Tuesday, 29 June 2021

TUESDAY, 29 JUNE 2021

TUESDAY, 29 JUNE 2021

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia/Prayers

Karakia/Prayers

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

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

Ministerial Statements

COVID-19—Greater Wellington Region Change to Alert Level 2 and Australian Travel Bubble Pause

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): I wish to make a ministerial statement following Cabinet decisions on the alert level in the Wellington region and the travel pause with Australia.

We’ve been at alert level 2 in Wellington for the past week out of an abundance of caution given the large number of highly populated places a recent case visited while potentially infectious with the Delta variant of COVID-19. Given there have been no cases of COVID-19 detected, nearly 2,500 negative results from potential contacts of the case—including repeat negative results from that person’s close contacts—Cabinet has decided to shift Wellington to alert level 1 from 11.59 p.m. tonight. We are confident that the risk of community transmission from that case is low, but I ask all New Zealanders to remain vigilant and stay on high alert until a full 14 days have passed since that Sydney case left New Zealand. Testing centres will remain open in Wellington central, Porirua, Kāpiti coast, Hutt Valley, and the Wairarapa. People who haven’t checked locations of interest should do so, and get a test if they have been to any of those locations within the specified time period; or if they have cold and flu symptoms, any aches or pains, they should stay home, they should call Healthline or their GP, and they should arrange to get a test.

Cabinet’s also agreed to extend the travel pause on trans-Tasman travel for most Australian states. From 11.59 p.m. on Sunday, 4 July, New Zealand will lift the travel pause to allow travel to and from South Australia, ACT, Tasmania, and Victoria. That will be under review until that time. The health advice is that the spread of COVID-19 cases in those parts of Australia has been contained at this point. There’s robust surveillance testing and contact tracing to detect and manage cases and adequate border controls are in place to prevent the spread of new cases. Officials will keep a close eye on the situation in these states. However, Cabinet has decided to extend requirements for people coming to New Zealand to include a pre-departure test. This means that all travellers eligible to fly to New Zealand will now be required to have a pre-departure test within 72 hours of when they are leaving Australia. To be eligible to fly, travellers must not have been in Queensland, the Northern Territory, or Western Australia on or after 10.30 p.m. New Zealand time on 26 June and they must not have been in New South Wales on or after 11.59 p.m. New Zealand time on 22 June.

We want to ensure that New Zealanders aren’t unnecessarily barred from travelling to New Zealand when there is no risk of COVID-19, but we do need to keep monitoring the situation closely. Cabinet carefully weighed up the evidence this morning and we consider a partial lifting of the pause to be a proportionate action when that’s also bolstered by the introduction of mandatory pre-departure testing. Today’s decision gives airlines, passengers, Government officials, and others time to prepare for flights back from those states that we consider to be low risk when that travel pause lifts.

We know how important the travel bubble is—in particular for families and for businesses—but we also want to avoid the situation where we have to respond to cases here in New Zealand. Our system from here of only opening up to states as and when they bring COVID-19 under control will help New Zealand to stay at COVID-19 alert level 1.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I thank the Minister for his remarks. I just want to focus on a couple of things, the first is just in relation to the Wellington situation over the last week or so. Obviously we’re very grateful and pleased that New Zealand and Wellington has managed to avoid an outbreak. Will the Government be publishing the contact tracing system metrics and applicable standards identified by Dr Verrall in a previous role before her current role?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Yes, it’s absolutely the Government’s intention to publish those statistics. The metrics are looking very good—they’re ahead of target in terms of those close contacts and making sure that they’re contacted within the required period. I would, perhaps, at this point, because it’s useful to do so, just provide a breakdown of the testing numbers, because I know that people will be interested in those. In terms of close contacts, 957 is the identified denominator there, 905 of those had been returned as of about an hour and a half ago; 1,650 casual contacts, about 1,509 of those returned, like I said, as of a couple of hours ago. So overall numbers: 2,609 is the number of contacts identified, 2,416 are the number of test results back. I should point out that there’s also the closest of contacts, both of those have been tested twice and they’ve both come back negative.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you for that and thanks for the illumination. In relation to the decision around the trans-Tasman bubble, can the Minister advise the House what the public health advice was going back to when the bubble was opened in April in the first place? Was the public health advice to open the quarantine-free travel zone—otherwise known as the bubble—with pre-departure testing or without it?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): There was considerable debate around the issue of pre-departure testing at that time and a variety of views around the Cabinet table. The official health advice was not to have pre-departure testing at that point.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you for that. There will be people out there who are contemplating travel to Australia or potentially are even in Australia now who are contemplating what the new requirements will be for people coming from Australia to New Zealand. Will the New Zealand Government accept antigen tests or non-PCR or RTPCR tests as an alternative to the traditional PCR tests? And the reason I ask that is that those are acceptable forms of pre-departure testing for people coming from countries to New Zealand right now, other than high-risk destinations and Australia, and so there is an argument, I think, as a matter of logic, that if you’re coming from the United States, for example, and you can have an antigen test and that’s accepted as a negative pre-departure test, that should be the same for Australia, which has been identified as being of lower risk than other countries.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): I think one of the key things that we need to differentiate around pre-departure testing for Australia versus the rest of the world is those who are getting pre-departure testing around the rest of the world still go into two weeks of managed isolation when they arrive in New Zealand. So therefore the risk tolerance around those different testing methodologies can be a little bit more lenient than for those coming from Australia, when, really, it’s our last line of defence before they get to New Zealand and are out in the community in New Zealand. So we are requiring a PCR test at that point, but I do want to acknowledge that the testing technology and the accuracy of some of those other testing methods is improving all of the time, and so we are monitoring that very closely. I wouldn’t rule out using other forms of more rapid testing at the border as one of our future interventions. We’re not at that point yet, but we are getting regular updates and regular advice on that and monitoring that very closely. Where we start to see that those more rapid test methods are more broadly available and are accurate and providing us the level of reassurance that we want, I certainly wouldn’t rule out them being used in the future.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you. Just as a follow-up, something that I know people will raise as well is, in Australia right now, the way the pre-departure tests have worked in the last month or so since we’ve had the issues with the bubble, if you rock up to a publicly funded or provided testing centre in Sydney or Victoria, for example, you can get a pre-departure test and you get a text message saying you’ve had a negative test or positive, and that is not accepted by the New Zealand Government when you turn up at the airport. And I am aware of people who have turned up with the text message saying, “I’ve got a negative test.”, but you’ve got to have the “dated report”, to use the language on the COVID-19 website. So now that we are going to be making it a mandatory requirement for everyone coming from Australia to come back to New Zealand within 72 hours, is the Government going to look at a slightly greater tolerance for text message updates, rather than the dated reports, which I understand you have to go to a private clinic for and it can be quite cumbersome to get, particularly on the weekend?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Not at this point, but what I would indicate is that we’re working very closely with the airlines, with the World Health Organization, and so on around travel passports and the ability to share this information digitally much more readily, so that includes vaccine information and testing information. I think everyone would be of the view that the sooner globally we can get to the point where we can share this information more readily without people having to carry around pieces of paper—I think we would all like to get to that point. We’re not at that point at this stage. One of the risks with text messages is that they are easily invented, and so it is more easy for people to present what appears to be a legitimate text message that isn’t.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): As a follow-up to that, has he had any communication or discussions with his state or federal counterparts in relation to Australian states or the Federal Government doing the converse—so requiring pre-departure testing from people who travel to New Zealand and go to Australia? And I suppose the follow-up to that is—which you can answer at the same time—if Australia is looking at that or he’s had an indication that Australia’s looking at that, what provision is the New Zealand Government making to allow Australians in New Zealand or New Zealanders going back from New Zealand to Australia to have a pre-departure test?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): No, we haven’t had that conversation particularly. I would, perhaps, at this point note that that’s not really the nature of the relationship. I think there is a lot of good will there. I don’t think that there’s sort of a tit for tat type of relationship there. And they would be looking at New Zealand at the moment and making decisions around the risk profile in New Zealand where there aren’t COVID-19 cases in any part of the New Zealand community at this point.

Having said that, though, I think that issue around access to pre-departure tests for other countries’ requirements, whether it’s Australia or anywhere else, is something that we are aware of. We are doing that now. Our testing is available to people travelling further afield where they’re required to get pre-departure tests, so they can do that at the moment.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister and reiterate the Green Party’s support following the health advice and, obviously, all New Zealanders keeping vigilant, keeping up good hygiene practices, wearing masks when appropriate. I just wanted to ask the Minister if he or Cabinet had requested any analysis or advice on whether the benefits of the trans-Tasman bubble do outweigh the risks, particularly considering that a number of states and major cities have had some community spread since we opened the bubble, have had to go into lockdown, and that has created a lot of uncertainty for travel backwards and forwards.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Overall, I think the economic benefit to New Zealanders of having Australians coming here and spending their money here is quite a significant one. We are not seeing the volume of Australians coming to New Zealand post-bubble as we were before COVID-19 lockdown. It’s not even close to the sorts of numbers that we were seeing before, but I think for some of our industries, particularly in tourist hotspots, it has been a bit of a lifeline for them. I think the risk would be if we saw COVID-19 take off in any part of the country and we had to do more dramatic lockdowns. That’s something that we’re acutely aware of. That’s one of the reasons why we made a quick decision around Wellington, to make sure we minimise that risk as much as possible, and why we also made the quick decisions around the pause across the border in terms of trans-Tasman for a period while we get further information and get that extra pre-departure layer of assurance in place.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Just wondering if there’s been any specific quantification of economic benefits, whether they actually have flown through from the bubble, and just noting that, obviously, when we have to go into a lockdown and where casual contacts are required to isolate for potentially two weeks following exposure, such as happened in the previous week—have those been looked at in any detail?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Yes, they have been, but I don’t have access to those, so probably not the right Minister to ask that question of.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just had to chuckle briefly at the Minister referring to the volume of Australians coming across the Tasman being “lower than expected”. I think he must have meant “the number of Australians”—we don’t want to commodify our cousins across the Ditch into some sort of continuous amount to be measured in volume.

This will be something that many New Zealanders will be very much relieved for a number of reasons: in Wellington people will be relieved that they can return to alert level 1, particularly the hospitality industry who find it easy to open but not make money. New Zealanders up and down the country, and having been in Auckland over the weekend, will be relieved that we have dodged a bullet, that we’ve had a person in New Zealand with the Delta variant of COVID-19 but it has not spread the way that we might have expected. Indeed, New Zealand, I think, is in an extraordinarily fortunate position; we say Australia’s the lucky country—how many potential outbreaks have we had now with an individual who seemed to be infectious and yet failed to infect even those very close to them, let alone many people beyond it?

It’s also been very heartening to see the Government take an approach that is closer to the risk proportionate response that this country—in fact, all countries are going to need as COVID becomes more complex, as the world reopens and reconnects. The way that the Government has chosen to differentiate between Australian states represents a large advance on the way that they were talking about different Australian states, even just earlier this year. That has to be exceedingly welcome.

But then we turn to the Government’s response to this potential outbreak, and it is so revealing that the Government’s basic ability to respond still relies on locking down, locking ’em out, and hoping for a good dose of luck. When it came to testing, we didn’t see anything different, anything better or faster. In fact, it seemed like they were moving in slow motion in the early days, stacking up and standing up the testing capability required. When it came to contact tracing, the Minister is now reporting that 93 percent of contact tracing has been done end-to-end, but that appears to be over about six days. The funny thing is, when I asked him in his ministerial statement last week was he confident that the contact tracing regime would meet Ayesha Verrall’s gold standard of 80 percent, he would not express confidence in them. I wonder if he will now, having seen the results come through. Or will he claim that the results are really as good as supposed—did they really occur in just four days?

Then you get to the greatest vulnerability of all, which is what has hampered Australia as well, to be sure, but the almost total lack of vaccination. The fact that we who were once at the front of the queue now find ourselves at the bottom of the OECD. Then there’s the complacency around digital contact tracing: 415,000 scans was the nadir for scanning just last week; now it’s popped up a bit because there’s been a scare. The Government will no doubt talk about complacency, but it’s difficult to escape the conclusion that they have been affected by it in their own response too.

The best that can come out of this scare is that it’s a wake-up call for the Government, and it is finally driven to take on some of the ideas that have been recommended to them time and time again—by ACT and others since last July—that we need to start getting better at managing risk. We need to start augmenting our response with better technology. We need an epidemic response unit that’s multi-disciplinary and can actually work with business as partners. Those are the kinds of innovations that we need as the COVID world gets more complex, and I really hope that the Minister is about to stand up and say that what’s just happened is not good enough, we need to be better next time. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): I seek leave of the House to give a short call on behalf of Te Paati Māori on this ministerial statement.

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

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER: Thank you. My thanks to the House. Last week, we acknowledged the decision to move Wellington into level 2. We supported this as we also support the extension of that into this week. However, we note tangata whenua know that during pandemics we are often those who bear the brunt of viruses. We therefore have a few questions to the Minister around how we prevent this and improve the situation for the future.

Dr Rawiri Jansen predicted that we would have a low uptake of Māori getting vaccinated due to a range of factors, including age eligibility. What is being done to address this and who in Government is overseeing it? What is the Minister doing to secure more vaccines more quickly so that we are not so vulnerable as a nation? Despite promises made over many months, we’ve yet to see either a Māori pandemic response plan or a full Māori vaccination plan released by the Government. Why is this and when can we expect to see these released? Does the Minister think it’s acceptable and in line with the Crown’s obligations as Te Tiriti partner that after 16 months they still haven’t released a comprehensive Māori pandemic response plan? Kia ora.

SPEAKER: Has the member finished?

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER: Yes.

SPEAKER: The Hon Chris Hipkins in reply.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): I was interested in David Seymour’s comments—that he didn’t suggest that we should adopt the risk management approach of Taiwan and Singapore, which has previously been the argument that he’s put forward in this House. Both of those countries, of course, have experienced outbreaks and have had to impose restrictions. I think it is wrong for David Seymour to continue to assert that our success in containing COVID-19 is down to luck. It is absolutely not. In fact, it is the hard work of the people working at our border and in our public health units, and I think all New Zealanders are grateful to them for their contribution.

In terms of our contact tracing indicators, I would point out that one of the reasons Dr Verrall and I have been actively discussing this is the original indicators were based on the notion that there could be 15 to 20 contacts per COVID-19 case. In this particular case we have now contact traced 2,609 potential close or casual contacts for one single case. That is not what the performance metrics were designed to be based on when that report was first adopted.

In terms of the vaccination of Māori—and I thank the Māori Party for their questions—around 10 percent of our vaccine doses so far have gone to Māori. The supply of vaccines is constrained. We are getting bigger supplies of vaccines arriving in the country from next week onwards, but at this point supply is still very constrained. We are working very closely with Māori health providers to make sure we’re getting out there in amongst those communities.

Actually, in communities with high concentrations of Māori, and I think particularly of Northland and the Tai Rāwhiti areas, there has been a whānau-based and a community-wide approach taken, which is actually, I think, reflected in the fact that we’ve still got a reasonable number of group 4 people who are not yet eligible being vaccinated. That’s often happening in those communities where they are taking that kind of more clusters—you know, doing whole communities at the same time. That will be capturing some of those Māori communities, but there’s no question there is more work to be done there and we are seeing really good shifts in the attitude of Māori and Pacific communities where vaccine hesitancy has been higher. We are seeing that really coming down and I think that’s really encouraging.

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

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

SPEAKER: No bills have been introduced.

A petition has been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

CLERK: Petition of Jenny McArdle requesting that the House pass legislation to permit a wider range of entities and trainers to be accredited to train and certify Disability Assist Dogs, and provide a route for owner-trained dogs to be certified as Disability Assist Dogs, with a centralised registration database for certified dogs.

SPEAKER: That petition stands referred to the Petitions Committee.

Ministers have delivered papers.

CLERK:

Plant and Food Research, Ltd. Statement of Corporate Intent 2021-22

New Zealand Forest Research Institute, Ltd., trading as Scion, Statement of Corporate Intent 2021-22

Callaghan Innovation, Statement of Performance Expectations 2021-22

Accreditation Council, Statement of Performance Expectations for the year ended 30 June 2022

Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Statement of Intent 2021-2024

Natural and Built Environments Bill, parliamentary paper on the exposure draft

Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission:

Statement of Intent 2020-2024

Statement of Performance Expectations 2020-2021.

SPEAKER: I table the report of the Controller and Auditor-General entitled Insights into local government: 2020. Those papers are published under the authority of the House.

Select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.

CLERK:

Report of the Education and Workforce Committee on Education and Training (Grants—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill

report of the Health Committee on the petitions of Stephan Bosman and David Enright: Reinstate a rescue helicopter based in Whitianga.

SPEAKER: The bill is set down for second reading.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Finance

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

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): The Government’s efforts to secure the recovery have been reflected in the latest employment figures. Statistics New Zealand reported that seasonally adjusted filled jobs grew 0.4 percent in May 2021 compared with a month earlier. The number of jobs is now 0.6 percent above its pre-COVID peak. On an annual basis, the biggest gains have been in the health, social assistance, and construction sectors. The sectors that had been affected by the closure of the border in response to COVID such as hospitality are still down on pre-COVID levels. Westpac bank commented that “The overall demand for labour is strong at the moment, as demonstrated by the sharp rise in job advertisements in recent months. The monthly employment indicator, along with the decline in Jobseeker Benefit payments, suggests that those positions are being filled.” The Government is playing its part in supporting businesses and workers, including through Budget 2021 boosting skills and training initiatives to allow people to transition more easily into different types of work.

Barbara Edmonds: What other reports has he seen on the economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, the primary sector is supporting the recovery strongly, and the latest Rabobank Rural Confidence Survey found farmer confidence rose for the third consecutive quarter, to remain in positive territory. The number of optimists outnumbered pessimists, with a net 10 percent of farmers expecting the rural economy to improve in the next 12 months, mainly due to rising prices for New Zealand’s agricultural products. Farmers’ expectations about their own farm performance also rose, increasing to a net 16-plus percent from 7 percent in the previous quarter.

Hon David Bennett: Nothing about the Government, though.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The optimists are on the farms, Mr Bennett; clearly, not on that side of the House. Rabobank commented that prices for New Zealand’s key agriculture exports are expected to remain strong, moving into the second half of the year. Farmers do continue to operate in a volatile market, and growing outbreaks of COVID around the world mean that the environment does remain uncertain.

Barbara Edmonds: What is the Government doing in response to the economic impact of the alert level rise?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The short-term absence payment and the COVID-19 leave support scheme remain in place for the businesses and workers at whatever level New Zealand is at. The extension of the alert level in the Wellington region to alert level 2 has meant that eligible businesses nationwide can now take up the resurgence support payment. In order to qualify for the payment, businesses must show a 30 percent drop in revenue over a seven-day period. The payment includes a core per-business rate of $1,500, plus $400 per employee, up to a total of 50 full-time equivalents. That is a maximum payment of $21,500. Sole traders can receive a payment of up to $1,900. Businesses will be able to apply for this resurgence support payment from 8 a.m. this Thursday via the Inland Revenue website.

Question No. 2—Prime Minister

2. 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): Yes, and I include in that our response to COVID-19, that includes a swift move to alert level 2 for the Wellington region and responsive contact testing and tracing. With over 12,000 negative tests in the greater Wellington region, and successive days of negative waste-water tests across various sites, we have a level of assurance that allows Wellington to return to alert level 1 this evening. We ask, however, that people continue to stay home and get a test if they have cold- or flu-like symptoms, and this remains critical to our ongoing vigilance against COVID. I also stand by our decisions to move swiftly to pause quarantine-free travel with Australia over the weekend, in response to increasing cases across a number of Australian states. And I also stand by this Government’s decision to deliver the Pfizer vaccine, with over a million doses administered to date. COVID-19 remains the most significant risk to New Zealand. This Government will continue to make the prompt decisions needed to keep our country safe.

Hon Judith Collins: What is her definition of “hate speech”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: It’s set out in the provisions of the proposals that we’ve been debating over the last few days. It includes, for instance, intentionally inciting, stirring up, or maintaining hatred. So it’s not just enough to have an opinion that someone considers to be abusive or threatening; there must be the intention to incite. I point to the fact that the proposals are contained in a discussion document called “Proposals against incitement …”—which is critical. The second point I’d make is that we already have extreme-speech or hate-speech provisions in New Zealand. We’ve had them for the last 50 years. They were implemented by a National Government. However, at the moment, they only apply to issues around race and ethnicity. So, substantively, the proposal is whether they should be expanded to different groups. I welcome the Opposition’s views on that matter.

Hon Judith Collins: What is the threshold for inciting hatred in her hate-speech law changes?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member will see, if she has read the chapters from the royal commission in particular—

Hon Judith Collins: I have.

Chris Bishop: She has.

Hon Judith Collins: I have.

SPEAKER: Order! Order!

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —that it gives some commentary around the existing law as it stands. And it points out that we’ve had one successful prosecution, and on those that have not been successful, the test around incitement has not been met. And you’ll see that in the proposals by the royal commission, which we have mirrored in the discussion document, seek, actually, to “more narrowly express than the current section of the law does”. So the claim that somehow this widens or lowers the threshold, I would argue, is not correct. And the royal commission itself is of the view that it would be more narrowly expressed than the current provisions. That is, in particular, because the current provisions refer to hostility, ill will, contempt, and ridicule; they have replaced that word with “hatred” alongside the requirement to improve intentional incitement.

Hon Judith Collins: Does she consider the potential speech crimes more serious than assault on a child? If not, why is she proposing a longer maximum prison sentence for the speech crime?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: So the view of the royal commission was that the current penalties were not sufficient. And the Ministry of Justice, in canvassing other like-minded international jurisdictions who had similar provisions, was, likewise, that the current penalties were not sufficient. So the proposal includes three years. I would point out that in the UK a similar provision attracts a penalty of seven years. If the member is of the view that the criminal penalty is too high, I would welcome a submission from any member of this House. Ultimately, I want these provisions to last as long as the last provisions, which are broadly similar and were introduced 50 years ago. So if the member would like to submit, I welcome that. I would point out that, at the moment, the member’s critique of these proposals actually demonstrate that she doesn’t support the current law, and so I would seek some clarity from the members on that, because this is seeking to narrow some of these provisions. If it’s simply that the member does not believe they should be expanded to people based on religious grounds, by all means take that view, but I would be interested in whether or not you currently support the existing law as well.

Hon Judith Collins: Does she consider her hate-speech law changes to be in line with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference”, and why?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I would. In fact, again, the royal commission also traverses the different international obligations that New Zealand has and takes the view that the as-expressed provisions here are in keeping with that. They state, “There is a strong tradition in New Zealand (as in many … countries) that religious belief systems are open to debate, and that this can be rigorous.” However, their view is that that is not without limits. And our existing law covers that, too. I would also make the point that the member herself seems to believe that freedom of expression is not without limits. I supported the Harmful Digital Communications Bill. That currently creates a criminal penalty for anyone who uses communication that is offensive or indecent, for example, and attracts a penalty of up to three months of imprisonment. That member introduced that bill. So that suggests to me that the member herself does not view freedom of expression as being without limitation.

Hon Judith Collins: Is she concerned that her Minister of Justice is not adequately informed about the proposals and does not have a thorough enough understanding of civil and criminal law?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No.

Hon Judith Collins: Is she concerned that she doesn’t have a thorough understanding of civil and criminal law, nor of her own proposals, as she showed yesterday on television?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No, but what I can say to the member is at least I’m consistent on my views. Hers seem to have changed rapidly over the period of being Minister of Justice and now being the Leader of the Opposition.

Question No. 3—Energy and Resources

3. GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth) to the Minister of Energy and Resources: What steps is the Government taking to strengthen the decommissioning regime of oil and gas fields in New Zealand?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): We’re moving to reduce the risks to taxpayers of having to pick up the tab of decommissioning petroleum fuel exploration and mining activities, through the introduction of the Crown Minerals (Decommissioning and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. After the Tui oil fields owner, Tamarind, went into receivership and liquidation in December 2019, the responsibility for decommissioning the Tui oil field fell to the Crown and to the taxpayer. We made changes in 2019 to close the loopholes that allowed a poorly resourced company like Tamarind to buy a New Zealand asset. This latest bill includes provisions to further strengthen the petroleum sector’s financial and legal responsibility for decommissioning.

Glen Bennett: What penalties will there be for failing to fund and carry out decommissioning?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: The bill contains an explicit obligation on petroleum permit and licence holders to carry out and to fund decommissioning. Failure to fulfil the obligation will result in a civil pecuniary or criminal penalty, depending on the circumstances, which could be a fine of up to $500,000 for an individual, including directors, and $10 million for a body corporate.

Glen Bennett: And how will the bill increase the Government’s ability to monitor decommissioning liabilities?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: The bill provides the Government with more powers to carry out more effective monitoring. It is designed to enable us to build a more accurate picture of a permit holder’s decommissioning liabilities and the financial plans in place to meet these. A permit holder’s financial position can change, and better monitoring means that we can work with permit holders and better understand current, or anticipate emerging, risks.

Question No. 4—Justice

4. Hon SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) to the Minister of Justice: Does he stand by all of his statements and policies on his proposed hate speech law changes?

Hon Grant Robertson: Free speech for Simon!

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Justice): Yes, because they are informed by the royal commission of inquiry. I stand by the approach the Government is taking to respond to the recommendations of the royal commission, because we are taking the proposals and giving New Zealanders the opportunity to have a say on them. The member is well aware that there are vigorously held views on the issue, and those views should be fully expressed to inform the Government’s further deliberations on the issue. Given the strength of feeling, it is important for the member to note that the proposed changes do not lower the existing high bar for something being considered hate speech. The threshold for incitement remains as high as it has been since 1971, when the National Government of the time put the regime under the Race Relations Act and when a subsequent National Government consolidated the provisions of the Human Rights Act. What we are asking the public for feedback on is whether more groups beyond race, nationality, and ethnicity should be protected under these provisions, also whether we should strengthen the penalties for inciting hatred against these groups, and refining and modernising the language and the wording of the offence provisions.

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Before we do that—I didn’t want to interrupt the Minister while he was replying, but there was a clearly out of order interjection from the Deputy Prime Minister, who will withdraw and apologise.

Hon Grant Robertson: I withdraw and apologise.

Hon Simon Bridges: Hasn’t he in fact set the legal tests or bars for criminal and civil liability much lower than incitement to violence so that, potentially, many more New Zealanders will be captured than would otherwise have been the case?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: No.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does he accept that by setting those legal bars at what is in his document merely insulting and what is merely incitement to discriminate, off-colour jokes about, say, ethnicity or sexuality may potentially land an ill-considered Kiwi in court, and does he really seek to penalise that?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: The member is misinterpreting the changes that are proposed by the Government. I will remind him of comments made by the royal commission where they said, “The language of hatred and calls for violence”—that came about from the royal commission after the March 15 attacks—“that we propose would catch only extreme speech. We do not see the reframed offence as engaged by microaggressions, and so on. Nor would it be [the] mechanism for criminalising the vigorous expression of opinion on controversial issues”.

Hon Simon Bridges: Would an off-colour joke about, say, Israel Folau, a Christian, or Laurel Hubbard, a member of the transgender community, under his proposals potentially see someone penalised civilly or criminally in court, with huge consequences for them?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Every case is different, but I will remind the member of the proposed changes around the four elements that are needed for incitement of hate speech provisions within the provisions to be a criminal offence: first, the intent to intentionally incite, stir up, maintain, or normalise hatred towards; second, a specific group that is protected under the Human Rights Act; and, third, the method, through threatening, abusive, or insulting communications, including inciting violence—and it can be done any method of communication, including electronic. That is not the intent of the proposal—to talk about the kinds of cases that the member has outlined.

Hon Simon Bridges: How can he say his proposals would only penalise “at the extreme end of the spectrum” when mere insults or discriminating speech that is treating a group differently to others would be captured, and isn’t he opening up an Orwellian Pandora’s box that we as New Zealanders have generally been smart enough to steer clear of to date?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: The member might be smart enough to actually read the discussion document. I would reiterate for the member and those who oppose the changes that came out of the royal commission about the comments from the royal commission: “The language of hatred and of calls for violence that we propose would catch only extreme speech. We do not see the reframed offence as engaged by microaggressions, and so on. Nor would it be a mechanism for criminalising the vigorous expression of opinion on controversial issues”. That is the approach that the Government is taking, and I welcome the member’s submission to the discussion document.

Question No. 5—Finance

5. Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) to the Minister of Finance: Does he agree with the Secretary to the Treasury that “with debt servicing costs at historically low levels, there is greater headroom for high-quality investments”; if so, will the Government increase “high-quality spending to tackle longstanding challenges”?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Yes, and we have already increased spending in the areas noted by the said Treasury Secretary in her speech. I’ve also flagged that these issues will be the focus of increased spending in future Budgets.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Has the Treasury advised him to spend more than what they’ve already committed to on longstanding challenges like climate change, inequality, and the housing crisis?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: It possibly won’t surprise the member that the answer to that question is no.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Why is he equally balancing keeping a lid on debt with extra spending on addressing climate change and inequality, when the Secretary to the Treasury says it is “important not to have an excessive focus on debt levels as an end objective in and of themselves”?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Because it remains an important balance for New Zealand to look at the long-term impacts of all of our policies. That includes the level of debt we have, but, equally, it includes the level of investment that we need to be making in areas like infrastructure or child wellbeing and so on. So making sure we get a balance right about that doesn’t contradict the statement of the Treasury Secretary.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: When he said, “We did not build enough houses in New Zealand over the last 10 to 15 years.”, does he consider that a narrow focus on debt limits by successive Governments is partly to blame for a lack of public housing supply?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What I meant by that was exactly what I said. I think that it is important that we use the Government’s balance sheet to the extent that it is responsible and possible to be able to help us build houses. We have done that, including by increasing Kāinga Ora’s borrowing limits but also by investing across the board in things such as the Housing Infrastructure Fund.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Does he agree that the Government would be able to pay nurses and teachers more and properly fund early childhood education if there was less of a focus on debt levels as an end objective in and of themselves at this time?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, I guess it’s the premise of the question that I’ve got issue with. Those debt objectives for me as the Minister of Finance are part of the long-term work that we need to do to ensure the wellbeing of New Zealanders. I agree they are not an end in themselves. They are part of what we are trying to do in terms of improving New Zealanders’ wellbeing. The speech that the member quoted from in her primary question I think is an important one by the Treasury Secretary. It echoes my comments prior to the Budget that it is important that we have a conversation about debt, about appropriate debt levels, about what they mean for our investment in long-term goods for New Zealand, such as infrastructure and wellbeing. I welcome the conversation about that.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Will his Government amend the Public Finance Act to remove the bias in that legislation towards lowering debt as an end objective in and of itself and against spending on long-term challenges like climate change and housing?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The member well knows that we have a Public Finance Act reform process under way. At the moment that does not include a specific provision, as she has just articulated. But the conversation that the Treasury Secretary and myself have both begun is about talking about the place of debt targets and where debt sits in our overall work. What I would make sure that I assure the member, though, is I continue to believe that it is important for New Zealand to manage carefully its debt levels. We are a small country. We are prone to natural disasters. We often face the severe impacts of other financial shocks and so on. But I do think there is a valid conversation to be had about the place of public debt and how it supports New Zealand’s resilience and wellbeing.

Question No. 6—Social Development and Employment

6. ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: What changes to social development and employment policies come into effect on 1 July 2021?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): From 1 July, main benefits will increase by $20. This is the first stage of Budget 2021 increases, which will see weekly main benefit rates increase by between $32 and $55 by April next year. These benefit increases will mean around 355,000 families and individuals will be better off. These increases build on the other significant changes we have made to the welfare system since 2017.

Angie Warren-Clark: What other policies come into effect on 1 July?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Mr Speaker, 1 July also marks the reinstatement of the training incentive allowance. This will help sole parents on benefits, as well as carers and disabled people receiving the supported living payment, to gain higher-level qualifications and improve their future job prospects. The training incentive allowance will be expanded to include qualifications at levels 4 to 7 on the New Zealand Qualifications Authority framework, which includes, of course, degree-level study. This important change will support around 16,000 people to upskill over the next four years. Not only is this good for individuals, it is good for their whānau, communities, and the economy as well.

Angie Warren-Clark: What changes to childcare assistance come into effect from 1 July?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: From 1 July, supplementary payments, such as the accommodation supplement and temporary additional support, will no longer be considered as income when assessing people’s eligibility for childcare assistance. The immediate impact will be that 2,100 people will be eligible for more childcare assistance. It’s important to note that on 1 April 2022, we will be making further improvements to childcare assistance, by indexing income thresholds to annual average wage growth. This was stopped in 2010, and has meant that, over time, less people have been eligible for childcare assistance. Out Of School Care and Recreation and childcare assistance play a vital role in supporting parents to gain and maintain employment.

Question No. 7—Prime Minister

7. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all of her Government’s statements and policies?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes, particularly the Government’s decision to phase out hard-to-recycle food and drink packaging made from PVC and polystyrene and some degradable plastic products and some single-use plastic items, including drink straws, cotton buds, single-use produce bags, cutlery, plates, bowls, straws, and fruit labels by July 2025. New Zealanders generate some of the highest amounts of waste in the OECD, and have asked for urgent change in how we use plastic, and particularly amongst our younger generation, it’s one of the most frequent subjects of letter writing from children that I receive. We’ve made good progress over the past three years, and there is strong public and business support for the 2019 plastic bag ban, that has meant over 1 billion fewer plastic bags have ended up in landfills or the ocean. Investing in reducing and avoiding waste is a key part of our moves to protect the environment, but also adds to our economic recovery as well.

David Seymour: Does she stand by her statement made on the AM Show yesterday morning in relation to her Government’s proposed hate speech laws, “It’s about inciting violence.”, and, if so, how does she reconcile that with the wording Cabinet agreed to on 7 December last year that hate speech would be about stirring up, maintaining, or normalising hatred through insulting, threatening, or abusive communications?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: In the same way that the proposals we’ve put forward come from the royal commission, who themselves state, “The language of hatred and calls for violence that we propose would catch only extreme speech. We do not see the reframed offence as engaged by microaggressions, and so on. Nor would it be a mechanism for criminalising the vigorous expression of opinion on controversial issues, such as gender identity or immigration.” The example that was put to me in that interview was about simply just someone expressing an opinion. The point I was making was that the critical element of incitement needs to be included, in the same way it is in our current law.

David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister then stand by her statement in the same interview, “The reason we’re having this debate is because the royal commission of inquiry said to the New Zealand Government, ‘You need to include religion.’ ”; and, if so, how does she reconcile that statement with the fact that the Government announced it would introduce hate speech laws in 2019, the Labour Party campaigned on it in October 2020, and the royal commission only reported back in November 2020?

SPEAKER: The Prime Minister can reply to one of the four questions.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The language around the provisions in the law come directly from the royal commission, and you can see that, because, essentially, the exact proposals they have made are in the wording that is in the discussion document. The issue over who the groups of protected persons for whom extreme and hate speech should be applied to has been debated rigorously for a number of years. The Human Rights Commission, at various points, have suggested that religion should be included, at various points, and members of our Rainbow community have at various points argued that they should be included as well. So the inclusion of different groups has long been debated, and widening has been supported by us. The wording of the changes we’re discussing now came directly from the royal commission, and that is what is in the discussion document. Indeed, Cabinet only made decisions on the wording after the report was received.

David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister stand by her statement in the interview from Newshub Nation that implied that political opinion was included—it is not—and, if so, how does she reconcile that statement with the fact that the discussion document calls for all grounds of prohibited discrimination from the Human Rights Act to be brought into the new law, and section 23J of the Human Rights Act says political opinion is a protected ground of discrimination?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Quite simply, the discussion document, which asked, “What will the proposals do?”—it states, “Groups experience hateful speech based on other grounds as well, including their sex, gender (including gender identity), religious belief, disability, or sexual orientation.” The Government considers that other groups that experience hate speech could also be protected by the law, and we’re interested in those views. Political opinion was previously included in that list. Cabinet removed it from that list and instead wanted the open question for the public of which groups should be included. There is a Cabinet minute that is in the public domain now that demonstrates that we explicitly removed it. But, again, we’ve no qualms around the public sharing their opinion on this. There will be some who believe, perhaps, that we should have protections for political opinion. We come at it from a New Zealand perspective, in New Zealand. We feel that, by and large, political opinion is well protected, but we also want to make sure that we’re seen to preserve the freedom of speech around political opinion, so our starting point was not to include it. There will be some in this country who have had a very different experience—perhaps refugees who have experienced persecution for political opinion. These are all things we hope will come through in the discussion document. We are very open-minded on it, but our starting point was no.

David Seymour: So should the House take from that that the Prime Minister is open to including political opinion in prohibited grounds under her hate speech law?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: So, again, for any group that anyone may argue should be included, the threshold remains extremely high, as set out by the royal commission, and as is already set out in our existing law. We should be clear in this House whether or not members are actually debating whether they want to see a repeal of our existing law, because this proposal narrows it. So we had a starting point, not to include political opinion, but if the public have a different view, they are free to put it to us. But, again, the bar is still very high when it comes to meeting the threshold for what would be considered “extreme speech”, or what others might call “hate speech”.

David Seymour: How should police decide when to prosecute, courts decide when to convict, and citizens decide how to follow this proposed law when the Prime Minister who proposed it has had her own understanding described as “completely and utterly wrong” by Tova O’Brien, and having shown that she does not understand them by Audrey Young?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I refute the premise of that question.

David Seymour: When will the Prime Minister accept that this is a train wreck trampling on the fundamental foundations of a free society that is free speech and dump this silly proposal?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I totally disagree with the member. Again, we should reflect on why we are having this debate. New Zealand experienced a horrific attack when March 15 occurred. The royal commission of inquiry looked at some of the wider activity that sat around that event and gave us very clear direction on their view as to how our law should change to include religion alongside our existing provisions that include race and ethnicity. The member is trying to purport that what we have is a baseline of nothing. That is not true. There are already limitations to expression. The threshold to those limitations happens to be very high, and we are not proposing to lower it.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Does the Prime Minister agree that so called “flushable” wet wipes made of plastic fibres cause environmental damage when they create fatbergs in sewerage pipes, and does she support action faster than 2025 to phase them out?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I do agree this is an issue, and this is something I know Minister Parker is particularly focused on as well. There are some areas where, in particular, we are looking to try and hasten the response by ensuring we have alternatives in the market as well. But in the meantime, the simple message is: none of these things should be flushed. That is a big part of the problem, people need to understand what havoc it wreaks when they are, and we also need to try and find alternatives for families as well.

Question No. 8—Transport

8. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Transport: What advice, if any, has he received on the impact of the Clean Car Programme on the price and supply of vehicles?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): I’ve received a range of advice on that matter—including this, specifically on the Clean Car Standard: “a meta-analysis of CO2 standards in OECD and non-OECD countries suggest they do not necessarily lead to noticeable price increases.” The ministry’s projections expect the price of electric vehicles and petrol hybrids to fall over the period. The risk of supply constraints and price rises is also mitigated by the design of the standard. Its design has been substantially modified from the standard that was consulted upon.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Has he seen reports that since the announcement of the Clean Car Subsidy, the price of a used Nissan Leaf at a Japanese auction house has increased by $3,000 in only three days? And does he agree that, based on this, the subsidy is, simply, going offshore?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I’ve seen a report which makes reference to that, but, within the same report, I have seen comment from people in the sector who have a different view on the issues around price and supply. The reality is that a range of countries around the world have used a discount scheme similar to the Clean Car Discount and it has resulted in lower prices for cleaner vehicles for their consumers. And we expect the same in New Zealand.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: So does he believe that a 20 percent increase in the price of a vehicle only three days after an announcement affecting that market is a coincidence?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I think the member is extrapolating significantly from one comment in an article noting that the discount has not, in fact, come into account, so it would be impossible to say exactly what the price implication was for Kiwi consumers.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Is he aware that vehicle importers warned his officials that this was a likely consequence of the rebate scheme, and was this advice ignored?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: No, the advice wasn’t ignored; in fact, the scheme has been substantially supported by the vehicle sector. The AA and the Motor Industry Association have both come out in support of the scheme. And I quote directly from David Crawford, who said, “We are delighted that at last the Government has confirmed details of [a clean car incentive scheme].”—that’s David Crawford from the Motor Industry Association.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Will he adjust his policy if it’s apparent that people who need utes for work are, simply, being taxed and boosting the economy of Japan?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: We fully expect that the Clean Car Discount will allow more Kiwis to buy cleaner vehicles. That is what it is designed to do and that’s what we expect it to do, based on the international evidence.

Question No. 9—Environment

9. RACHEL BROOKING (Labour) to the Minister for the Environment: What announcements has the Government made regarding reform of the resource management system?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Today, the Government released an exposure draft of core provisions of the proposed law to replace the Resource Management Act (RMA). I intend to refer this draft and the accompanying parliamentary paper that has been tabled in the House to the Environment Committee for consideration. The Natural and Built Environments Act (NBA) covers land use and environmental protection. It will be the primary replacement for the RMA, which the Government promised at the election to repeal and replace. The proposed Strategic Planning Act will sit above the NBA to develop long-term regional spatial strategies. Improving our planning system is a priority for the Government. The current system takes too long, costs too much, has not adequately protected the environment, nor sufficiently enabled development like housing.

Rachel Brooking: How will the NBA protect the environment and support development?

Hon DAVID PARKER: A new national planning framework will provide clear direction on how the system is implemented. Its integrated provisions will include mandatory environmental limits to avoid irreversible harm to the environment. These will include limits relating to fresh water, coastal waters, estuaries, air, soil, and biodiversity. Development will be better enabled within these environmental limits. The national planning framework will, for the first time, include positive outcomes for both housing and infrastructure.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Supplementary.

SPEAKER: The Hon Eugenie Sage—I’d just say normally I would have taken the member for another one so we don’t break up the continuity.

Hon Eugenie Sage: My apologies. Is the Minister considering a public consultation process for developing the national planning framework which uses a board of inquiry - style process; if not, why not?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Those decisions have not yet been taken. In terms of the transition into the national planning framework of existing national direction through national planning standards and environmental standards, that’s largely a drafting exercise. I also think that it’s essential that the pro-infrastructure - and housing parts of the national planning framework be drafted before the new system comes into effect. The process that will be used for consideration of those is not decided yet. My own view is that we need to have more flexibility for the decision-making bodies to adopt processes that are proportionate to the issues that are before them, rather than the more complex processes which are always required currently.

Rachel Brooking: How will the new resource management system be more efficient and effective?

Hon DAVID PARKER: While the RMA is not the sole cause of the housing crisis, planning rules are partly to blame. We are creating a system that will be less complex, take less time to administer, and, therefore, will be easier for participants to navigate. The exposure draft proposes that the more than 100 existing plans be consolidated to around 14. The Strategic Planning Act would sit above the NBA to develop long-term regional spatial strategies to integrate decisions under the land transport management, local government, and climate change response Acts. NBA plans will help implement them. The intention is for communities to work together to produce one NBA plan for each region, and the resultant system will be easier and more cost-effective for users to use.

Rachel Brooking: What are the next steps in the process of reforming the RMA?

Hon DAVID PARKER: This evening, I’ll seek leave of the House to refer the parliamentary paper that’s been tabled and an exposure draft of the core parts of the bill to the Environment Committee for a select committee inquiry. This three-month inquiry is intended to test and improve the contents of these core parts of the bill before it goes into the formal parliamentary process. I’m advised this select committee process into an exposure draft is the first of its kind, enabled by recent changes to the Standing Orders, and it provides an open process for the public and the wider Parliament to have an early say on this key legislation. During the period of the inquiry, the Government will continue to work on other elements of the NBA not included in the exposure draft, along with the Strategic Planning Act. There will then be a second and full select committee process when both bills are introduced to Parliament next year.

Question No. 10—COVID-19 Response

10. CHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Minister for COVID-19 Response: What percentage of people in each of the Government’s COVID-19 vaccine subgroups have not received at least one COVID-19 vaccination, and is he satisfied with the vaccine roll-out in New Zealand?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): As I indicated to the member last week, the number of people in each group is not a static number, so I’m unable to provide percentages on who’s not received a vaccine from each subgroup, but I can provide the number of doses delivered across each of those groups. Across groups 1A and B, we’ve provided 55,514 first doses and 50,743 second doses. Across group 2, 385,148 people have received their first dose; 278,669 have been given a second dose. For group 3, 201,945 have received their first dose and just over 86,000 have had their second dose. Finally, for group 4, 51,500 have been given their first dose and around 19,000 have received their second dose. In answer to the second part of the member’s question, yes.

Chris Bishop: Why have 50,000 people in group 4 received their first vaccination dose when there are still thousands of border workers in group 1 who have not yet received one dose of the vaccine?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Everybody in groups 1 and 2 has had a very extensive opportunity to receive the vaccine. Therefore, if they have not received a vaccine, it will not be because they have not been offered one or had the opportunity to get one; it will be because they have not taken up that opportunity to get the vaccine. In terms of why there are people in group 4 who have received the vaccine, some of the district health boards, as has been well-canvassed, particularly when they’re dealing with smaller and more isolated communities, have taken the approach of vaccinating the entirety of the community at the same time, rather than, for example, going to a small town to do their group 3 population, and then going back to do their group 4 population later on—they’ve made the decision to do them all at once. There are also people in group 4 who were the walk-in appointments or the off-chance appointments, which DHBs have now stopped doing. In some cases they were being done that way because it was an issue of managing their inventory—they didn’t want vaccine doses to expire. Now that the shelf life of vaccine doses has been extended at regular freezing temperature from five days to basically a month, the rationale for that is no longer there, and so DHBs have stopped doing those.

Chris Bishop: In light of what he’s just said around everyone who works at the border having had a good opportunity to get a vaccine, when will the Government, if ever, move to create a simple rule, which is that if you’re working at the border, you have to have been vaccinated?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The public health rationale—the public health grounds for doing so—would not be strong enough to capture absolutely everybody that works at the border. In fact, it would be likely deemed to be an undue infringement on the rights of those people, particularly those people working at the border who are working in lower risk roles.

Chris Bishop: Why will no checks be carried out on the eligibility of bookings made via the Book My Vaccine system as to whether an individual at the time of the booking belongs to the correct age group that is being vaccinated at the time?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: In order to receive an invitation to book a vaccine through Book My Vaccine, the person would have to be eligible.

Chris Bishop: Why did an official say last week, “if people want to front up looking like a 30-year-old when we’re [only] dealing with a 65-year-old plus … I mean that’s really up to them, but we would encourage people just to stick to the plan”, and will that 30-year-old be vaccinated when they turn up, even if they’re 35 years away from actually being eligible?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I don’t know who said that—it clearly wasn’t me.

Question No. 11—Police

11. WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour—Northland) to the Minister of Police: What recent reports has she seen regarding Police’s efforts to disrupt organised crime?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister of Police): I’ve seen reports that police have met and, indeed, exceeded their target of seizing $500 million in cash and assets from organised crime in just the last four years. Gangs should not be making money out of exploiting our communities. This Government is very clear: we will not tolerate organised crime and gangs, and I want to congratulate the police on their fantastic efforts to disrupt organised crime.

Willow-Jean Prime: What impact will these seizures have on organised crime?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: Aside from taking over $500 million of ill-gotten gains out of the hands of organised crime, we know that this has a wider impact on gangs. For every one dollar restrained, $330 of crime is disrupted; for every one dollar forfeited, $350 of crime is disrupted—meaning that in the last four years alone, this Government has removed approximately $1.6 billion from the illicit economy.

Willow-Jean Prime: What other reports has the Minister seen regarding police’s efforts to disrupt organised crime?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: I’ve seen a report regarding police ongoing Operation Tauwhiro noting that, as at 18 June, police have seized $4.18 million in cash from organised crime groups, seized 715 firearms, seized 17.74 kilograms of meth, and arrested 649 people. This is truly fantastic work from our police.

Willow-Jean Prime: How is the Government continuing to support police’s efforts to disrupt organised crime?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: This Government has put a record number of police on the front line including those with a specific focus on organised crime. As a result, this investment continues to pay off. Recent weeks have seen police achieve New Zealand’s largest ever forfeiture under the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act when the High Court approved a forfeiture settlement of over $70 million.

Question No. 12—Health

12. MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri) to the Minister of Health: Why has only $13.6 million, or 3 percent, of the $438.2 million in Budgets 2018 and 2019 for 15 new mental health facilities and facility upgrade projects been spent?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): A total of $24.9 million has been spent on the 15 projects the member refers to. Of that, $13.6 million has been reimbursed to DHBs and booked against the appropriations in Budgets 2018 and 2019.

Matt Doocey: Why did the Minister say that he couldn’t understand why there was a delay in actually getting shovels in the ground when, for example, the Whakatāne mental health unit rebuild has stalled because the Bay of Plenty DHB and the Ministry of Health are in disagreement about the ministry wanting four fewer beds?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The member is incorrect in relation to his characterisation of the issues about the Whakatāne mental health unit. That unit is undergoing its usual planning and design phase and negotiations about what is expected in that regard. My comment about delays is particularly in relation to the acute mental health facilities, which are facilities which were completely neglected by the previous Government and are in urgent need of rebuild and upgrading, and the planning phase is taking longer than I would desire for something that is regarded as urgent.

Matt Doocey: Why, when the Whakatāne inpatient unit reported 108 percent occupancy rate last month alone and the Government has only spent 3 percent of funding for inpatient units, is there a disagreement over four beds holding up the building of that unit?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The member continues to be inaccurate in his characterisation of these matters. As I’ve indicated, in spite of his assertions in his primary question, more money has been spent on the 15 projects that he refers to, and in relation to any capital expenditure project in the health sector, there is a time frame. The members will know that, because the single mental health capital project that the previous Government funded—which was the upgrade to Counties Manukau—was approved in 2015 and opened for business last year. In relation to Whakatāne, that project has been approved for funding, the design and planning process is under way, and it is on-track. The standard negotiations, as part of the planning process, are in train.

Matt Doocey: Why did he say last week that he was extraordinarily frustrated that money was not flowing through fast enough when the master plan for a new 12-bed inpatient facility that was signed off by the Canterbury District Health Board and submitted to the Government in August is still waiting for approval from him 10 months later?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The projects that had been a part of the 2018 and 2019 Budgets, apart from one—and that is the Tairāwhiti mental health and addiction project—are all on-track, are all undergoing the usual time frames for planning and design, and the usual approval processes that take place, and for projects over $10 million, multiple approval stages before construction begins. Those projects are on-track.

Matt Doocey: When he told Parliament last week, “I have been the Minister of Health for…eight months, so we’ll get that correct”, was he referring to a recent Stuff article that said that former health Minister David Clark “wasted valuable years with indecision, inertia, and a refusal to take responsibility for the portfolio” and is “responsible for poor delivery of the Government’s mental health programme”?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: No.

Urgent Debates

Ransomware Attack—Waikato District Health Board

SPEAKER: I have received letters from Melissa Lee and Brooke van Velden seeking to debate under Standing Order 399 the release of sensitive information as part of a ransomware attack on the Waikato District Health Board. While the ransomware attack has been ongoing for some weeks, the release of sensitive information was reported today. This is therefore a particular case of recent occurrence for which there is ministerial responsibility. Public confidence in the health system and the confidentiality of patient information is important.

When considering an urgent debate application, the Speaker takes into account whether there are any other parliamentary means of debating the matter. When I last considered an application on this ransomware attack, I declined it as the Budget debate was set down for debate that day. If the Budget debate had not been on the Order Paper, I would have been inclined to grant the application. I consider that the new information on the ransomware attack is sufficiently urgent to put aside the business of the House today.

Ms van Velden’s application was received first and I therefore call on Brooke van Velden to move that the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance.

BROOKE VAN VELDEN (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance.

Today, we learnt that significant personal information is now available on the dark web. The information I’m referring to is coming from the ransomware cyber-attack that hit the Waikato DHB six weeks ago. The information that can be found on the dark web is patient files, correspondence, and financial information. This is of a huge concern, not only to those people who may be affected but to all New Zealanders who expect a high degree of privacy when it comes to their own personal information, and especially when that information is held by Government departments. This is an ongoing incident that has been occurring for six weeks and it has been labelled as “the biggest cyber-attack in New Zealand history.”

At the first point of the cyber-attack, the Waikato DHB went down. People who had serious cancer scares, people who are undergoing radiation therapy have had to have their treatment moved across New Zealand from the Waikato to Wellington and Tauranga. That is of huge concern not only to those patients who are undergoing serious treatment but to their whole care, for their whānau and their family, who immediately needed to move from their towns, from the care and wraparound support that they had, to a new town to receive their care. But it also is of a huge concern to those near-400,000 New Zealanders who reside in the Waikato, whose information could be at risk and found now online, when they never thought it would. So my thoughts, firstly, go to those people who have been affected—to those people who are undergoing therapy in areas where their family can’t reach out and provide that wraparound support, when they thought they could, in their moments of vulnerability, to those people whose information has been breached. This harm is going to be ongoing for a lot of people.

I think we need to ask, “What is it the Government has been doing, and what should they be doing?” I want to recognise that the Government has put in place a dedicated response team to find out more information about how this cyber-attack was able to happen. The Ministry of Health has also put in place a dedicated response team to see what they could do to improve. But I think we all need to ask the question, “Is there more that the Government could have been doing?” The answer is, simply, “Yes.”

In 2020, we had a review into the district health boards and we looked into their assets. There were some striking points of information that we need to take more note of. It said that the DHBs were lacking vital IT infrastructure, networks, and security. We had “outdated”, “not adequate … to manage increased cyber security issues.” We also had “significant risks to services from a lack of system capacity and resilience.” This should be of huge importance to all New Zealanders, to know that our DHB’s assets were inadequate.

On 30 May, the Ministry of Health reportedly abandoned an effort to secure DHB computer system upgrades, citing budget constraints. Now, the Government also has failed to follow through on its cyber-security strategy. We were supposed to have annual reports on our cyber-security in New Zealand so that we could protect ourselves from cyber-security breaches but, once again, these didn’t happen because of cited budget constraints.

So what are the Government’s priorities when it came to the Budget? The Budget constraints did not stop many, many stupid projects over these last few years, where it could have been prioritising cyber-security. If you think of the $3 billion that we spent on the Provincial Growth Fund, that $3 billion could have helped these budget constraints for the DHBs, for their cyber-security. You know, we’ve put aside a billion dollars for light rail—which everybody knows is going to be a failure—when that money could have gone to cyber-security to protect New Zealanders’ vital private information.

We’ve also had the Government prioritise billions of dollars for “fees-free”, which they themselves admit is a failure. That money could have gone to protect New Zealanders’ private information. Think about all of those things that we could have put aside to fund this vital infrastructure. Now, of course, we have the Minister of Health acknowledging that there are problems with our health system, and so we’ve got a health system reform under way, and we’ve put aside millions to do that, but we’re going and turning up the whole system without asking that question of “How do we make sure that we get the basics right first?” We need to be looking at cyber-security, infrastructure, technology, making sure that our private information held by Government departments is kept secure.

We knew that this could have happened—cyber-security isn’t new. Threats have been happening for years now, and increasing, but the Government didn’t prioritise our needs as New Zealanders. There have been a range of breaches when it comes to cyber-security, where the Government has failed. We had a Reserve Bank breach not that long ago; we’re still looking for more information about what the outcome was on that inquiry. We had the NZX go down in February; we still are looking for more information on what happened there and what the Government’s response will be. This type of crime is increasing, and I want to make this very clear: this is not something that’s come out of the blue: cyber-security threats are increasing around the world, not just in New Zealand. We’ve been seeing this happening in Ireland—their health system went down this year too.

We need to make sure that we don’t erode the trust in Government by not putting in place the priorities, that vital infrastructure that we need to make sure that our information is secure. Because, if you look at a range of priorities that this Government has decided to spend time on, this will be of a huge concern to those people. One example that springs to mind are people who have been told that their private information will be kept on a firearms register because they have access to firearms. Think of that security threat to those people, to think that the New Zealand Government and our health system can’t keep our health information secure when the Government is asking for more access from other people’s information. We need to know—we need that assurance that our information is to be kept private for our own security reasons.

It’s also not good for business confidence. Why would you bring your business here when you know that the Government might not have your back when it comes to cyber-security? You know, there are so many aspects of our society that fail when things go down; it can’t be that we can have an entire DHB that’s set aside to create health systems for an entire population of New Zealand go down. What would happen if our infrastructure—our transport sector—went down and they had a cyber-security attack? We’ve seen it with the Reserve Bank, we’ve seen it with the NZX—it could be that a whole range of our other Government agencies go down because of a cyber-attack. We need to know that the Government is prioritising this area.

So it raises the question of “Well, what could we actually do better?” We need to be making sure that, if we are having a cyber-security strategy, we’re actually reporting on it. The ACT Party would start by making sure that we’re actually writing the annual reports that this Government says it would. We need to be making sure that we’re having a culture of openness and transparency when it comes to the inquiry into how this happened and what we could do better. We need to know, as New Zealanders, that access to that information is made publicly available so other businesses, entities, other areas that work in New Zealand know what went wrong and how they can protect themselves. Because this doesn’t just happen to Government agencies, it happens to small businesses, and some of our large corporates too. We need to know why they were targeted, how they were targeted, and how we can keep our other New Zealand businesses safe.

We, as the ACT Party, believe that we need to have a better IT strategy in New Zealand, in particular for our health system. Our priority there, in the health space, is making sure that we have a national, integrated IT strategy where we are actually having a focus on keeping information safe. So we would tender out to the experts, to people who have expertise in the area of cyber-security and keeping large documents and files of information private. In asking them to do those jobs for us, making sure that we’re setting robust performance standards, including on security issues, this is how we should be looking as a country—not putting in place priorities for spending billions of dollars where we don’t need to, but getting right back to those basics so that New Zealanders know that their information is safe, that they can go about having access to healthcare systems when they need them, that they’re not going to go down. Knowing that we are keeping their information secure, but we’re looking after them first. Thank you.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): The member who’s just resumed her seat, Brooke van Velden, is right: in this day and age, cyber-security should not be an afterthought. It is absolutely integral, or it should be absolutely integral, to the design and implementation of information systems, regardless of the enterprise. The bigger the enterprise, the higher the expectation that systems will be well designed, have good architecture, and be able to protect the data that flows through it. Of course, for public organisations that have a public duty to citizens, in some cases who acquire data about individuals because those individuals are compelled to do so, arguably the duty to maintain and to protect the integrity of that data is even greater.

So these are important principles when it comes to the health system. It is important that we have systems, information systems, that protect people’s information, that protect their privacy. We are not immune, and no country and no enterprise is immune, to cyber-attacks, and, indeed, just four days before the ransomware attack on the Waikato District Health Board, a very similar, very comparable, attack took place on the whole of the Irish health system. That system, or the IT systems for the Irish health system, went down and a month later they were still not fully remediated, and it is very comparable to what has happened to just one of our district health boards.

I want to acknowledge the patients and staff whose information was held by the Waikato District Health Board who have now had that information compromised and, we now know, had that information placed on other websites and other platforms now accessible to others around the world. The Waikato District Health Board tell me that they have a system in place so that once they identify the identities of people who have had their information compromised and their privacy breached, a proactive step is taken to contact that person to let them know and, to the best extent possible, to let them know of the nature and extent of the information that has been compromised, and then to work with that person to provide the support that is necessary.

In addition to that, of course, people are entitled to go to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and exercise their rights under the Privacy Act 2020. One of the things that we did in our previous term in Government was to beef up the Privacy Act and the obligations on information holders to make sure that there are good incentives to afford proper protection. Nevertheless, even with the best protections in the world now, the reality of the world now is that cyber-security—there is no cast-iron guarantee. Cyber-attacks are a reality of the modern-day world, and the expectation is on those stewards of information systems to be taking every possible step, every proportionate and appropriate step, to provide protection to information held by organisations.

The Waikato DHB is still in the process of remediating what has happened. Many systems are back online. Patients were disrupted; their care was disrupted. The staff working for the DHB were clearly disrupted and were put under great pressure in the early days of that system, and actually in the weeks since, reverting to paper-based systems, reverting to more manual systems. But it is pleasing to see that the DHB managed to keep their patient care going. The occupancy rate for the principal Hamilton hospital was kept at around 85 percent—that is pretty standard for that hospital. They managed to continue much of the care that was required, the emergency care and even a large chunk of the elective care. The care for some patients had to be delegated out to other hospitals, to other DHBs. That was naturally a source of inconvenience, but it did mean that care could continue. Now care is gradually being returned to the Waikato DHB, and that includes many of the radiology services that were put out of action, and other services that were interrupted and disrupted are now slowly returning to normal. But there is no question: the Waikato DHB is not back to normal yet.

We have known for some time, and ours would not be the first Government—previous Government would’ve known—that the ongoing need to maintain investment in IT systems is absolutely crucial. What I think is stunning, when the history books come to be written about this time, is just the appalling neglect that the health system suffered under the previous Government. When you look at capital expenditure under the previous Government compared to what we have done, the previous Government scrimped and, frankly, nickelled and dimed capital spending for hospitals. Implementing and upgrading IT systems is a matter of capital spend, and, actually, the DHBs were starved of those resources. If you have a look at two years under the previous Government, no money at all was appropriated for capital spending. No money at all went into upgrading and renewing IT systems in our health sector. That’s how neglectful the previous Government was.

I’m very proud to be part of a Government that has put over $5 billion into capital spending in our health system. There is a major catch-up job to do, and it’s not just buildings. It’s not just the buildings that were neglected and the mental health facilities that were neglected repeatedly year after year by the previous Government; it’s the IT systems as well. Now, we’re in a situation where, across our network of 20 DHBs, we have about 120 different IT platforms operating. Somehow, we’re trying to make sense, and the front-line clinical staff and other staff are trying to make sense, of that cobbled-together network of systems. You talk to those who are on the front line, they turn up to a hospital and they tell you about just the stress that is associated simply with having to skip from one platform to another just to get the job done.

Well, that position is under review, has been for a wee while now, under this Government. That is why we appropriated this year $385 million for a serious upgrade of all of the IT systems across our DHB network. Not because we can start from scratch with a super-duper brand new, kind of, from-the-ground-up IT system for our health system—that would be a phenomenal exercise—but we can do better at upgrading what we’ve got and making what we’ve got, the systems we’ve got, talk to each other so we can get some coherence and coordination when it comes to IT systems across our health sector.

But as part of that, and as the member who has moved this motion and raised this urgent debate identifies, you can’t do that without making sure that cyber-security is woven into every aspect of the upgrade of the system that we now have to embark upon. Security of information is a fundamental foundation and principle of IT systems. It’s no longer an add-on and it can no longer be an afterthought. So the approach we are taking is to make sure that security is embedded in the design of information systems.

As I said, the growing sophistication and just the constancy of cyber-offensive activity is such there will never be a cast-iron guarantee, and, as we know of IT systems, at least of software, no software design is ever complete. It is the best it possibly can be at a point in time, and then it is constantly upgraded, renewed, patched, and repaired when that is necessary to keep it current and, hopefully, to keep it safe. But it is incumbent on system owners, system stewards, to make sure that they are doing the basics every step of the way to keep their systems going and to keep their systems safe and, ultimately, to protect the integrity of those whose data they are holding at any particular point in time.

That’s where we’re going with IT and IT security. It’s where we’re going with systems that have to be installed not only in our health system but across all Government agencies. In fact, we know, of course, that it’s not just public organisations that are victims of and subject to cyber-attacks; it’s private organisations as well. The member who has resumed her seat expresses surprise about some of these things, but the reality is there are plenty of organisations, public and private, who have still not wised up to the threat that cyber-offensive activity now poses here and around the world. The whole nature of information technology now is it doesn’t matter where you are in the world, no one is immune. Those attacks can come from any quarter of the world at any time, and so we must be prepared.

Once the Waikato DHB has remediated their systems, returned to business as usual, then there will be—because there has to be—an appropriate inquiry, an independent inquiry into the state of the system before the ransomware attack, and then the quality of their response to it. At that point, and only at that point, will we have an understanding about the extent to which that system was vulnerable, the extent to which any steps that might have been taken to provide further protection could have been taken, or whether indeed it was a DHB that had done everything expected of it and had met the appropriate standards expected of it.

We have in Government the protective security standards that apply to a whole range of activities, but also including in information technology. Those standards are promulgated throughout the public sector and organisations, and particularly organisations of significance and scale are expected to meet those standards, to comply with those standards, as they run their information systems. Most organisations have, and make sure they have installed, appropriate protective software. But it is, of course, the case that, once installed, those programmes, those platforms, also have to be maintained so that protection is maintained and a standard of protection is maintained throughout.

So whenever we suffer an attack like this, it is always timely to provide appropriate scrutiny to understand what has happened. And I am confident that once the Waikato DHB is back operating as expected, then the thoroughgoing independent inquiry that will need to take place will take place and will give us a very clear picture about what happened, why it happened, and what more could be done. Of course, as we embark on the health reforms and we prepare ourselves for a new entity that will be responsible for all of our hospitals, there will be stuff that we can learn that will apply.

But I might add, for those who worried at the time that “Gee, this was an attack on the Waikato DHB. What if there had been a nationwide organisation in place?”, well, we have nationwide organisations with nationwide systems throughout Government, the ACC, the Ministry of Social Development, and IRD. They’re all large organisations. They are duty bound to make sure that the platforms that they operate have proper protections in place for proper security, because of the extraordinary amount of personal information that they hold. We expect nothing less of every public organisation, and for those organisations holding the most sort of intimate details of our citizenry, then we expect a very high standard to be kept. That’s what we expect of those Government agencies. It’s what we expect of health organisations, public and private, and it is the standard that we must ensure applies and is complied with.

In the health sector, we’ve had major data breaches before. We had the Tū Ora Compass Health breach a couple of years ago, where the details of up to 1 million patients were compromised and an appropriate response was set up in relation to that. Obviously, that organisation, that private organisation, found then that actually you don’t take cyber-security for granted; you actually have to keep at it. That is a lesson that we know is now abroad in the health sector in New Zealand. It’s abroad in the health sector worldwide, thanks to what’s happened in Ireland, and it’ll be once again a reminder that we must always be on our mettle and do the best, because the people who suffer when we get it wrong or when systems get it wrong are citizens who put their faith in organisations to keep their data safe.

This scrutiny is welcome. It is important that this House also understands its role in ensuring that at least public agencies are supported morally and in other ways to make sure that they are maintaining the integrity of their information systems. So we eagerly await the conclusions of the inquiry into the Waikato DHB. We support the Privacy Commissioner in the work that his office will do to support those whose privacy has been breached, and we hope that all people affected by this dreadful action will get the proper support and their minds put at rest about their details.

MELISSA LEE (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to begin by saying that the Minister’s speech started off, I thought, in some ways as quite a concerted effort in trying to address the issues that were raised by myself and Ms Brooke van Velden on the exposure of personal details on the dark net as a result of the hacking that actually took place, but then he changed tack and decided to actually blame the previous National Government for the failures in the health ministry. I thought he was the Minister of Health now and it was, in fact, the Labour Government who has been in Government for the last almost four years. It seems rather ironic that he actually hasn’t answered anything in relation to the hack or what the Government is doing about it.

So on the day when I found out about the Waikato District Health Board’s massive ransomware attack, there was language that was uttered from my lips that my mother would not be very happy with, nor would my church minister. And then there was a sigh of relief, thinking that had the Government in fact implemented the whole idea of not just having one district health board but one health agency, it wouldn’t have been just the Waikato District Health Board’s reach of about 435,000 people’s information, but it would be 5 million - plus people’s information that would have been hacked. So that was, in a way, a bit of a sigh. And when today I heard the news that the information that was hacked has now been released as a result of us not paying the ransom—and I applaud the Government for not bowing down to the ransom of having to pay for that information, and I totally support that. Having said that, there were a few choice words uttered again today when I saw that it has actually been released, because it is the people living in the Waikato District Health Board’s catchment—whether they actually live in Hamilton or nearby areas—that’ll be rather concerned that not only did the ransomware hacking mean that their surgeries could not go ahead but it is their information about their health, information about their prescriptions, potentially information as to why they saw a particular health provider at the district health board’s mandate that they may not necessarily want made public for the whole world to see.

So I actually asked Minister Dr David Clark about this issue, because, according to the incoming Minister’s briefing, he is, in fact, the Minister responsible and in charge of the cyber-security policy for this Government. And yet he, basically, decided that he wasn’t responsible and said I needed to chase another Minister for that information, and the person who actually rose to his feet and spoke first today from the Government’s side is Minister Andrew Little, and he didn’t seem to have any answers. Considering the fact that cyber-security, even according to the Government, and I quote Dr David Clark from the Estimates hearing, where he actually says there are literally hundreds of thousands, if not more attacks across Government every day—if that is knowledge that the Minister who has responsibility for cyber-security has and is, in fact, aware that it is happening, and he has responsibility over CERT New Zealand as well, why did this Government not boost cyber-security resilience through their Budget process?

Australia did. Australia put in place $1.6 billion, announced this year in their Budget, to deal with cyber-security. Every day, I know members in this House would also be quite aware that we have scams and ransomware and emails that come through our parliamentary system that we have to report as well to say to our ICT people, “Oh, I think this is actually problematic. It is actually a questionable email. I think it’s actually a scam.” And sometimes we actually get, “Congratulations, you spotted a really good one.” I mean, I think it’s ironic that we are being aware, and I think all of us need to be vigilant about the way we deal with ransomware scams and internet—

Hon Scott Simpson: That’s right!

MELISSA LEE: Ha, ha! Thank you, Mr Scott Simpson. I wasn’t expecting that.

But the thing is that some of us are—for me, personally, I am even fearful of clicking any gif that friends actually send through Facebook, for example, or even videos that I am actually being sent through Facebook, or even emails, for fear that it is laden with viruses, laden with scams or ransomware, malware, anything possible.

But the thing is that these criminals who actually attack our Government departments, they know the weaknesses, and they know that when the Minister also says at the Estimates hearing that he hasn’t actually put too much money into this area, they might actually attack some other Government departments—I’m not so sure. But it’s like criminals, when they go out committing their actions, they do it like most of us: when we go to work, we prepare for it, go to select committee, we read our papers. When criminals go out, they prepare for the job that they’re doing. They go there looking for weaknesses. They know that certain Government departments do not update their databases and do not update their malware software or anything. If that is the case, we need to make sure that these Government departments do what they’re supposed to do. Same thing with the Reserve Bank. When the patch was actually given, it never even arrived because they never updated their software. When Waikato District Health Board did not actually update their software, blaming, “Oh, we didn’t have the money.” Hmm, really? I’m not so sure that is, in fact, fact.

All of us need to be aware. What has this Government done to reach out to the public in terms of awareness campaigns about malware? I know CERT New Zealand is actually in charge of that. I think, for what they get in terms of the budget, they do well, but what has this Government done to boost the work that they’re supposed to do? I don’t think it’s actually enough that the Minister says, “We need to keep on building our cyber-security capacity.” Well, I don’t think that Minister or this Government has actually built any cyber-security resilience and capacity when you consider the fact that the digital services area in one Vote—let’s say Vote Internal Affairs—they in fact reduced the budget by $11 million. And the reasoning why they reduced that is because they said, “Oh, they’ve completed the e-invoicing system.” Really? Because they’ve completed the e-invoicing system, they reduced the budget from $55 million to $44 million.

What about the response from the Government, seeing that we’ve actually had the stock exchange, we’ve had the Reserve Bank, we’ve had the Waikato District Health Board, we’ve even had the Health Research Council hacks and cyber-hack breaches that we’ve actually had? Why is the Government not putting their money where their mouth is, saying that they take cyber-security seriously—that the Ministers actually know what they’re talking about, or at least have people who are experts in this field to give them proper advice?

Well, the Waikato District Health Board cyber-security hack means that the people of Waikato, the families, the businesses, are probably very worried now. People who have patients’ blood types—sensitive information about their health is not something that people want the rest of the world to know. These are issues for private consumption only, usually for the person and their medical specialist or the doctor that they actually see. Patient and doctor privilege exists because of that private nature of the reason why people actually go and seek medical help. And when district health boards and Government departments who hold this data get hacked, there should be some responsibility on the Government who actually runs this country, who should have the responsibility to make sure that Government entities like the district health board do their very best to secure that data. Did Waikato District Health Board do that? I don’t think so. Did this Government do it? I don’t think so.

Hon Dr David Clark: Mr Speaker?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: It’s a Green Party call. Teanau Tuiono.

TEANAU TUIONO (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just need to take a call in this urgent debate on what happened at Waikato, and, like all the members around the House, I’m deeply concerned about what happened in terms of the ransomware attack.

I actually had to find out what “ransomware” meant; it sounded like “randomware”. When you think about hackers, you think that they just kind of, like, try to find somebody quite random who is vulnerable so that they can attack it. But ransomware, as I understand it, is that they wanted people to pay them money, in terms of the hack that they carried out. I think that’s all the more concerning here, because the place that was hacked was the Waikato District Health Board and it’s related to a hospital—we are talking about people that are patients; personal information in terms of people needing to access surgery, possibly urgent surgery as well: all of their different details. So the fact that this also had been used to put on to the dark web, as well, is, I think, equally disturbing in this case, as well, because these hackers are clearly punching down to the less privileged and the vulnerable in our society. So it is very important that we all take this very seriously in terms of this hack.

It is really concerning that people’s personal information has been leaked online as a result of this attack. And, as I’ve said, it is very important that the House traverses what this means for all of us.

Ransomware and cyber-attacks are something that we need to ensure people in Aotearoa are protected against in a world that is increasingly digitally focused, and there’s a responsibility on Government to keep up to date and review its cyber-security strategies and institutions, particularly in something like healthcare. I hope this is a wake-up call for the Government, but also, in particular, for all of us in terms of the way that we prioritise things.

I do take a different view, as well, that when we continually run down the public sector, and run it down so that even its computer systems are not up to scratch, that also makes us incredibly vulnerable, as well. So making sure that those funding regimes are in place to ensure that that is there so that these hacks don’t happen, I think is also really important, as well.

I think we also have to think about prioritisation, as well. Our intelligence and security agencies need to have a focus on not just the very real threats in our real life but also these cyber-attacks, as well, and ensuring that they are adequately covered, especially given recent issues with focus in the wrong areas. I was just sort of mindful of the royal commission report that came out in terms of what happened down there in Christchurch: that if we are, and if our security services and Government agencies that are responsible for cyber-security are, so fixated on the wrong people—as they were in the case of Christchurch; instead of focusing on white supremacy, they were focusing on Muslim communities, and, previously in the past, on environmental activists and Māori activists as well—then that is the sort of resource that actually could be better used and spent on protecting our vulnerable against a cyber-attack such as this.

I think it is also important for us to not overreach, as well. It is important that we have the best systems in place for our healthcare services—indeed for all of our Government agencies because they are dealing with the privacy of all of our citizens, as well—but it is just important that those things are not in place and put in a place where Government agencies overstep and overreach. But that will require adequate investment in terms of making sure that those databases are solid and secure in each of our Government agencies, as well, and that there is also a very clear line between the privacy of the individual versus the right of the State to actually go about as doing its job.

So this is very concerning, and the Greens join with everybody else around the House about trying to sort this stuff out sooner rather than later. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister for the Digital Economy and Communications): Mr Speaker, thank you, and I acknowledge the member Teanau Tuiono. Apologies to him. I was not trying to take his call. I had the wrong information in front of me, and I do want to acknowledge his contribution.

I also, though, do want to start with a few contributions relating to Melissa Lee’s contribution in the debate earlier. The member seems to be confused about the difference between policy and operations, and this is a confusion that she brings to this conversation every time I have engaged in a debate with her where she announces that it is my responsibility as the Minister for the digital economy to be responding to individual cyber-attacks. That’s not quite as she would present it. The Minister for our intelligence services leads responses where they are matters of national concern, and that is, of course, Minister Little. As we saw, he led the debate today, giving useful updates and information on the Waikato situation. So I just want to put that on the record for Melissa Lee, just as she returns to this debate.

The point of possible confusion arises because the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) agency, which does have an operational angle and supplies information to smaller enterprises that may not be of a national scale, does fall within my responsibility, and so she will see that at times, I will be answering on behalf of that agency or in relation to matters that it is concerned with, which do have an operational aspect. So I’m just wanting to clarify that and make it clear, and, obviously, the difference between policy and operations is made really clear in an example like the police, where the Minister is responsible, along with colleagues, for setting the direction of the police, but the police do the arresting. There is an important distinction there, I think we could all agree.

The member Melissa Lee also raised the issue of investment and, again, would have the House believe that this Government has not invested in cyber-security, and of course that is plain wrong. We have, to take one example, invested 60 percent more—that’s 60 percent more; six-zero—in the CERT agency that supports businesses and individuals who experience cyber-attacks, and that’s not a small investment. That’s not to say that we won’t need to invest more in coming years.

The member highlights—rightly—the comments I made at select committee about the thousands and thousands and thousands of attacks that happen every day across the public sector and across the private sector in New Zealand, and the real vulnerability. There’s an article in the most recent edition of The Economist which highlights the rapidly escalating threat of ransomware and malware and other malicious uses of the internet, and so we know very well that we will need to invest more in this area in the future. I think nothing could be clearer, at this point.

Now, having said that, of course, what prevents these incidents from happening is often the most simple and fundamental things. We know that there will be an independent inquiry into the Waikato situation. The Minister of Health and the Minister responsible for the intelligence services, Andrew Little, has made clear that once the DHB’s systems have been fully remediated, there will be an independent inquiry to see what can be learnt to prevent cyber-security incidents like this happening in the future. So that is correct. We do want the Waikato DHB to be focused on making sure it is supporting those whose details have been leaked and that it is preserving private information in the situation it finds itself in and is focused on the outcomes for those patients, both in terms of their wellbeing and their privacy as the first priority right now. But, subsequently, there will be a thorough and independent inquiry to learn for the whole system how we can approach these things better.

We also know, of course, that there has been significant investment by this Government in health and in health infrastructure, including, as Minister Little highlighted, the appropriation of $385 million in the most recent Budget to update IT systems across the health sector, and those things are things which cannot be skipped over by Melissa Lee or anybody in this debate. We have found historical under-investment in many, many areas in health, and this is one more. This does present vulnerability, and that is why this Government is investing in making sure that our systems are up to scratch.

As Minister Little also highlighted, no system is ever perfectly secure, because in the next moment a new malicious actor may come on to the scene or a new vulnerability may be found in software or in anti-virus protections. The system that keeps those malicious actors from accessing private information needs to evolve and change, and so patches are applied. It’s very clear that many of our organisations are concerned about this and yet, often, are not acting as they could be or should be, and that is something we want to see changed. Over half of the folk surveyed in a recent SearchNZ survey said that their organisation is concerned about cyber-security, and 46 percent are trying to learn more about keeping their online businesses safe. Only 38 percent believed that their businesses adequately invested in cyber-security, and just 34 percent believed their businesses had put a lot of thought and planning into being cyber-secure. Most concerningly, under half—45 percent—have processes in place to prevent a cyber-attack.

So these kinds of attacks are a real wake-up call to all of us across New Zealand, both as individuals and as businesses, and as institutions of a national significance across the country, because often the way criminals find their way in is through suppliers of services at one level in a complex computer-integrated system, through to a more significant asset further up the system. So that means it’s all of us who carry responsibility.

Now, CERT, as an agency, which is often the public face of cyber-security, publishes a list of 10 critical controls, and I would encourage members and people watching at home to go to cert.govt.nz to dig out this list. It highlights that some of the most simple things are the things that are the best at preventing this kind of attack: patches on software systems, multifactor authentication and verification—a large number of attacks where these simple things have not been done. Providing and using a password manager—giving people the tools to have a strong and unique password, and configuring logging and alerting so that you can see who’s in the system and doing what, securing internet-exposed services where there are things that have drifted and are no longer used within a computer network so that those things are removed from the system if they present a vulnerability. Segmenting systems, testing back-ups, having back-ups ready to go immediately a problem is identified to replace a system, thus reducing costs on the enterprise and protecting the data that is within that system if the system can be switched over to a back-up version very quickly, and, of course, protecting from ransomware and the malicious effects of it, and so on. There is a list of 10 cyber-security critical controls that can be put into place very easily.

The Government, of course, is taking action across the board, and we’ve been clear that we’re going to join the Budapest Convention. We are involved in international cooperation on cyber-crime because these cyber-criminals generally act across borders, and there’s a focus for the cyber-security strategy, including reporting and encouraging reporting of cyber-crime and improving sharing information about cyber-crime.

We do want people to be very clear that they should not pay ransoms when ransomware is put on to a computer network. We know that those that do pay ransoms may well expose themselves to future attacks because they show then a vulnerability and a willingness to cooperate with criminals. They’re likely to find their systems may be targeted again, and there’s no guarantee in any case that they’ll get their data back if they pay a ransom.

We also know that there are other things that people can be doing that I’ve covered that are really sensible and that are sensible steps and that can be easily accessed. So I want everybody watching this at home to think about whether they themselves are cyber-secure and have taken the steps that they can take to protect themselves from the vulnerabilities we’re seeing around the world.

Look, I’m mindful that time is nearly elapsed, and I’m wanting to just give people comfort at home that the Privacy Commissioner is doing the necessary work for the Waikato situation. We are aware that some information stolen from the DHB has made its way on to the internet, and people are being supported—those staff and patients have been reached out to by the DHB. There will be a clear, independent inquiry once the system is back on its feet to make sure we can learn the lessons from this particular incident.

Dr SHANE RETI (Deputy Leader—National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is very disappointing to find ourselves in this situation. Without doubt, we can do better with cyber-security. I’m very concerned that it’s been in this Government’s hands that we’ve had some of the biggest cyber-security breaches ever. In fact, part of the problem probably lies right at the very top, because it turns out the Prime Minister has data breached more young people’s data than any other Minister in the past 10 years. It was called Tuia 250—the Prime Minister’s own portfolio, arts, culture and heritage, and what happened there was there was a website inside the ministry that initially was intended to display information; that was its purpose. It was for those who wanted to go on the Tuia 250 waka—you’d be able to upload passports and driver’s licences, and, it turned out, your rifle licence as well. And they didn’t change the permissions from display only to upload, fundamentally, is what happened. Although actually, in the details there, what really happened was there was someone inside the ministry who was advised—this is what the report tells us—that they had a conflict of interest giving the tender documents for that piece of work to someone who they’d worked with, and that was ignored. So there were some very unsatisfactory dealings in that. Regardless, with Tuia 250, the Prime Minister data breached more young people’s data than any other Minister in any Government in the past 10 years. And when you have that from the top, that filters down as a laissez-faire attitude towards cyber-security.

That’s a real shame that might well contribute to where we are here now. We’ve been very, very constructive as an Opposition towards helping bring the Government towards what might be a more cyber-secure environment. When David Clark was the Minister of Health, we were putting this to him—remember, we actually had a spokesperson for data. I was privileged to have that under Bill English. So I was asking David Clark—and I won’t give you the written parliamentary question (WPQ) numbers, but I’ll just read them—is the Minister up to date with cyber-security in his ministry? Does the Minister have any concerns for cyber-security in his ministry? Does the Minister have responsibility for cyber-security in this ministry? Will the Minister take action if DHBs come under cyber-attack; and, if so, how quickly will the Minister act and how will the Minister act? I won’t go through the wide range of answers to these questions, but there were probably 50 to 60 questions which we were putting to the ministry to try and understand—so this would be the end of 2017—what some of the holes might be so that we could help to get a more secure environment so New Zealanders could believe that their information, their data, was secure in Government hands. That was our purpose. We were asking the health Minister: will he update the Prime Minister on his ministry’s cyber-security testing and cyber-security protection? I would think probably 30 to 40 questions. Is the ministry fit for purpose in their data policies? And then there is one WPQ that I posed: how can the Opposition spokesperson for data help the ministry be more cyber-secure? So if you really want to see an episode of collaboration from us to the ministry once we realised that there was a weakness there, there it is right there in a WPQ for anyone to see.

Yet here we are today, finding ourselves with what may be the single biggest cyber-security event in New Zealand—certainly in the Government sector. And we’re all wondering why, when several years ago we were saying to the ministry, what are your backup policies? What is your policy for power down? Questions like: how often do you back up from archive? Now, that might seem like a simple question. So everyone archives to a backup; that’s fine. How many times do we actually bring that archive back into real data to show that it’s worked? Well, a month or so ago—in fact, just after the cyber-attack—I asked Waikato DHB exactly that: when was the last time they did a full restore from archive? And the answer was over a year ago—over a year ago. You need to be doing these sort of restores at least yearly. Major organisations know this. They know that if you’re not actually testing your archive, how do you know that when you need it—and goodness knows we’ve needed it here now—it’s secure? And yet, for Waikato DHB, it was more than a year since they have tested their restore capability from backup.

This would seem like simple stuff. I do want to have a shout-out to the poor folks at Waikato DHB having, in a previous life, been responsible for designing and implementing electronic health records and rolling them out. This is an invidious position to be in. You know, you think about the laboratory results that you need in real time—radiology, even some of your outpatient clinics, when you’re doing or calculating chemotherapy. There’s a large number of attributes that you take into account for how many milligrams, if you like, per kilogram this person needs and a wide range of attributes; that’s all done in a computerised way. I recall my head of division in Boston when we’d go for funding to the head of medicine. Every year, we’d go through this funding cycle. And my mentor, Professor Charles Safran, would say to the head of medicine, “Our department—the informatics department—can kill more people more quickly than any surgeon could in this hospital. All we’ve got to do is mess around with the oncology formulas, all we’ve got to do is give faulty information—not through our own choosing, but if we mess up the IT, we will kill more people in this hospital than any other mechanism.” Needless to say, we usually got the funding we were asking for after we had that sort of conversation. But I make my point how critical information technology and informatics is in a hospital system.

I think there are a number of questions that Waikato DHB need to answer. We were very interested, had the DHB actually asked, because the media was sort of saying—look, they’d asked for IT funding, and it hadn’t been approved. So I posed that in a WBQ: what IT system upgrades or purchases, if any, have been requested by Waikato DHB in the past five years? And the information came back, there actually weren’t a lot. So it didn’t look like Waikato DHB had actually put their hand up to a lot of information technology. There’s some questions we’ve got around public cloud workloads software at Waikato DHB. Why has it been reported at almost certain risk, with severe impact? How do we explain that? The ISCV, the IntelliSpace Cardiovascular software, had been reported as a highly probable risk, with severe impact. What was being done about that? The data warehouse upgrade at Waikato DHB in the past 12 months had been reported as a possible risk, with significant impact. Who kept their eye on that ball? The “cat 3-5 off shelf applications workplan 16_7” at Waikato DHB had been reported as highly probable risk, with severe impact. Who was watching that? And so it goes on and on across a number of applications. Who was watching that at Waikato DHB?

And when they needed to do the migration from Windows 10, what they had done, which was correct, was they closed down their external perimeter so that if you had a personal email and you went out to Outlook or Gmail, you couldn’t get across the external perimeter. But because they were struggling with the migration to Windows 10, they actually relaxed that external perimeter. I’m really hoping that if this was a phishing attack and it did come across the Waikato DHB external firewall, it didn’t come across when those relaxations were in place.

So we have a number of questions that we want to pose to Waikato DHB. We understand that they will have a review process, or an inquiry, however that may be. But what we really need to do—and I think this is not just symptomatic of the health sector, which I have maybe a closer view of, but across all of Government—can I strongly encourage several things. I’ve always been of a view that cyber-security reporting should stand right alongside workplace safety reporting as a direct report, to a board, every quarter, just like we report workplace health and safety. It is that important. Remember, we can only be attacked in four ways: air, land, sea, and cyber, and we need to elevate the importance of cyber-security across all of Government. We have some expertise; we’d be happy to collaborate with Government to get this right. Certainly, anything we can do to help Waikato DHB fix their problem any way we can, just reach out, and we’ll do that. But we have to lift our collective level of responsiveness and funding to cyber-security across all of the Government sector.

Can I just comment that the $385 million that’s been touted in the Budget, very little of that’s for cyber-security. I challenge the Minister to say how much of that is for cyber-security. It’s for the national health information platform. If you really dig down into the Budget documents, that’s where the money’s going. Oh, and by the way, in the same breath can we maybe have an explanation why the National Oracle Solution failed under this Government and they handed it to the Ministry of Health, despite Treasury saying, “Don’t do that. They’re not capable. They don’t have capacity to do that.”? So it’s a wider story. I want capacity in the Ministry of Health, I want that higher level of security, and I want that lifted right up to the chief executive level, and I think if we do that, we might be starting to get close to really giving some credence and some support to cyber-security. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I call Jamie Strange—five minutes.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East): Thank you, Madam Speaker; I appreciate the opportunity to take a five-minute call. As the member of Parliament for Hamilton East, hopefully I can add something of a local context to this debate. But before I drill down to that local aspect, I do just want to touch on a few of the comments I have heard before in this debate, and just reiterate a few things. The first one is that we live in a connected world, which has benefits for our country—you know, we are a small country, so the benefits are obvious in terms of that connectivity—but at times it obviously creates challenges and it makes us vulnerable, at various times.

Last month, the Waikato DHB experienced a ransomware attack, and, as has been previously reported, some information was stolen and has made its way on to the internet. As we’ve heard, the aspect around CERT—and I do want to highlight the work that CERT are doing, because with me wearing another hat as the chair of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, we recently had a briefing from CERT—in fact, it was about two to three months ago—and it was a fascinating and also worrying briefing that we received from them. As the Minister David Clark has previously noted, there are hundreds, and, at times, thousands of attacks per day on our country. In fact, just as an example, before I came to the House today, someone sent me something via Facebook Messenger. It was clearly some sort of attack—obviously I didn’t click on it, but if I didn’t know that, then I would have clicked on it.

You know, there are thousands of attacks taking place. We are not immune—we are just as vulnerable as any other country—so it’s important that we do have appropriate systems in place. Now, the Waikato DHB, obviously, experienced this attack, and it’s been incredibly disruptive on the services, the fantastic services, that they provide.

In terms of drilling down to a local level, I had the opportunity to visit the DHB; it was around a week after the attack. I was able to walk through some of the wards and speak with some of the staff. Before I talk about this aspect, I’d like to begin by thanking the staff wholeheartedly for the work that they have been doing up there at the Waikato DHB, whether it’s in Hamilton hospital, which is the one I visited, or other hospitals out in the surrounding towns. A lot of people won’t realise, but staff have moved from a completely digital platform to a manual platform, particularly during those early days, which is when I visited. So they went back to things like printing the labels for the medicines and the specimens by hand, and writing on them. They had notepads and pens, pencils. They had whiteboards. They went from computerised to manual. It’s almost like going back sort of 30, 40, 50 years. However, you’ve got the manual system, but obviously a lot more patients than we had 30 to 50 years ago. So the staff had to do many, many extra hours in order to be able to cope, and obviously there were challenges around when you get tired, when it’s easy to make a mistake. The problem is, you know, if you’re handwriting a label, if you accidentally make one mistake, it can have quite serious consequences, as we heard from the Hon Shane Reti.

The staff have done an amazing job in terms of the problem solving. We do know now that a number of the systems are back up and running, which is helping, but there is still a lot of extra work that is being done by their staff. If you fast-forward to just recently, just a matter of a few days ago, I was speaking to some patients who had just been into the Waikato DHB, and they had some minor surgery done, and they said that it all went well, that the staff were relatively confident and, actually, relatively comfortable. However, that’s just one area of the DHB, and I know that other areas, other aspects—you know, they’re at different stages depending on their reliance on digital technologies. I know there are still challenges in the ED and other departments, and as a Government, I know the Ministry of Health are continuing to support that.

There’s ongoing discussions around various forms of IT services—you know, whether it’s hardware, computer systems, or whether it’s the cloud. Those discussions will no doubt continue, and the inquiry that’s undertaken will certainly be important in terms of policy discussions moving forward. Thank you.

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

SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): I rise on behalf of National as the MP for North Shore to speak on the urgent debate in regards to private information being released from the ransomware attack at Waikato District Health Board. I must say this is a national security incident and deserves the appropriate focus that we have simply not heard from that side of the House so far today. This is an attack on Kiwis—people who live in Hamilton, in Cambridge, in Thames, and Tokoroa, and Te Kūiti, and in Taumarunui—and what this needs is a high degree of urgency and focus in order to deal with the issue.

What we heard from before, from Minister Little, was basically a normalisation of this event happening—it’s happening here and there around the world—and blaming the previous Government for inaction. Well, I’m sorry, Minister, you’ve had four years in that role and have not delivered the solutions required to mitigate this risk. We are spending nearly half a billion dollars on restructuring costs of the reforms that you’re implementing—$486 million—none of that is going in terms of the cyber-security improvements within our DHBs. You note around $385 million going into IT. I questioned you on 9 June at select committee in regards to that, and the answer is that money is not all going into cyber-security. So I think you need to be up front with Kiwis out there. We need a comprehensive digital infrastructure programme, and it is simply not good enough for some of our Ministers to stand up here and, basically, give a speech around updating your passwords and sort of a basic thing when we are dealing with organisations that are under significant pressure.

This incident has shown us—and has had—a significant impact on our healthcare system. Emergency department staff, elective surgery, outpatient clinics, diagnostics, radiology were all significantly impacted by this incident and are still not back to normal levels. I’ve had conversations with staff who were working on the ground at that DHB. They are recording information on paper and they have noted that in some areas, it may take up to two years for that information to be put back into the systems. That is simply not good enough in a country like New Zealand, which should aspire to be one of the best in the world in this area.

Our front-line healthcare staff are under immense pressure. We are hearing daily of the significant issues that our nursing staff across this country are having in regards to workload and dealing with the issues of health vacancies. At Waikato DHB alone, there are 942 vacancies at that district health board. There are 453 vacancies for nurses. There are 159 vacancies for allied health. There are 180 back-office staff vacancies. There are 125 medical vacancies. There are 25 support vacancies. Those are vacancies that are distracting from the delivery of front-line healthcare services, and this incident has only made that situation worse. The challenge and the issue that we are not talking about but needs to be spoken about is that all these issues will lead to adverse patient outcomes and patient events. That is going to be impacting our most vulnerable people within the communities that I talked about today. And they deserve a voice from this Parliament in terms of ensuring that this issue is dealt with.

Not only are there issues within the healthcare system in the Waikato, we are also seeing a health system across the board that is at breaking point. And, again, this Government has had four long years to start to put in place the mitigations in order to fix this issue but they have not done that, as proven by this. The ambulance service here, Wellington Free Ambulance—WorkSafe have put them on notice. Fatigue is a key issue. Within our aged-care sector, their front-line registered nurses are being poached by district health boards because the workforce pot is not being increased. And lastly, we’re dealing with a vaccination roll-out that is putting more pressure on our workforce because we’re trying to do a whole lot of things, but we’re not actually doing anything well.

Lastly, the costs of this incident are significant for this country, not only disruption but also productivity. And as we all know, those two factors, sadly, lead to adverse patient outcomes. And that is going to be the cost paid by all Kiwis as a result of this incident.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Associate Minister of Health): Madam Speaker, as a worker in a district health board, I’ve been trusted with the personal information of thousands of New Zealanders—information on their illness, their family situation, the investigations that they’ve had. Some of that information is particularly sensitive. I was an infectious diseases doctor, and some of the information we collect in our histories of patients tell details of their sex life, of their drug use, many things people wouldn’t want shared publicly. Sometimes, it is that particularly sensitive information that harms people when their privacy is breached, but sometimes it’s not even that—it’s the very fact that you were in hospital that you do not want to have known. The information we have, when we provide care to people, is extensive now, because of the large amount of information that can be stored and collected in modern information systems—it is still personal, and patients rightfully expect for it to be protected when they come to hospitals.

I want to acknowledge the patients in Waikato DHB affected by this cyber-attack. They came to the district health board because they were ill and they sought care. They expected to have their privacy respected. I imagine this event is very upsetting for many people. I take heart in the fact that the DHB is reaching out to the patients, notifying them whenever they hear of the information being shared by these criminals, as it has been in some cases, and working with the Privacy Commissioner to make sure that the people affected are treated well. There is also a 24/7 helpline available for people who have been affected by the cyber-attack. I also want to acknowledge the staff, some of whom are my former colleagues. I know they are working hard, working with paper-based systems, and yet despite the challenges to work around the fact that IT systems are either compromised or are being built back in a slightly different way, they have none the less got elective surgery at full capacity, and they have got their outpatients at full service. Congratulations to the staff of Waikato DHB for their excellent efforts in that regard. I know they are working hard, and it must be stressful. I want to thank them so much for their efforts in continuing to provide these services.

Waikato DHB is working to remediate the effects of this cyber-attack, and bringing many of its foundational systems back online. Initial concerns about the treatment of cancer patients have been addressed, and the radiation therapy is also back online. Urgent breast-screening is occurring because of mobile units being brought into Waikato DHB. The DHB is working closely with the Government Communications Security Bureau to make sure that this attack is ameliorated and responded to.

But the point I want to make is that this attack occurs in the context of a long period of under-investment in district health board information technology. Let me tell you a little bit about my experience as a consultant physician in the DHB system. On a regular day, I could interact with at least 20 information systems. There was the emergency department system that contains the patient’s triage data; the x-ray system, where we would look up x-rays; the clinical information system that might contain the clinical notes, sometimes—they’re often also on paper—as well as investigation results. That system had patchy linkage to primary care data, so it was hard to know, if your patient was too unwell to tell you what medicines they were on, what their general practitioner had prescribed them, which creates a risk, obviously, in terms of safe prescriptions of medicines. We had no system for electronic ordering within the hospital, and a patchy one for outpatients. Vital signs were measured by electronic monitoring systems, but this was not captured in any sort of data system that might, for example, allow us to identify deteriorating patients early. That’s not to mention the hundreds of bespoke systems that clinicians set up in order to get particular parts of their work done—for example, the systems to make sure that kidney patients were monitored adequately, or the type of system described by Dr Reti earlier for calculating chemotherapy doses. In other words, after decades of under-investment, we have a patchwork of IT systems in the health system that are, in many cases, old, and as a result of under-investment they can cease to be serviced, in some cases, by their provider, which does create a cyber-security risk.

During my time in Government, I’ve come to learn of this problem in much wider context. In my area of responsibility for public health, for example, contact tracing and information technology systems have been developed by this Government, linking up 20 systems across the country, some sometimes run on software like Excel, for managing case contacts. We’ve invested in that system, and you’ll note that the very fact that we can trace 2,600 from one case results from us having an integrated system across the entire country. We have an out-of-date system for breast cancer screening, which risks not being capable of being updated, and for cervical screening. Improvements to both of those systems have been funded in the last Budget. I’d also like to congratulate Minister Little on turning this pattern of under-investment around. In Budget 2021 he secured $384 million investment in the health information system.

I do take exception to the comments from the former member for Whangārei. Cyber-security modernisation, as is proposed by this Government, does ensure cyber-security. It gets you away from multiple out-of-date systems with their pattern of patches, and many of them no longer capable of being updated by their supplier. Funding for information technology in the health system has been neglected, as part of the National Government’s overall neglect of capital expenditure. In two years, there was absolutely no money spent on capital infrastructure in the entire health system. I worked in that health system, I remember exactly what it is like. Modern systems to look after vulnerable New Zealanders were not prioritised, and we have now put over $5 billion into capital expenditure in the health system.

In addition, we are improving the cyber-security system. The director-general, in June 2020, wrote to all DHBs to ask them to consider greater investment in information technology. A maturity assessment to direct future investment is also under way. I’ve already mentioned Minister Little’s planned investment through the most recent Budget, and there will be a national asset management plan developed to direct the roll-out. Following this attack, we have also taken specific action. The Ministry of Health has written to all district health boards to instruct them, with specific information on how to strengthen their systems in light of this attack. There is an ongoing criminal investigation under way, and the Government will also have an investigation into the precise circumstances that occurred at Waikato DHB. More broadly, Minister Clark has mentioned the 60 percent increase in investment in the CERT agency, and our efforts to fight cyber-crime through global collaboration, including joining the Budapest Convention.

This Government has been working closely with Waikato DHB to get their information technology systems back online. We respect the hard work done by the staff in that DHB to keep patient care going, even through what must be an incredibly stressful time. The Government is reversing the decade of under-investment in the health system capital, particularly in health system information technology. My thoughts are very much with the patients and staff at Waikato at this time.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Ahuriri Hapū Claims Settlement Bill

Second Reading

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations): I present a legislative statement on the Ahuriri Hapū Claims Settlement Bill.

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

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I move, That the Ahuriri Hapū Claims Settlement Bill be now read a second time.

This bill gives effect to the deed of settlement between the Crown and Ahuriri Hapū signed on 2 November 2016, so it’s taken some time to get here. The deed, as you would expect, settles all of the historical Treaty claims relating to Ahuriri Hapū. In that respect it comprises historical redress, which records the Crown’s breaches and past injustices; cultural redress, acknowledging the connections to land and resources of significance to Ahuriri Hapū; relationship redress, which builds new connections with the Crown, local authorities, and other groups; and, finally, financial and commercial redress, which provides the basis for a strong economic base for the future.

In March 2020, after the first reading of this bill, it was referred to the Māori Affairs Committee, and it might just help the House to explain that gap between signing the deed in November 2016 and a bill not coming back to the House until March 2020. There were some internal issues with Mana Ahuriri, some issues that one or two hapū had raised, particularly about the election process. It was the subject of a complaint to the Waitangi Tribunal. On that basis, the Crown respects the jurisdiction of the tribunal and takes no further action. The tribunal found that there were issues in relation to the election of trustees and made some recommendations, one of which was that the bill be introduced but on the proviso that the trustees open their positions up for election. There was ultimately an agreement reached between myself and the trustees that that would happen. On that basis, I introduced the bill for its first reading. Then there was a period where the trustees took the view that they didn’t have to hold an election. And so there was a stand-off, to be perfectly honest. More recently, the trustees decided that they should conduct the elections that both the tribunal had recommended and that I had reached agreement with the trustees about. Those elections are now in progress. The nominations closed just recently. So ballot papers will go out and on that basis we’re now in a position to look at the bill again following the select committee’s consideration of it.

The committee opened for written submissions in March last year, closed in May 2020. There were 16 submissions in support of the bill. Three opposed the bill, and 14 referred to the trustee elections issue and wanted that to happen prior to passage of the legislation. So that has now happened, and amidst all that we were dealing with COVID-19. The committee heard nine oral submissions and they were heard in Napier in June 2020, so the Māori Affairs Committee heard those—and as I think we’ll no doubt hear from the chair, they were very appreciative of hearing from those who made submissions. I want to thank the committee for its consideration and deliberations of the bill. I think the committee was chaired by Rino Tirikatene at that time. He has been succeeded by the erstwhile and diligent Tāmati Coffey, who is running the committee in exceptional fashion.

The bill was reported back in August last year and we now have it before us. Those trustee elections, as promised, are now under way, and so the people of Ahuriri, Mana Ahuriri, can be sure that what was required by the tribunal, and what was agreed to with me, is now happening, and they can be sure that as we progress the bill, the trustees will be those who have the confidence of their people, so that by the time we get to the third reading, when redress is then placed in the stewardship of the trustees, they will be the trustees fully accountable to and with the confidence of their people.

I’ll just refer briefly to the historical account. This is always a very important part of any deed and of any bill. The committee responded to submissions about some aspects of the historical account in the bill. There are some submitters who sought to amend the description of events that took place at Ōmarunui and Herepoho. At that event, in 1866, the Crown initiated hostilities when it attacked Māori at Ōmarunui and Herepoho. Thirty Māori died defending themselves against the Crown attacks, which were launched before the Crown had made a reasonable attempt to negotiate a continuation of the peace in the district. The Crown captured Ngāti Matepū and Ngāti Māhu people during the conflict and imprisoned them on the Chatham Islands without trial and in harsh conditions.

The events are complex because some hapū of Ahuriri fought with the Crown and some fought against the Crown. But, as is the case with Treaty settlements generally, the historical account focuses on the Crown’s actions, not Ahuriri Hapū members. The attack on Ōmarunui is significant because of the grievance that it created for the descendants of those who were attacked and therefore, to supplement the historical account in the Ahuriri Hapū deed of settlement, officials have been working with the parties to record and publish the separate accounts of those events. That work is still due for completion, and I look forward to seeing that when that happens. So this second reading now brings us a step closer to concluding these issues.

For Mana Ahuriri, it has been a long time from the time the claims were lodged and then negotiated, the hiatus we’ve seen since November 2016, but we are nearly there. There will be the elections, and as soon as possible after those elections are concluded we’ll have the third reading. That’ll be an occasion, I think, for great celebration for Mana Ahuriri and that important step in restoring the relationship between the Crown and the iwi. But on that basis, I commend this bill to the House.

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

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): I rise on behalf of the National Party to speak in the second reading of the Ahuriri Hapū Claims Settlement Bill. Every Treaty settlement reminds us that the path to reconciliation is never smooth or easy, and it is the case with the Ahuriri claims settlement legislation. It’s much needed and a welcome development that the Crown-iwi relationship is moving along. There are some challenges, which Minister Little just spoke to. I know that we have an empty gallery here today, so I’ll just say to all those watching: kia ora e koro mā, e kui mā, e rau rangatira mā. E ngā hapū o Ahuriri tēnā koutou. Nau mai haere mai ki te rā whakahirahira.

[Greetings to the elders and the many chiefs. Greetings to the sub-tribes of Ahuriri. Welcome to this auspicious day.]

It’s a privilege to speak in the second reading of the Ahuriri Hapū Claims Settlement Bill.

I’ll just note very briefly a personal connection to the area. I was originally born in the Hawke’s Bay. I’m now proud to call Southland my home and to represent the Southland region, but I do remember as a child going past the Ahuriri Estuary, for example, on many occasions. So it’s a region I know well, and I have deep family connections in that region.

The Crown and Ahuriri Hapū have been working together to reconcile their relationship and support the Ahuriri Hapū to achieve their aspirations. On 19 December 2013, the Crown and Ahuriri Hapū signed an agreement in principle which formed the basis for this settlement. The Ahuriri Hapū deed of settlement was initialled on 19 June 2015 and signed on 12 October 2016. Credit must go to former Minister of Treaty negotiations the Hon Chris Finlayson and his officials, who worked hard on this, and to the present Minister, the Hon Andrew Little, and the current officials who are working hard to complete this.

The settlement includes a Crown apology, $19.5 million in financial and commercial redress, and the right to buy shares in the Kāweka and Gwavas Crown forest licenced lands. Heipipi Pa and Conservation House in Napier will be vested in Ahuriri Hapū’s cultural redress, and in recognition of the ongoing connection of the Ahuriri Hapū to the Ahuriri Estuary, the settlement will also establish a permanent statutory committee called Te Komiti Muriwai o Te Whanga. “The purpose of the Komiti is to promote the protection and enhancement of the environmental, economic, social, spiritual, historical, and cultural values of Te Muriwai o Te Whanga”—Ahuriri Estuary—“for present and future generations.”

Minister Little touched on some challenges that have been faced in bringing this matter to the second reading, and I note that “The Waitangi Tribunal granted an urgent inquiry after receiving an application from Ngāti Pārau … and members of Ngāti Tu and Ngāi Te Ruruku. The hearing was to consider whether the Crown was in breach of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi because the mandated entity, by not holding substantive elections, had not established or maintained a proper mandate.” The tribunal recommended that the bill be introduced as soon as possible, but only if the post-settlement governance entity agreed to hold trustee elections for positions. I’m pleased that, I understand, elections are to be held in July and August 2021 to resolve this so this bill can be completed and the Ahuriri Hapū can progress their aspirations, as is intended through this bill.

I’ll touch briefly on the historical account which is being recognised by this bill. The Ahuriri Hapū are based in and around Napier, in the Hawke’s Bay region. The area of interest is bounded by the sea to the East, the Kāweka Range to the West, the Ngaruroro River to the South, and the Esk River to the North. The Ahuriri Hapū is one of six large natural groups negotiating the settlement of the historical Treaty of Waitangi claims of Ngāti Kahungunu. Ngāti Kahungunu is the third largest tribal group in New Zealand.

“The Native Lands Act 1865 enabled the shares of individual grantees to be alienated without the consent of the other grantees for that block or other customary right-holders whose names were not included on the title. The 1865 Act did not prevent some settlers using practices such as extending credit to grantees and subsequently acquiring Māori land after securing debt against land titles with mortgages. These practices caused considerable public controversy in Hawke’s Bay at the time. There was some doubt that grantees fully understood the legal implications of the mortgages, leases, and sales that they agreed to.

“By 1870, the Crown and private parties had acquired about 51,000 acres of approximately 54,000 acres awarded to Ahuriri Hapū individuals under what was called the 10-owner rule. In 1867, 1870, and 1873, the Crown introduced legislation that attempted to provide for Māori land titles that better reflected the interests of wider communities of right-holders and to remedy problems that had arisen as a result of the 10-owner rule.” However, these remedial measures did not apply to Ahuriri Hapū lands, which had already passed through the Native Land Court by 1867 and which had been alienated by 1870.

“Over the next 30 years, Ahuriri Hapū protested about land issues through participation in the Repudiation and Kotahitanga movements. These movements sought the review of previous land transactions, the restriction of further land sales, and the reform of the native land laws. In 1874, Parliament set aside all of Te Whanganui-ā-Orotu as an endowment for the Napier Harbour Board. Parliament did not establish a role for Ahuriri Hapū on the board. After the 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake raised parts of the bed of Te Whanganui-ā-Orotu above the water level, the Napier Harbour Board leased most of Te Whanganui-ā-Orotu to the Crown, and the Crown commenced drainage and reclamation work … The processes of drainage and reclamation, combined with the diversion of the Tūtaekurī River outlet to the sea, reduced Te Whanganui-ā-Orotu (originally approximately 9,500 acres in area) to a narrow tidal channel. Today, the remaining water-covered estuary area amounts to approximately 680 acres at high tide.

“Between about 1900 and 1930, the Crown and private parties acquired most of the remaining lands of Ahuriri Hapū. Ahuriri Hapū stated that money raised from [their] land sales was often required to meet living costs. By the post-Second World War period, most Ahuriri Māori had turned to waged employment to provide the necessities of life. The search for work led many whānau to leave rural pā and kāinga and settle in urban areas such as Napier and Hastings.”

As with many of these bills that come before the House, there has been a very long history behind this, and this is a moment in our country’s history where we endeavour to resolve issues that have arisen in the past and to make them right as best we can. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Minister of Customs): E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe, otirā ngā mema katoa o te Whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa.

[Madam Speaker, thank you, indeed to all the members of this House, I acknowledge all of us.]

I’m pleased to take a call in the second reading of the Ahuriri Hapū Claims Settlement Bill. As the Minister—the Hon Andrew Little—outlined, what occurred in the Ahuriri region is no different to the wider Ngāti Kahungunu rohe as a whole, when two people came together, and the description of battle Omarunui is also reflected in the settlement as a recall of the history of the two people coming together and the battles that occurred there, and also the tīpuna that were imprisoned with the tīpuna from Tūranga-nui-a-Kiwa, without trial, to the Chathams—all this occurred in this period of time. Like the Minister said, I want to acknowledge not only his work but the ongoing work of the initial negotiators of the Ahuriri Trust, the seven hapū that make up Ahuriri, and, maybe for the benefit of members in this House, to reflect that Napier is regarded as the gateway to Ngāti Kahungunu—the gateway into Ngāti Kahungunu made up of te Wairoa through Ahuriri down to Heretaunga, Tamatea, and, of course, Tāmaki-nui-a Rua and Wairarapa. That’s the extent of this particular tribal boundary. In acknowledging the work of Ahuriri Hapū, the gateway in terms of the airport and the port is so critical for Ahuriri that we are now bringing this claim for its second reading.

But it’s not without its challenges, and the Minister himself acknowledged those challenges, particularly around the elections. It is pleasing to hear—and the member that just spoke before me, Joseph Mooney—the acknowledgment of the trust going to elections, as the Waitangi Tribunal requested for the progression of this bill. So I’m really pleased, as a member of the Māori Affairs Committee that heard the 34 submissions in Napier, and nine orals, that that was the underlining concern of the people who presented in front of the Māori Affairs Committee—the elections. Now, there are nine positions on this particular trust, and I think it’s really important because that was the sticking point for many of the submissions around the holding of the elections.

Can I confirm to the House that we’ve actually got 16 people running for the nine elections. The names are up on the posts. Everybody that is eligible for Ahuriri, the seven hapū are registered, will get their voting papers on 2 July, and elections will be held on Monday, 9 August. So whānau that may be listening to this debate in the House, please make sure that you’re registered and have your vote. But for the people that are standing, can I just acknowledge Maree Brown, Rīhi Elizabeth Anne Clarke-Reiri, Peter Eden, Tania Eden, Allana Hiha, Beverley Kemp-Harmer, Joinella Maihi-Carroll, Piriniha Prentice, Evelyn Ratima, Joe Reti, Mike Taane, Chad Tareha, Marina Toatoa, Emma-Marie Uriarau, Barry Wilson, and Terry Wilson. I don’t want to be accused of particularly picking any of those nine; I have mentioned all of them that have put their hands up for standing for this trust. But my underlying message is: whānau, be registered and actually vote.

This comprehensive settlement ends five of the six large natural groupings of the Ngāti Kahungunu region. Te Wairoa has settled, we have Maungaharuru Tangitū that has settled, we have Pahauwera that has settled, and we have Heretaunga Tamatea that has settled. This was the one that needed to be settled, and I’m pleased it’s here. And, of course, the last and sixth group is Tāmaki-nui-ā-Rua, Wairarapa.

Across the tribal boundaries, and acknowledging the Ahuriri Hapū Claims Settlement Bill, and we’ll go into details in the third reading, when, I’m sure, our galleries will be filled with the seven hapū of Napier, the intricacies of this settlement. But it has been a long journey. Members in this House, so far, have talked about it starting under a former Government, the National Government, and ending under Labour. But the critical thing—the critical thing—

Hon Simon Bridges: The last good Government this country’s had.

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: —was the elections, and I’m pleased to see that this is being settled on their own accord. And those members over there can yahoo, but there has been a lot of fixing up of Treaty settlements started by that side but completed over here. So let’s get the record sorted. Let’s be clear: if you’re going to throw stones, then you expect some back.

I want to acknowledge Ahuriri Hapū, the seven hapū. I want to acknowledge the negotiators that have taken this claim as far as they have gone. And I want to particularly acknowledge the leadership of the chair and the people like Piriniha Prentice and, of course, Barry Wilson and Joinella Maihi-Carroll, who have carried this entire claim—and it is not easy being a negotiator, particularly amongst very active people of your own community, and keeping them on board.

But I do believe that the elections that are being held as we speak are the best way for the people of Ahuriri to progress this bill. So, come August, we will have a new trust and, hopefully, before then, we’ll have the third and final reading of this bill. But can I just say, in closing, that I totally support the Ahuriri Hapū Claims Settlement Bill. It is overdue and I can’t wait for its passage through the House. Kia ora tātou.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga): Thank you, Madam Speaker. You know, it may not surprise the House to know that National supports this bill. Indeed, over all my time in Parliament we have supported every single historic Treaty settlement claim bill that has come to the House. There’s very simple reason for that, and that is that we support fulsomely the historic Treaty settlement process, a process, indeed, that the Bolger National Government fundamentally—there was some work before that but fundamentally—started, and I, as Māori man, as a New Zealander, believe that there were past wrongs that we need to right. There will be some, a very small group in New Zealand, who pooh-pooh that and don’t take that view—the sort of the Hobson’s Pledge view of life. But the reality is, if we go back to—not the last century; the century before that—the 1850s, the 1860s, the 1870s, there was wholesale land confiscation in this country and Māori iwi and hapū had their lands, had other taonga, taken from them through trickery, sometimes through force, through war, and that needs to be put right.

One of the things, I think, that’s incredibly important to note in that putting right—some say, “It’s the putting right that counts.”—is that the putting right does not fully compensate for the loss and the damage that was done. In fact, far from it. The reality is, if you talk about a Treaty settlement process, even with the ratchet-up clauses—they’ve got a better name but it doesn’t come to me as I stand here—for Ngāi Tahu, for Tainui, even if we think about those clauses, still we’re talking about a total quantum on all settlements, when this is all done and dusted, of something like $2 or $3 billion, which in the scheme of things, when we think about annual Budgets in this Parliament from Grant Robertson in the many tens of billions of dollars, I think—what was it, $15 billion in new spending at this last Budget is, as my colleague Stuart Smith says behind me, a rounding error. I’m not saying it should be a lot more. I’m not trying to stand up here and be falsely optimistic about the dollars for Māori and for iwi and hapū. I’m simply making the point that we do not fully compensate for the wrongs—far from it. It is, in a sense, a—more than a gesture but not a huge amount more. I make the point again: we fully support the historic Treaty settlement process.

Where we do differ from the Government, I think, in this area is in the more modern ventures—or I was going to say “adventures” that we are seeing from a relatively new Office for Māori Crown Relations - Te Arawhiti, which is constantly seeking under the likes of Willie Jackson and Kelvin Davis ways to reinvent and re-interpret and find new ways to keep the gravy train going. That’s not my view of what should happen. I think we should right the wrongs of the past but I don’t think we want to be constantly finding new and creative ways; I think actually that is overly creative and overly adventurous.

In relation to this settlement bill, I just want to make—I suppose I was also going to say “a non-serious point”. It’s not that it’s jovial, but a point, and that is that I note the areas of cultural, financial, and commercial redress that this bill addresses and puts forward, including, I should say, as is right, an acknowledgment by apology from the Crown but it includes the purchase of the Kāweka and Gwavas—I think it said—Crown forest land. I was over, just before Christmas, tramping in that area. It’s beautiful, special, very remote country. The Department of Conservation’s done a magnificent job. If you go into the Kāwekas there, the Kāweka forest land—it’s the first tramp I’ve done with my young sons—there are camping huts and there are these hot springs, and the Department of Conservation has built these rather lovely big tubs. You just literally turn them and the hot water comes on. The water of the river is less than hot—shall we say. My simple point is that it’s beautiful land, it’s special land, and it’s good to see in the main redress in this bill in addition to the financial redress there’s the purchase of these very special areas of land in this part of New Zealand in the Hawke’s Bay. The Crown and Ahuriri Hapū have been working together now for quite some time to reconcile their relationship and support the Ahuriri Hapū to achieve its aspirations. We know the dates; I won’t go through all of that.

I did want to say, though, that credit must go to the Parihaka negotiators and people who have made this possible. I do also want to acknowledge my sometimes friend—it depends a bit on how things are going—the Hon Chris Finlayson. Sometimes he likes me; sometimes he doesn’t. I’m not sure which phase we are in. Well, sadly, I am actually sure what phase we’re in at the moment, but we won’t go there because I don’t want to end up with a privileges claim or something from him in this. But I do want to acknowledge him. I was getting off track. I do want to acknowledge him and his officials who were determined to form a settlement, and this bill, this good bill, gives effect to the Ahuriri Hapū deed of settlement that was signed 2 November—actually a wee while back now—2016.

So we fully support the historic Treaty settlement process. There are parts of what’s happening in Te Arawhiti we don’t support but this bill is good indeed. It is part of our righting the wrongs of the past. I wish the hapū and iwi concerned the very best. I’m sure they will have wise counsel to invest what they are receiving as redress here well and to ensure that they make the most of it for future generations of their iwi and hapū.

TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Just to note the sincerity that seemed to come through from the previous speaker, the Hon Simon Bridges, and then the very bold comment about stopping the gravy train just kind of took all of the wind out of everything that he was trying to say about how deeply he felt about the situation, how aggrieved he was, but how we just need to get off the gravy train. So if you ask me, the people of Ahuriri should probably take that last contribution with a grain of salt.

Anyway, this is the second reading of this bill, and it did start some time ago. The Ahuriri Hapū Claims Settlement Bill was referred after the first reading on 12 March 2020; the closing date for submissions was 22 May 2020. In there as well, we must note that the country was side-tracked by the COVID pandemic, which took over everybody’s lives. But despite that, submitters still managed to get their submissions in so that they could be heard. There were 34 submissions that were gathered through from interested groups, from stakeholders, from individuals, and the select committee of the time in the 52nd Parliament heard oral evidence from nine submitters, both across Napier and here in Wellington. The official advice came from the good people at Te Arawhiti. And can I just take an opportunity to thank those members of the committee: Rino Tirikatene, Marama Davidson, Joanne Hayes, Harete Hipango, Matt King, Adrian Rurawhe, and the honourables—the Hon Nicky Wagner and the Hon Meka Whaitiri. Now, the whole committee heard those submissions, they went through the bill, and the issues that the Minister brought up were noted—mainly issues around the elections of the trustees on both the trust and also the earlier mandated entity: the incorporation.

Now, there might be a bit of confusion, so I need to make sure that I get this quite clear. The mandated entity was the Mana Ahuriri Incorporated, the post-settlement grievance entity was the Mana Ahuriri Trust. Now, some of the submitters had issues with both, and said, “You need to have regular elections. You haven’t had a rotation of elections of trustees in quite some time.” So there was that that was thrown into the mix during their submission hearings. Into that as well came the mediation that happened with one of our QCs, Colin Carruthers, who was appointed to review the results of one of the ratifications that happened. In there they talked about how, of the 1,433 eligible voters, actually only 27 percent of them participated in that process. That led to a few questions being asked about the validity of that process; it led to the QC coming in. He recommended that the Minister apply his usual criteria to the result on the basis that the process and the result don’t contain significant risk of challenge.

Further concerns were raised by the Ahuriri Hapū members, and Sir John Clarke was then appointed to undertake facilitation with hapū members, trying to reach an outcome whereby things could be moved forward. The outcome of that facilitation was that all members wanted the bill to be introduced to Parliament and for elections of the trustees to be held. The Minister accepted the ratification based on that outcome and facilitation process. And you heard from him just earlier, talking about how the trust provided the Minister with an agreement to hold those elections prior to the enactment of the legislation, and the Minister then introduced the bill. He then introduced it, confirming that he wouldn’t progress to the third reading until full elections have been held.

And I thank my colleague, the MP for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, the Hon Meka Whaitiri, for noting that process; that the election of trustees is under way and they have had considerable interest in making sure that those appointments took place. So that is in train. I echo the calls of my colleague for those hapū members that are thinking they might want to get involved in this process to make sure that you apply, if you have the accurate whakapapa, to get involved and make sure that you vote, and make sure that you return your forms as well in that process so that we can have confidence in this whole bill going through and the right people sitting at the right table at the right time.

Insert into this whole conversation the Waitangi Tribunal urgent inquiry, which has happened as part of this process. So there was the urgent inquiry. The Waitangi Tribunal agreed to hear it. The flag was raised by Ngāti Pārau, by Ngāti Tu, by Ngāti Te Ruruku, and their concern was that the Crown had breached the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi because the mandated entity hadn’t held those elections and it hadn’t established a proper mandate. Also there were other concerns, which have been detailed by some of the members, so I won’t go into it, but the tribunal recommended again that the bill be introduced and also that the Crown pay for the cost of the elections, which I’ve just said are going ahead.

One of the other issues that was brought up in the submission hearings were about the concerns about the accuracy of the bill’s description of the historical events that took place at Ōmarunui. Now, the historical account in the deed of settlement was signed off, but we understand that through the drafting, some of those claimants—especially the ones that I just mentioned—were unsatisfied with the historical account. They wanted to make sure that the actions of their hapū, of their tūpuna, were actually recorded in that historical account. So to resolve the issue, the Crown engaged in negotiations with the hapū to record, to set out their varying perspectives of the events that unfolded at Ōmarunui, in agreement that once signed, both of those accounts would be published on Te Arawhiti’s website. And the committee then decided that the development of those agreements appropriately addressed the concerns raised by submitters, and didn’t recommend amending the bill’s provisions.

So this has been through a very lengthy process, and I’m sure that the people of Ahuriri Hapū would be very encouraged to know that this is going through the House with support from members all around the House. I look forward to the big day. Of course, the second reading is often not as substantial as the first and the third readings, which is why, as I look up into the gallery, we have no members from the hapū here to listen, but, hopefully they are either watching from home or they’ll be watching this at a later time on demand, and, hopefully they will have reassurance that members of Parliament have considered the submissions that got presented and are looking forward to being able to mark the occasion alongside them when they come in here for the third reading. So with that said, I commend this bill to the House.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to take a call on behalf of the Green Party in support of the Ahuriri Hapū Claims Settlement Bill at this, the second reading. I also want to acknowledge at this time that the second reading isn’t the most scintillating in this process, and I suspect that for many members of the hapū, they’re just really waiting for the elections to happen, and the third reading, and to be able to get on with delivering for their people, which is what they’ve been waiting a really long time for.

I would like to note that some of the issues that have held up this process have been related to process that the Greens would say has been a result of the practice of large natural groupings, and bringing hapū together into a process that doesn’t necessarily reflect the basics of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, which was between hapū and the Crown, not large natural groupings and the Crown. Or, as we’ve heard very clearly in this case, actually even reflective of the different histories of relationships between hapū and the Crown, and that that forcing of groups together results in some negative relationships and tensions between hapū as a result of the Crown’s decisions of how we run this process.

For the Greens, we’ve always been critical of that process, and I think what’s happened here has been more evidence for that, though I would like to acknowledge that the Minister stepped in and did acknowledge the Waitangi Tribunal’s ruling and take steps in terms of slowing down the process to enable the elections to happen and has also enabled differing perspectives on the events of what happened at Ōmarunui to be negotiated between individual hapū and the Crown and for that to happen outside of the settlement but be published on Te Arawhiti’s website. To my knowledge, which is entirely incomplete, that’s the first time that’s happened. I think that’s quite worthwhile to acknowledge and would like to point to that for other hapū who may have had similar concerns around the process and the telling of their history.

I also want to point to—in every speech, in some way, on these settlements; I can’t help myself in terms of these problems—some of the problems in the retelling of that history, as it is agreed, and the imbalance that is existing in our settlement process, and that the agreed historical record is still biased towards the power of the Crown. I want to point to the use of one word in particular: the “vesting” of sites to hapū or iwi. “Vesting” means the generous bestowing of something on somebody. It denotes a position of power over, and an ownership from, the group who is giving to the other, whereas my understanding of the settlement process is an acknowledgment that the Crown in possession of this land that has particular meaning and purpose and original ownership from hapū does not actually have the right to bestow that. It’s actually a returning of what was always owned by—and should have always been in the ownership of—hapū.

At this point, I too would like to acknowledge, as we do, that it is a huge effort for hapū to get to this point. The collecting of those stories and histories provides a richness in terms of bringing people together—that can be really, really valuable. It is a huge undertaking, and I would like to acknowledge everybody who has been involved in that for the hapū of Ahuriri involved in this claim—particularly those who have died before we managed to get to this point today. Their knowledge will not be lost, and is being held by those still here.

I want to acknowledge that many involved may also feel some liberation through that process of discovering their own stories—kuia, kaumātua, and rangatahi alike—and that the settlement process does provide the Government with a ready-made way to engage in community dialogue about our collective history, as a nation. It is encouraging, now that we are going to get our history into our curricula, that, hopefully, these stories will be able to be taught and brought to life in the places where our children go to school. That learning can be localised and shared so that we all actually have a better understanding of the land that we stand on and the history that we are part of and benefit from, or have not benefited from. I really look forward to that time.

I also just want to point out at this point—I know I’ve acknowledged it and touched on it already—that most of the submissions were related to the concern about mandate and the need for the elections, as well as the summary of the historical account, and to our confidence have been addressed as best as they can be, considering the circumstances, by the Minister.

So just to touch on some of the things within the settlement, to acknowledge again that the key point for the hapū in the settlement was the establishment of Te Komiti Muriwai o Te Whanga, a stand-alone, statutory, multi-party arrangement including Manu Ahuriri incorporated in the Department of Conservation and relevant local authorities to manage the Ahuriri estuary. Again, it’s almost—if it isn’t every single Treaty settlement—that we are seeing the protection, that role of kaitiaki coming through. I really just want to register a sense of frustration: people fight for decades to get the right to care for our environment while the Crown has, you know, happily gone on and enabled the destruction of our environment—unhappily for us—for so long. That so much effort has to go into restoring that rule of kaitiaki, I think, really does deserve some reflection from all of us about why that should be so hard. Are there better ways of returning that role of kaitiaki rather than making people have to struggle and negotiate and fight for it?

Also within the settlement is that the Kaweka and Gwavas Crown forest licence lands will transfer, the Forestry Company Limited. There’s also letters from the director of the Office of Treaty Settlements introducing Manu Ahuriri Trust to the following entities: the DHB, Housing New Zealand, KiwiRail, and the New Zealand Transport Agency which, again, speaks to the fact that Te Tiriti is not just about property rights. It’s not about that quantum of money, or even just the vesting of property back. It’s about the relationship and partnership that is inherent in that original document, and hapū are again saying, “We want to work together. Meeting our obligations requires working together.” Again, I would have thought that there would be other ways that we could do that rather than making people battle for decades to get the right to be at the table and be treated as an equal, consistent with our founding document.

But enough said for today. We look forward to the third reading and progress.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Mr Speaker, I stand to take a call on behalf of ACT to speak to the Ahuriri Hapū Claims Settlement Bill, but if you would afford me just a short minute to acknowledge those on the south coast of Wellington, where a state of emergency has just been declared. That is in my electorate of Rongotai, where I live, and I would like to just put a shout out to those people out there to please listen to Civil Defence. If they come knocking on your door, be prepared to leave, be prepared to leave quickly. This is right up to, and after, high tide, which is due at 9 o’clock this evening.

The Ahuriri Hapū Claims Settlement Bill was one that I was not aware of, being a new member of Parliament, and I would like to just point out to the Mana Ahuriri Trust that you have 40-odd new MPs who are learning about what you’ve had to go through to get to settlement. I would like to just speak through what I have learnt in doing the research for this speech. First thing, it’s been a very long process for you all, with the first submissions being made way back in 1988, a casebook inquiry occurring in 1996, and the Mohaka ki Ahuriri report that came about in 2004. You had seven hapū who have come together to form a negotiating group in 2006, but it wasn’t until 2016 before you were able to actually finally sign a deed of settlement. We are now progressing your settlement through the House with this, the second reading.

The area that is covered has already been traversed. It’s from the Esk to the Ngaruroro rivers, and it’s from the Kāweka Ranges to the Pacific Ocean. As has been said by other members, it’s actually quite an extensive rohe. The value of this settlement is $19.5 million, and a third of the shares that are held in the Kāweka Gwavas Forestry Company Limited. I’d just like to do a personal note here. I’ve been lucky enough to go and hunt into the Kāwekas in some of the forestry blocks—not this one in particular—but I think it’s really important when we can hand over some of that ownership, because it’s not just about investment in the forestry; it’s also about allowing hapū to go into some of these areas and hunt to be able to put food on their table.

It was noted that there were 34 submissions, and that there were nine orals that were given during the select committee process, with trips made to Napier as well as Wellington by both the select committee and also by those that wished to submit. It may seem like a small number, but I do recognise that they were representatives for hapū, who represented quite a large number of people. So 34 and nine may sound small, but I believe it would actually represent a significant more number of people.

The process was questioned, the process of settlement, and, as a result, an inquiry was held, and there were recommendations to move this process and to be able to move the settlement forward. It was unable to give effect to that, because there couldn’t be an agreement reached. So I understand that this is why we’ve had such a long delay. The issue with Ōmarunui accounts of what took place, I think, were really, really important, and I respect those concerns, and I also respect the efforts that have been made to address them. Ngāti Pārau, Ngāti Tu, and Ngāi Te Ruruku requested an urgent inquiry to address those concerns, and they got it. They got a good dialogue between the Government and themselves. The Crown, in engaging with those representatives, agreed that there were differing perspectives, but that they would acknowledge those, and have them published. So I thank you for your perseverance to ensure that the settlement details are accurately recorded, and I thank the consortium that is Mana Ahuriri Trust for their work here as well.

I understand that the inquiry recommendation to hold the bill from progressing through to its final stage until the elections for the post-settlement Government entity had taken place were not upheld, because the Mana Ahuriri Trust had a clear mandate from their people that elections were to occur post-settlement. I acknowledge Minister Little in his advice on the processes that they went through there, and am very pleased now to hear that the trustee election process is well under way, acknowledging, as well, that it will occur on 2 August. There were a few names that were mentioned for those running. I’m not exactly going to advocate for anyone in particular, but I will say that Peter Eden’s name was mentioned, and this is a man who I’ve done some extensive work with, with whānau up in the Gisborne area and all around the Ngāti Kahungunu area as well. He is a man of integrity, I found, and one that works very hard for his people, so I’m pleased to hear that he is standing.

I commend both the Government and the Mana Ahuriri Trust for forging through to complete the settlement by bringing this bill back to the House for completion of its legislative stages, in order to implement the full and final settlement. ACT continues to support this bill, and the settlement that it shall deliver to the tangata whenua represented by Mana Ahuriri Trust. Thank you.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister for Māori Development): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Tuatahi me taku mahara ki tō tātou Kahurangi a Georgina Kirby me ana mahi hei hāpaitia te iwi whānui i roto te kaupapa o Te Rōpū Wāhine Māori Toko i te Ora. Nō reira e te whaea, moe mai, moe mai, moe mai rā. Ki ngā mate huhua o te wā, haere koutou. Rere atu e kui, e koro mā ki tua o te ārai, haere, haere haere atu. Nō reira āpiti hono tātai hono, te hunga mate ki te hunga mate. Āpiti hono tātai hono te hunga ora ki te hunga ora. Tēnā anō tātou. Tēnā anō tātou Ahuriri ahakoa kāore i konei i tēnei wā, e tika me mihi ki a koutou mēnā kei te whakarongo, kei te mātakitaki i a mātou i runga i te pouaka whakaata i tēnei wā, tēnei te tino mihi ki a koutou, Ahuriri i tēnei wā. Koutou katoa, tēnā koutou.

[Firstly, let me remember our Dame, Georgina Kirby, and her work supporting all people through the Māori Women’s Welfare League. Rest in peace. To all those who have passed, depart all. Fly elders beyond the veil, depart from here. The lines are joined, let the dead remain with the dead. The lines are joined, let the living remain with the living. Greetings to us all, greetings to Ahuriri, as it is only right for me to greet you although you may not be present at this time. Perhaps you are listening and watching via television. This is a special greeting to the Ahuriri people at this time. Greetings to you all.]

I take the opportunity first to mihi to a kuia and whaea who passed away two, three weeks ago, Dame Georgina Kirby, who was of Ngāti Kahungunu descent and is very much hooked into this kaupapa as she was a big supporter of politics—not sure if it was Labour; sometimes it was National, with her, but she passed away a few weeks ago, a couple of weeks ago. She was the former president of the Māori Women’s Welfare League, 1983 to 1987, and made a huge contribution in terms of Te Ao Māori. I went to her tangi, spoke at her tangi with the Hon Meka Whaitiri and Rawiri Waititi, and it was a wonderful tangi. The memories and the talks about these sorts of kaupapa were very, very relevant.

Her contribution must be acknowledged, because these types of kuia, the tuarā behind so many of these settlements, the backbone—we must take the opportunity to acknowledge them. She was very special, of course, having led the Māori Women’s Welfare League, having led that kaupapa in terms of Māori business, in terms of Māori health, in terms of a lot of the health initiatives that the Māori Women’s Welfare League embarked on. Of course, politics was a major kaupapa for her and she was always liaising with politicians. I think one of her most memorable moments was in 1993 when, along with Dame Marilyn Waring and Dame Jocelyn Fish, she introduced the concept of gender representation. So we have a lot to mihi to her for. In that same year she introduced the Mana Wāhine claim, which I’m overseeing, along with Minister Jan Tinetti, at the moment. So I take the opportunity to acknowledge her, because she’s very much part of this Ngāti Kahungunu settlement. Nō reira, e kuia, moe mai, moe mai, moe mai rā.

The Ahuriri story very much mirrors the Māori story right around the country. Ahuriri wanted a partnership with the Crown, but the Crown repeatedly broke its word and breached its obligations under the Treaty. They did not, like many other iwi and hapū, receive the ongoing benefits from European settlement that the Crown had promised. In 1851 they agreed to sell the Ahuriri block for the price that the Crown offered. After Ahuriri Hapū did agree to sell the block, the Crown failed to ensure that adequate reserves were protected in their ownership.

The Crown also negotiated to purchase contested lands in the Hawke’s Bay, despite being aware that its approach to land purchase negotiations could lead to conflict amongst Māori who asserted interests in the blocks, and in 1857 conflict broke out. I’m just mentioning this history because it has been a bit lost, and I want to get into it in more depth in the third reading. Obviously the elections are incredibly important here, but we should not at all forget the history that went down in Ahuriri and the betrayal that went on.

Despite the Crown’s actions, there was no fighting between the Crown and Māori in Ahuriri before 1866. However, in 1866 the Crown initiated hostilities when its forces attacked Māori, and as a result 13 Māori died defending themselves against Crown attacks, which were launched before the Crown made a reasonable attempt to negotiate a continuation of the peace in the district.

The Crown captured Ngāti Matepū and Ngāti Māhu individuals during this conflict and imprisoned them on the Chatham Islands without trial in harsh conditions for two years. After the wars the combined effect of Crown land purchasing and the Native land laws contributed to Ahuriri Hapū being virtually landless by 1930, which has had a devastating impact on their cultural, social, and economic wellbeing.

This is the story wherever you go. This is the history wherever you go. I suppose it’s an example of the colonisation that many of us have spoken about in this House over many years now and the effects of colonisation. What is colonisation? It’s about dehumanising indigenous people and allowing the transfer of power and resources from indigenous people to the newcomers. If there was ever an example of colonisation, then we have an example of colonisation in Ahuriri. As I said, if you want to look at the effects, they are immense. So it puts to bed some of the nonsense that Mr Goldsmith was talking about earlier in terms of how wonderful colonisation has been for Māori. We have seen the terrible effects through this kaupapa and through so many kaupapa that our people have been part of. I wanted to mention that today, just briefly.

I’ll not touch too much on the trustee elections, but I’m pleased that we have committed to that process. I heard a lot of good people being mentioned in that election process. I too know two or three people there and I’m tempted to tell everyone to vote for them, but I won’t. This is a process—and it’s good to see Harete Hipango there. I’m glad the National Party have welcomed her back with open arms. Good to see you, Harete, and I’m sure she’ll speak on this kaupapa.

But this particular election process is incredibly important for the Ahuriri people. We have to get it right. We have to get the participation right. We must get the accountability right there so that everybody plays a part in this settlement and also everyone gets an opportunity to talk about the history and the betrayal that actually did go on. Let’s not get too side-tracked here, but let’s get our process right going forward.

I thank the select committee and the Waitangi Tribunal for their work, the trustees who are doing their work, and I wish them all well for the elections coming up. I’m looking forward to expanding on this kōrero in a third reading. Kia ora, Mr Speaker.

HARETE HIPANGO (National): Tēnā koe. Tākitimu te waka. Ngā uri, ngā hapū o Ahuriri, tēnā koutou.

[Greetings to the Tākitimu canoe. The descendants of the sub-tribes of Ahuriri, greetings to you all.]

It’s always a privilege to stand to address the House and also the people who are listening in from afar on these Treaty settlement bills. Minister Willie Jackson, tēnā koe. Ngā mihi ki a koe.

I have the good fortune, and will never take for granted, that I’ve been called back to this place with a list of things to do. It just happens to be again fortuitous that I’ve been called back timely to speak to this bill, because I had the distinct opportunity and privilege to be a member of the Māori Affairs Committee at the time that this came to the committee after its first reading on 12 March 2020.

It’s always helpful for those who are listening in from afar to understand what a second reading means, because not everybody does. The introduction of a bill to the House is the first reading, and, as is known, it gets referred to the select committee for those members to go through and to see whether there should be any changes after hearing submissions or evidence from the people who have an interest in that bill, in this bill. So the second reading today is about this bill having gone to the select committee and coming back to the House no sooner than the third day after the select committee has reported. Now, the select committee reported on 10 August 2020, so we’re well out of that time frame of the third day, but the purpose of this debate is to look at what the main principles of the bill are and also any changes that have been recommended by the select committee to be factored in and included by way of amendments to the bill, which I now turn to, in this brief call that I have remaining.

The select committee reported back on 10 August 2020. We heard the evidence of some nine oral submissions out of a total of some 34 written submissions. The Minister, Minister Little, earlier today talked about the fact that 16 submissions were in support and three were opposed. The select committee report notes that there are proposed amendments, amendments which are minor and technical. In summary, those are, firstly, that clause 88 of the bill, as it reads, ensures that the language in that bill is consistent with current legislation, and therefore the recommendation is to amend that clause to take into account the changes Parliament imposed in 2019 to the Local Government Act 2002. That was one of the amendments, and that’s what’s recommended for the change to this bill going through to the third reading.

The next amendment is to clause 65, which provides for three properties to be vested in the trustees, and those are outlined in Schedule 3 of the bill. It’s recommended that those small technical amendments are to add those additional interests to the bill, to remove the expired interests, and to remove the listed interests that have no direct effect on the property and are therefore not required in the bill. So those the amendments, as were recommended by the select committee, for this second reading, to take it through to the committee of the whole House and to the third reading in time.

We’ve heard members in the House today talk about the history, the components of the bill, but important was the process that had been engaged. Often as members of a select committee, particularly with Treaty settlement bills, we are privileged because we hear not only the mamae, which is the hurt that’s associated with the history and the journey of the peoples who are uri, who are ancestors, direct descendants of those who started this journey and have traversed it all the way through to the legislative passage of being before the House, but also we hear the raruraru, the problems, the internal conflicts and tensions that are there. That was presented to the select committee, and it was for the committee to defer on that because our duty and obligation was to address those matters within the bill. Minister Little has appropriately dealt with that. When this matter comes back before the House it will do so taking into account the mamae, the raruraru, and the due process has been amended and is now to be effected with the elections, for us to bring this bill back to the House for the third reading. In closing on the second reading of this bill, I commend it to the House. Kia ora.

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): Kia ora. Tēnā tātou e te Whare. Ki a koutou e ngā hapū o Ahuriri. Tēnei te mihi o Te Paati Māori ki a koutou i tēnei pō. Te pānuitanga tuarua o te pire whakataunga. Nāku te whiwhi ki te tū i roto i tēnei Whare kia mihi ki a koutou i tō koutou mahi rangatira.

[Greetings to all in the House. To the sub-tribes of Ahuriri, this is the acknowledgement of Te Paati Māori to you this evening, in relation to the second reading of the settlement bill. It is my pleasure to stand here in the House to greet you for your chiefly deeds.]

It is a privilege that I rise on behalf of Te Paati Māori to speak to this, the second reading of the Ahuriri Hapū Claims Settlement Bill. As the bill has had its first reading before the election, this is the first opportunity we’ve had to speak to this settlement in the House. It is an honour to give a short call today. I want to begin with a mihi to all the kuia-kaumātua negotiators, hapū leaders, and w’anau who have got you to this point. The mahi of rangatira is to weave together their people, and that is exactly what you’ve done to reach this point. I acknowledge the tūpuna, the w’enua, the loss, the theft that you have experienced and unique—but, sadly, common for those of us who have endured colonisation—muru raupatu. Nothing can take away the pain, the suffering, and the trauma that your people endured and far too often still endure, but this marks an important step on your road to justice and prosperity for your people. It is the start, not the end, and despite all the challenges, all the roadblocks, that are put up to prevent real justice, nothing can take away from the fact that this is your day, this is your bill, this is your story.

I note your extraordinary generosity in agreeing to the terms of this settlement. We all know that we generally settle for less than 1 percent of what was confiscated, what was violently stolen from us in the name of greed and colonisation. Crown negotiation policies such as large natural groupings and the fiscal envelope have determined this, engineering further division, further harm, and therefore further breaches of Tiriti itself. As an opposer to the fiscal envelope and a wahine involved in iwi post-settlement, I know how difficult it can be to navigate our w’anau, our people, through the multitude of challenges: fiscal, political, cultural, economic, and mana motuhake. How do we lift the trauma of deliberate displacement while negotiating mandates and unnatural natural groupings? I also know how important it is to never settle for what was achieved in the past, that we must keep striving to get the justice that our tūpuna deserve, and to create a future where our mokopuna can thrive as their true selves.

Settlements are unsettling in process. That is why Te Paati Māori does not accept that settlements are full and final. This creates the false impression that our trauma lies in the past, that the inequities, the pollution, the poverty is no more. We all know that, sadly, that just isn’t the case. Te Tiriti is not for settling; it is for implementing. It is for honouring. Te Tiriti justice is ongoing, never-ending. A new Aotearoa is on the rise, an Aotearoa where tangata w’enua, tangata moana, and tangata Tiriti unite and work together to create the harmonious, peaceful, and just nation that is envisaged in Te Tiriti, the future that our tūpuna sacrificed to ensure that we could continue to strive for.

This settlement is a significant step on that duty. It is a milestone not just for the hapū of Ahuriri, Manu Ahuriri Trust, but for Aotearoa katoa. I look forward to continuing to support this bill as it progresses through the House and to see an inevitable continued progress of your people, your w’anau, as you enter this new era for ngā hapū o Ahuriri, Manu Ahuriri Trust. Tēnā tātou katoa.

SPEAKER: Before I call Paul Eagle, I didn’t interrupt either of the last two speeches, but I do want to place on record the fact that at this stage of a bill, which is not a technical bill and they’re not technical speeches, members should not read their speeches.

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Tēna koe te Māngai o te Whare. Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I just want to, before I start, mirror the words of a colleague there from ACT—Nicole McKee—in terms of the local state of emergency there in, on Breaker Bay Road. All of the road has been closed officially as of now, and those residents have been evacuated. So we are looking at big storms on the South Coast from about 9 o’clock tonight. Apologies for the cold northern weather that’s descended upon the sunny shores of Pōneke Wellington.

But we have some brighter news here. I just want to acknowledge and mihi the people of Tākitimu, Ngāti Kahungunu, and Ahuriri Hapū iwi. If we weren’t in the alert level that we are now, I know that at least some of their people would be here and listening in to what is an important part of the process for their settlement bill to go through at its second reading

Looking back at this bill, I had the pleasure of speaking on the first reading, and I remember clearly then that being my first bill that I spoke on in terms of a Treaty settlement claim. And I had been in this House and experienced, I guess, the third reading on a Thursday, and being part of, I guess, the relief, the exasperation, the outpouring, and the wairua that goes with this in quite an open expression of—I guess, yeah, those words sum up what many people must feel. But it was the first time I’d spoken on a Treaty claim settlement bill. And not being from the Hawke’s Bay rohe, can I just acknowledge the previous Treaty negotiations Minister, Christopher Finlayson; the current, Andrew Little; our members up there past and present; Meka Whaitiri, Anna Lorck, and Stuart Nash for helping guide some of this work through. I do, as always, want to extend my greetings to the Ahuriri Hapū, and, as I said, I know that if they could be here, they would be.

In reading the bill, it is always a humbling experience. I get quite angry when I have a look through at the history and the way that the Crown negotiated the taking of land—and words like “a heavy-handed approach” come to my mind, even in the way that tensions were sparked, armed conflict broke out in the mid-1800s around the Crown attempting to purchase the Ahuriri block; 14 Māori were killed and 39 wounded in three engagements.

In fact, when I looked closely, the Crown also captured some 86 prisoners from these attacks and sent them to, dare I say it, the Chatham Islands. I’m always dismayed at how often the Chatham Islands Rēkohu / Wharekauri comes through many of these settlement bills, because I think, “Wow, it’s certainly no prison; it’s quite the reverse.” I had the experience recently with the Māori Affairs Committee—and can I acknowledge those who were part of it previously; those on it at the moment—of going back there for the Moriori claims settlement. It’s an interesting history when you hear it from their perspective, about receiving some interesting figures on to Rēkohu during some of these times. So, once again, Māori were detained without trial, they were treated harshly, harsh conditions for some two years. And, I guess, the memories of those who are related to many of those who were treated in that way plays out in the mamae that is expressed in this bill.

I want to acknowledge the negotiation team. One of the frustrations that comes through is the desire to get a settlement completed but it must be done in a way of dignity and decency. Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, quite rightly, says that for most, these settlements will never be full and final, because, as history unfolds and, as we know, ourselves, new information and a different understanding or interpretation of the history will come through. I know and I got the feeling there that as the renaissance kicks in and people become more aware of the detail around some of the issues that they will feel that justice that was part of this settlement doesn’t really reflect the harshness of the information or the new information that they may find out. So I have every sympathy with the notion that these may never really be settled.

But, in the context of this, those who work on it, the team from Ahuriri and Te Arawhiti, it’s tough stuff. And I know even working through the one through the Māori Affairs Committee at the moment, even interpreting what, I guess, authority and powers a select committee has and the influence we have versus what has been already agreed to in a settlement can cause some frustration. We are dealing with one now where, I guess, there’s an acknowledgment of some additional items that this particular claim would like included, but we just cannot afford them. So I mihi to Debbie and some of her concerns.

These are humbling experiences. I think I can now understand why the Māori Affairs Committee is one of the more collaborative and desired select committees to be part of, because you do become, I guess, really deeply involved in what are quite personal and humbling experiences. And you find many who come through these and find themselves actually being really proud of an identity that they, simply, didn’t know. So I wanted to acknowledge that process.

It is hard for me not to say—and I’ve used this language in other speeches when I’ve talked about this, but it is hard to not express—that Māori were tricked or conned or manipulated into things at the time where—in here, I’ve got the word “hoodwinked”; I found a new word, another adjective that better describes some of the reflections as you’re reading these deeds of settlement and thinking, “Wow, is this really the same Aotearoa New Zealand that we live in today, and how could that be?”, which is here, what, some 150-plus years ago.

There is always something in a settlement—and for the hapū of Ahuriri, there is one thing I found where the Crown took o Te Whanganuiā-Orotu a place of high spiritual and cultural significance, a mahinga kai and, despite not being part of the land sale, the Crown at the time deemed that that too was going to be taken. So there is always a nugget in there—dare I use that term—just to say that despite clearing out everything else, gaining so much of the taonga and whenua, they also find something that has so much more meaning. And that, I guess, goes to my point of, I believe, once more research and history is done, something like that, in terms of its significance, could well come back as people feel the grievance doesn’t quite cover the significance of that site.

I look forward to the third reading. It is the end of the process. I’m sure the select committee will finish its mahi. We will come back in here and acknowledge the hard mahi that’s been done by many and ensure that the people of Kahungunu, Tākitimu, and Ahuriri Hapū will be acknowledged for their loss and their mamae. I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

SPEAKER: The time has come for me to leave the Chair for kai. I’ll resume the Chair at 7 o’clock. I thought I might get away with putting the question, but I better not!

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a little difficult to know where to start with this bill, because I’ve listened to the speeches that have been given this afternoon and tonight on it and it’s kind of interesting. I get to speak on a lot of these bills in my time in Parliament, and it’s kind of interesting because I’ve never in my time sat on the Māori Affairs Committee except to stop by for a bit of kai, and I can tell you what, it’s worth stopping by for. But that’s the only introduction to the Māori Affairs Committee that I’ve really had in my time in Parliament.

The thing that interests me about it is that when you think about the challenges that we have—and the last two speakers, at least, spoke about this exact thing—we’re trying to make a judgment on something that in some cases happened 150 years ago. We’re trying to impose today’s standard—well, not impose today’s standard, but we’re trying to balance the standards we live by today with the standards we lived by at the time when these events happened. Not only that, but then we’ve got the various iwi and hapū trying to balance what happened to them at that time with what they might be able to gain—not gain, but what they might be able to achieve now for future generations of their families and the people that associate with them, and you can see why it takes such a long time, but the challenge of it taking so long, of course, is that there’s massive lost opportunity in it.

In the course of the commentary on this bill, that lost opportunity is talked about, and I don’t think there’s an easy answer to it. I find it a great privilege to speak on these bills, for the reasons I’ve just mentioned to some extent, but it is an extraordinarily difficult thing for a group of people in 2021 to balance what happened to people, in some cases, as early as 1850, or even earlier than that—in fact, before 1842. So it’s extraordinarily difficult for us to get to the point that we can achieve, I guess, a fair settlement of grievances that have gone on for—well, if we carry on for much longer, it’s going to be 200 years, isn’t it?

So it’s quite a challenge, and I find the Ahuriri Hapū Claims Settlement Bill quite an interesting one, because it’s a piece of New Zealand that I think is an extraordinarily beautiful piece of New Zealand, but it’s also a piece of New Zealand that’s been subject to some pretty devastating events. Of course, if you look at the Ahuriri Estuary, which is part of this settlement and it’s a place where at least two of my grandsons live and look over and play in every day—well, they’re getting a little old to play now. They ride their bikes there, and they’ll soon be doing other things there, no doubt. But it’s a part of New Zealand that has had some very challenging events happen to it.

So when you look at this claims settlement bill, the area that it affects almost goes as far as the Rangitīkei electorate. In other words, it goes right up into the Kāweka Ranges, and probably over the hill—in fact, the Taupō electorate probably bounds on it more than the Rangitīkei does at the top. But it’s a big part of New Zealand and a very important part of New Zealand, and it also contains what I think is a very interesting port. For anyone who ever goes and spends some time at Ahuriri—and my mother lived there for a long time. She still does, actually, although sometimes I don’t know whether she knows she lives there or not, but she lives there, and, of course, that’s one of the tragedies of life, I suppose. But it is a fascinating place, and when you have a look at the port and the activity that that port generates, it’s a hugely important part of New Zealand. It’s also a very attractive part of New Zealand, and not only does this area of land contain the port but it also contains the airport.

So when you look at what’s happened to that since perhaps the beginning of these challenges that happened in the 1870s and you look at what’s happening to it now, it’s a spectacular piece of New Zealand infrastructure and a very important part of New Zealand. So for this claims settlement bill to be put through, given the background of what’s going on there today and what happened there in the past, it’s an extremely difficult thing to get a balance on. So I’ve got great admiration for the iwi and hapū who go into these negotiations, and for the negotiators that take part in these things, because, as I’ve said, it’s an extremely complicated and, I guess, to some extent risky process to get involved in, because you’re going to be blamed for ever if you get it wrong. So I think it’s pretty special that we can get these bills to the post, but I also think it’s important that we get as many of these settlements done and get them done as quickly as we can. But, at the same time, we can’t sacrifice quality for speed, because if we do, we’ll make a whole lot of mistakes that will just be repeating the damage of the past.

So it’s a great privilege for me to speak on these bills. As I said, I have a bit more association with the Ahuriri Hapū claims settlement area than perhaps I do with some others because my mother and my daughter and my grandchildren live there, and they’ll benefit. Inevitably, they’ll benefit—I’m not really sure my mother will but—

Hon Member: Your poor mother.

IAN McKELVIE: Well, she wouldn’t like me taking her name in vain, but she won’t be able to listen because she’s deaf. So I’m safe.

SPEAKER: The member’s safe—I know the feeling.

IAN McKELVIE: So do I. But I think the point that I’m making is that they’ll benefit hugely from this settlement because the activities that will happen as a result of these settlement bills and the result of those settlements benefit everyone that lives in those areas, and I think that’s pretty special. So I’m hugely supportive of these settlements, and I’m also hugely supportive of the activity that takes place as a result of them. I know we go back and we talk about what might have been, because, as I said when I started this little address to the House, it’s very difficult for us to judge what might have been when we are looking at a span of perhaps 180 years in a lot of cases with these bills.

So I think that we’ve got to give the Māori Affairs Committee, particularly, and those iwi and hapū concerned a great deal of credit for the work they do to get to the point they get where they can at least get an agreement and get a settlement of a sort in place. I think it’s of great benefit to New Zealand, and I also don’t believe that we should go back and make judgments on what happened in the past and compare that with what’s happening today—we do it in all forms of life—actually, because what happened when I was born was very different to things that are going on today.

The other thing that I think is very relevant to this is the time this bill’s taken, and there are people in this House who weren’t born when the process for this bill started. So that just shows how long it’s taken—over 30 years—for the process to take place and get through and get finally through to a second reading, and I’ve no doubt the third reading will not be long following. But I think it’s really important. I’d just congratulate everyone concerned on it, and I think it’s pretty special that we can be part of these claims settlement bills. I just hope that they continue and that they continue with speed and that we can get them—I shouldn’t say “we get them out of the way”, because that’s not the object of it at all. The object of it is to get to a settlement that at least can be agreed by as many of us as possible.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I hope it gets good support at the third reading, and I’m sure it will.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e te Pīka, tēnā tātou ngā mema o te Whare i tēnei pō. Tēnā koutou ngā uri o ngā hapū o Ahuriri. Ngā uri o Ngāti Hinepare, ngā uri o Ngāti Māhū, ngā uri o Ngāti Matepū, ngā uri o Ngāti Pārau, ngā uri o Ngāi Tāwhao, ngā uri o Ngāti Tū, ngā uri o Ngāti Te Ruruku.

[Greetings Mr Speaker. Greetings to the members of the House this evening. Greetings to all the descendants of the sub-tribes of Ahuriri. The descendants of Ngāti Hinepare, of Ngāti Māhu, of Ngāti Matepū, of Ngāti Pārau, of Ngāi Tāwhao, of Ngāti Tū and of Ngāti Te Ruruku.]

Can I also start by acknowledging those tipuna whose names are recorded for ever in this bill, which acknowledges both their legacy and the legacy of everyone who’s been involved in the settlement to bring about a more positive future for their descendants. I acknowledge tonight Hikateko for Ngāti Hinepare, Tumahuki for Ngāti Māhu, Te Atawhaki or Te Putanga-Ō-Te Rangi for Ngāti Matepū, Hikawera for Ngāti Paarau, Tāwhao for Ngāi Tāwhao, Tūkapua for Ngāti Tū, Wharerakau or Te Hiku for Ngāi Te Ruruku, and the other ancestors who are acknowledged in those trustees. I do that to ground us, in Parliament’s discussions tonight, about those tipuna who are acknowledged in the settlement from the Crown, which sets out a series of acknowledgments and apologies to right the wrongs that were inflicted by the Crown towards these people of Ahuriri. And it’s those tipuna that bear a legacy of wrongs by the Crown that it is a privilege to stand here in the House tonight to acknowledge.

I want to start by briefly touching on the future-focused nature of this bill. I commend the Minister and the negotiating teams for their work in allowing a process which is somewhat novel, but I think really needed in this case, where there were a number of decisions to be made after this bill is introduced for the Mana Ahuriri Trust. But these represent choices that the trust can make for the benefit of its people: things like a one-year period to elect to purchase 10 land-banked properties and two years to purchase Ahuriri Station. It also includes a right of first refusal over 10 properties for the next 174 years, and the choice about whether to buy the Crown interest in Hawke’s Bay Airport. Why I touch on that is because often those things are negotiated pre-settlement, but what’s been important here is to establish the ability of the Crown to negotiate with this group formally, and then to establish the correct sort of procedural process that will mean that the people who we are trying to acknowledge here in this settlement and those uri of the tipuna who I read out are properly represented.

I also want to touch briefly on what I think is arguably the very most important part of this settlement, and that is Ōmarunui and the acknowledgments that the Crown gives about that historical event. I’ll start not with the wording of the deed of settlement, but by reading from the newspaper The Colonist in its report from 19 October 1866. And this, before the negotiation of these claims in the process of the Waitangi Tribunal, was the accepted account of the history on that day. And they write, “The body of about 70 Hauhaus who arrived at Pētane Hawke’s Bay a fortnight ago, having been reinforced by about 40 others and refusing to explain their intention, Mr McLean, the superintendent of Hawke’s Bay, determined to enforce their removal. On Monday, 8 October, the militia were called out and drilled during the three following days, Major Frasier’s party at Wairoa having been sent by sea. On Thursday night, nearly 200 militia and volunteers and same numbers of natives marched to Ōmarunui pā and completely surrounded the Hauhaus before daybreak. One hour was given to them to surrender, and at the end of two they were still refusing. At seven the attack commenced, and in half an hour they hoisted the flag in truce and 47 surrendered. Several of these escaped, but all accept four were retaken and the whole marched to the Napier Barracks. The casualties were 23 Hauhaus killed and the same number wounded.”

I read that account because it’s really important in these Treaty settlement bills that we acknowledge the history that took place and the effect of that both on the settlors and the people of these pā, who, in this case, were occupied by what was an invading force. And to see them all as one part of “the Hauhaus”, which here was a derogatory term used for rebels, would not be accurate.

So I very proudly read from the apology afforded by the Crown in the acknowledgment section, which says, “Kei te whakaae te Karauna—i tuku i te tau 1866 i tētahi tauākī whakamutunga kutikuti i whakahau kia whakahauraro te katoa i roto i Ōmarunui, tae atu ki ngā tāngata nō Ngāti Matepū rāua ko Ngāti Māhū, mahue atu te whakariterite haere tonu i te hohou rongo; ā, he mea whakamōrea ngā oranga o ngā tāne, wāhine, tamariki katoa i roto i te pā e te whakaekenga o Ōmarunui i te mōnehutanga o te tauākī whakamutunga; ā, i whakamatea e te Karauna neke atu i te 30 tāngata e wawao ana i a rātou anō i Ōmarunui, i tētahi atu whakaekenga o te Karauna i Herepoho; ā, he mahi tūkino ngā whakaekenga o Ōmarunui me Herepoho me te takahi i te Tiriti o Waitangi me ōna mātāpono.”

[The Crown acknowledges that—in 1866 it issued an unreasonable ultimatum demanding the surrender of all those inside Ōmarunui, including individuals from Ngāti Matepū and Ngāti Māhū, rather than continue negotiations to preserve the peace; and Crown forces endangered the lives of all men, women, and children inside the pā by attacking Ōmarunui when the ultimatum expired; and Crown forces killed more than 30 people who were defending themselves at Ōmarunui and during another Crown attack at Herepoho; and the attacks at Ōmarunui and Herepoho were an injustice and breached the Treaty of Waitangi and its principles.]

That’s really important, because what that speaks to is the breach of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi and the Treaty itself when the Crown descended on Ōmarunui pā to evict those people, and it acted in a way which was dangerous to the people who were ordinarily resident there. It speaks to those women and children whose lives were lost in a militaristic action that was taken by the Crown and was an overreaction to the occupant’s failure to take into account the Crown’s ultimatum. Statements like that are important in establishing the history of what went on in this, and it’s really important that the settlement goes on to address some of those wrongs of the Crown.

We’ve heard tonight about what transpired after those events which I read about which was the taking of prisoners from Ahuriri Hapū to the Chatham Islands with the whakarau, as they came to be known. Many of those escaped two years later with Te Kooti Arikirangi on the Rifleman when he captured it, but many of them perished there on the Chatham Islands. I also want to acknowledge ngā uri o Rēkohu mea Ngāti Mutunga for their care not only of the people when they were there of Ahuriri, but also of their spirits, because as I know, as someone who’s recently travelled to Rēkohu with the Māori Affairs Committee, some of Rēkohu is a very inhospitable place, and for the people of the East Coast to be there without the protection of their whānau, without the skills to live in such a place, it would have been a very hard thing. And for their remains which are there, we thank the mana whenua there for their care for that.

It’s important that the Crown acknowledges that what was breached there was the commitment to the rule of law from the Crown. And the acknowledgment here is about the rights of the inhabitants of those pā. And when they were prisoners, they should have been treated as all New Zealand citizens would have been at the time, and, in fact, some of them who were captured after Ngātapa, they were given no trial and they were executed there. And then a very small number were tried under the Execution of Criminals Act 1858, which led to New Zealand’s first and only capital punishment, for Hamiora Pere.

So I don’t dwell on those facts to bring down the mood, but I do want to touch on what was a very troubling time in New Zealand history where the rule of law was not upheld, and the importance of Treaty settlements not only in righting the wrongs of the Crown to Māori and rebuilding the relationship—Te Arawhiti, if you will; rebuilding the bridge between the Crown and Māori—but also about acknowledging simply where the rule of law has not been followed and the importance of the Crown in acting to right those wrongs and to commit ourselves to upholding the rights of prisoners in our system. So I look forward to discussing this bill more at third reading and commend it to the House.

Bill read a second time.

Motions

Referral to Environment Committee of Exposure Draft and Terms of Reference for Inquiry on Natural and Built Environments Bill: Parliamentary Paper—Leave Denied

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Mr Speaker, I seek leave to move a motion without notice referring the exposure draft and terms of reference for an inquiry on the Natural and Built Environments Bill: Parliamentary Paper to the Environment Committee for consideration.

SPEAKER: Leave has been sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Matt Doocey: I don’t know anything about it.

SPEAKER: Well, I thought the member was on a call not that long ago where it was discussed. But anyway.

I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Gas (Information Disclosure and Penalties) Amendment Bill and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bill. [Pause in proceedings] I’m waiting until I get a replacement. I think it’s fair to say we’re in a slightly unanticipated point, so I’m sure Roland is doing his best to find someone to sit in the Chair. [Interruption]

House in Committee

House in Committee

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Members, the House is in committee on the Gas (Information Disclosure and Penalties) Amendment Bill and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bill.

Bills

Gas (Information Disclosure and Penalties) Amendment Bill

In Committee

Debate resumed from 23 June.

Part 1 Amendments to Gas Act 1992 (continued)

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): We come first to the Gas (Information Disclosure and Penalties) Amendment Bill. When we were last in committee on this bill we were considering Part 1, which is the debate on clauses 3 to 18 and the Schedule. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Mr Speaker, I seek leave to move a motion without notice referring the exposure draft and terms of reference for an inquiry on the Natural and Built Environments Bill parliamentary paper to the Environment Committee for consideration.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): We’re in committee, and only the House can give permission. So the question is that Part 1 stand part. If there’s no one wanting to take a call on that—Barbara Kuriger.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you, Mr Chair. When we were last speaking on this committee stage, the Minister said in the House, “That something became very clear to”—this is a quote—“Something that became very clear to me as a relatively new Minister of Energy and Resources was something needed to be done about it—that we could not have a regime where there were some industry participants that were having to put drones into the air to fly over the pipeline to try and figure out what was going on because we had a voluntary regime that simply was not delivering the disclosure that was required. So that is why this legislation is before the House and why it is necessary.” So, in light of that comment that the Minister made, I’d like to ask her: when did the voluntary disclosure regime come into force, and does she know of any breaches of that voluntary disclosure regime since it came into force?

I’ll carry on if the Minister’s not ready to answer yet. There’s a couple of other questions that I’d like to ask the Minister. When she answered another question of mine last time, what proof does she have that the political decision has had no effect on the gas fields, she said “I think it was April of 2018, our decision.”, and she talked about the gap between April of 2018 and the spring of 2018 in terms of gas production, and said, in fact, talked about there not being enough time for their decision to have had any impact. The question that I asked her did not actually talk about April of 2018 and the spring of 2018, it talked about—I asked her the question, it was a broad question, and obviously starts in April of 2018 when the political decision was made, but I didn’t put an end date on that, so today could well be the end date, Minister.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): I’ll take a very quick call. I’ll deal first of all with the question that pertains to the bill that we have in front of us, in terms of when the voluntary code came into play, and that was March 2020. The whole point is that it is a voluntary code. And in terms of compliance, I think that everybody in New Zealand wants to make sure that we have a well-functioning energy system and we have the ability to have the information that is required to do that. I do note to the member that the Gas Industry Company (GIC) itself is in support of these changes.

In terms of the question that is a little broader than the bill that we have in front of us—and I have already addressed that through the committee stages of this legislation—I would point out to the member that it was a decision taken in 2018. No exploration permits that would have been issued in 2018 would yet be in production. In fact, the time line around anything that would be in production is at least seven years. So no, it has nothing to do with the current tightness that we are seeing around the current failure of the infrastructure associated with Pohokura.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Next question, given that the Minister indicated, when we were previously on the bill, that she will not support ACT’s Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) to protect commercial sensitivity, how will she guarantee that commercial sensitivity will be protected?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): Happy to take an answer from the National Party spokesperson on the ACT Party SOP. This will be a matter for the—the bill already enables what we had there: the bill enabling the GIC to protect commercially sensitive information. I will be looking to the GIC to determine the benefits and costs around that. I think this is something well within their purview to manage.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. To the Minister, we’re talking about sensitive commercial information. One of the reasons that ACT has proposed an amendment is because ACT is very, very concerned, as are many stakeholders, that the Government cannot protect sensitive information. Today, in this House, we heard about a serious breach of patients’ information—information about their medical history, about financial history, and about a whole range of matters pertaining to the operation of the Waikato District Health Board, which, based on what I understand the Government’s current plans for information technology and data protection are, we are in a very, very weak and exposed position right now. So I think it is very important for the Minister to tell the House and to give confidence to stakeholders, who, essentially, will be subject to a fishing expedition.

When I look through this bill, I am frankly astounded that a Government presiding over a health IT system where patients’ sensitive medical records about procedures and all kinds of terrible things that they’ve suffered are now on the dark web—what I see here is a Government that proposes a fishing expedition, and why the information that the Minister requires is intended to be broad and not exhaustive. How on earth will that benefit security of supply, knowing more about storage, knowing more about outages, and being able to actually target a better outcome for New Zealand from an economic and social perspective, this fishing expedition that the Minister proposes? What are you going to do to protect the data, Minister?

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you. I’m not sure that the Minister has an answer so we’ll give her a bit more time to think. I am interested in the fact that the Minister is expecting the industry to come up with a disclosure and with a plan so that everybody’s got some certainty—and everything I hear in energy at the moment is around certainty. I would like to ask the Minister: how soon will the Minister have a plan, as recommended by the Climate Commission, for our new renewable energy future? If the Minister’s asking the industry to have a plan and a disclosure, could the Minister do some work and have a disclosure as well.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): I will answer questions that are to do with this bill, but as the member well knows, I think, the process around the independent climate commission and the Government’s response to that is a little out of scope for this piece of legislation that we have in front of us.

In terms of the disclosure, the Supplementary Order Paper that has been put up by the ACT Party on this, the new regulation-making power provides for both the provision of information and the disclosure of information. I do point the member to the fact that this is parallel to a system that, actually, we do have in regard to the electricity industry, that this is more about getting some symmetry across our energy system. So if we do—with the danger of going off and addressing what the plan might be in terms of our end of year response to the climate commission—we do need to start thinking in terms of New Zealand’s energy system rather than separately around our gas markets and our electricity markets and what those interactions will be.

So what this means is that an information disclosure regime would require the provision of commercially sensitive data, and we do acknowledge that, but this data may be aggregated or otherwise made anonymous for the disclosure of that data. There are well-trodden ways in which that can be managed, and we do see it within our energy system already. I do note that the electricity system does collect what could otherwise be considered commercially sensitive data. I do note that when we went through and did the Electricity Price Review, we got all of the electricity retailers to disclose commercially sensitive data to us at a meshblock level, on a voluntary basis, so that we could use that data for the study. They did that in a way that was really constructive and a way that we were able to work through this.

But how this would be implemented in terms of this would be determined by the Gas Industry Company (GIC) as part of the recommendation. I do point to the member that he’s saying, “Let industry do it themselves. There’s no point to have regulation.”, but I do note the fact that the GIC is in fact an industry owned body, so there is scope here for industry to be involved in this.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the Gas (Information Disclosure and Penalties) Amendment Bill. I’ve actually got a couple of questions for the Minister, and I think, in the introduction to this bill, it talks about the outage at Pohokura and the cost of $2 million a day to their main customer. But this is a much wider issue than that, and the bill is talking about security of supply and all those issues that go with that. I mean, we’re in an incredibly interesting time at the moment. Whilst our lakes are starting to fill a little bit—our hydro storage—we are in a parlous situation. With a low gas supply, we’re totally reliant at the moment on Indonesian coal to keep the lights on. And I congratulate the Government for having the courage, despite their lofty climate proclamations, to bring a whole lot of dirty Indonesian coal in to keep the lights on. And we need that. But what I want to know about this bill is: is this going to give the industry enough confidence to invest?

We know they have to live up to their obligations to clean their act up, and their wells up, when they leave. That’s absolutely a given; I understand that. But the industry is lacking confidence now for investment—

Hon Dr Megan Woods: That’s the bill later tonight. That’s not the one now.

STUART SMITH: You’ll get an opportunity in a minute, Minister. They lack the confidence at the moment to invest the money that’s required to keep these gasfields producing at the rate that we need them to. I note that the Minister for Climate Change refers often to the British being able to lower their emissions by 40 percent whilst growing their economy. They largely did that because they switched from coal to gas and exported their emissions when their steel mills went offshore.

So the issue for this bill is—I’d like to know does this bill give the industry the confidence to continue investing in their wells and their whole system of getting gas out of there, because, Minister, it’s really serious here. If one of those boilers, if one of those generation plants goes down, the lights go off. And we only have to remember in February of last year, in Texas, 80 people lost their lives because of poor decisions made around the gas supply. And to remind you, Minister, they decided, in their wisdom, in Texas, to switch their gas pumping from gas turbines pumping the gas along the pipeline to electricity, to lower their emissions, and the power went off, the gas froze in the line and people died. It’s important that we get this supply right and that the industry is reporting all of those things—well, you might shake your head, Minister, but, actually, 80 people lost their lives. I don’t think that’s a trivial matter; you might. But you’ve got a bill here about reporting—

Hon Member: Which clause is this?

STUART SMITH: This is absolutely about the supply and security of supply. We need to have confidence that this bill will actually achieve what you say it’s going to, and I’m not sure we do. So give us some confidence.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of opportunity for other members to contribute, because this is a really, really important piece of legislation, and it’s wonderful to hear so many members asking valid, important, and serious questions of the Minister. I have one which follows on from Mr Stuart Smith’s question. We know the Gas Industry Company already produces information about projected outages—about when, days and weeks ahead, there will be outages. We know that the Gas Industry Company produces information about when gas is being stored and when it is being drawn down from facilities like Ahuroa. And we also know that they publish a fulsome series—now running into the 300, nearly 400 technical disclosures about outages and maintenance and all kinds of things that are relevant to decision making by their customers, but also by Government agencies which do have a responsibility, as does the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, for ensuring that New Zealand has security of supply with petroleum products. So, given that, we know all this information is currently being provided through a voluntary system, and that information helps decision makers make the right decision about security of energy supply.

Minister, I do have a question for you, a very specific question, and that relates to today’s wonderful news that two exploration permits have been issued for onshore natural gas exploration in Taranaki. That is the best news that the people of Taranaki have heard in years—

Hon Member: And New Zealand.

SIMON COURT: —and years and years—and New Zealand, but primarily those people who live in Taranaki in places like Waitara, which is not a wealthy community, but where many, many thousands of people enjoy the benefits of high-paid jobs in industries that contribute enormously to New Zealand’s export revenues and also sustain many, many other businesses and thousands of jobs in those supporting industries and manufacturing and so on. So given we know these two facts—these are not to be fact-checked, these are not fact optional, Minister, these are facts. The Gas Industry Company already makes significant voluntary disclosures. Today, an announcement of two exploration permits. Question for the Minister: did the information disclosed voluntarily by the industry players contribute or assist the decision making today to award those two permits?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): I will take a call on the several questions that the member has put there, the one in terms of the decision that was made today on the 2019 block offer. So the result we are seeing is the 2019 block offer. That’s actually a statutory decision that is clearly laid out in terms of the criteria that are used in terms of whether or not to award those permits. What we’re talking about here is an entirely different regime than our permitting regime. There’s different information that has to be disclosed through the process of putting in for a permit.

But in answer to the question, “Why don’t we just persevere with the voluntary code that is in place?”, the member is suggesting that that is sufficient. What I’d like to draw the member’s attention to, and he may not have seen it, is a document actually produced by the Gas Industry Company itself. This is, of course, the body which is, essentially, owned by the industry. It is the industry regulator—so in many ways is the voice of industry—which really clearly lays out what they see as the shortcomings with the current voluntary regime and makes the case of why there actually does need to be a mandatory code that is put into place. They talk about the arrangements “That are in place that ensure the effective and timely availability of gas production and storage outage information for all gas and related market participants.” What they talk about is that a lack of credible compliance and enforcement mechanism in the voluntary regime means the costs of non-compliance with the upstream to disclosure code might not outweigh any benefits. What they talk about is the shortcomings, and they list these out really clearly and why it is they do want to move to exactly what this bill is putting in place. The structure of the code as a multilateral agreement between producers and gas storage owners means that the code can only be enforceable between those parties and limits the role of the affected parties in changes of the code.

The second reason and the second limitation that they see there is some of the information in the outage definition is private information, making it difficult for third parties in the Gas Industry Company to review where the parties to the code have reported outage information consistent with the code’s terms and the timing of notifications for unplanned outages and material changes to planned outages may not address issues with the information asymmetry. Then they go on—also another point: the provisions of the code do not override confidentiality obligations and current contracts held by gas producers and gas storage owners.

I think one of the things that the voluntary code, that was put in after the situation that we did have with the outage, and what pre-empted this was always meant to be a stopgap measure. The industry themselves were telling us that there needed to be some longer-term, more structural changes that need to be put in place and that is what we have in front of us in the Chamber tonight.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): I move, That the question be now put.

MELISSA LEE (National): Thank you, Mr Chair. It is committee stage, and when members have a lot of questions, I don’t think it is actually responsible of the Government to move a closure motion. I think it is shameful that they’re trying to shut down debate. But there are some questions that I would actually like to ask the Minister. In particular, I’m looking at the main provision of the bill, where it actually says that if enacted, the bill will clarify that the gas governance regulations could, and I quote, “specially provide for arrangements relating to outages and other security of supply contingencies.” And it is this contingency that I’d just like to ask the Minister—my colleague Stuart Smith actually talked earlier about the reason why we have to actually import coal from overseas to provide electricity. I’m wondering if the Minister is looking at contingency plans, considering the fact that in Taranaki the exploration actually was cancelled. I know that Mr Court has actually just mentioned two of the 2019 block offers are coming to fruition today. But the thing is that I think all good Governments need to provide contingency plans, whether it is actually about population and what the population require in terms of health services. But in terms of power, if we are lacking in gas supply, we need a contingency plan. If we are lacking in hydro dams, we need a contingency plan. What contingency plan does she foresee as a result of this bill coming into fruition?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): I have already addressed this question on two occasions in this committee stage. The member may not have been in the House for that, but happy to provide a further answer to that. In terms of the member asking what contingency plans are in place for the provision of energy in New Zealand, given that what we’re witnessing this year is not only a dry year in terms of our hydrology—in terms of our hydro dams, that we know are at about 78 percent of historical average in our dams, which is a marked increase on where they were—but we’re also seeing the failure of gas supply, that security of supply. What we’re seeing is production problems coming off one of our fields. So we have the convergence of these two things.

One of the things that I think everybody needs to understand is that the way in which New Zealand stores energy for a dry year is in its most expensive form in New Zealand at the moment. It’s in the form of fossil fuels, whether that be in the form of coal or whether that be in the form of gas. So what I’m happy to tell the member is that this is not a situation that this Government is content to see into the future for New Zealanders. This is not the way for New Zealand businesses and households to realise the potential and the benefits and the comparative advantage that we hold as a country in terms of our renewable energy.

So what we are doing is we are investing in how it is that we can address dry-year storage, not through expensive fossil fuels but through the cheapest form of electricity in the form of renewables. That’s exactly why we’ve invested $30 million into the New Zealand Battery Project, the first phase, with another $70 million already budgeted. What we have to do is find a way to move beyond fossil fuels, not just because we have to do that for our climate goals and we have to do that for the planet—I’d be very interested to know if the National Party currently thinks that we should keep burning fossil fuels into the future and, if so, how it is we’re going to reach the climate goals that they signed up to in Paris—but we also need to have renewable contingencies in place in how it is we store energy in the cheaper form of renewable energy if we want our businesses to flourish and if we want to seriously address energy poverty.

Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Mr Chair, thank you very much, and I’d like to thank the Minister in the chair, Megan Woods, for her comments, I think, except they don’t make a lot of sense. She’s talking about many years in the future, and she’s talking about a dry year this year, but, Minister, wasn’t it the case that the increase in coal importation started long before the suggestion that this was a dry year? In fact, under your watch, more coal was imported and used in the first quarter of this year than the last two years alone, and there are shiploads of thermal coal coming from not the West Coast, not near Huntly itself, but from Indonesia. You’ve mentioned that $30 million has been set aside by the Government, but I ask the Minister: how much does 2 million tonnes of coal from Indonesia cost, because that’s the suggestion of the amount that will be imported this year.

So is there less gas being used in New Zealand or less investment being put into gas supply in New Zealand as a result of the well-meaning but disastrous policy decisions that this Government made last term? And how does she equate that or her suggestions of the expensiveness and how harmful thermal coal is for the environment when so very much is being imported? Ministers of energy many years ago that were responsible for this portfolio were very proud of the amount of coal that was dug up in New Zealand. This Minister must be proud of the amount that’s been imported on ships that come all the way from Indonesia and are put on probably not rail but on trucks and driven all the way down to Huntly, where they’ve just had to recommission one of their coal boilers that was decommissioned many years ago. In as far as climate change is concerned, this Minister is a failure, but when it comes to energy, she’s one of the best Ministers of energy the coal industry in Indonesia’s ever had.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): Happy to take a call on the member’s question around when it was that it was decided that coal would need to be imported to back up what was becoming increasingly apparent of the failure of gas to supply the security of supply that was required in a dry year. I’d point the member to the fact that, actually, weather forecasting is quite a long-range science, and, in fact, a La Niña weather pattern has been forecast for quite a period of time, certainly before the period of time the member is pointing to, to when the coal imports started arriving. What people that are skilled in the science of weather understand very clearly is that a La Niña weather pattern means drier than usual conditions in our southern hydro lakes. So the fact that where we require our hydro lakes to be filled is over the summer months, because, of course, winter, the precipitation tends to fall as snow in that part of the country that, in fact, the La Niña weather pattern—it was entirely predictable what was going to happen here.

I think one of the things that it’s really interesting to see the National Party showing its stripes on and where they sit in climate debates—that agency that would never be seen as a radical environmental organisation, the International Energy Agency, has now put out a report actually calling on the world to end the exploration permits of oil and gas. They understand that we simply cannot do this. We have to have an end mark. I would point that member to the fact that the latest figures that we have for the gas reserves that are in New Zealand are exactly what they have been for the last 20 years—it’s 10 years in that contingency planning. I would also point that member to the fact that he is somewhat mistaken in the lack of investment in our gas assets since we made the decision to end new exploration permits. In fact, there has been a billion dollars’ worth of investments since we made our decision in 2018.

Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Well, thank you very much. I just had a quick look on Google, and the only person more proud of the work as Minister of Energy and Resources is the Hon Arifin Tasrif, who is the Minister responsible for energy and mineral resources in Indonesia, because under this Minister’s watch this year, there are predictions of 2 million tonnes—metric tonnes—of thermal coal being imported from Indonesia at a whopping, whopping cost of US$180 million a year—US$180 million a year. So, Minister, it’s fine for you to try and say the National Party shows its colours here, because, actually, when it comes to energy in New Zealand and electricity, that is a great indictment upon this Minister and her work as Minister, that there was more coal in the first quarter of this year burnt than the last two years combined, and that shiploads—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): If the member would like to link these those comments to Part 1 of the bill—

Hon TODD McCLAY: Well, yes, I will. So in as far as Part 1’s concerned—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): —he might get it in order.

Hon TODD McCLAY: —could the Minister answer this question: the Gas (Information Disclosure and Penalties) Amendment Bill, will it mean more or less than $180 million worth of coal is imported from Indonesia this year? If the answer is: “It has, actually, nothing to do with that and will have no effect on it at all.”, what is the single use of this bill when Kiwis are having to pay much, much more and she stands here in this House and says, “We are the climate change defenders.” when, actually, it’s so much worse under her watch than it ever, ever has been?

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

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

Ayes 77

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

Noes 43

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): The question is that Simon Court’s amendment to insert new clause 11AA, set out on Supplementary Order Paper 41, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 43

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10.

Noes 75

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): The question is that Simon Court’s amendment to insert new clause 11AAB, set out on Supplementary Order Paper 50, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 43

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10.

Noes 75

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

Amendment not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 1 be agreed to.

Ayes 110

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

Noes 10

ACT New Zealand 10.

Part 1 agreed to.

Part 2 Amendments to Regulations

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Members, we now come to Part 2. This is the debate on clauses 19 to 23, “Amendments to regulations”. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Yeah, I’d just like to talk to clause 19, around the regulations. The regulations, as we’ve heard tonight, are around disclosure. I’m really disappointed that the last part of the bill was cut short in the most open and transparent Government ever, particularly when the Minister actually took a swipe at me for talking about the Climate Change Commission, and saying it had nothing to do with climate, and then in her future call, she decided that she was going to use the climate and take a swipe at National as a basis. So I think it was really shut down so that the Minister didn’t have to ask the questions.

So the questions that I actually want to know is that this is about having a plan, this is about a regulation to ask the industry to disclose and be open and transparent about the amount of gas that is on hand. The Minister went through a whole lot of information before talking about what the industry had told the Gas Industry Company. They also told the Gas Industry Company and the select committee that they were concerned about all of the competitive information or the ability to go fishing—as Simon Court has actually mentioned already tonight.

So the Minister is expecting that this bill will be passed—and it probably will, because they have control over everything right now—and the industry will be expected to put the plan of how much gas is in front of the Minister. I have a really relevant question for the Minister. Given that when the Climate Change Commission—and it is relevant because she talked about the climate in her own speeches tonight—came out and said that it would be a good idea for the Government to have a plan to our future energy transition, the Minister actually agreed with the Climate Change Commission. Now, this is four years in to this Government. They actually made some very serious decisions in 2018. They call it a just transition. No one can see what the transition is. There is no plan. Is it unreasonable of the Minister to ask an industry to disclose and have a plan, when the Minister is unwilling to disclose what the Minister’s and the Government’s plan is?

My question to the Minister, based around that, is: did the Minister instigate this bill so that the Government would know where the gas is so that they can keep the lights on?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): It might be helpful for the committee to talk through what it is that Part 2 of this bill does, and the regulations that are being changed by this. It is quite a tight part of the bill, in terms of the 2008 regulations that are being changed. So if we look at clause 19: that identifies the gas governance compliance regulations 2008 is the regulations amended in the subpart, that largely what Part 2 of the bill is talking about is the penalties regime. And what you will see through subsequent clauses round there is how it is that the bill is going to work in terms of that penalties regime.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Minister for that explanation about the penalties regime. When we look a bit further down the track, what we see is a penalties regime which gives this Government regulator, regulating agency, authority—what do we call it? A regulating body. It actually says that they can ignore any civil penalties or civil agreements already reached and impose their own penalties. I guess that shows you what the tendency is of this Government to ignore the desire, the will, to collaborate, to solve problems for the benefit of communities, for the businesses that operate in those communities, for the businesses that support families and workers on high-paid jobs in some of New Zealand’s most interesting and challenging problem-solving sectors like the oil and gas sector. It appears that this Government prefers to take it upon itself to regulate and to come up with their own penalties regime rather than allowing, through contracts, through mediation, potentially even through litigation or arbitration between parties who may be affected by a shortage of gas, by announcements which they weren’t expecting—although given the information that the gas industry company already provides, it’s hard to imagine there would be a scenario where any kind of action would be necessary because all the information that will ever be needed is already out there in plain sight. That’s why the regulations that are proposed are completely unnecessary. The Minister should answer this question: what additional information that is not currently disclosed would the Minister want to know?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): I did address that in answers to the previous part of the bill. It’s probably no surprise that that was addressed in answers to a previous part of the bill because Schedule 1AA that the member is referring to in the call that he just took is a consequence of clause 18, which is, in fact, in Part 1of the legislation.

SIMON COURT (ACT): So we are debating Part 2, and we are talking about the regulations which establish rulings panel, and my question to the Minister is what type of or what value or form of punishment would elicit the kind of information that is not currently available, because that’s what Part 2, in the Amendments to regulation, seeks to do, is to set up a rulings panel to order penalties and to define what offences and breaches are.

Let’s be clear, when we’ve heard the Minister tell us time and again that the Gas Industry Company itself asked for the privilege of being regulated, well, I’ve read a few bedtime stories to my kids in the past, and sometimes I get to a part of the book where the page is missing, and so I skip that bit, and I fill in the blanks. But children are smart, and they always know when a parent or a Government Minister is just making it up and filling in the blanks.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! You can’t make that kind of accusation. I’m going to require you to withdraw and apologise.

SIMON COURT: I withdraw and apologise, Mr Chair. So look, to complete that analogy, this is no bedtime story. This is no fairy tale. It’s more like a nightmare for those organisations and those businesses required to comply. If we come back to the reason why they need to comply with this need for a regulation, when the Gas Industry Company supposedly offered this opportunity for regulation to the Minister, “Minister, please regulate us. We cannot manage ourselves.”—look, I’ve been in the principal’s office. I’ve been offered a month of detention or six of the best, and it’s not a pleasant choice to have to make. So I would like to ask the Minister—

Hon Member: What did you choose?

SIMON COURT: I always chose six of the best because it seemed that it was sometimes quicker to get the punishment over. It’s quicker to get the punishment over rather than to suffer writing lines and suffering at the hands of the administration. But that’s a very good question.

So look, the question for the Minister: what level of penalties or other form of punishment would be required to force the industry to disclose information that is not currently being disclosed?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): I’d remind the member that what Part 1 of the bill does, in terms of the penalties that we’re discussing in Part 2, of course, gives the Gas Industry Company, which is the industry-owned company that imposes the regulations, it empowers them to make the recommendations to the Minister around the regulation. So all of that will be worked through with the industry. Just as the member is saying the industry need to be involved in these decisions and those final policy decisions, that is exactly the regime that the committee has just passed after under Part 1 of the bill.

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

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

Ayes 77

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

Noes 43

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 2 be agreed to.

Ayes 110

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

Noes 10

ACT New Zealand 10.

Part 2 agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Simon Court’s amendment to the Schedule, set out on Supplementary Order Paper 41, is ruled out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee. The question is that the Schedule stand part.

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

Ayes 110

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

Noes 10

ACT New Zealand 10.

Schedule agreed to.

Clauses 1 and 2

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Members, we now come to the final debate. This is the debate on clauses 1 and 2, “Title and Commencement”.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): I move, That the committee report progress and sit again presently.

Motion agreed to.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Gas (Information Disclosure and Penalties) Amendment Bill and reports progress. The committee has also considered the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bill and reports no progress. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

Motions

Exposure Draft and Terms of Reference for Inquiry on Natural and Built Environments Bill: Parliamentary Paper—Referral to Environment Committee

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Madam Speaker, I seek leave to move a motion without notice referring the exposure draft and terms of reference for an inquiry on the Natural and Built Environments Bill: Parliamentary Paper to the Environment Committee for consideration.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.

Hon DAVID PARKER: I move, That the Natural and Built Environments Bill: Parliamentary Paper on the exposure draft be referred to the Environment Committee for consideration in accordance with the following terms of reference:

1. The purpose of the inquiry is to provide feedback on the extent to which the provisions in the exposure draft of the Natural and Built Environments Bill will support the resource management reform objectives, to:

a) protect, and where necessary, restore the natural environment, including its capacity to provide for the well-being of present and future generations

b) better enable development within environmental biophysical limits including a significant improvement in housing supply, affordability and choice, and timely provision of appropriate infrastructure, including social infrastructure

c) give effect to the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and provide greater recognition of te ao Māori, including mātauranga Māori

d) better prepare for adapting to climate change and risks from natural hazards, and better mitigate emissions contributing to climate change

e) improve system efficiency and effectiveness, and reduce complexity, while retaining appropriate local democratic input.

2. The select committee is asked to pay particular attention to objective (e) when providing their feedback on point 1.

3. The select committee is also asked to collate a list of ideas (including considering the examples in the parliamentary paper) for making the new system more efficient, more proportionate to the scale and/or risks associated with given activities, more affordable for the end user, and less complex, compared to the current system.

4. For the avoidance of doubt, the scope of the inquiry is limited to the following:

a) feedback on the exposure draft

b) feedback on the material in the parliamentary paper that provides rationale for the clauses in the exposure draft

c) collating a list of ideas for point 3 above.

And that the committee report back to the House with any policy recommendations to the Government by 18 October 2021 and that it have the authority to meet on Fridays during the sitting of the House and during an evening after 6 p.m. on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 193 and 196.

Can I begin by thanking the House for granting leave, given that the report-back is in the middle of October and it’s quite a complex piece of work that the committee is being asked to undertake. The additional time that that accords by allowing the committee to call for submissions immediately and start getting its briefing from departmental officials I’m sure will be appreciated by the committee.

I’m not going to go into a lot of detail, but I think there’s general agreement across the House that the Resource Management Act (RMA) has passed its use-by date and hasn’t really achieved the purpose, which was to protect the environment and enable development. In truth, processes take too long, they cost too much, and it hasn’t been successful at protecting the environment against cumulative effects. The RMA’s theory was that we would avoid, remedy, or mitigate adverse effects—in the end it’s generally been “mitigate” rather than “avoid”. As a consequence, environmental services have been sliced off like a salami having a slice taken off time and again. That’s the reason why we’ve had degrading water quality, and it’s also failed in its role, really, in respect of greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to that, it obviously hasn’t enabled enough housing supply to keep up with the demand for housing, and that’s not the only reason why we have a housing crisis in New Zealand, but it has contributed to it.

The new legislation moves or proposes to move to an outcomes focus rather than an effects basis, and those outcomes are to be specified in the national planning framework, which is explained in the explanatory note that’s going to the select committee. That will include bottom lines on things like water quality. But, for the first time, it will also have positive prescriptions in there to require positive outcomes for infrastructure development and housing. Although there is some provision in respect of housing in the current National Policy Statement on Urban Development, there will be a more holistic view to this. It works in combination with the proposed Strategic Planning Act, which will provide high-level strategic planning by region. The number of plans will chunk down from around 100 to about 14. We say “about” because we’re not quite finalised as to what we’re going to do in the north of the South Island, where there are a couple of unitary authorities. But, essentially, it will reduce the number of plans from 100 to 14, which is an enormous reduction.

One of the requests of the select committee is that they try to harvest everyone’s ideas as to how we can drive proportionate processes, how we can have a system that requires less consents. Where consents are required, the processes that are run to resolve sometimes the inherent tension between development and environment—how can we run processes that are more cost effective and proportionate to the issues that are being considered?

I would ask for the support of the House for the motion and I’m interested to hear colleagues from around the House.

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

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you, Minister Parker, for your patience this evening. It’s been appreciated.

The exposure draft that we’ve seen for the first time today is an interesting document, partly because it’s relatively light on detail, and I know that that’s part of the reason that it’s going to the select committee for consideration before an eventual piece of legislation will be prepared, and it will then go back to select committee for further consideration. So this is quite an unusual step, but, as Minister Parker has indicated, I think that there is unanimity across the House that the existing Resource Management Act legislation has ceased to be effective. It has ceased to be fulfilling what was once a grand objective back in the early 1990s that would see it providing for our built environment and also for our natural environment, and the sad reality is that after those years have transpired, a document that originally was made up of about 300 pages of black-letter law now runs to something like 900 pages and has, I think, been amended substantially 18 or 19 times. It’s practically incoherent and unintelligible to laypeople. It’s time for this House, I think, to look carefully at future planning laws and also at how, as a country, we best protect our beautiful and natural resources.

On this side of the House, we’ll be working diligently as the exposure draft is looked at by the select committee. We’ll be interested in testing out the detail, filling in some of the gaps, and asking the questions about how this new piece of legislation will effectively overcome some of the challenges of the current existing legislative and regulatory regime that we find ourselves in, because we aren’t yet convinced that this process of what will, effectively, be three pieces of legislation is going to achieve that. We’re willing to be convinced, but we want to test it out, and that’s what we’ll be doing at select committee.

So thank you, Minister, for going through this process. It is a unique experience, and it will be a process that, hopefully, will bring out the best of our parliamentary legislature and the system that we have, but that doesn’t mean that it gets a free ride. It means that it will be tested, probed, and analysed not only by the parliamentary Opposition but by outsiders: NGOs, stakeholders, developers, and environmentalists around the country. Thank you.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Green Party welcomes the release of the first draft of the first of three bills to replace the Resource Management Act (RMA), the Natural and Built Environments Bill, and, like Mr Simpson, also welcomes the exposure draft process. It is only a 12-week process—we have to report back by 18 October—so really appreciate the fact that the House has given leave tonight because otherwise the hard-working Environment Committee would have one week less to consider it and report back.

The Resource Management Act gets blamed for a lot of things which are not its fault. Any legislation which is at the interface of human interaction with nature—how we use land, water, air, sea space; what human activities we undertake and how we do them—is always going to be a source of tension: conflicts between our responsibilities to Papatūānuku and what many assert as their rights over their land. And I don’t think this bill will be any different. It is the fact that we are getting, really, the purpose and the heart of the bill at select committee to invite public submissions on. We will be wrestling with that same conflict.

I went back and just skimmed through Our Common Future, which was a report of the Brundtland Commission, the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987. That report was really the genesis of the concept of sustainable management in the RMA. The Brundtland report talked about sustainable development, but a lot of the thinking back in 1987 was that the environment didn’t exist as a sphere separate from humans, and it was naive to even think that. But the environment is where we all live, it’s where development happens as we attempt to improve our lot within this abode of the environment, and the report said the two are inseparable. So we will still be dealing with that tension and that’s why I think it is really helpful to have in the Government notice of motion the requirement that the select committee collate a list of ideas about how we make the new system more efficient, more effective, more affordable, and less complex. As many have noted, a piece of legislation that has grown to 800 pages in length to plans which are whole tomes which are impenetrable to people seeking to undertake activities, which are obtuse—we need to really simplify that down.

So in terms of new ideas about how we make the system work better, I’m reminded of the first district plan, which became operative under the RMA, which was the Ashburton district plan. The first time the parties had really engaged with each other over significant natural areas, it might be said—this was way back in the early 1990s—was in the Environment Court in mediation on appeals that had been lodged on that plan. We need to have processes at the front end of the planning process where the different parties can get together, can recognise what they have in common, and make it so much easier for the council then to—or in this case, it will be the committees that have mana whenua, council, and other representatives on them—frame that plan. Are they processes like citizens’ assemblies, where a representative range of people deal with the issues that are causing tension in a region and work out what some of those common solutions are?

Commissioners are going to have much more of a role in having panels of commissioners hear the plans. Now, some of those commissioners at the moment will be acting as expert witnesses. Presenting evidence on resource consents for irrigation takes one month, and then they might be a commissioner on a panel hearing submissions on a resource consent subsequently. We need commissioners to be genuinely independent. That goes to issues, I think, around their tenure, and having a permanent body of commissioners might be one of the ideas that comes up through this process. So I would really welcome submissions from across Aotearoa, but from people who have got skills in alternative dispute resolution, because we need to find ways of getting to agreement without that adversarial process always of being in front of the courts.

The national planning framework, which is dealt with in this bill, is one of the significant changes, I think, in terms of the way I understood it might roll out from the Randerson review. The Randerson report was a very comprehensive and commendably clearly written, accessible report. It highlighted the need to make sure there was more integration across the instruments of national direction, national policy statements (NPSs), national environmental standards, and the like. What I see in the exposure draft of the bill, the national planning framework is a suite of national direction which will happen through regulations and it’s not clear, although the Minister did comment in answer to a question in the House today, as to whether the independence of a board of inquiry will assist with that process. At the moment, under the RMA, the board of inquiry process is very helpful in hearing public submissions and providing very cogent advice, as the board of inquiry chaired by Judge Sheppard did in relation to the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management. The fact that then National Government changed that NPS was unfortunate but there was transparency between what came out of the board of inquiry and then what Government proceeded to do. And then, of course, Minister Parker as environment Minister has subsequently changed it and significantly strengthened it.

We need a robust process for ensuring that that national planning framework does provide good direction and that there is good public consultation in it and so we’ll be very interested on the submissions that come forward as to how we can best do that. It’s only a very slim exposure draft—18 pages—but it does deal with the heart of that first tranche of legislation. I do really look forward to the submissions and to hearing those and reporting back to the House by 18 October to take this step on the road to the major overhaul of our key environmental planning legislation, the RMA. Kia ora.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. ACT will support this motion to refer this exposure draft to the Environment Committee. That’s because ACT is not only here to oppose the Government when it is proposing poor legislation; the ACT Party also intends to propose much better regulation and Resource Management Act (RMA) reform than the Minister has set down here today.

ACT believes that sunlight is the best medicine; however, given the direction set out in the terms of reference and the exposure draft, and the direction set by this Government in some very poorly thought-out national policy statements and environmental regulations around fresh water and indigenous biodiversity, they set the tone for a Government’s resource management reforms which are designed not to enable development and not to focus on sustainable communities and what they need to have a good environment but also high-paying jobs and healthy communities into the future. In fact, what it does is set up a preservation regime which would have been a fantasy for environmental activists in the 1970s and 1980s, and which it appears to have taken another 40 years to bring about.

Well, the ACT Party opposes the preservation agenda. We support sustainable management of natural and physical resources in a way that benefits communities and that leads to better environmental outcomes. And when the ACT Party considers environmental outcomes, we accept, as do many Government agencies, as do businesses and communities, that in order to have a better economic and social outcome, there is always a need to tread on the earth in some way but that our obligation is in fact to tread as lightly as possible; not to fear to tread, not to abandon our development hopes, not to abandon aspirations for our communities and our people to live in warm but affordable homes, in the places that they want to live, that they choose to live, not necessarily where they are prescribed or told to live by central government planners.

That is why ACT will support these terms of reference and this motion to take the exposure draft to select committee, because we want to invite submitters who share ACT’s belief that private property rights should underpin all laws that govern how you use your land. When we look at the exposure draft and we look at the terms of reference, we actually see some really significant conflicts that cannot possibly be resolved through this legislative agenda that’s been set out here. We see 1a)—to protect—to protect. Now, I believe in enhancing the environment; not to protect just what we’ve got but to make it better, and there are many, many examples we could use, whether it’s in roading projects—when you drive down a new State highway, a road of national significance, or a new four-lane highway that connects cities or connects suburbs within cities, you will see the most fantastic wetlands and plantings which enhance the natural environment. So it is possible to develop resources, to develop infrastructure, and to develop land for housing and farming, including irrigation and other absolutely vital aspects of infrastructure—it is possible to develop those and enhance the environment.

But that’s not what we see here; we see, essentially, protection as being the intent, and when we hear talk of environmental bottom lines, what that means to people who own land and develop land and build infrastructure and build houses, it means there will be more rules to say you can’t, rather than a very clear set of guidelines to say what you should do and what you’re allowed to do and who is not allowed to interfere with or object to your consent applications and your development applications. But what it looks like, the terms of reference as set out here, it looks like we’ll be asked to consider how many more people, how many more—what we heard from the Green Party—community groups, how many community parliaments, even, might need to be set up to review your development applications, to review infrastructure projects and all kinds of other consent applications. The last thing that people who support ACT and who build homes and who build infrastructure want is to think that there will be more committees set up and more people who have the power to decide about your project or what you do with your land.

So the Minister confirmed ACT’s reading of the terms of reference. It’s a preservation bill; it’s not true resource management reform. All of the outcomes we’ve heard. We already know about the national environment standards for fresh water—the draft national policy statement for indigenous biodiversity which has been put somewhere in a bottom drawer until it can be whipped out and probably snuck through in the dead of night, like so much poor regulation and lawmaking we’ve seen in this Parliament. It is a preservation law that we’ve been asked to review.

Now, it also refers to mitigating climate emissions. Now, I don’t know if anybody else has heard of the zero carbon Act. Hands up. Crikey, nobody’s heard of that! What about the emissions trading scheme? Hands up. No? Oh, look, fortunately there are members on this side of the House who do know what the emissions trading scheme is. It turns out that there’s already a system that New Zealand businesses and Government and consumers have. In fact, every time you fill up with a tank of petrol—that’s right; petrol or even diesel—you pay for your emissions through the emissions trading scheme at $3 or $4 per fill up. There are already laws and regulations in place which focus on how to mitigate our climate emissions in the most cost-effective way possible. It seems remarkable, if it wasn’t being proposed by this Labour Government, that now they want to propose another law to mitigate climate emissions, as if that’s an admission that the zero carbon Act is already failing, or will fail, and that the emissions trading scheme—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! The member will come back to the motion at hand.

SIMON COURT: Thank you, Madam Speaker. It looks like an admission that the emissions trading scheme is bound to fail by including how to better mitigate emissions in a resource management reform. It appears to be quite unnecessary.

Then we come to the Treaty of Waitangi—the change set out by the Minister from, essentially, “take account of the principles of” the Treaty of Waitangi under the current Resource Management Act, which means that every developer and every organisation seeking a consent is required to consult with iwi Māori groups in their rohe and to get their feedback; now it actually is “to give effect to” the Treaty of Waitangi—as if there are not many, many other pieces of legislation and many other avenues to give effect to the Treaty of Waitangi. Now it’s here in this proposed resource management reform as well.

Now, that is why ACT would actually repeal the RMA outright. We would replace it with an environmental protection Act and an urban development Act, an urban development Act based on the Productivity Commission’s—the Government’s own Productivity Commission—Better Urban Planning report that expands the rights of property owners to build on their own land. That’s how we will get more infrastructure and more land opened up for housing. ACT would also establish an environmental protection agency that would provide a rules-based framework for organisations and developers to seek consents. It would limit the number of organisations and who could object, and it would give developers and central government agencies like the New Zealand Transport Agency and KiwiRail and different local government agencies confidence to apply for expensive consents that are absolutely vital to build infrastructure for more housing. ACT would allow that law to only focus on environmental issues that are not otherwise dealt with, like climate change. It’s completely unnecessary to have climate change mitigation or emissions included in this bill, because there are already other pieces of legislation that deal with that.

Now, ACT will be constructive. We will strive to bring out the best in this resource management reform. We are in favour of cutting poor regulations, and that is why ACT will support this notice of motion to refer this to the select committee, but we will certainly be holding a blowtorch to it.

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

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): I seek leave to speak to the motion.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Leave is sought for that. [Interruption] OK. All right, so the member does not need leave.

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): Kia ora. Thank you, e te Pīka. We agree that the reform is needed. To be honest it’s never really worked for tangata whenua. We appreciate the work of the Iwi Chairs Forum, of the Federation of Māori Authorities, and many of the iwi Māori technicians who have worked with the Crown and got this mahi to the level that we’ve reached.

We do want to mention notification of elevating Te Tiriti, noting it’s not principles; it’s the article and text of Te Tiriti that the Crown is obligated to. We would like to see continued functions of the Resource Management Act to make sure that there is environmental protection, and although we need to build houses, this is something that is about an “and/and” and not at the consequence of our environment, tō tātou pūtaiao [our science]. We are concerned about the rights and interests of tangata whenua. This legislation, more than probably most legislation, impacts us as Māori hapū, whānau, in more ways than any. So we do want to make sure that there is a guaranteed explicit role for tangata whenua to be part of the decision-making position.

One of the other things that we’d like to emphasise is that we do agree that the select committee, and, indeed, the entire country and Parliament, are given time to critique this in detail. So I’m pleased to say that Te Paati Māori supports that it goes to select committee. Kia ora rā.

Motion agreed to.

House in Committee

House in Committee

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I declare the House in committee for further consideration of the Gas (Information Disclosure and Penalties) Amendment Bill and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bill.

Bills

Gas (Information Disclosure and Penalties) Amendment Bill

In Committee

Clauses 1 and 2 (continued)

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Members, we return to the Gas (Information Disclosure and Penalties) Amendment Bill. When we last considered this bill, we were about to debate clauses 1 and 2.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): I’m just going to take a short call on this one, and perhaps for the public who have been listening tonight just outline the fact that there were two parts to this bill, and the Government chose to close down Part 1 and then the Minister actually decided that nothing in Part 2 related to the things that the Minister didn’t want to answer in Part 1. So I was going to suggest a new name for this bill, and it’s called for the openness and transparency of the Government that we currently have—not—the “Gas (Information, Disclosures, and Penalties for Industry and Everyone, But Not Government) Amendment Bill”, because I think it’s appalling when we’re talking about disclosures in the name of the bill, and the Government actually shuts down the conversation.

The Minister, on several occasions tonight, when I mentioned a plan around energy security for this country—and the Minister may sit there and laugh, but—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Order! This is about the title and commencement—

BARBARA KURIGER: Yes, it is.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Absolutely. It’s very narrow. The member should address that.

BARBARA KURIGER: Yes, it is. So I’m talking about information, disclosure and penalties around gas—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): It’s not about relitigating Part 1.

BARBARA KURIGER: I’m not relitigating; I’m talking about the name and the fact that—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! My ruling is that you are and that you must address clauses 1 and 2. That’s your second warning. If there’s a third, I’ll terminate the speech.

BARBARA KURIGER: So the only thing left that I want to propose is that a name change for the bill to the “Gas (Information Disclosures and Penalties for Industry, But Not Government) Amendment Bill”. Thank you.

SIMON COURT (ACT): That member Barbara Kuriger has proposed a wonderful, transparent improvement to the bill: the “Gas (Information Disclosure and Penalties for Industry, Not Everyone) Bill”. The ACT Party believes that that is a far more accurate representation of what this bill proposes to do, because the disclosure requirements are all on the industry and not on the Government to tell us what they might want to do with the information or how they might use it or if they can protect it if there is going to be a cyber-attack where commercially sensitive information is going to be released. Given how important it is that energy security is protected from cyber-attacks—I mean, imagine if there were an event like what happened at the Waikato District Health Board that befell our power grid.

So the “Gas (Information Disclosure and Penalties for Industry, Not Everyone) Bill”, ACT believes, is a totally appropriate, transparent, and sensible name for this bill. ACT would commend that to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 1 be agreed to.

Ayes 110

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

Noes 10

ACT New Zealand 10.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment.

Bills

Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Preliminary provisions

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Members, we come now to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bill. First of all, to Part 1. This is the debate on clauses 3 to 7. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m looking forward to engaging with the Minister of Finance over this bill. It’s a very important bill, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bill. We’re talking about fundamental changes here, and there are a number of questions we’d like to ask him. I think the biggest issue about this bill is the issue about: what is the systemic failure that’s taken place for the Reserve Bank that actually requires these changes to the bank’s structure? We’ve already had one bill passed through this House a while ago and this is the second, and there’s another one to follow as well.

In the commentary here, it says the Government’s intention is “to modernise monetary and financial stability policy frameworks, [to] support good economic management and reflect the changing environment in which New Zealanders live and work.” So I think the first point is I’d like the Minister to explain why there’s such a radical need for a change and what has taken place that we can look at and consider. The public who might be tuning into this debate will say, “Well, why do we need to have more of these structural changes to the Reserve Bank?” So that’s probably the first question I’d like to put to the Minister, and hopefully there’s going to be a pretty interactive process, Minister.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank the member for his question. Obviously, we’re looking here at Part 1, and in particular, I presume, the question relates primarily to the “Purposes” clause, clause 3. This is the third, as the member has indicated, in a trilogy of bills on the Reserve Bank. The first of those was the one that altered the objectives of monetary policy to include maximum sustainable employment and change the decision-making process for that to a committee-based process, in line with best practice around the world. These next two bills were also part of the review process, and I guess that’s my starting point to answer the member’s question—that after 30-odd years of operation of the Reserve Bank, we felt that it was timely to undertake a review. A lot has changed in monetary policy since that time.

When we come to the details on this bill, it’s particularly apposite for the role that the Reserve Bank plays in financial policy. If we do go back to 1989, when I was in the seventh form—Mr Bayly was no doubt, sort of, trekking around London bars or something like that at the time—the bank didn’t have the roles around financial policy and financial stability that it now has. As I’ve traversed in earlier readings of this bill, that role in financial policy, financial stability, has evolved in, really, an ad hoc way with different matters added to it.

So this second of the three bills is what we call the institutional bill. This is setting the Reserve Bank up to be a fit for purpose organisation for the jobs that we ask it to do, both in terms of monetary policy—and we’ve dealt with some of that in the first bill, but there’s a little bit in here—and then, in this bill, really particularly around that question of its role in terms of financial stability.

As part of that, the purposes of the Act then should reflect, effectively, modern best practice about how we describe what the role of the Reserve Bank Act is. So, obviously, in this case, it’s to provide for the continuation of what the bank does but also to “promote the prosperity and well-being of New Zealanders and contribute to a sustainable and productive economy.”, and here, what we’re getting right, in the right order, is the cascade of what we want. So this is the highest-level statement about what we want the bank to contribute to, and then we work through how it does that in the operative bits of the Act and also in other elements of what the bank does. So it’s prudential regulations or wherever else it might express what it wants—so it’s setting up a high-level purpose about the place of the Reserve Bank within that broader monetary and financial policy role that it plays.

The second thing I would say around the whole question of the timing is that when we went out to stakeholders—and we basically did three full rounds of consultation around these different changes we made—we did find most stakeholders were looking for ways of improving the operations of their interaction with the Reserve Bank, as well as more clarity about aspects of the role. Then, finally, thirdly, if we look again at that international best practice—in particular, the role of the board, which we’ll come to in Part 2 of the bill—it’s really important to make sure that we’ve got, effectively, a modern governance structure, and I think the board structure that we’re putting in place does that. So, effectively, it’s an exercise in modernisation, an exercise in clarity, and I think it’s one that will serve New Zealand well.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you for the commentary, Minister. So there hasn’t been any failure that we could look at? What the Minister’s saying is the Government has had a view that it just needs to modernise it after 30 years, but can he point to any systemic issues with the bank that we should have regard for? People listening to this debate might think, “Wow, this Reserve Bank hasn’t been operating well, and we need to set some real specific changes.”, because what I hear is an argument that, yes, we need to keep changing, but, actually, the Reserve Bank model adopted in New Zealand actually has been a framework that many central banks around the world have actually emulated and actually believe is a fantastic structure. So, again, just the same question: why?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): By and large, I do think that the Reserve Bank Act has served New Zealand well. I think it’s really important to understand what this particular bill is about in the context of the other two bits of legislation, so I would regard both of them as being more operative, and go more to the question that the member has asked. In the case of the bill we’ve already passed, which is now within the Act, it was the fact that it is our view that the objectives that the bank had were too narrow in terms of just being about price stability, and, actually, we needed to look at maximum sustainable employment. We believe that was because, you know, we don’t make specific monetary policy decisions over here, but what we do do is set the framework for those decisions, and we felt, just as the United States Federal Reserve has, that a broader set of objectives was important. So that’s a change brought on by whether or not we thought it was operating in the best interests of New Zealanders.

The next bill that’s currently being drafted, and we’ve consulted on and announced the policy decisions on, is called the Deposit Takers Act. To give one example within that, we’re looking at the introduction of a deposit insurance scheme, which I do believe is a significant gap in New Zealand’s system—not having a deposit insurance scheme within the mandate of the Reserve Bank. So they’re examples for the member.

That’s not what this bill’s about. This bill is the institutional arrangements, and so it is by its very nature much more a modernisation exercise to help facilitate what would be the more systemic changes and issues that the member’s talking about. So we’re both—he and I—quite confined about what we can talk about, but I have given him that explanation by way of explaining why Part 1 of the bill does what it does.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): OK, so I understand what he’s referring to. You gave us some examples, Minister, about operational changes, and I accept that, but the purpose of this bill is actually, to use your term, talking about institutional arrangements. So, again, I can understand why the Minister or the Government want to change some of the operational aspects, but what this bill is about is quite substantial governance arrangements, and that is the core question I’m trying to drive at. What has been the failure, or systemic failure even, at the Reserve Bank level that has led to poor policy outcomes or poor implementation that leads to a massive overhaul as set out in this bill?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I’m at risk of repeating myself here, but this is about making sure we have the best-practice, fit for purpose, modern form of governance for the bank. In 1989, decisions were made about having a single decision maker on virtually everything that the bank did. The member is correct in saying that other jurisdictions around the world looked at what we did and took many aspects of what we did, but you will struggle hard now to find anywhere in the world where a central bank operates entirely on that single decision maker model. So it’s a matter of the fact that in 30 years, the way we do this—the way we govern what we do—has changed. We’ve had significant experience in New Zealand through the Crown entities on how best to see a board like this run, and that’s what we’ll cover when we move into Part 2 of the bill.

We have made sure that it’s fit for purpose for the bank, and so therefore for the things like I know the member will raise around, for instance, the role of the governor on the board, it is different from Crown entities. That’s, I think, fair enough when you’re dealing with a particular institution, but we’ve certainly learnt a lot of lessons. So the member is fishing for some radical issue with the structure of the bank; that’s not the case. It’s about: here’s how we’ve changed the operations of the bank, and therefore here’s how we can change the structure to match those operations and modernise it, because a lot has happened in 30 years about the way that we run Crown entities.

DAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Minister, I think we should accept tonight that these are new rules of Gotham City, or it feels like they’ve been constructed by yourself and Mr Shaw in your youthful days and now they’ve come to pass, and so, as I said the last time, maybe it’s the Sons of Anarchy—it’s following the trilogy. But let’s be honest and straight up about the fact that this is now going to give sweeping new powers to the bank and the Government.

I quote from Gareth Vaughan at interest.co.nz. He said, “the days of our idiosyncratic, light handed, financial regulator [are] numbered. The RBNZ is being moved into international regulatory [system].” That is one of the points that I think this bill is missing, which is the recognition that in 2017, one of the drivers of this reaction was the IMF assessment of New Zealand’s financial capabilities. So, five years on, it’s going to happen again, I guess, in terms of benchmarking, and I’d like to see somebody on the monetary policy committee apart from Mr Orr who can get up to speed with all of that and be found as a policy board member and actually execute that.

So I guess the point we’re making here is that in the next review we should actually recognise that on top of all of this is an international system that we’re abiding to. Maybe it’s worth contemplating that that in itself will provide some indicators around the capital framework, risk management, the nature of the board, and the nature of the Government’s mandate, and we think that the approach of least regret or wait and watch—the direction of travel can happen and change pretty quickly in this modern financial system. To all intents and purposes, the Government is providing an underwrite, and from my banking experience, whenever you underwrite something, you want to make sure that everybody knows what they’re up for and what they’re in for. We believe that the Reserve Bank has to have a policy committee that actually is up for that task, and in that sense, we agreed with the National Party in terms of some of its elements around efficiency in the nature of that relationship.

Let’s be really honest: again, there’ll be no more parliamentary oversight into the various elements of this bill, which will be a very strange departure, and how can we all be held accountable if we’re governing or we’re asked to vote on something that’s beyond our control? To me, I just feel and the ACT Party feel that this should have cross-party consensus. It doesn’t at the moment, but we’re not far away from that, with a couple of minor changes. The Government’s choosing to drive these reforms through without the support of the other side of the House, yet, we believe that that is an area that’s not as insurmountable as we expect.

One of the key things about the Reserve Bank—I remember the good old simple days when I only had a couple of things to do. They did lots of lunches and, you know, everybody talked a good game. But I actually don’t think, in ways, this bill is modern enough. I think we need to look at all the frameworks. I mean, if you look at it now, 85 percent of our banking system is owned by Australia; 60 percent of insurance is owned by the Australian companies as well, yet the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority as the regulator has a shadow presence when they come to review banks and financial institutions in this country, and we believe that should be tighter. We like the idea around the United Kingdom and what has happened there. So even though the instinct might be to drive this forward, I would like the Minister just to spend a bit of time on, really, the fact that we are in the international system now and what that means for this bill.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I thank the member Damien Smith for his comments and I do accept the point he’s making, which is that we are indeed part of an international system in the sense that we’re trying to apply a set of prudential rules that stand up to scrutiny internationally. I think his point around the role of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority is an interesting one in that regard. It’s not the subject of the bill, but I’m happy to have it as a conversation with the member, because I think it’s incredibly important that New Zealand does set its own rules there for the operation of those entities in New Zealand. We try as much as we can to make sure they’re consistent with what happens in Australia, but our sovereignty around setting those rules is very significant and important, I think.

But in terms of his broader point, yep, he’s absolutely right. The IMF came here. They made a series of recommendations about what New Zealand needed to do to ensure that we were not only at best practice but in line with the various Basel Committee rulings. We have attempted to do that over a succession of changes, and the bank itself has attempted to do that over a succession of changes. That included elements of capital, as he mentioned, which are covered in one part of this bill and obviously in the bank’s work that it does with trading banks. Also, good forms of decision making and the kind of governance that would be expected were part of that as well. So, absolutely, it is an attempt to do that.

Where I would differ from the member is in his description around what this means in terms of how the bank operates and its transparency and so on. The balance we have tried to strike here and in every bit of our reform of the Reserve Bank is to maintain the operational independence of the Reserve Bank. That remains a very important principle to me. What we, however, have got from feedback as we’ve gone out and done our consultation is the importance of us setting out clearly our expectations, our criteria, and our parameters as a Government, and that’s what we’ve done. So we’ve got the monetary policy remit, the financial policy remit that is in here as well, and the rules around the way in which the bank finances itself as well, or we finance the bank and it makes its decisions. We get to set the parameters; they get to decide on the actual operations. So that constant balance is the thing that we are trying to seek through the full suite of reforms, and I think, occasionally, that’s where some of the other amendments that Mr Bayly’s putting up, I think, just lose a bit of that balance when they do that.

Finally, I’d say, yeah, it would be ideal from my perspective if we could get cross-party support on this. We didn’t on the first of our reform bills. It may be that we don’t on this, but I do believe the direction of travel is right and I know that this is the result of extensive public consultation, and so I don’t feel that we’re somehow out on a limb in this piece of legislation. I think it’s important, it’s institutionally sound—this bill—and I do want to make sure that we continue to debate this bill. I think it’s fine in a purpose clause debate like this to have a slightly wider debate, but there are a lot of matters that are about the operation of the Reserve Bank that are either dealt with in other bits of legislation or which are simply not dealt with in this bit of legislation.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you. So, just continuing with my discussion before, did the Reserve Bank come to you seeking the change, or was it something you responded to as a result of Treasury suggesting—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Not the Speaker.

ANDREW BAYLY: Sorry. Did the Minister respond to requests from Treasury? That’s the first question I’d just like him to consider.

The second aspect is I think we’ve ended up with a structural change in this bill which is quite significant. As you quite rightly pointed out before, the last bill was around—now an Act—dealing with the issue of the monetary policy committee, which has the governor as the chair of that committee. What were the options around the change or alternative governance structures that could’ve been in place? Because what was presented in the bill was a certain outcome which has basically been followed through into this bill. But, for instance, if I put up another option, why didn’t—or did you consider—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order!

ANDREW BAYLY: Did the Minister consider that you might have established a financial policy committee to deal with the other aspects such as prudential policy, non-bank deposit takers, and insurers? What we’ve been presented with is that all those activities are now being handled by an executive board. So to what extent were other options canvassed and considered, and did you actually, particularly, have regard for that specific issue?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Just, again, conscious of making sure we debate the bill that’s in front of us, in terms of the broader reform process, we campaigned on it in 2017, so I’ll take responsibility/credit for that. When we got in, we worked through with both the Reserve Bank and Treasury the scope of that, we brought in an independent expert advisory panel, and then we launched into a very comprehensive consultation round, which we’ve now done three separate consultations on. As I said in my earlier intervention, the feedback we got as we did that was that people welcomed the opportunity to modernise and refine the bill, as is on the public record released in many, many documents through the proactive release process. On not every single issue was there unanimity between the bank, Treasury, and myself, or the expert advisory panel—that’s to be expected—but on the vast bulk of what we are putting through the House, we did have clear agreement from across those institutions about what should be done.

Yes, we did look at a range of options, and, again, they’re not covered in the bill, so I won’t go into detail on them, but they all are covered within the consultation process and the material that’s being released publicly. It is our view that in terms of the governance model we’ve chosen, this is a model that people will be familiar with in terms of Crown entities, with slight tweaks in order to acknowledge the particular role of the central bank, and, therefore, we think it is appropriate.

When it comes to the question around monetary policy and the way that is done, there is an absolute obligation, in my opinion, for us to uphold the principles of the Act around operational independence, and that’s what’s helped that decide. But, again, for the member’s benefit, those broader issues are not necessarily the ones in this bill, and particularly not the ones in Part 1.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you, Madam Chair, and I appreciate the Minister’s response to all of the questions that have been put so far. There are plenty more.

But I do want to pick up on a point that the Minister made in respect of what he described as “the extensive public consultation” on the bill, and to the degree that there was a small number but very intelligent and thoughtful submissions on the bill, I would agree with him. The issue that I have and that I think is worth canvassing in Part 1 is the fact that after that consultation ended, there were changes that were made to this bill, not the least of which was fundamental to the Reserve Bank’s operation, and that’s to the governance structure. Now, it is mentioned in Part 1, and we’re going to elaborate on it more in Part 2 with the amendment in Part 1 to the preliminary provisions that changes the Governor of the Reserve Bank to be its chief executive to that which then says “and a member of the board;”. This is, to my mind, a quite fundamental change to the governance structure, and one which at the time the bill was introduced and was referred to the select committee was not being considered.

I note the officials’ departmental report to the committee dated 1 April was talking about this. There were two submissions that addressed this particular point, one from Michael Reddell and the other from Helen Dervan and Simon Jensen. They raised concerns, but not about that question.

I would also point out that while there were extensive submissions by the public, as it were, on the removal of the reference to efficiency—which is, I believe, in Part 1 of the existing bill and is now removed—that was not taken up. That has been of concern to National Party members, at least, to the degree that while there was extensive public submission, it didn’t really feel particularly listened to, and there were changes.

So my question, effectively, to the Minister is: did he consider that the changes that were made after the closure of the consideration of the submissions and the amendments that officials recommended to the committee—did he consider that there was merit in actually reopening submissions on at least the question of the governor on the board and some of the other changes, including to remits and so on, that had been recommended to the committee after the closure of submissions?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Just to go back to the beginning of the member’s contribution, I respect the fact that it’s an important part of the process that submissions came through the select committee process, but in the second consultation round, I think we had probably around 60 submissions, and in the third consultation round, around another 30. So I do just want to say that there’s been an awful lot done before we got to the committee.

Issues around the question of the role of the governor and him being on the board have been live discussions throughout the process. The decision was made—and this was an example in response to my comments that I made to Mr Bayly earlier—of where there were differing views amongst the stakeholders involved in this about exactly how this should work in terms of the governor, and the judgment that we made was that given the very particular role of the governor, it is best that they were represented on the board. That is also the position in a number of other central banks as well, and it’s largely to do with the coordination of monetary and financial policy and the fact that the governor still occupies a very unique role. Even though we’ve now moved to the position of a committee-based structure for monetary policy, the governor can provide that level of coordination between financial policy and monetary policy that makes him an appropriate member of the board.

There are—and we will come to this, Madam Chair, in the relevant operative part—in Part 2 a number of mitigations around that for matters to which the governor is not to be a party to, including his own role within the bank, and he would not be part of those decisions within the board’s normal decision-making framework. So our view is that that was important.

The second matter the member raised in his call was the question around efficiency and the place of efficiency. I covered this in one of my earlier responses to Mr Bayly, which was that when we are setting as a cascade, we set the high-level objectives. It’s important that we’re clear about what the primary objectives are. Efficiency then plays its part throughout each of the activities the bank undertakes and in each of the regulatory measures that we might choose, or, indeed, other Acts of Parliament, including the prudential supervisor’s work and so on. That’s where you’ll see it.

So it’s a debatable matter, and I’m not ignoring the fact that some submitters wanted to keep it. Other submitters were comfortable with where it ended up.

DAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Just a quick question to the Minister of Finance. Does he believe that changing the bank’s reporting requirements enables him to manage the fiscal risk associated with the Crown when the Reserve Bank’s activities are at arm’s length and independent, or does it fall short of what you require to manage the Crown’s financial position, considering we’re underwriting, as a nation, their activities?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I think New Zealand has the particular set of circumstances where the Reserve Bank is part of the Crown’s overall balance sheet. That’s not the case in a number of other jurisdictions. As a result, we have to find a way of getting that balance of operating independence versus the point that the member’s raising. That’s done in this bill, albeit not in this part, by us setting the financial parameters and then operational decisions within that being made by the bank itself. To me, that is a necessary compromise in order to protect the operational independence of the bank.

I think if the Minister was able to too tightly control how the bank used its money, that could undermine its position. It is important that we have transparency about that—and we’ll come to this later—but that actually means that that will now be tabled in Parliament, the way in which we do that. I think that’s a useful step forward. It will enable more people to see it. We used to just do it after the fact, essentially; now it’ll come here and be tabled. So that will give all members of the House some opportunity to see that, but, again, to me it’s striking that balance between operational independence and us setting frameworks and parameters. We’re at risk of me saying that a lot in the next few parts of this bill.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you. I just want to refer to Mr Smith’s earlier contribution, which is the substantive issue. Obviously, with this bill the Minister and the Government’s trying to set in place a new framework that, hopefully, will last for another 30 years. Given that it’s inevitable there will be a change of Government and the need to make sure that we put in place a framework that is enduring, can I ask, during the process that the Minister outlined just before, why did he not choose to involve members from the Opposition in that process at an early stage to ensure that we do actually come up with an enduring solution for an institution that I would suggest to the Minister is not equivalent to a Crown entity? It’s probably our most pre-eminent financial institution, and therefore vitally important for all of New Zealand that we get the framework absolutely correct.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): A couple of points. The first of those is, clearly, it was open to the members opposite to be involved at any stage of this process, should they have chosen to be, but, clearly, the select committee is the process where they’re mostly involved.

Secondly, with respect to the member, I think by and large there is agreement. He’s got half a dozen Supplementary Order Papers that he’s put up, which is absolutely in his power, but, actually, I think, generally speaking, the agreement is across the House on the way we want the operational independence to work, the way that we want to make sure that there’s clear lines of decision making and accountability, and that there are clear documents that show that, be it the monetary policy remit, the financial policy remit, or anything else that we might decide in the future. So I think this is an enduring piece of legislation, and I want to be really clear that the basis of the governance model is the Crown entity model, but it has been tweaked to acknowledge the specifics of the work that a central bank does and that the Reserve Bank does. So I’m very confident that we’ve got robust legislation and we’re making it more robust after this bill tonight.

NICOLA WILLIS (National): I want to draw the committee’s attention to the purpose statement for this bill, which is set out in this Part 1, which says, very clearly, that the purpose of the Reserve Bank bill is to “promote the prosperity and well-being of New Zealanders and contribute to a sustainable and productive economy.” In that context, I want to ask the Minister to what extent he directed his officials, or he himself considered how well the objectives set out in this bill actually marry up with that purpose statement. The context for my question, of course, is that we have seen very clearly in the past 12 months the impact the Reserve Bank’s actions and its monetary policy remit can have on the prosperity and wellbeing of New Zealanders. There are New Zealanders across the country who feel that their wellbeing and prosperity has been detrimentally impacted by soaring house prices, by asset price inflation, and by the bank’s own admission that its actions in relation to interest rate cuts have directly impacted on that and, therefore, have had potentially intergenerational impacts.

The reason this matters in terms of the objectives that are set is that the status quo for the Reserve Bank bill, as other members have outlined, is to very clearly set out that the bank must achieve and maintain financial stability of the financial system, but must also do so in way that is efficient and that maintains efficiency. That concept of efficiency is very relevant when we look to the purpose statement, because the interpretation of what economic efficiency is has long been understood to be a judgment and a balancing of what the costs and ramifications are of actions that the Reserve Bank may take within its financial stability mandate. So if we look, on the one hand, that the bank could do absolutely everything in its power to ensure financial stability, we must also consider the ramifications that would have for wellbeing and prosperity. It was the view of many submitters on this bill who we heard during the select committee process that the inclusion of the efficiency objective ensured some tension in those two things and ensured a better balancing of them, because, otherwise—now, without that efficiency constraint, the bank may take a “least regrets” approach in which it narrowly sees its objective in terms of financial stability.

I note that during the first round of consultation on this bill, this particular issue which I’m addressing now in relation to the purpose statement and the efficiency objective was something that around half of respondents supported retaining. The reasons for that that have been raised are about the fact that that efficiency inclusion actually leads the banks in the direction of minimising and justifying the regulatory burden that it puts in, and that potentially creates some constraint around its actions, as they relate to the distributional impacts, which have been large in recent months; as they relate to innovation and dynamism in the financial system and the need not to cramp on those too much.

So, as I said at the beginning of this contribution, I ask the Minister: to what extent that purpose statement was tested against the provisions of this bill to ensure that they are truly carrying out that purpose of ensuring the prosperity and wellbeing of all New Zealanders?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I thank the member for her contribution. I have covered the efficiency question in several of the earlier interventions. But to take a step back to answer her specific question, and, again, I had covered this as well, what we are trying to do here—and, again, this comes back to best practice internationally around regulators of setting high-level objectives, or a high-level purpose, which she has read out, and then the objectives: yes, they do support that. So the answer to the question is yes.

What this bill does, however, is actually give us far more tools to be able to ensure that that happens, and that, in particular, in this bill is the creation of a financial policy remit. Given the member’s interest and reference to the housing-related questions, that is now the extra tool that we have to actually drive outcomes that go to whatever a Government of the day may decide are the important matters that it wants to see dealt with in financial policy. Those will need to be ones that protect and promote the stability of New Zealand’s financial system as the objectives line out, but, actually, now having that remit is the tool that will be useful. The Government found itself in the position, in the absence of a remit, of needing to use section 68B of the Act to be able to, effectively, ask the Reserve Bank to take a matter into consideration. Now, we’re going to be able to connect the objectives and the purposes much more clearly there, in what we’ll do with the financial policy remit. So I think, actually, this bill does do the thing that the member is concerned about.

I would note that in the issue around efficiency, non-efficiency, and its importance, and whether or not it would play a role in that, there is sort of an internal contradiction there, which is that the problem the member has alluded to around the impacts of house price inflation and so on happened under the rules that we’ve had. So I don’t think it is a question of us removing that. I actually think we are strengthening our ability to have some influence over that, via the financial policy remit.

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

Andrew Bayly: Madam Speaker? Madam Speaker?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): “Madam Chair”.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Madam Chair, sorry—yes, sorry, Madam Chair. I’m used to you sitting down here—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Me too.

ANDREW BAYLY: —and I’m used to seeing the Minister beside you, but it’s a very unusual arrangement. But, of course, this is COVID, and that’s why.

I just want to respond in probably my last comment on this, but I just note the Minister’s comments before. If he believes that adequate consultation with the Opposition party is when a bill is introduced to the select committee and members of the Opposition propose a number of changes, very few of which have been picked up, and that is adequate consultation and that’s a way to get cross-party or cross-House support, I’m just putting on record that I think that it’s actually a very disappointing approach.

The potential that this will give rise to is that we do have some Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) and we do feel deeply about them. We think they’re quite significant, we’re not putting up frivolous SOPs, and I think that gives rise to the potential that the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act will need to be changed in the future. I think that’s something that’s very disappointing and something that’s actually a bit of a lost opportunity for Parliament, because, as I’ve said before, this is our pre-eminent financial institution and it’s absolutely essential that whoever is in Government has the right framework to make sure that this institution operates effectively in the best interests of all New Zealanders.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the Minister’s amendment to Part 1 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 44 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 75

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

Noes 45

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Amendment agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 1 as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 75

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

Noes 45

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

Part 2 Reserve Bank of New Zealand

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, we come now to Part 2. This is the debate on clauses 8 to 111, and Schedules 1 and 2, and Part 2 of Schedule 3, which provide for the continuation of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Madam Chair, thank you very much. Part 2 does cover the substantive matters of the bill. The first of those is that it sets out the bank’s objectives, functions, and core powers, the Minister’s role, the board of the bank, its members, and how they come to be there, the role of the governor of the bank, and the Monetary Policy Committee. A significant number of provisions in this part are, as I’ve alluded to in my contribution earlier, substantially similar to provisions in the Crown Entities Act 2004. However, as Mr Bayly and others have pointed out, the bank itself is not a Crown entity under that Act, but it is a model of governance that people are not only familiar with but also, I think, can see the merit in in most cases, but, as noted earlier, there are some exceptions to that.

If I just work through in this call what I see to be the most significant elements of this particular part. Obviously there is clause 8, which has the continuation, but clause 9 does set out those main objectives. As I mentioned in my response to Nicola Willis earlier, the financial stability objective is the one that I think does have pretty widespread agreement, and that is the objective of promoting and protecting the stability of New Zealand’s financial system. As I’ve said a number of times in earlier contributions on this bill, this is the bit that has evolved the most in terms of the bank’s role, but has had the least attention from the point of view of legislative comment and in terms of structure that is designed, rather than that which has evolved, and so that is an important thing to get clear.

The functions of the bank are covered under clause 10, and obviously these will be very familiar to people, including the roles of acting as prudential regulator and supervisor, monitoring the financial system, monitoring the needs of the public for bank notes and coins—a matter I know that Mr Bayly is concerned with in some areas—work with overseas regulators, the provision of relevant information, keeping the law under review, and performing or exercising functions that can be imposed upon it.

There is a matter here where differing views were raised within the debate, that is in clause 11, which is allowing the Minister to direct the bank to perform any additional function that is consistent with the bank’s objectives, following a request from the bank. I know that this is a matter that the Opposition have concerned themselves with. This is an example of what I said to Damien Smith earlier about how we protect the operational independence of the bank and one where it creates that balance within what we do. I think Ministers creating additional functions for the bank willy-nilly would not be good for the bank in achieving its objectives as laid out elsewhere.

We go, then, through the various subparts. Subpart 3 gives the Minister’s role and gives some clarity around that, and includes, as I mentioned earlier, the significant additional role of the issuing of a financial policy remit to guide the financial policy work of the bank. It also—to Damien Smith’s earlier point—gives directions to the bank relating to its minimum level of capital and financial risk management. This is the parameter-setting exercise that I mentioned before, within which the bank operates independently.

Subpart 4 covers the issue of the board—who is a member of the board, and how the board comes to be there. We are talking about a board of not fewer than five and not more than nine members, with the governor as a member, reflecting—as I said earlier—their role as a coordinator between monetary and financial policy. The remaining members of the board are appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Minister, and I am proscribed as the Minister in how I can appoint people. They have to have the appropriate skills, knowledge, and experience to assist the bank in order to do its job, and there are number of other rules around who can do what, including areas in which the governor cannot apply himself or herself to, where those matters are directly relating to the governor. We cover off the collective duties of the board. These are the matters that are drawn from the Crown Entities Act and put into this legislation here. We then move through the process for appointment, non-appointment, reappointment, and so on, of all of those members, and that includes also the governor. The governor is appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Minister, and—here’s an important one for the member opposite—following nomination from the board and consultation with other parties in Parliament. So that’s now codifying the importance of Opposition parties having a role in the appointment of the governor, and I’m sure the member will be pleased that we’ve taken that decision to do that.

Hon Member: We will consult with you, Minister!

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: You will consult with me. Is that right, Mr Bayly? Maybe, maybe not. Obviously we go on through into Part 7, where we look at the various Monetary Policy Committee elements that now need to be drawn into the legislation, now that we’ve had it operating.

So it is a wide-ranging part—I accept that—but it is the most substantive part. It does establish new governance arrangements which, as we’ve covered off in the discussion on Part 1, I think are modern and fit for purpose, and give the bank clear lines of accountability from the board through the governor, with the Minister there, reporting back via the various measures to this House.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you, Madam Chair, and I appreciate the Minister’s broad-ranging description of Part 2—it is the substantive part of the bill, and we’re going to take a random walk through it, not a linear walk through it, because I will start with clause 79(1) and (2) and continue the conversation that we started in Part 1 about the appointment of the governor as a member of the board. Now, the National Party have not tabled an amendment to this clause, but I think it’s worth drilling into the circumstances that led to new clause 79(1) and (2). And I note the Minister in Part 1 talked about the fact that while this wasn’t raised in select committee, there was a significant consultation process prior to the bill, the second of three, being introduced. I stand to be corrected, but as far as I can tell, none of those submissions actually said to the Minister, “We would like the governor on the board.” And when the bill was referred to the select committee, none of the submitters said that then. So we have this unusual situation where on page 11 of the departmental report, in response to the questions of governance and changes to the governance structure, up it pops with oblique references to the review considering a wide range of governance and decision-making models, and then the Reserve Bank Act review team considered a range of different models and decided that this was a good idea. Now, I think the committee deserves a little bit more of a fleshed out explanation about where this came from.

The reason it’s not as a tabled amendment is because I think there are different views about an appropriate governance structure for an organisation like this. And the departmental report does point out, although the Minister has informed the committee, quite rightly, that around the world this is not an uncommon arrangement, but, in my experience, executive directors on boards in a commercial sense, in New Zealand at least, is probably not the predominant governance structure, and in Government, in the public sector, it’s quite rare. Now, the committee was informed by officials that commissions often have the commissioner on the board, but commissions, I think, are different—the Law Commission, the Commerce Commission—and it also acknowledged that, actually, for other Crown entities, it’s very unusual. In fact, I don’t think there are any other Crown entities where the chief executive is a member of the board.

So this is a change; it is a departure. My concern is that that potentially greys what was in 1989 a very clear separation between ministerial oversight, board governance, and the independence of the governor and his or her team to make decisions independent of that traditional line. Even so, there is, I think, a very strong nose in, fingers out principle that underpins governance in New Zealand that has stood the test of time and works well in effective boards.

So while I don’t strongly oppose it, I am concerned at the manner in which this change was made, and I think the Minister could give us an explanation of how this came about, and the basis and the reasons why he believes that it’s appropriate to have the governor as a member of the board, because, prior to this change, actually, the Minister had some influence over the sort of operational aspects of the governor’s role, but it’s important that that be kept separate, as it is right across the public sector. We’ve had examples where the Minister might be grumpy with the chief executive of the Public Service but has no influence, except over the chair of the board. Now you’ve this situation where the governor is on the board, it’s my view that it actually creates perhaps a little more influence than I might be comfortable with, subject to the Minister explaining and convincing me that this is a good idea.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): A number of points to cover off in that. The first of those is yes, the member is right. Obviously, it’s not normal in a Crown entity, but I’ve tried to stress all the way through we’re trying to match the central bank elements with the Crown entity model, and the member himself has acknowledged that it’s not unheard of—or certainly not uncommon—in central banking around the world for this to happen.

The second thing to say is that he asked the question around how did this come to be. This was the subject of a live debate between the external expert panel that I created for this review exercise, the Treasury, the bank itself, and me. And the views coalesced over a period of time around that. What convinced me primarily that this was a good idea was that the Reserve Bank has these two very particular roles: the monetary policy role and the financial policy role. And the person best placed to glue that together is the governor, given the governor’s role in those matters, both in the monetary policy committee and the broad sweep of financial policy work that the bank does. So that role to me was important.

What’s changed—and I think the member has hit on, probably, the biggest point here—is that the board as we’ve previously known it in the Reserve Bank context, to speak very frankly, didn’t play that much of an active role in terms of the way we would think of boards of the many different variety of Crown entities and State-owned enterprises and other bodies. They had quite a limited scope and role, and that did—I take the member’s point—make some sense in that very pure 1989 model. However, times have changed, the role of the bank has changed, expanded, and looks quite different than what it did. And especially once we moved to that decision-making model with the monetary policy committee, the board’s role started to change. So I think at that point it did mean that we took a step back and said, “Well, we want a board that can really have oversight on this.” I don’t think it does anything in terms of the Minister—far from it, in fact. I think the Minister’s role stays largely the same, except that the board will have a greater role in some of the more closer monitoring that I as the Minister, or whoever the Minister is, wouldn’t do.

In terms of the role of the governor, there are things that make sure that the position is clearly understood—one of up to nine, so clearly there will be eight other people at the table. Secondly, areas that the governor cannot be involved in, and they’re in the bill—in particular, the monetary policy committee where reviews of its work and so on, the governor steps out for those matters. So I think we get a very good element here of the governor, who is the glue of what the bank does, being involved. We’ve got eight other people there, so there’s no danger of the governor somehow or other overwhelming that or extending their powers too far, and I think it puts in place the board structure that will give us the best overall governance. Again, clearly contestable, because it’s not done everywhere, but our observation, looking around the world, is that this enables central banks to work well, and we’ve obviously got a process for the appointment of both the board and the governor that has a high level of transparency associated with it.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): I thank the Minister for that explanation. I would make three quick points in reply. The Minister describes what he called a live debate between, I think, the Minister, Treasury, and other stakeholders in the question of this. I think that underscores the point that Mr Bayly was making at the end of Part 1 of the debate about the importance of actually not waiting for a bill to be introduced and referred to the select committee before he engages with other parties. That would have been an excellent example of where constructive engagement with the Opposition spokespeople on this point might have actually taken a little bit of the heat out of the situation and perhaps have given members of the select committee a better context to the change that, frankly, we didn’t see coming until the end of the select committee process.

The second thing is, and I agree with this, where he said the board didn’t play that much of an active role. I think there’s two things to say about that. One is that these are incredibly complex matters, and, indeed, we need the board to be over the top of them. So I think that underscores the case for Supplementary Order Paper 47 in Mr Bayly’s name around the skills and attributes of the board. I know Mr Bayly will be talking to that later in Part 2, but I think that underscores the case for actually making sure that the board has the requisite skills in order to be able to do more than it has in the past.

Again, the Minister acknowledges that more recently the board’s role has started to change and if we get the right people—I should preface that by saying I don’t want to suggest that any individual who’s been a member of the Reserve Bank Board in the past was not the right person. But as the board’s role starts to change and the oversight by the board has a higher level of acumen for these very complex issues, then the case for the governor being on the board, in my view, is actually somewhat diminished. So it is a bit of a line-ball call and we’ll go with it to the degree that we’re not going to propose a change to that. But I think the stronger the board’s skills in this area are, the greater the oversight they’re able to provide on these very technical issues and the less there is a need for the governor—if the governor is a member of the board and the board doesn’t know what’s being discussed or how complex these issues are, then we’ve got a bigger problem than just the governor being on the board. And that’s why I think Mr Bayly’s amendment that would articulate the requisite skills that that board requires certainly warrants careful consideration.

NICOLA WILLIS (National): I want to turn to clause 11 of Part 2. In doing so, I’m hoping that the Minister will have time to reflect on the questions put by Michael Woodhouse and, perhaps, will have the opportunity to address those.

But clause 11 is quite perplexing because it arrived after the select committee deliberation had been taking place. It arrived from officials and was a change to what we had initially considered. What this clause does is it says that the bank may request the Minister to direct the bank to perform any additional function that is consistent with the bank’s objectives. So it’s quite extraordinary because what it says is if the Minister of Finance wishes to ask the Reserve Bank to perform an additional function, the Minister can only do so if the Reserve Bank first asks the Minister to do that, which simply, on the face of it, seems a little bit absurd.

I think members of the select committee could well understand the need, perhaps, for the Minister to have consulted with the Reserve Bank prior to making a direction for an additional function. That could’ve been understood. But to have this requirement that the bank request the Minister, before the Minister directs the bank to perform any additional functions, seems, on the face of it, quite strange and really does seem to subjugate the Minister’s ability to ask the bank to perform any additional function. It is, in effect, a veto. Because unless the Reserve Bank says to the Minister, “Yep, we’re happy to be asked to do that.”, the Minister simply cannot ask for that additional function. In fact, the Minister would have to return to this House and amend the Act itself in order to have that additional function.

So I would be very interested in hearing the Minister’s explanation for this change, and to ask why it is that he wishes his powers to be fettered in this way in relation to this section.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Yeah, I thank the member for the opportunity to have a little bit more of a discussion around clause 11. At its basis, this comes down to the question of operational independence of the bank. As I’ve said on a number of occasions in my contributions tonight and earlier, the balance between operational independence and the Government setting out the framework in which the bank works is a delicate balance. The way in which the bank might go about its work and has historically gone about its work is that it will consult often with the Government on particular things that it wants to do. But where those are within its power, it then has the ability to do it. That has been a fundamental tenet of the way the Reserve Bank Act has operated since 1989. So it was, as the member has noted upon further consideration, a cause of concern that perhaps we would be seen to be undermining the independence of the bank had we done this.

This is a decision-making power which is an existing mechanism in the Crown entity framework. There’s a process that is gone through for issuing directions, and the bill’s got safeguards around how the bank can undertake particular actions if it’s in respect of a particular person or persons, that’s covered under clause 168 as well.

So it is our view that protecting the operational independence of the bank matters. Adding functions to the bank’s role is a substantial thing to do, and we do not believe that it should be done only by the Minister’s fiat.

We get some different views from across the House about where the operational independence line lies. I’m not 100 percent sure where the National Party currently sees that. But for us, adding a whole new function to the work of the bank seemed to us to be something that the Minister should not be able to do on their own. It should be something that the bank and the Minister work together on, and that is the process, that clause 11 it now gives us.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): I was hoping now that the Minister was going to respond to Mr Michael Woodhouse’s comments before—

Hon Grant Robertson: No—if there was a question there.

ANDREW BAYLY: Oh, you don’t think there was a question? Well, I think there was a substantive question, but anyway, I will carry on with that issue, which is talking about the governance arrangements. The interesting thing with the structure, and I alluded to this in Part 1, is the structure we’re ending up with now is, as the Minister said, the board’s role has changed from a model—I forget exactly the words he used, but they were disempowered to some extent; they weren’t a powerful board. But now the current structure is very much one where board members play an integral part, particularly around the financial policy side. And just to be clear what we’re talking about, we’re talking about prudential policies that relate to banks, non-bank deposit takers, and also the separate but very technical issue of the insurance industry.

I was just interested in clause 30, qualifications of members of the board. We’re talking about the most pre-eminent financial institution; I think we’ve established that. What’s been adopted is the Crown entity qualification for appointment to the Reserve Bank. I just think it’s absurd that we’ve adopted a model that sets out the minimum standard and talks about people—these are the people who we’re going to rule out from being a member of the Reserve Bank board: basically, people who are undischarged bankrupts who are subject to the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act, people who’ve had a personal order made against them, convicted of a crime—holy Toledo, Minister, why would we even contemplate having these sorts of people even being in the game?

Hon Grant Robertson: I don’t know who your friends are, Mr Bayly!

ANDREW BAYLY: I don’t know why you would allow this to be the minimum requirement to be able to be appointed to the Reserve Bank—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Keep the Chairperson out of the conversation.

ANDREW BAYLY: Sorry—that the Minister would allow anyone to be appointed to the Reserve Bank. Why did we go back to the proposal where we have a Crown entity model? Why don’t we turn the thinking around to one where we actually recognise that this is a board that is incredibly instrumental in overseeing a key part of our financial institutions? There’s been no discussion around what should be the required attributes, which is something I think is actually vitally important to the Reserve Bank.

I suppose the first question is: how does the Minister see the board operating and at what level? Does the Minister see the board acting in a non-executive capacity where it sets the direction and leaves it up to the Governor who, as Michael Woodhouse noted, also sits on the board and also is in charge of the executive? So does the Minister see the board working in an executive role or a non-executive role? Because if it’s an executive role, then I think that obviously gives rise to a question about what attributes and qualifications they should have.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Broadly speaking, I mean, clause 24 tells the member what the board’s role is, and it is more of the nature of a governing board, to answer his specific question. So I think he can read clause 24 for his own benefit.

In terms of who should and shouldn’t be appointed to it, I do think that it is important, statutorily, to be clear about those who we are not comfortable having on the board. I recognise the point that the member’s making, but you could actually argue that for any Crown entity or any board. So I think it is important to be able to be clear about who we don’t want.

In terms of who we do want, clause 28 covers those matters. And this is, again, common place to give the scope for the Minister to appoint people with a broad range of skills that allow the board to play its role in the bank meeting its objective. So clause 28(2) says, “The Minister may only recommend a person who, in the Minister’s opinion, has the appropriate knowledge, skills, and experience to assist the Bank to achieve its objectives and perform its functions.” And clause 28(3): “In recommending … the Minister must take into account the desirability of promoting diversity in the membership of the board.” I think that is entirely appropriate to give the Minister the ability to make sure that we get the right balance of people on the board relating to the board’s role and the objectives of the bank.

The Supplementary Order Paper that the member has, in this regard—I think it’s No. 47—we won’t be supporting. I think it is too prescriptive. I think it is far better to give the Minister the ability to find the right balance of people. Quite clearly, if one looks at, again, the cascade of the law, from the purposes, to the objectives, down to where we get to the membership of the board, it is quite clear the kinds of people that we are looking for. And, quite clearly, financial stability, prudential regulation—knowledge of those matters will be one of the aspects that is taken into account, because they are the objectives for which the board is responsible for making sure that the bank performs or meets.

So, I think, again, having that level of flexibility for the Minister is important. But the Minister can only—only—recommend those who will help the bank fulfil its objectives.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, the time has come for me to report progress.

Progress to be reported.

House resumed.

Report of Committee of the Whole House

Report of Committee of the Whole House

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Mr Speaker, the committee has considered the Gas (Information Disclosure and Penalties) Amendment Bill and reports it without amendment. The committee has also considered the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bill and reports progress. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.