of examples where victims of crime have been horrified to learn the perpetrator of that crime has been released back into their own community without any advance notice. That does not put the victim first, let alone show them any sensitivity or respect. This law will. So to conclude my comments, it is excellent to see cross-party consensus on advancing a piece of legislation that will improve the rights of victims and will create consistency for those victims. May I too commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): A five-minute call—Greg O’Connor.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Probably the most surprising thing about this bill is it’s taken so long to get to this House. I remember when this bill had its first reading and being quite amazed that after a career dealing with such issues that it had never occurred to anyone to actually change this law. It just makes so much sense.

In wondering that, I think, perhaps, one of the reasons was that many of these offenders and the victims are known to each other. I think probably the whole family were involved in the process, the offender or the patient—we don’t know what terminology to use—was actually known to the family themselves. But I think as society’s probably moved on a little, and I think of my own career the number of these instances I’ve been involved in where there were absolute complete strangers involved. I do remember one Saturday night in Christchurch, as suburban a place as you could possibly see, a young man went in there with an axe and ruined a family’s life. The father of the family was killed. That family would never have known what happened because it didn’t come to trial. As you’ll see, many members have spoken before about it, previously what would happen there would be an agreement. The worst part of this is that the trial process, as traumatic as it often can be, is also something of a closure. Many of these families are actually also denied sitting through and seeing a trial process and seeing a judge make a determination. While it didn’t bring back their loved one, it actually helped them on a journey moving on. So, again, not only were they denied that, they were also denied any knowledge of what went on with the offender.

These offenders/patients, again, went on into the system and often no one knew. I know that, again, someone I was involved with, I thought they were in care for the rest of their living days. I, myself, became aware that they were actually on home leave—this from a case I’d been involved in. That was something of a surprise. I was a professional involved and I can just imagine what any family member who had known and been in that shopping centre in Porirua and seen that person would have felt.

As I say, when we’re looking at some of these bills, we often wonder what the real issue the piece of legislation that is going through is designed to fix. There is absolutely no doubt exactly what it is that we’ve designed to fix.

In just looking back that the work that the Justice Committee did, I look at the terminology they’ve come up with and it is actually very—I think they’ve done great work to actually come and get right to the determination here, to make sure that the real point here, the act or omission, is proven; it is proven that there was an offence committed. Because, again, even the terminology of that, when one did start looking at it through the mental health lens, started looking at through other lenses, often the physical act that was involved was perhaps somewhat obscured in that whole system. I congratulate the select committee for the work they did and the terminology they’ve come to, that they actually do determine that an offence has been committed and that this person, whatever terminology is used, was the person who committed it.

So while nothing in the system, no amount of legislation, will undo the harm that is done, the irreparable harm to families, to victims, and various other people, at least anything society can do to help that step forward, this bill certainly goes a long way towards that.

I wasn’t involved in the select committee. The last time I did look at this bill was when it was being sent to the select committee, and very interesting, and I think complimentary of that committee to look at this now. I think they probably couldn’t have done much more with it. I congratulate that committee. I congratulate the member for her journey in getting it to this House and this far. I have no doubt that it will go through its next two processes without any problems whatsoever, because it just is, as I say, a bill whose time is well overdue. I thoroughly recommended this to the House.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Fḁiåk se'ea, Madam Speaker. Just a big Rotuman fḁiåk se'ea—thank you—to you and also to the Hon Louise Upston, in being able to take a call on this, the Rights for Victims of Insane Offenders Bill. I'm saying “fḁiåk se'ea” in the Rotuman language, just for the benefit of those Halfmoon Bay students up in the gallery that it is Rotuman Language Week, and I say fḁiåk se'ea that we can speak the many languages of Aotearoa New Zealand in this House—long may it continue—but also to all the members involved in getting this bill through, showing the sensitivity and the collaboration that they have. It is legislatively important, and it’s a difficult piece of law, as has been pointed out, and really about trying to get the equivalent treatment for the survivors of violent crime.

I say “survivors” because I still have difficulty with calling people victims. I know that our criminal justice system is littered with the word “victims”; however, it doesn’t pay heed to the incredible strength and resilience of those people who have, for whatever reason, been at the hands of violence or other events, and who have managed to get through that. So that word I find difficult. I realise it’s a legal word, as is the word “insane”, and that’s been pointed out as well. The blunt tool that it is, it captures a multiplicity of experiences for individuals, but really is a legal definition and speaks to the inability of the person who has been charged with being able to form the mens rea or the legal intention. So I hope that with the nomenclature or the title of this bill that we are not furthering the stigma that can be associated with these really tricky convergences of mental health and legal areas.

I have spoken in this House before of my own experience of violent crime, when my ex-boyfriend Paul Anderson was stabbed to death as he went to collect his pay from work, at the hands of double-murderer Graeme Burton. So I can speak with some experience about the trauma that I know that those who presented to the select committee would have experienced in their generous act of making presentations to make this a better piece of legislation.

May I also in this moment please just turn my attention to my own electorate of Taieri in Dunedin, where there has also been a stabbing, and remind people—anybody—who has been triggered by anything that is said in this House tonight or by the events in Dunedin, that there is a 1737 phone number that they can use to reach out for help.

It is so generous of those people who submitted to the select committee, and I’m not on it, but I did take time to read some of the submissions. I saw that the Victim Support group in February this year really summed up, pre-emptively, what they knew was going to be in the accounts of those statements, which is that victims have no right to make a victim impact statement in the current law, they have no say on the leave or release of the offender, and they have little ability even to be kept informed. That submission goes on to say that this legislation will give victims the ability to have a say in decisions about their case, which have a huge impact on their own safety and wellbeing. We are a Government that is committed to wellbeing, so it is no surprise that we stand in solidarity with all other members of this House who are supporting this bill through.

We heard tonight, too, about the financial implications from a woman who was affected by bloodstained carpet in her own home, and it was pointed out that, actually, legally, the insurance company was supposed to pay that. However, I’d just like to point to the re-traumatising for that person, who did not have—by virtue of her status as a victim and the fact that it wasn’t deemed to be a criminal act—any ability to be able to change that constant, daily reminder of the terrible violence that she experienced. So as my colleague Arena Williams has pointed out, what this bill does is really make it crystal clear that those people should be compensated and given the same rights as victims of other crimes. As has been noted, every member of the Justice Committee acknowledged the current double standard in the law.

Just turning again to those brave submitters—those people who survived rape, assault; there was somebody who had hot water scalded on them. Not only have they helped the law but, in my view, they have also, through their bravery, helped to reduce the stigma that victims so often face in our society. This is especially so when it has come to sexual attacks. For them to share their experiences, share their names, and share their stories, is an act of complete generosity. So, thank you to them.

There were considerable changes in the bill as the Hon Louise Upston has said in her opening remarks, and indeed the Law Society was one of those, who said in its submission that the bill would not achieve the elimination of the double standard between survivors of crime from those who are deemed sane and those who are deemed insane, had it not been for those changes. So the key recommendations they made were not to have the two-step process that has been alluded to previously this evening, but also they didn’t want the bill to unnecessarily or unreasonably limit the offender’s right to privacy. This is really important to me.

About 30 years ago, when I was doing my honours degree at Otago in law, I looked at the tort of privacy, as it was just an emerging area of law. It wasn’t really in any of our legislation, and it is an increasingly important right that we must preserve and protect in this digital world. So putting aside whether it is seen on the surface to be protecting the privacy of different types of people, we must actually look at the principle of privacy and make sure that, when we are encroaching on that, that it is reasonable and that it is fair. So I’m really pleased that the select committee found the right line in that, and that they have not allowed the release of clinical notes but they have also allowed enough information to be released to alleviate the anxieties that relate to the whereabouts of some of the people who have been detained. So it has been a fine balancing act indeed, and I commend the select committee for what I think looks like a really good job. I think, also, it shows this House working at its best, when a really well-intentioned bill can come before the House, shepherded by a member, passionately, needing a lot of changes, but with people working collaboratively to ensure the best possible outcome for all New Zealanders.

To sum up, I just want to remind the House, after the select committee process, of what the key changes are from the original bill through to where it stands today. As has been said, it’s the renaming of the verdict of “not guilty on account of insanity” to “proven but insane”. That’s the substantial change. There was, of course, that interim change that was presented in the original bill. It requires notification to the victim when their insane offender is being considered for a leave of absence, it gives the victim the right to submit their view to the Minister when an insane offender is being considered for a leave of absence. It requires notification to the victim when the insane offender is being considered for short-term leave. It gives the victim the right to submit their view to the Director of Mental Health when an insane offender is being considered, and also to the Mental Health Review Tribunal when it is reviewing a patient’s condition.

The bill does reflect Labour’s values, as I’ve mentioned. It promotes justice and transparency, but it also protects the survivors of crime and their communities. So I think, just to reiterate, this has really been a great process to be able to observe as somebody who did not sit on the select committee, but who has an interest in fairness and justice, who has experienced the trauma and impacts of being around a very violent crime, and then has also seen the way that this House can come together sensitively and look at really complex issues that involve both health and justice, the balancing of rights, looking at privacy and privacy issues in a changing and evolving digital world, looking at how to ensure that people feel safe and can make their victim impact statements, and it really shows this House at its best. So fḁiåk se’ea to that, fḁiåk s’ea to Ginny Andersen, the chair of the select committee, and to all those involved in the process. I commend this bill to the House.

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s traditional, in this House, that one rises and says it’s a pleasure to speak to such and such a bill, but tonight it really is a privilege and an honour to be able to contribute to a debate that has been, I think, as good as any that I have heard in this House, and a bill that is very worthy of the attention and care with which it has been handled here tonight and in previous stages of its passage.

Allow me, on that note, to acknowledge the Hon Louise Upston, as the member in whose name this bill comes before us, and, as others have done across the House, the members of the Justice Committee that have been considering it, along with the submitters to that process, including, and especially, those most directly affected by its passage. Others have, quite rightly, noted the courage involved in the involvement of such members of our society, be they from the Nelson electorate, as acknowledged by the Hon Dr Nick Smith, in the case of no fewer than three constituents and their families, or, indeed, around this country.

It’s no small feat in legislative terms to put together this piece of legislation, amending as it does such significant existing Acts as the Criminal Procedure (Mentally Impaired Persons) Act and the Victims’ Rights Act, along with a couple of others—these fundamental rights contained in these—and it’s only fitting and proper that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act implications and the international law obligations have been noted in the debate by Vanushi Walters and also Ingrid Leary, speaking to that need to balance those fundamental rights, thinking, of course, of the rights of victims/survivors, but, of course, also the inherent human dignity of those who commit such horrific offences, even in the circumstances that they arise.

The important question of why such legislative change is needed has been well covered by many speakers across the House; so I don’t intend to rehearse that in detail, except to say that, of course, unlocking such practical aspects of our criminal justice system for these undoubted victims is an important practical consideration as well as the important philosophical basis by which we recognise that those who have been directly and deeply affected by criminal behaviour should be recognised as such.

The criminal justice system, of course, is somewhat of a blunt instrument. It represents the relationship of the State and the accused. The victim has, traditionally, no particular standing, but, of course, we acknowledge here in the House today that such a person is no less affected for having been assaulted, or worse, by a person who may have been determined, or has indeed been determined, to be not culpable, in the sense of being insane, notwithstanding that the elements of the offence, the physical actions, and the identity of the offender have indeed been proven—hence, of course, “proven but insane” as a formulation that has been arrived at.

I shall not hold up the passage of this bill at this, the second reading, further except to say that I commend all those involved in it to date. I think it’s an important piece in the puzzle of creating a more humane and sensitive justice system, and an important piece at that. Thank you.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour—Northland): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to give the last contribution in this debate this evening. I have listened to the entire debate, and it has been really thoughtful contributions, not only from those members of the Justice Committee who participated through some part of this process, like you heard the member Nicole McKee say—others, the entire process—but also those like the member Ingrid Leary, who took an interest in this and took it upon herself to read the submissions and understand where the submitters were coming from, and share her own very personal and traumatic experiences that have happened in her life.

I do, like others, want to acknowledge the Hon Louise Upston. Again, having had brought to her attention an issue in her constituency that showed a problem with the law as it currently stands, she used the member’s bill as an opportunity to try and rectify that situation and the law, and it’s been a process, I think, of more than eight years to get to this point tonight—and tonight is significant, being the second reading. That’s because it has gone through the entire select committee process, and it is significant, as has been referred to numerous times in the House tonight, that there was unanimous support from the Justice Committee for the recommendations that we are making in this report.

I really do want to thank the member for the way in which she allowed the committee, through a very thorough, very robust, and very considered process, to make substantial changes to the original draft. I think that what everybody had in mind when approaching it was that we wanted to do justice to the issue, to try and get the absolute best outcome that we could get in terms of the drafting for such a significant issue. So I do want to acknowledge that it was challenging and frustrating at times. We were trying to get a meeting of the minds that what we were landing on between the members from all parties in the select committee, as well as the officials, as well as the Parliamentary Counsel Office—that we were achieving everybody’s hope and intent in the drafting that we ultimately came up with, and I will touch on what some of those quite significant ones were. So it took a lot of really meaningful discussion and dialogue and debate to land on the drafting that we came to, and in everybody’s view, in all honesty, we are achieving that very intention that she was hoping to achieve with this member’s bill.

I also want to thank the Hon Dr Nick Smith, who, several times through the process, was able to add to the discussion and our collective understanding based on real-life examples in his constituency. That really did help me understand where some of the tensions were, what it was that we were trying to achieve, why maybe some of the things we were discussing were going to fall short of that, or why it was so important, and it required us to work through until we could find a mutually acceptable outcome for both sides. There were several times that you talked about your constituents who have experienced this, and that helped me understand.

I want to also acknowledge those who had the courage to come before the select committee. Some we heard in public, some we heard anonymously, but through their courage to come to our select committee to help the select committee understand the changes that they were seeking, for somebody who doesn’t have firsthand experience of this—nobody closely related to me, or I’m not even aware of any cases that have been brought to me in my community on this—hearing from them was invaluable. It really did allow me to put myself in their position and to understand why the law as it currently is does not meet their needs, what the gaps were, and what the impact of the law currently is on them.

Because of that often very difficult evidence to sit there and to listen to—and I think the member for Whangārei, Dr Emily Henderson, talked about often at times it was very emotional for members on the committee. Harrowing experiences, very vivid descriptions, but it helped us understand the gravity of the issues that we were grappling with and why trying to find that consensus amongst the members and make this legislation the best legislation possible was so important. So I want to acknowledge all those submitters—those directly impacted, also their whānau who came in and shared, those who were victims, and those who were whānau of those who had committed the offence.

For those that are listening in tonight, there are a couple of statistics that I think are important. When this bill was first introduced, there were some statistics from the year 2000 and the year 2016 to compare. In 2016, the defence was used successfully by 34 people, compared to just four in the year 2000. Then, in our select committee report, in the 2019-20 financial year, 153 people were found unfit to stand for trial, and 40 people were found not guilty on account of insanity. The number does seem to be increasing. I don’t know if that will continue to be the trend, but what those numbers show is that this is not a very small number. Even if it was just those four, I think the arguments that we heard in the submissions are compelling, and, whether it’s four or 40, the law should still be changed. But what I want people to understand out there is that it is a significant number of people who are found to be not guilty on account of insanity, and you think about the victims and the wider community. It is significant.

Labour is supporting this bill, along with the other parties in the House, because I think all of us have recognised how important it is to take a victim-centred approach in this. That was one of the hardest things for me to, first, understand—and others have spoken on it. I am the last, so some of these comments are repetitive. Even though the acts have been done to the person, because the offender was not guilty because of insanity, they therefore are not considered a victim. Yet if the person was sane, then they would be a victim. But in this case, insane, they’re not a victim, and you’re sitting there and you can see how real that was for them and how difficult it was, first, for them to sometimes hear that verdict—not guilty—when they have experienced, often, in the cases we heard, very serious offences against them, but also that they are not treated like victims in any of the processes.

So the key amendment that this bill achieves, and you’ve heard it tonight, is the renaming of the verdict of “not guilty on account of insanity” to “proven but insane”. I think it is quite important for people to understand that we’re not debating the use of that as a defence. That’s an entirely different debate. This is about how it is defined, how it is worded, and what that means in terms of those who have been victims of it.

Very important—and this was really debated at some length and detail—was notification when somebody is being considered for a leave of absence. We were trying to work through technically how that would be achieved when you have the interaction between the health system and the justice system, and whether the back-room systems have the mechanisms to be able to do that. I can see Dr Nick Smith nodding his head. I think that’s one where we went back to officials several times. We wanted to make sure that it didn’t have undue financial implications, which would go beyond the scope of a member’s bill. But in the end, it was explained to us that with more time, they would be able to get their system to be able to do that. So there’s a short delay in the introduction of it, but it is capable of being able to give that notification to members, and that was one that I was really moved by, where they could be out in the community and somebody is there unbeknown to them. Sorry, Madam Speaker, I have run out of time. I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Electoral (Integrity Repeal) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National): I move, That the Electoral (Integrity Repeal) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

It’s with great disappointment that I note Labour’s decision to oppose this bill and leave this Winston Peters - inspired law permanently on our books. This law is a stain on New Zealand’s proud, liberal, democratic traditions and our core Kiwi value of tolerating dissent. This repeal bill, originally introduced in the name of Sir David Carter, our former Speaker, gained the support of this Parliament due to the Green Party switching their support last July. This reinforces that there never was a majority in this Parliament for this Draconian law. Similar bills were rightly condemned by Green Party founders Jeanette Fitzsimons and Rod Donald. It will for ever be a black mark on the Green Party that they compromised their principles and voted for the current law in 2018. The select committee process on this bill was a sham, and Labour members should hang their heads on how they treated such an important issue.

Labour never attempted to engage in the issue, and completely ignored the strong advice of 15 academics from four law faculties, four departments of political science, and three departments of history across all our universities. We even had lifelong members of the Labour Party pleading for their MPs to support the bill, in vain, and the extent of Labour’s argument to retain the law was simply “We got the numbers.” They may well have used Michael Cullen’s phrase: “We won. You lost. Eat that!” They used their majority on the Justice Committee to block giving the committee evidence and free and frank advice, because they know as well as anyone that they would have mirrored the criticism from all the legal academics. There is nothing in the eight pages of the select committee report where Labour attempts to justify their position, and it does show how arrogant Labour has become.

I do contrast this with the Clark Government. The select committee report on the same issue was at least reasoned. But I want to read to the Parliament what the Clark Government said: “This law is needed as a transitional measure as we adopt from FPP to MMP. That’s why it has a sunset clause expiring in five years. We believe the rate of defections will follow a similar trend to other countries declining and as parties and members adapt to the new electoral system.” That prediction proved correct. There have been negligible party defections over the last six parliaments.

By Labour’s own logic, this law is attempting to fix a problem that does not exist. Labour’s support for this legislation actually shows a lack of confidence in themselves. They must believe they need to handcuff, through this law, Labour members to the party because they are fearful some may jump ship. They have a large caucus and a Māori caucus that’s particularly strong and demanding. It seems they fear another Tariana Turia and want this law as an insurance policy.

My problem with all this is that the Labour Party’s interest should not override the interests of our nation and this democracy. We should not be selling out on the important principle that MPs must be free from the threat of dismissal from this Parliament for the views they hold or for the way they vote.

I also want to emphasise how badly this law puts New Zealand out of step with other liberal democracies. None of the top 20 democracies, as ranked around the world, have such laws. This law would breach the constitution of the United States and of Australia or Canada. It would be anathema in any of the United Kingdom parliaments, and for those who justify this law on the basis that we took MMP from its home in Germany, I draw to their attention the constitution that was so carefully crafted after the horror of World War II, in which their constitution would prohibit such a law.

Such laws are considered undemocratic by the EU. New Zealand actually couldn’t join the EU because it would be prohibited because of this law.

If we look at the Inter-Parliamentary Union, of which all members of this Parliament are members—the oldest organisation on best parliamentary practice—it argues such laws are inappropriate and wrong. The countries that have these laws are sham democracies: the likes of Zimbabwe, Cambodia, and Uganda.

We should also be upfront about the origins of this flawed law. The architect, Winston Peters, bears a huge grudge over the five New Zealand First MPs who abandoned his party in 1998. The problem is that Mr Peters had, only three years earlier, loudly and proudly defended Michael Laws defecting from National to join New Zealand First. He passionately argued then that it was the constitutional right of an MP to leave a party if they felt it had lost its way, that MPs should not just be robots to do whatever their party bosses or leaders told them, and that voters would have the final word at the next election.

The unsavoury heritage of this law gives good reason to repeal it, but the even stronger argument is the proud heritage of the 1688 Bill of Rights. It specifically protects the freedoms of MPs in this Parliament to speak their mind without the threat of dismissal. The fact that Labour’s Attorney-General accepts in his New Zealand Bill of Rights Act report that this law has a chilling effect on MPs’ expression of views reinforces the harm from this law. The significance of the Bill of Rights is recognised in the opening ceremony of every Parliament, when this mandate for free speech is renewed. Winston’s law needs repealing for us to reassert the importance of free speech in this Parliament.

I also want to bury the notion that the law is needed to protect the proportionality of Parliament and the party vote. There are many aspects of MMP in which pure proportionality is not followed: there’s the 5 percent rule; there’s the rule where an MP may resign and cause a by-election, as occurred in Northland; and there’s rules about when their seats can be vacant for six months. There is also the legitimate question as to whether an MP leaves the party or whether the party leaves the MP, that was so eloquently put by Jim Anderton when he left Labour in 1989. The same can be said of defectors like Derek Quigley and Marilyn Waring: the principled one can actually sometimes be the MP rather than the party.

Then there’s the argument that, somehow, changing parties is a mortal sin when actually it is part of the natural evolution of democracy. Every single party in this Parliament was formed by party-hoppers. The Labour Party was formed by party-hoppers in 1916, National in 1936, ACT in 1996, the Greens in 1999, the Māori Party in 2004. Most people would accept that Winston Churchill is the greatest parliamentarian in all times. We recognise it with his picture on the way into the House. Do MPs realise that Winston Churchill changed parties three times? If this was the law in the United Kingdom, he would have been kicked out of Parliament and not been able to lead the UK out of its darkest hour.

I want to conclude with a final point about our constitution. The only check on the power of Governments between elections is on the confidence votes that are so important to this Parliament, yet what this bill says is that if an MP loses confidence in their Government, they can simply be dismissed and replaced by a newbie who would support them. If it was a jury, we’d call it rigging.

The very last point I want to make is this: of course, I’m a proud member of the National Party and I respect that members are loyal members of other political parties, but at the core of this bill is this: our first duty is not to the political party that we represent, but to the people of New Zealand and this wonderful country that we are here to represent. I plea to this House to reconsider, because this bill is fundamental to the rights of this Parliament and to our democracy.

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

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Madam Speaker, thank you. I feel like I just had a flashback. It was kind of like I was Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, and then I realised that we had this debate just back in September 2018, and it took quite a long period of time. In fact, both sides of this debate were well traversed, and that is the reason for the intense scrutiny that was given in this House to the very piece of legislation we’re again debating tonight. That is the reason that it is not the time to relitigate so soon after we’ve passed legislation. So I think it’s important that we outline, right from the start, what this bill actually does.

What this bill does is it sets out a process by which if a member of Parliament disrupts proportionality by leaving their party—not by disagreeing with their colleagues, not by speaking out of turn, not even by crossing the floor, but by leaving their party or being an independent or joining another party—it’s at that point that they can, if the leader so chooses, be removed from Parliament. In addition to that, the MP’s party leader, with the support of their caucus or the MP themselves, can choose whether to activate the power in this bill by notifying the Speaker in writing.

So I think it’s important. With the two views that have been outlined tonight—the view that Dr Smith has, the academic view that thinks that freedom of speech is impeded—what I have outlined just now does not demonstrate in any shape or form how freedom of speech is in any way inhibited by the introduction of this legislation. What we’ve seen tonight is two views: the view of an academic point of view that Dr Smith has drawn upon, but the point I would like to think about tonight is the view of the voter—the view of the New Zealand voter back in, say, for example, 1998, when those eight New Zealand First MPs left their party and joined National. Those MPs represented voters in New Zealand who voted for Winston Peters and his party, yet their votes went towards supporting a National Government which would have otherwise failed. The voter expects MPs in here to do as they wished when they voted, and for that to be implemented over the three-year period.

What’s important here is to note that that reality of what the voter expects is important. I am surprised, to be quite frank here, that given the rich political experience that Dr Smith brings to this House, he so quickly draws upon academic examples and literature to illustrate his arguments when there are far more from this House alone that can be used to debate this very issue—New Zealand ones that come, day to day. What the voter expects—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Winston Churchill wasn’t an academic.

GINNY ANDERSEN: What the voter expects is not Winston Churchill. The average voter does not know what Winston Churchill spoke. What the average voter expects is that when they go into the booth, what they do is they tick a box. They want to know who they’re voting for. They want the party, they want the leader, they want the principles. They want to vote for things that matter to them. They want higher wages. They want things that happen. They want a Government that represents their views in the House, and they deserve that right.

So when someone like, for example, Alamein Kopu, who was elected as Alliance, joins another party, which has quite contrary views to the ones that voters elected her on, voters get angry. Voters get angry and irate, and quite rightly so, because they have voted for something and put someone in this House that takes a different position once they get here. Voters do not say, “Oh, you can go sit in Parliament and if you decide it might not be quite right, Ginny, you just change and support some other values.” That is not what voters expect, and that is the important point to note here.

It is interesting that we hear from Dr Smith that the history of the bill is often depicted as being the “Winston Peters Bill”, or the “New Zealand First coalition deal”. That’s what we’ve heard throughout select committee and in the previous iterations of this debate. But the truth was that it was a member’s bill drafted way back in the late 1990s by the Hon Dr Michael Cullen, and that was in direct response to the defections between New Zealand First and National that were occurring around that time of the fourth National Government. The truth is that that bill, which was then drafted by Michael Cullen, was taken on by the Government, and that has now been reinstated.

Now, the interesting point also, when you’re looking back into the rich political history we have here, is that the only time the legislation was ever used—and you will know this, Dr Smith. You’ll know—Madam Speaker, I apologise. Dr Smith will know this well. It was used by Alamein Kopu, the one who I’ve already mentioned—

Chris Bishop: I think you mean Donna Awatere Huata.

GINNY ANDERSEN: —and it’s really interesting to see that the ACT Party is now a strong advocate of freedom of speech. It was the only party to have ever actually used the legislation when Donna Awatere Huata had to leave the party as a result of allegations which were proven then in court for, I think, issues around the Pipi Foundation—$80,000 which were inappropriately taken and put into that foundation—and that member of Parliament was no longer able to hold an ACT Party membership. So it is interesting that now the ACT Party has added their name to the differing view in the select committee’s report when they are the only party to have ever actually have used the legislation.

Also, interestingly, which is all fresh in our minds, is just in the last Parliament—you know, the irony escaped absolutely no one. After National opposed so strongly the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill in 2018, they’re the ones that probably would have befitted from it the most as a result of Jami-Lee Ross. I can only imagine that Simon Bridges’ fingers would have just been itching to whack that waka-jumping button, and maybe the benches opposite would have looked quite different if he had have done so. But, instead, they chose to bear the slings and arrows from their ex-member who remained in the House, arguably, at the expense of productive debates on topics that really mattered to New Zealanders.

Some were concerned that this legislation would somehow constrain MPs’ freedom of speech or freedom of conscience or it would make MPs more subservient and more likely to be party robots, and Parliament would be less challenging and have fewer individual thinkers. Well, over the whole time of this legislation being in place, I don’t think we can ever account for one instance where that has actually occurred. We think it has been well demonstrated that none of these concerns that have been raised by the members opposite over the previous debates in this House, and the debate we’re having currently, have proven to be an issue.

This Act did not remove the role of a robust debate within parties and across Parliament as well. So I think it’s important that while we do look at academic texts and while we do look at what is written, it’s also important to traverse what has happened in terms of political reality. I think it’s been an incredibly interesting passage to have this debate and to look at the differing views, and I think that there’s been an incredibly robust discussion across the House as to how this piece of legislation plays out.

In conclusion, I think that while the arguments for and against this bill can be said to someone outside of this House to be finely balanced, it’s not the time to relitigate them and to do so, so quickly after it had already been passed into law, particularly given how intense the scrutiny was. We believe, on this side of the House, that upholding the proportionality of Parliament expressed by the public through the party vote is an important principle for helping maintain public confidence in the integrity of the electoral system. It’s what voters vote for, and they should get what they vote for. It’s not for us to chop and change once we get into this place, because it undermines the integrity and the confidence our voters have in our system of MMP.

Right now, our focus is on delivering our Government’s priorities and accelerating New Zealand’s recovery from the impact of COVID-19, not relitigating antics in this House as to what should or not be done. There are better uses of the House’s time, and I think that there has already been a considerable amount of time in this House provided to the discussion of the pros and cons of this piece of legislation.

I would like to thank those members of the committee for the contributions we made during and to also thank those that submitted. I think it’s been a thorough process to date and I look forward to hearing the next speakers to come in this exciting moment in New Zealand’s parliamentary history.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I do feel a bit sorry for Labour members because, frankly, there are very few arguments in favour of this legislation. Ms Andersen, I think, put probably the best case she could, which is that if you ask, basically, a person in the street “Do you think if you’re elected to Parliament and you leave your party that should be banned or not allowed?”, probably quite a few people out on the street would say, “Yeah, that seems fair enough to me.” That’s about the best thing you can say.

Weighed up against that is the Bill of Rights 1688, freedom of speech, the history of our democracy, Winston Churchill, the Attorney-General, Dr Nick Smith, and almost every political academic in New Zealand, whether they be a constitutional scholar or a legal scholar or a political historian, all of whom say this bill is a crock, and they’ve said it for 20-plus years. But yet here we are.

It’s baffling that the Government supports this legislation, and it’s baffling because it’s only on the statute book because of a mistake. It’s basically an accident that we have it. Winston Peters, as part of his price to put this Government into office after the 2017 election, said to Jacinda Ardern, “Well, I want the old waka-jumping law back.” We know why he wanted it back: because he was concerned about his crop of new MPs: Darroch Ball—well, actually, Darroch had been there before. Mark Patterson, a former National Party member—in fact, I think an electorate chair—who got elected for New Zealand First. He looked at Mark Patterson, sitting there on the backbench of this new Government led by Labour with the Greens, and went, “Hmmm, I don’t think old Mark Patterson’s going to be too keen on this Government, having just been a member of the National Party. I know! One way around making sure he can’t leave—or, if he does leave, I can boot him from Parliament—is I’ll make it part of the coalition negotiation.” Of course, because Winston Peters had all the power and it was costless for the Prime Minister to agree, we have it.

Here’s the mistake: the Greens didn’t negotiate properly. The Greens just said, “OK, we’ll let that one go through to the keeper.”, and then they found themselves on the floor of the Parliament very quickly, in 2018, having to vote for something that successive Green leaders had made repeated invocations to Parliament to not pass. But the Greens had to vote for it anyway. Wasn’t it deliciously sweet when David Carter’s bill got pulled from the ballot at the tail end of the last Parliament, and it was pretty clear that the tide was running out on New Zealand First and Winston Peters, and the Greens voted to send it to a committee?

I think everyone assumed that that having been done—as the new Parliament comes back in and the Government’s got a stonking great majority—this would go through. No one likes this legislation. The Labour Party didn’t like it in Government last time; they only did it because of New Zealand First. We don’t like it. The Greens hate it. The ACT Party hates it. There was never a majority in the last Parliament—as Dr Smith points out—if you actually do the votes honestly. So everyone assumed we’d get rid of it. But now we find, bizarrely and quixotically, the Government’s decided to support it for reasons that are baffling—they are just baffling.

Ginny Andersen said that proportionality is sacrosanct—except it’s not. If there was a by-election tomorrow, if someone resigned—I don’t know, say the member of Parliament for Rongotai decides to resign because he’s been elected the Mayor of Wellington, for example. Just as a random example I just draw from nowhere—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: And National wins the seat.

CHRIS BISHOP: —and National wins the seat. It’s pretty unlikely to be fair, but, you know, that Mount Vic Tunnel—we need that one through. The election could turn on the Mount Vic Tunnel—who knows? If National wins, Labour would go down a seat and National would win a seat. Labour wouldn’t get a supplementary list spot to make up for Paul Eagle having lost; National would gain that seat. So proportionality isn’t sacrosanct.

The 5 percent threshold distorts proportionality. If you get 4.3 percent—Colin Craig knows all about it. Don’t be too mean to him, but, if you go and ask him about it, he’ll tell you all about it. On 4.3 percent, he’s not in Parliament.

Proportionality changes from time to time, and it changes during parliamentary election terms. In fact, Dr Nick Smith tells me there are five examples in the Electoral Act that breach proportionality. So it’s not this sacrosanct principle; it’s important but it’s not sacrosanct.

The other point I want to make—and it’s very important—is that the voters sort out bad behaviour. They can smell an opportunist from a principled politician a mile off. That’s why Jami-Lee Ross is not an MP any more. He left; he got turfed, and he got thumped by my good mate Christopher Luxon in Botany, and we welcome that.

Gordon Copeland, a former candidate in Hutt South, on two occasions ran against me—he left United Future. The public saw through him. He got turfed, and he didn’t make it back.

Brendan Horan was elected to Parliament as a New Zealand First MP—that’s another example as to why Winston wanted it. I just reminded myself as I make the point: Brendan Horan was elected to Parliament, he ran as an Independent at the next election, and he was turfed. Alamein Kopu—no longer an MP.

But, of course, then you’ve got the other examples. Jim Anderton, a principled person, was re-elected and formed a new party: Jim Anderton’s Progressive Coalition. In fact, we’ve got a former member on the Labour front bench who is a former member. She wasn’t elected as a Jim Anderton’s coalition member, but is a former member. Tariana Turia left the Labour Party—again, principled dispute over the foreshore and seabed legislation—and formed the Māori Party, now called Te Paati Māori, and was, of course, re-elected and served a distinguished career as an MP for Te Tai Hauāuru and then also as a Minister in the last Government.

The public know what they’re doing here. The opportunists, the unprincipled people who are just out to rort the public—the public kick them out at the next election.

I want to also talk about the argument around the chilling effect on members. Now, Ms Andersen said, “Well, we don’t have any examples of that.”, but of course the whole point about the chilling effect of something is that you can’t measure it. You can’t measure what people don’t say because they don’t say it so we don’t know. That’s the whole point about the chilling effect.

The prefatory point here that’s very important is that we have an extremely party disciplined system. The whipping in New Zealand is extensive and vast—some would say too vast—but we really enforce party discipline. You ally with that the fact that we have very large executives drawn from quite small legislatures. Half the Labour Party caucus is a member of the executive. It’s about 50:50, and it’s no different across Governments—I’m not making a party political point. I’m saying that’s the constitutional nature of it, and we have list MPs.

Members in this House will know that whether we like it or not, there is a bit of an incentive—and I’m speaking frankly and honestly—when you’re a list MP to not step from the party line. Why is that? Because it’s the party that dictates where you are on the list. If you’re a troublemaker, the odds that you’re going to be high enough up on the list to make it back are not that great. That’s just the simple political incentive. So we have list MPs who have an incentive—

Hon Member: Which one’s this member?

CHRIS BISHOP: I’ll choose not to respond to that. So the political incentive is to not be a troublemaker.

The point here is that with a whip system, with a large executive, and with the existence of list MPs, the incentive to go along with the party are already high. But, actually—and this is the point Dr Smith made—we want MPs to sometimes say unpalatable things. Actually, sometimes we want MPs to go against the party line. Actually, I’d be one who would say, looking back with the perspective of history, that, actually, it’s a good thing Marilyn Waring spoke up on nuclear ships. Marilyn Waring divorced herself from Mike Moore in relation to rape legislation that was going through the Parliament in the early 1980s, and I think, with the perspective of history, we’d look back and say it was a good thing she said that.

I think, again, with the perspective of history, we’d say it’s a good thing that Tariana Turia stood up on the foreshore and seabed legislation. People have different perspectives on it, and they don’t have to agree, but isn’t this a place where we want robust debate? Isn’t it a place where, on occasion, we actually want MPs to say, “You know what? I don’t agree with my party.”?

Here’s what we don’t want: we don’t want MPs to be afraid of saying so because they think their party leader might kick them out. We want MPs to debate things robustly, and that’s the point Dr Smith made about free speech. This is the home of free speech. The Bill of Rights 1688 and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 affirm that. People have gone into battle and fought for New Zealand and fought for those rights. We owe it to their legacy and we owe it to the history of this Parliament and the institution of the Parliament to make sure that people can sometimes divorce themselves from the party line. That will not be the case with this law in our statute book. When National gets back into Government, we will repeal it immediately.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker, fḁiåk se’ea, and thank you for the opportunity to speak to another bill, which has traversed its journey through the Justice Committee. It has felt a little bit to me like members have started mid-debate, or continuing a debate that has happened very recently, because there just hasn’t been much reference to the history in terms of how we got here, and so I’m just going to traverse, for those at home, where some of the recent history was.

The Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill was introduced in December 2017 and passed as the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Act in September 2018, and it amended the Electoral Act 1993. The purpose was really to enhance public confidence in the integrity of the electoral system by upholding the proportionality of political party representation in Parliament, as determined by electors. So that’s the legislation that’s commonly known as the waka-jumping bill or the party-hopping bill. What this bill intends to do is reverse the provisions of the Electoral Act 1993 that allow an MP’s seat to be declared vacant upon their departure from the political party for which they were elected. This would repeal the provisions introduced to the Electoral Act 1993 through that 2018 amendment.

So, as my colleague Ginny Andersen has said, we do not support this bill. Right now, our focus is on delivering on our Government priorities and accelerating New Zealand’s recovery from the impacts of COVID-19, not on relitigating decisions of the previous Parliament which were intensely scrutinised at the time. Our manifesto on which we were elected has a robust work programme on which we’ll be focused. We will not be relitigating the last couple of years’ debate on this. I would also say that we believe that upholding the proportionality of Parliament, expressed by the public through the party vote, is an important principle for helping maintain public confidence in the integrity of our electoral system.

What I want to do now is reflect on some of the comments made in the debate on the 2018 Act as it passed through the House. The Hon Andrew Little made a number of comments which I believe are appropriate to reflect on as we consider this bill. He said, “Once the electorate has voted and established the proportionality of representation of Parliament, then it is not for individual members to undermine that proportional representation by political decisions or judgments that they choose to make. Public confidence is a vital underpinning in our democracy and for the benefit of the House.” He spoke to the fact that “it’s the voters who should determine the parties’ share of seats in Parliament, and they do that with the party vote during [the] … election.”

The law as it is, as it stands with the 2018 amendments, ensures that the share of seats as a result of the party vote in the election will be maintained, and let’s be clear that the current law doesn’t prevent disagreement or robust debate. Not every disagreement or difference of views leads to an MP leaving a party. In fact, historically, very few do. My experience as a new member of the Labour caucus is that robust debate is encouraged and supported. As Minister Little pointed out, in his 2018 speech addressing the then bill, “Debate will continue to occur within party caucuses and between the different parties in debates in this House. Similar legislation to this bill”—as it was in 2018—“has been in place,” he said, “in New Zealand in the past, and rigorous debate on policy and legislation was not impeded either across the House or within parties”. He said, “This bill doesn’t remove the role of dissent and robust debate within parties and across this Parliament, because that is vital for good development of public policy.”

He also added that the current Act doesn’t allow a leader to dismiss an MP for any reason. There is a process involved, including the opportunity for discussions and the opportunity to resolve issues, and “if an MP wishes to contest the [issue of] … procedure” in the Act as amended in 2018, “they can seek recourse from the courts,” and this is by way of judicial review. I want to stop here and just speak to whether there is a judicial review option here, because this was an issue raised in submissions to select committee. There was a question about what checks there are against the current Act. While the 2018 amendments didn’t expressly preclude or invite judicial review, the policy intent of the provisions in that procedure and related decisions in the current Act are judicially reviewable, and I do note that Justice McGrath in the Court of Appeal decision, pre - Supreme Court, of Awatere Huata v Prebble found the decision of the party leader to invoke the vacancy procedure was amenable to judicial review. The Supreme Court was not required to decide on this issue and left the issue open, so, in other words, or in short, my view is that there is the option of judicial review available to MPs who wish to question the application of the current Act where specific decisions are made.

I also want to speak and just reflect on the Attorney-General’s report against the current Act, or the changes made by the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Act in 2018, for their consistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The Attorney-General, in his report, notes that he was satisfied that the limitations of rights were demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. He considered both section 14, the right to freedom of expression, and section 17, the right to freedom of association. While against both, in that report, he noted prima facie rights issues, and he then went on to consider whether there were justified limitations under section 5 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. As he considered his assessment, he considered whether the limitations were rationally connected to an important objective, and he considered whether they caused a minimal infringement on the right that was proportionate to that stated objective.

I’m just going to quote from his assessment, where he says, “The impairment of the rights is significant but there appears to be no alternative way to restore the proportionality of political party representation in Parliament other than by removing the member who has distorted it. If they remain in the House they will continue to cause the distortion. I am therefore satisfied that the impairment is minimal.” He goes on to say, “As important as freedoms of expression and association are, preserving the balance of representation in accordance with the wishes of the electorate is a sufficiently strong democratic purpose to justify the limitation”, and he also notes that there are other remedies in place—as I mentioned earlier, the opportunity to bring a judicial review.

So, as I’ve said, we are not in a place to consider reviewing the legislation in this area. It’s not on the Government’s agenda. We are not going to relitigate this legislation so soon after the amendments were passed in 2018 and significant time in the House was spent doing that. However, this is a Government who are committed to strengthening our democracy, which we have done by making it easier to enrol and vote on election day; by allowing for voting booths in new locations; by holding two referendums at the 2020 general election; and by restoring voting rights to prisoners serving less than three years, consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. So I would thank the submitters on this bill, but I do not commend this bill to the House.

Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister of Climate Change): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Much as it galls me to be lectured on principles by a man who has none, the night that I am going to be voting for a bill that he is sponsoring through the House, we are supporting this piece of legislation to repeal the Act at fault here. I would like to start, actually, by some of the comments that Chris Bishop made in his contribution earlier, when he said that he thought that, you know, we want MPs to be able to say unpalatable things—and he should know, because Dr Smith says unpalatable things pretty much every time he opens his mouth.

Now, we were asked by the previous speaker to reflect on a bit of history here, and I’d like to do that from the perspective of the Green Party. Because the sort of faux concern that I’ve had from members of the National Party about this, about the state of our principles, I think, bears some correction. The Green Party has obviously long opposed this kind of legislation, and Dr Smith did mention Rod Donald, former co-leader of the Green Party, when he said that he thought that was the most “Draconian, obnoxious, antidemocratic, insulting piece of legislation ever inflicted on this Parliament, and that it would turn MPs into robots”—those are the words of Rod Donald. Now, I would say that perhaps there are more Draconian, more obnoxious, more antidemocratic, and more insulting pieces of legislation that have passed through this House over time, and I would say that MPs have turned into robots well before the party-hopping legislation came to pass, but I agree with the gist of what it was that Rod Donald said. It is an obnoxious, antidemocratic piece of legislation, and it does deserve repealing.

The reason that we supported it at the start of the previous Government was because there was a blind negotiation between New Zealand First and the Labour Party, and between the Green Party and the Labour Party. We did not know what was in the New Zealand First agreement until after it had been published, and what that meant was that we were absolutely committed to changing the Government, because nine years of the previous National Government had really, seriously run the country into the ground. We needed to do something about climate change, and the water crisis, and the increasing crisis of poverty and widening inequality in this country, so, on balance, given that this legislation only affects the job prospects of 120 people versus the state of the country, we felt that we ought to honour the agreement that was negotiated between Labour and New Zealand First.

Now, during the course of that Parliament, of course, New Zealand First taught us a number of lessons a number of times—that it was the letter of the agreement and not the spirit of the agreement that mattered to them. And because their agreement did not include a clause that prevented us from voting for the repeal of that legislation, when the Rt Hon David Carter’s bill was drawn from the ballot, we supported it. And I was very pleased to be able to support it. I think it is a shame that the numbers have changed such that we are unable to be able to repeal it now.

I do want to say that when the original bill went through in 2018, I was very pleased that the Green Party negotiated into that legislation a number of natural justice clauses to do with the process that would have to be gone through, because the draft bill didn’t have any process at all—it was really just up to the leader to discern who they were going to biff out of Parliament. We did manage to negotiate those in, and those processes make it extremely difficult for a party, or a party leader, to eject one of their MPs from Parliament—but not impossible.

In terms of the Attorney-General, David Parker, of course, you know, there’s been this kind of much thrown around quote, “a chilling effect on the expression of dissenting views by MPs,” and I thought that Mr Bishop made a good point, that, actually, you’ll kind of never know, because those views aren’t expressed. So I would argue, and it’s been sort of mentioned, that countries like Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Sierra Leone have other pieces of legislation that are analogous to this, and you have to ask: is that a club of countries that we want to belong to? I would say no, it isn’t. So we should be repealing this piece of legislation at the first opportunity that we have.

Now, the Green Party executive made a decision, some time ago, that we would not exercise, as a party, this piece of legislation. I would challenge the National Party executive, or board, to do the same.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: They have.

Hon JAMES SHAW: Oh, I’m pleased to hear that, Dr Smith. I do note that when they went through all of that trouble with Jami-Lee Ross, they didn’t exercise the opportunity to use this legislation. I don’t know about ACT or Te Paati Māori; the only party who support this is the Labour Party. Now, this has gone from being Winston Peters and New Zealand First’s piece of legislation to the Labour Party’s legislation, supported only by the Labour Party—and it is the only party that is committed to being able to use it. So the Labour Party MPs who are voting for this bill tonight need to know this legislation is aimed at you. You are the only MPs who are at risk of being thrown out by your party leadership if you fail to toe the line, because the other parties who do not support this have committed to not using the clauses in this piece of legislation.

The ghost of Winston Peters lives on in the Labour Party, sadly. We thought that we had exorcised that particular demon from the House, but there’s still a few demons to go, Dr Smith. So I have to say that I do think that it is, frankly, egregious that the Labour Party—who only brought this in, at the behest of Winston Peters, in order to secure a deal to throw out the previous National Government—now find themselves in the extraordinary position of supporting this, frankly, appalling piece of legislation.

So, as I have said, the Greens will vote for this bill, to repeal what is an odious attack on democracy. We are one of only a few countries in the world that have this kind of legislation—to throw MPs out if they fail to toe the party line—and I do think it is a great shame that, simply because there is one party that happens to have a majority in the House by itself, this legislation will live on until the next term of Parliament, when we will give it another crack to repeal it then.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, I give credit to Mr James Shaw; that was a thoughtful speech. Not one I entirely agree with, but it did highlight the importance of this piece of legislation. The fact of the matter is that this is a piece of legislation which touches on our electoral, and therefore constitutional, framework, and it’s not something that we should be changing with the changing winds and tides of electoral fortune. Certainly, we’ve got it on our statute book and, whilst there may come a time when we look at it in further detail as part of our overall electoral framework, now is not the time. We’ve got a lot to do in this Government. We’ve got a Budget coming, we’ve got an economy to strengthen, and we’ve got the people of New Zealand to look after, and this kind of thing is simply a distraction.

Calls from the Opposition that sort of stand on high principle talk about the Bill of Rights that was put in place in 1688 as William of Orange took over from the Stuart monarchs, when there were rotten boroughs and royalists and Roundheads; it’s a different world.

Now, we in New Zealand are here to decide our own constitutional and electoral future, and the fact of the matter is—and Mr Bishop dismissed it out of hand, but it’s a really, really important point. It’s how we express our voting system to all of New Zealand. It’s pretty simple: the party who gets the most votes gets the most seats, and to not have this Act, to not have this piece of legislation, would do away with that principle. To suggest that a member can of their own volition upset the proportionality of Parliament is to put in the hands of an individual the destiny of our nation, and that’s wrong.

Maureen Pugh: Destiny of a nation!

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Well, you may scoff, Maureen Pugh, but the fact of the matter is we have to plan in this House for all eventualities and, whilst the Labour Party has been conferred a generous mandate, we know that there have been many Parliaments where one or two people could sway the entire House. To put that in the hands of someone who has been put into Parliament by their party on the very basis of their party allegiance, to say that that person can cross the floor, ignore entirely the will of the voters on a whim, is to make a constitutional tear in the fabric of this nation, and the right place for that to be decided is in exactly the way this bill has set it out.

Because, you know what, there are some things that it is right to legislate about and there are some things that it is the role of this House to determine, and there are some things that it is the role of the political party to determine, and that’s exactly the balance that this bill has struck. We know that Parliament has an absolute prerogative to determine its own procedure, so to eject someone from the House is absolutely the role of the Speaker and never should that kind of conduct and that kind of decision making be examined outside of this House. That is an ancient privilege of this House, and long shall it remain. But who is a member of this House? Who is qualified to come and take the oath at this table? That is very much a question for legislation, and that is part of what this bill does. It says a person who has been put on a party list by a political party and by dint of the number of votes that that party gets is qualified to come and stand at that table and take the Oath of Allegiance as a member of this House. If they then turn their back on the very party that qualified them to stand there, then it is quite appropriate for that party—in the right circumstances, if it decides it’s the right thing to do—to take that privilege away from them. It is the place of this House, which has exclusive cognisance over its own procedures, to take note of what the party leader says, and that the party leader has followed the right procedures, has gone to that member and said, “These are the consequences of your actions, not only your historical actions but also the actions in the future—that if you continue to behave in the way you have, the party will see you as disrupting the proportionality of the House, and the consequences of that are that you can be removed at your peril.”

There may be some members—in fact, we have seen one in the last term who has chosen to take that risk. Jami-Lee Ross spoke out against the National Party on a number of matters, and he did it with energy, to say the least. To suggest that there was some kind of chilling effect—simply not there. We know that there will be members who will balance up, as Dr Smith said, what they see as their loyalty to their electorate and to this nation with their loyalty to their party. The suggestion that members will look to their position and abandon their ethics is disrespectful and utterly underestimates all of the members of this House who are quite capable of making their own decisions and making their own hard decisions. So I simply do not accept that a person who commits, in the way we all do, to the future of New Zealand will be dissuaded by some kind of shadow of a threat of removal from office from a clear path of their convictions. We’re here because of our convictions. Why would we not leave because of our convictions, if that was the appropriate course of action?

So, ultimately, this is a busy Government. We’re not going to be distracted by the changing tides of electoral fortune to fundamentally change the direction of our electoral and constitutional system.

David Seymour: He’s fundamentally changed his position on the bill.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: I can hear some yapping but I can’t understand it. What really is—who is that? And, of course, members of the ACT Party are really going to be most at risk here, because if you think about it, what a diverse bunch they are. What holds them together other than the weakness of the National Party? Now, they may well be the new Opposition but they’ve certainly got a little bit of learning to do. You don’t learn unity from the other side of the House; you learn it from this side of the House.

So the fact of the matter is that this is a bill which is modern. It recognises the genuine and important place of proportionality. It doesn’t look back to first-past-the-post thinking. It doesn’t look back to the Stuarts and the Plantagenets for our constitutional theory. It is a bill which absolutely places the right weight on the balance to be struck between this legislature, the courts, and the political framework of our political party system, which is of increasing importance in our constitutional framework. And for those reasons, I commend this bill to the House.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): I stand to take a call in support of this Electoral (Integrity Repeal) Amendment Bill. It’s a simple bill that’s looking to reverse the waka-jumping bill that the New Zealand First Party pushed through in 2018 that’s now called the “Labour Party Act”. We’ve got some quite interesting scenarios in play here, and that encourages ACT to continue to support Dr Smith’s bill. It seemed, actually, a simple enough position to take for ACT, because we’ve been opposing this bill since it was first introduced in 1999, under Richard Prebble. We opposed it in 2018 as being unnecessary, a backward step, a return to the first nine years of MMP rule, and, really, it’s just a “Winston Peters No Mates Bill”. The result is that we now have a system where, if you fall out with your party, your party leader can have you removed from your position. I’ve heard arguments from across the floor that, regardless of that, you could go and get a judicial review, but my question to that is: would that occur before or after a taxpayer-funded by-election? And what does that mean for the people who elected the MP into that position in the first place—that, according to somebody else, their vote is now invalid? I refer to Duncan Webb across the floor when he said in his statement, just before, that MPs are put into Parliament by their party. Well, I’m sorry, I thought MPs were put into Parliament by the people!

Now, if an MP had won an electoral seat and runs again as an independent, there will be a need for the people to vote those MPs back in again to finish their term, and there, again, is where the taxpayer funding comes in. From what I have observed, the public have been pretty good at voting out the people who don’t serve their expectations. What should concern both constituents and members alike is that we are on notice, really, to be careful about what we say and what we think when our constituents are wanting us to tell the House what we really do think. Divulging what you think, even if it goes against party lines, would be dangerous, because you could find yourself ejected from the House for doing so—ejected from Parliament, ejected from your position as a representative for the people. It’s not a problem for ACT, Dr Duncan Webb; we’re encouraged to say what we think. We’re encouraged to have honest conversations. We work through ideas. We work through our positions. We are a diverse bunch of real, genuine people who come here to represent the people of our community in New Zealand. And we are taught to think this way. We are taught to speak our views, because we have a great leader here, who has made sure that we have the ability to do that and to do it safely.

The bigger problems actually arise in the bigger parties, where agreements can be harder to make. Individual thoughts or actions actually could be cautioned, and supporting your constituents could cost you your job. But that’s what the Government will vote for. They will go against this bill to maintain the status quo, actually at risk to themselves. And one’s got to ask: how on earth did the Labour backbenchers support themselves being handcuffed? ACT, on the other hand, will vote for a full, democratic process: our representation of the people. And, in that sense, we do support this bill.

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Noa'ia 'e Mḁuri. Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s my pleasure to rise to take a call on the Electoral (Integrity Repeal) Amendment Bill. I guess I’d like to start by saying that this evening we have, in this House, heard passionate pleas from the former member for Nelson and the former member for Hutt South. And with an Opposition in a state of disunity and disarray, their concerns relating, perhaps, for list members, to the longevity of those—[Interruption] Oh, and we have the other list member Maureen Pugh; we can add that one to the list as well. Anyone else, perhaps? No, they’re silent when that question is put to them. But what I would say is perhaps there is more than just an ounce of self interest in their approach in terms of being in strong for this particular bill.

What I would like to say is I am not a member of the Justice Committee, but no doubt it is a busy select committee, and the matters in the business before the House today certainly indicate that. What I have done is very diligently taken a look at the documents that have been placed before the select committee as part of this process, and I note that 19 submissions were received. Some of them were oral and that the critics of this particular bill were concerned about the proportionality aspect, which has been spoken about already in this debate—well, I’ll touch on that later, and the status of list members, amongst some other things as well.

My colleague Dr Webb had touched on some of the constitutional arrangements—certainly not my intention to do a 101 on New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements, but what I would say—

Chris Bishop: I’m not sure you could do that.

TANGI UTIKERE: Well, perhaps I will take the member’s suggestion to provide a 101 on constitutional law for him.

Chris Bishop: Oh, this’ll be good.

TANGI UTIKERE: Well, for the benefit of Mr Bishop, New Zealand is in a different situation in that we have an unwritten constitution and we rely on a range of different conventions, different practices, different institutions, different forms of common law, things like habeas corpus, like the Magna Carta of 1215, and, obviously, statutes as well. This is where this particular proposed piece of legislation falls in that it is suggested that it would be one of those statutes, and it is, actually, the Electoral Act, in terms of the role that it plays in New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements. So that actually means that any potential or proposed changes to the Electoral Act have significant considerations at play and have significant implications, because they do have an impact on New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements. When we look at the Electoral Act, it outlines the process—one component, anyway—in terms of parliamentary elections from the registration of political parties and logos and the process that that all entails, through to the enrolment opportunities and also the conduct of elections, and we all, obviously, know quite a bit about that.

I’ve had the opportunity to look at the contributions from the first reading last year and that has provided some context. I agree with my colleague Vanushi Walters in that the debates seem to be lengthy, and that’s reflected in the commentary at the time. It seemed to take some House time at that. What I would note is that there doesn’t seem to be much change in terms of the context since that particular time and so my view is that there actually is nothing to justify, in the sense of something new, to support a change to what is an important piece of legislation. And as colleagues have previously said, there is no desire on this side of the House to relitigate that at this stage.

Now, we all know that we’ve recently had a general election and we’re all familiar with that process. What has happened in recent changes is that it’s been an easier process for people to enrol. It’s been an easier process for people to vote. It’s been an opportunity where we’ve had mobile polling booths in advance of and on election day—myself, I even cast my vote early, along with many, many other New Zealanders, at my local primary school, as a former student at Parkland School. So these are opportunities that have strengthened our democracy, that have provided the confidence, and public confidence, in the electoral process that we have—far from what this proposed bill will do.

I’ve had, as I said, the opportunity to look through the first reading contributions, and I note, actually, that my colleague the Hon Peeni Henare made it very clear at first reading that many people—actually, not many; all people—have an element of choice when it comes to being here in New Zealand and whether they support a political party, whether they choose to join a political party or not, whether they choose to seek candidacy for a political party as well. Each party’s process, we know, will differ, and that’s over to each of them, but there remains that element of choice. When people stand as a candidate for a political party in this country, they go to the electors, to the voters, with a very clear intention: to deliver the policy platform that they are campaigning on.

So electors in a general election cast their two votes, but their party vote determines the proportionality aspect of the Parliament. When we look at that proportionality aspect of the Parliament, it is based on the party vote, and many members have said, “Well, what about Marilyn Waring? What about others?” A lot of these examples that have been cited tonight actually predate the 1996 MMP—mixed-member proportional—approach. MMP aims to deliver proportionality, not a first-past-the-post process. So they are two different electoral processes, and so the suggestion there is that they cannot be viewed in the same way when it comes to the question of proportionality.

All MPs in this House, as we know, have a party identification. There is no member that currently sits in this House that does not represent a political party, and it is that that has been part of the suite of information that has informed the choice that electors have made when they have gone to the polls. That’s something that really must be respected, and on this side of the House, that’s exactly what we intend to do.

If a candidate is elected as a list member of Parliament, then they represent the party. They go to a general election supporting the policy platform of that political party. When someone casts their party vote for a party in New Zealand, they expect that the list members who would then follow as part of that process would remain as members of the political party that they cast their party vote for. This particular amendment bill actually vests the decision of the voter over to the individuality of the MP, effectively trumping the voter’s choice—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Is that what Jim Anderton did?

TANGI UTIKERE: —effectively trumping the voice of the voter. Again, the member refers to Jim Anderton. Perhaps he was not listening when I suggested that those were pre-1996 proportional opportunities.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: What about Tariana Turia?

TANGI UTIKERE: Well, I did say the majority of them that the member was citing were from a pre-proportional electoral era.

Now, absolutely, caucuses have an opportunity to have robust conversations. What I would suggest is that when members look at the actual legislation as it stands currently, there is a very clear process. This is not a process of a parliamentary leader who simply, willy-nilly, wants to get rid of a member. It is very clearly outlined in section 55D of the principal Act, where there is a process that the parliamentary leader of a political party must go through, a process where they need to form a view that the proportionality of the political party’s representation in Parliament will be distorted. Then there is a process around outlining the reasons for that.

There is a time period by which the member who is subject to that notice could seek to, effectively, address the concerns that may have been raised in the notice. It also requires confirmation from the parliamentary leader that at least two-thirds of the parliamentary membership of the party, effectively, agree or consent to the written notice that is issued under section 55D. So while there is an opportunity to protect the robustness of conversations within caucuses, there is also a fair process that is outlined if a particular parliamentary leader wishes to avail themselves or engage that particular section as well.

This is a bill that is not needed. It is something that has been brought before the House—and it has taken some time, but it has been brought before the House—soon after this issue was addressed, and in the view of members on this side of the House, we prefer to spend our time focusing on the recovery for New Zealand, to focus on where things matter and, in light of what’s proposed, to not support what is proposed, because we actually believe that the voters deserve better and that their say on election day needs to continue to be translated over to the Parliament. Therefore, we are not in support of this legislation.

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

SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): I rise on behalf of the National Party and as the member of Parliament for North Shore to speak on the Electoral (Integrity Repeal) Amendment Bill, second reading. What is interesting from listening to the last speaker, Tangi Utikere, is that Labour have done everything this evening to not talk about this bill. That is because Labour’s position on this bill is indefensible. This bill repeals the changes made to the Electoral Act under which a party leader can sack an MP from their party and from Parliament. I want to acknowledge the bill’s sponsor, the Hon Dr Nick Smith, for the significant contribution that he has made this evening, and through pushing and supporting this bill through Parliament. I think there has not been an occasion when the Hon Nick Smith has not been principled in his approach, and I also want to recognise the Rt Hon David Carter, who introduced this bill. I must say as a new MP, having only been in this House for six months, to listen to some of the characterisation by some of the more senior members within this House around the lack of principles of someone such as the Hon Dr Nick Smith by the Hon James Shaw I found quite disappointing.

I must say that National supports this bill but, disappointingly, Labour do not, and they are voting it down. I want to make four key points in regards to this bill. MPs are in this House, across the political spectrum, because the people of this country decided that we are the MPs that should represent them. The voters decided that, not party leaders, not the Prime Minister. Labour is voting down this bill for one simple fact: they want to keep the current bill to keep their backbench MPs and their Māori caucus in line, just in case they go off-piste. Labour are not concerned about what is in the best interest of our country, but rather in their own self-interest. Many respected experts across this great land are against the current law. The New Zealand Law Society, multiple law faculties, four departments of politics, three departments of history, and over 15 university academics across this country were enthusiastically in favour of this amendment. Various legal experts, a number that we have just discussed this evening, have declared that the current law breaches the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Professor Geiringer from Victoria University of Wellington law faculty has stated, “The current Act’s powers to remove an MP do not have to be actually used in order to have a chilling effect on MPs’ actions and expressions.” I repeat: “The current Act’s powers to remove an MP do not have to be actually used in order to have a chilling effect on MPs’ actions and expressions.”

If that was not only enough, on the global stage we are a significant outlier. As we have heard this evening, this current law would breach the constitution of the United States, of Canada, of the United Kingdom, and of Australia. If that wasn’t enough, it would also be a breach of the basic law in Germany, the home of MMP, and the European Union regards such laws as undemocratic and are not allowed by new member states. Be under no illusion: the current law undermines a crucial democracy check on Government through distorting confidence votes, and that is why this House needs to do the right thing and support the amendment of this bill. I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I call on Dr Rachel Brooking.

RACHEL BROOKING (Labour): [Uses sign language] Thank you, Madam Speaker, and thank you for the promotion as well. I have, in fact, not the patience to become a doctor, but thank you for that.

Chris Bishop: Oh, give it time.

RACHEL BROOKING: Ha, ha! But I am very happy to speak on this Electoral (Integrity Repeal) Amendment Bill introduced by the Rt Hon David Carter and, of course, now taken up by the Hon Dr Nick Smith. I acknowledge the work that he’s done on this bill and is obviously very passionate about it.

I am a big fan of MMP. When I was still at high school, I was able to—not vote on the MMP referendum but certainly campaign on it. Why do I love MMP? Well, it brought to us this wonderful, diverse, and, certainly on this side of the House, talented different members—

Hon Member: Oh, don’t be like that.

RACHEL BROOKING: Even on the other side of the House—[Interruption] It’s late at night, ha, ha!

We heard from the Hon James Shaw that this bill was aimed at the Labour list MPs. Now, I’m very proud to be a Labour list MP and I believe I’m the first to speak on this bill as a Labour list MP. All the others—they won all their seats and I’m so happy to be speaking against this bill and in favour of what is already the amended Act. There is the risk with this MMP environment that we’re in that MPs will not be held accountable for their manifestos that they were elected on. And as we’ve heard from so many of the eloquent speeches before me, the proportionality of how people voted is of utmost importance. This—the amended Act, not the bill in front of us—provides a check and balance to ensure that we, particularly list MPs, are accountable. This is because people vote for the party and like many of us—well, everybody here obviously campaigned in the last election, and what a wonderful experience that was.

People voted for the Labour Party because of the great COVID leadership. They wanted Labour in Government. They wanted Labour values. They wanted Jacinda as the Prime Minister. They wanted our Ministers. I see Minister Woods is here—strong leadership through that COVID time as well as dealing with all the other difficulties that New Zealand has. They wanted our talent. They wanted the people who are on the list. We saw Dr Ayesha Verrall—honourable now. Dr Ayesha Verrall was placed high on that list so people knew that we were a talented bunch of people. And also they wanted the local candidates. So they voted for the Labour Party and that was great. Thank you.

So what the amended Act—not the bill—does is that it enables the benefits of MMP: supporting the diversity and the talent without the risk of people going against all of those things that I just talked about that people voted for.

Now, I was going to talk a little bit about the amendment bill, specifically, but we’ve heard some of that from my colleagues Vanushi Walters and Tangi Utikere as well. But I think it’s important to go back to the—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.