Tuesday, 10 August 2021

TUESDAY, 10 AUGUST 2021

TUESDAY, 10 AUGUST 2021

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia/Prayers

Karakia/Prayers

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): 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, justice, mercy, and humility for the welfare and peace of New Zealand. Amen.

New Zealand Olympic Team

Congratulations

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): I seek leave to move a motion without notice to congratulate the New Zealand Olympic team.

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

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I move, That this House congratulate the New Zealand Olympic team for their outstanding achievements at the Tokyo Olympics, including winning our country’s largest ever medal haul at an Olympic Games.

For the 17 days of the Tokyo Olympics, our New Zealand team have kept the country enthralled and inspired. In winning 20 medals, the team has achieved a record haul. That these medals were won across 11 sports is also a record. We finished a strong 13th on the medal table. More than all of that, the team has exemplified our values: competitive, resilient, and respectful. On and off the field of play, they have done us proud and given a new generation of athletes extraordinary role models to aspire to emulate.

This has been an Olympics like no other. Our first thankyou needs to go to the people and Government of Japan, who have sacrificed much to host the games. They were superbly organised and delivered in the most trying of circumstances. All New Zealand athletes and support crew report feeling safe and incredibly well looked after. The New Zealand team achieved excellence at the highest level. From the most experienced members of the team to the first-time Olympians, they constantly outperformed expectations and looked at home among the world’s elite athletes.

Singling out athletes in this team is hard, but we cannot go past New Zealand’s most decorated Olympian, Lisa Carrington. Her three gold medals give her six in total and put her at the very top of our long, rich history of Olympic success. Interestingly, if she were a country, Lisa Carrington would have finished 32nd on the medal table, ahead of Turkey, Ireland, and Georgia, among others. Her domination of kayaking events, along with Caitlin Regal in the K2 500, was clinical. She was an awesome athlete and a humble and proud Kiwi, and in turn we are so proud of her.

I feel it’s worth noting that six of our seven gold medals were won by women. These wāhine toa provided highlight after highlight at the Olympics. As if it were needed, the quality and excitement provided by our women athletes at the games shows that we should see more of them on TV screens every year, not just once every four years.

Each of our gold medal winners has a remarkable story: from Emma Twigg’s extraordinary determination after the heartbreak of successive fourth place finishes at the last two Olympics, to the men’s rowing eight and their unexpected but audacious win to repeat the victory of 1972, to Grace Prendergast and Kerri Gowler’s dominance—they were outstanding. But those Black Ferns Sevens—I’m not sure I’ve ever been more stressed watching a game than during their win in the semi-final over Fiji. This team is so dedicated to each other and to their country. They were calm, tactically superb, and the most wonderful ambassadors for their sport and for Aotearoa New Zealand.

The same can be said for all our other medallists: Hayden Wilde in the triathlon, the women’s rowing eight, Brooke Donoghue and Hannah Osborne in the double sculls, the men’s sevens, the doubles tennis combination of Marcus and Michael, Dylan in the trampolining, the incomparable Dame Valerie in the shotput, Tom Walsh in the men’s shotput, David Nyika in boxing, Peter and Blair in the 49er sailing, Ellesse Andrews and Campbell Stewart on the cycling track, and the amazing Lydia Ko in golf—she’s such a class act. Each and every one of them has given us unforgettable moments. These moments come about as a result of intense effort, incredible sacrifice, and bursting talent.

And among those who did not medal, we saw the future of our success at the Olympic Games, like Erika Fairweather and Lewis Clareburt in the pool, Anton Down-Jenkins in diving, Maddi in shotput, and many, many others, and also from the guts of Rebecca in the BMX to the courage of Laurel Hubbard in weightlifting. This was a team that, in their totality, made us so proud in so many ways.

Behind that team is a group of people who we owe a huge debt of gratitude to. The New Zealand Olympic Committee, led by president Mike Stanley, chief executive Kereyn Smith, and chief of mission Rob Waddell; the team at High Performance Sport New Zealand and Sport New Zealand; and the officials and support crew—we thank you all. A note to the family and friends of our athletes: we know it was tough not being there, but we hope that you felt the love and pride that we had in your loved ones too.

And now, we look forward to the Paralympics, where another team of talented New Zealand athletes head to Tokyo to do us proud amongst the world’s best. And I look forward to another statement in this House acknowledging their success as exceptional athletes at the conclusion of their games.

Sport has the power to draw us together as a nation. This New Zealand team has done that and more. In the uncertain and anxious times in COVID-19, they’ve given us such joy and pride. We congratulate them and we thank them with all our hearts.

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

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to support the notice and also the comments after it. Isn’t it wonderful: in the Olympics, we all become experts in sport. It’s amazing the people who have told me all about the finer points of gymnastics and swimming—synchronised, that is. It is one of those ones which draws us together, and particularly when we’re winning. We see about seven gold, six silver, and seven bronze—that’s an extraordinary effort from a team of athletes and their supporters from a little country at the bottom of the world. And it is right to acknowledge the people of Japan and the Government that showed leadership and withstood all of the pressures that they had to not carry on with the games. Our athletes, all those who got to the games—you think about what they have actually gone through to get there. I think it is important to acknowledge the mental toll on athletes, who have to compete, train, compete, win, lose, get bronzes, don’t get bronzes. Those people, what they go through, and their families—I think it is extraordinary the effort that they put in.

I am now fast reading everything that I already haven’t read about Lisa Carrington. My goodness! Well, I have friends in the Eastern Bay of Plenty and they are always full of telling me, as we pass through Ōhope, “That’s where she comes from, you know. That’s where she comes from. That’s our girl.” And it is easy when things are going right in the Olympics and athletics for people to say, “Oh, that’s great, we know her.” Born in Tauranga, grew up in the Ōhope area, training with the Eastern Bay Canoe Racing Club—wow. Isn’t that amazing? And there she is—not just one, but just a whole collection of golds.

I also think it’s important to acknowledge those athletes who, having trained so hard, were not able to join the Olympics team. It’s easy to forget that they have all tried their very best, too. We hear about how tough it is for them, and particularly if they don’t make that team, so I do want to give a big shout-out to them, because out of all of those people, others will come through to represent their country.

Also, you know, Lisa Carrington, known as “GOAT”—which is a GOAT in a boat—“greatest of all time”, a tremendous accolade: three golds to become our most successful Olympian. Dame Valerie Adams, third in the shot-put: this is her fourth time in the Olympics. Unbelievable: continuing to do this, a mother of two able to get back into the training, get back into her focus, and getting it done. Our rowing eights, the men’s eight winning gold for the first time since Munich in 1972, and our women winning silver—extraordinary. The cycling—I mean, everything was just fantastic, and every one of our athletes did us proud, whether they won, they got second, they got third, or they weren’t successful in the medal tally. They all did us proud, not only on the track and in the pool and everywhere else, but actually in their behaviour in Japan. We never heard one thing about that. The only thing I did hear was that some of them might have had a drink or two on the way back, and so what? Why wouldn’t they, and good on them.

I just think it’s important that we understand that these are Kiwis—to me, many of them are very young people, and, I would think, to many New Zealanders. We can be so proud of them, but the people who should be most proud of them are themselves, because they have been part of a team that did us proud. This is something that New Zealanders wanted to see. I will also shout out to our women athletes. It’s OK, guys, that you didn’t get quite as many as the girls. Maybe you should try a bit harder next time. Oh! Ha, ha, that is so unfair. They all try so hard. Thank you, Mr Speaker, a great honour to be able to congratulate our Olympian team, their managers, their coaches, their families, and everyone who gave up so much for them to do their job. Thank you.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party to support this motion and the comments of the two speakers beforehand.

I don’t claim to be an expert in sports, to be fair, but what I do know is about the fantastic people and heart-warming stories from the New Zealand Olympics team. So I would like to take a moment to make a few acknowledgements, starting with Hayden Wilde winning our first Olympic medal and dedicating it to his father, who never got to see him race; the outstanding teamwork and culture of the New Zealand Women’s Sevens team; Emma Twigg, who finished fourth in London and Rio, winning gold in her first Olympics as an out gay athlete; Lisa Carrington, the “GOAT in the boat”, as another member to the right mentioned.

I also want to pay tribute to the Black Ferns and Portia Woodman for her visible support of the tino rangatiratanga flag and the aroha which she’s shown throughout the leadership as the Black Ferns have played. I think this is notable, as many athletes have—despite the restrictions on political activism at the Olympics—tried their best to raise many issues, whether it’s the toll that high-performance sports takes on their mental health, issues in their home countries—we know that the Olympics are inherently political and so commend the many athletes who have taken many powerful messages to the stage, on top of their amazing performances. This includes trailblazers like Laurel Hubbard, who has shown humility, courage, and paved the way for many people in the Olympic scene; and Valerie Adams winning another medal and proudly leading the team as the flag bearer and in the closing ceremony.

I also want to pay tribute to the athletes who will be participating in the Paralympics shortly, an opportunity to see so many wonderful athletes on stage. And I do want to reflect as well on the issue of whether sometime in the future, we could see the Paralympics and the Olympics being held jointly, getting equal coverage and support from the international stage.

So I hope, as well, that we continue supporting community sports, who continue to be the lifeline and the growing ground for talent who we end up taking to the world stage. Kia ora.

DAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party as sports spokesperson. Initially we’d like to offer our sincerest condolences at the sad passing of Olivia Podmore, who was our Olympic athlete in 2016 and a Commonwealth Games cyclist. ACT offers, and I’m sure the House does, Olivia’s family heartfelt condolences. We’ve seen at the Olympics and in life there’s sacrifice and a price for triumph and tragedy. So I’d just like to take a moment to say: rest in peace, Olivia Podmore, Olympic athlete No. 1333.

We wish the best to the Paralympians who are coming up shortly. We congratulate the nation of Japan and, like the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, we’d like to point out what a great games it’s been for both sexes and, in particular, Lisa Carrington, who topped Ireland—what the hell’s going on in Ireland?—Georgia, Turkey just by herself. Her three golds, alongside Caitlin Regal’s, also matched the whole of Spain, Sweden, Denmark, and Belgium, leading us to 13th in the medal table on a per capita basis. So congratulations to everyone. Somebody, a Stuff reader, actually wrote that for all the nations that have never hosted an Olympic Games, New Zealand came out on top, which I thought was a sort of interesting statistic. And I’d like to congratulate the Minister and High Performance Sport and the Olympic Committee on exceeding targets for medals by four over what was anticipated in the strategic plan and in the funding document.

All these athletes have been supported by friends and families and their local communities, businesses, private patrons, New Zealand Olympic Committee, and High Performance Sport New Zealand, and I think, having led some university initiatives in the sports field, the Chef de Mission, i.e., Rob Waddell, must be congratulated for continuing the legacy of our Olympic teams.

The New Zealand Olympic Committee was established in 1911, and more than 60 teams have crossed the globe in those years on Olympic and Commonwealth Games crusades. It was Baron de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic movement and manifesto, who made the case for his vision of how a modern Olympic Games could help build a better world through sport and promote world peace. As for sports in general, he said, “I do not know what its fate will be, but I wish to draw your attention to the important fact that presents two features: it’s democratic and it’s international. The first of these characteristics will guarantee its future and anything that is not democratic is no longer viable today. As for the second, it opens unexpected prospects to us.” ACT still believes these are good values to aspire to and we hope to see them in Paris in 2024.

For me personally, one of the deeper moments of the games was when Dame Valerie Adams was named to carry the flag at the closing ceremony. She said, “It’s an amazing Games for us and I’m looking forward to walking out there with pride and holding the flag up as high in the sky as I possibly can.” And to conclude, there was a great quote from a New Zealand TV journalist, who said that when given the opportunity, New Zealanders are great at gold and silver mining, and that royalties should abound. So here’s to Paris in 2024 and congratulations to everyone involved.

RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): I support the sentiment of the Opposition leader, Judith Collins, talking about the many people who have become experts in different sporting events, and I’m sure if Cook Islands dancing was part of the Olympics, Simon Bridges might make the podium cut!

Tēnā tātou, tēnā tā, tēnā koe te Pīka, otirā kia ora tātou i te Whare. Ka tū au i runga i te āhuatanga o te Paati Māori ki te tautoko i tēnei mōtini, ā, e pā ana ki Ngā Taumāhekeheke O te Ao me ngā mea kaitā kua riro i a tātou i roto i ngā rā kua hipa ake nei.

[Greetings everyone, greetings Mr Speaker and to everyone in the House. I stand today for Te Paati Māori to support this motion, which pertains to the Olympics and the great feats achieved by us in the last few days.]

First of all, I want to begin by acknowledging all of our sportspeople who competed in this year’s Olympics, and particularly our 33 Māori athletes and those who have won medals during this campaign. Like everyone else, I do want to single out one of our own. If I ever had the privilege of attending the Olympics, I would definitely go straight to the rowing venue. It was with immense pride over the last few weeks that I watched our rowers, who were out in front from the starting blocks, leaving everyone else in their hūkatai and rehutai. When it came to Lisa Carrington’s race, no one else even stood a chance. He tipua, he taniwhā, he atua, he wahine Māori.

[She is a legend, a powerful leader, a supernatural being, a Māori woman.]

I stand here today and acknowledge that the most successful Olympian in the history of Aotearoa is not from the Bay of Plenty; she is from the Waiariki. And I know for a fact, ladies and gentlemen, that she is also on the Māori roll. Now, I hear Willie Jackson over there saying she is of Ngāti Porou descent. If she is Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki, she is definitely Ngāti Porou; if she is Ngāti Porou, she is definitely Te Whānau-ā-Apanui. Born in Tauranga, raised in Ōhope, and schooled at Whakatane High School, Lisa Carrington demonstrates what Te Waiariki has to offer this nation. Lisa’s a shining example of Māori excellence: she inspires our rangatahi to be proud of their whakapapa, to strive for their dreams, and to never give in to adversity.

Lisa has said that connecting to her heritage and identity as tangata whenua has helped keep her steady during this historic Tokyo campaign. In her own words: “To know my ancestors and what they did and the challenges that they went through so I could be here now has been a really cool realisation.”

Nō reira e hika mā, tēnei rā te mihi atu ki a tātou. Kia ora tātou.

[And therefore, I greet you all. Be well.]

Motion agreed to.

Ministerial Statements

Electricity Supply—Power Outages

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): I wish to make a ministerial statement relating to yesterday’s power outages. Yesterday, an emergency mechanism in the electricity system was triggered by the system operator, Transpower, requesting network companies direct grid connections to reduce load on their networks. Network companies then took action in response to this request, which saw a number of power outages across the North Island between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. last night. This situation was caused due to insufficient generation being available to meet unprecedented demand on a cold winter’s evening across the country.

Yesterday’s events unfolded as follows: at 6.43 a.m., Transpower issued a low residual notice to participants following their forecast showing a deficit in generation during the forecast evening peak. Transpower requested more generation or less load. At 1.02 p.m. yesterday, Transpower issued a warning that there was insufficient generation coming in for the evening peak, and another warning was issued at 5.07 p.m. At 6.40 p.m., Transpower issued a request for network companies with direct grid connection to shed load by 1 percent. At 7.10 p.m., Transpower issued a grid emergency notice.

From this timeline, three things have become clear to me: the electricity market had clear warnings about the potential for the shortage situation; secondly, there was inadequate communication with the public about the situation; and, thirdly, there is enough capacity in the system. This led me to write to the large generators asking what action they took in response to Transpower’s notice at 6.43 a.m. I also asked them to confirm with officials that they have confidence their companies are doing everything they can to maintain their generating capacity and ensuring security of supply. This is the number one priority for the electricity market. Since my letter this morning, Genesis has explained why it made a commercial decision not to operate one of its plants in response to the forecast shortfall.

Transpower will also apologise for the miscalculation in its demand reduction notice and their communication to the lines companies through the warnings and notices given. I have asked officials to consider what more can be done to better inform the public in the event that a rare grid emergency is likely to occur. I am concerned that the system could not deliver, given there was capacity that could have been brought on, but wasn’t.

It is not uncommon for Transpower to issue requests for generators to bring on more generation to meet demand, but it is unusual for an emergency notice to be issued. But let me be clear, regardless of the mechanisms of the electricity market, New Zealanders rightly expect the lights to be on and the heaters to be running on a cold winter’s night. That’s why the situation that unfolded yesterday was unacceptable. If we’re going to have a market-orientated system providing security of supply, then that market must deliver. The market failed in this respect.

This morning I convened an urgent meeting of senior officials from Transpower, the Electricity Authority, and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE). I asked a series of questions and sought assurances about the ongoing operations of the market to maintain security of supply. I have also asked that a coordination group be established by MBIE to lead the response and commence a review of what has occurred. While we cannot undo what happened yesterday, we can thoroughly investigate the cause and take steps to minimise the risk of it happening again. I will add that this Government has taken numerous steps towards ensuring the electricity market is working as it should, including a range of responses to recommendations from the electricity price review. The recent spike in high electricity prices as a result of the dry hydrological year and a short-term gas supply issue led me to seek analysis on this from the Electricity Authority. Yesterday’s events have prompted further questions on whether the system is fit for purpose.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Mr Speaker, thank you. Firstly, I want to say that the National Party’s thoughts are with all of those people up and down the country who last night expected to be home and be able to turn the heater on and, instead, had to face a dark, cold winter’s night—particularly to our elderly and those medically dependent who had to rush to hospital in those circumstances. My first question to the Minister is when was she first informed of the risk of a power outage, and what measures did she take to inform vulnerable members of the public?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): I was first informed that there was an issue around 8.30 p.m. last night. One of the first actions I took was to call Alison Andrew, the chief executive of Transpower, to get a situation report to find out what had been happening and what steps were in place.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Has the Minister received any briefings from officials over the last six months suggesting that power outages were possible, and, if so, what did she do in response to any advice she received?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): In the last six months, I’ve received a range of advice. As the member will be well aware, earlier in the year there was a concern that there could be issues due to the dry hydrological year—that the lake levels were wrong. But, as the member will also be aware, that issue has resolved and the South Island hydro system is now at around 103 percent of historical capacity for this time of the year. In answer to the question of had I received advice that the situation that occurred last evening could occur, the answer is no.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): I am aware, Minister, of the fact that the hydro lakes have filled. My next question to you: is there a significant risk of further outages tonight, and, if so, what steps is she taking to mitigate the risk?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): As I’m sure members of this House will expect, I’ve been talking with officials and seeking assurances from across the sector around what is in store for New Zealanders tonight, and I would like to reassure New Zealanders that I have received those assurances from Transpower. I have had an assurance. The latest one is that there’s going to be 540 megawatts of spare capacity in the system tonight so that we’re not looking at a repeat tonight. But given how quickly the situation changed yesterday, this is the situation that I will continue to keep seeking assurances on.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): So what would have happened if last night was windless, which it wasn’t, and tonight it’s more likely it will be windless—what factors has the Minister taken into account around that?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): One of the issues actually was that the wind did die down last night, so Genesis, in the decision not to fire up the third Rankine at Huntly was based on what it considered to be continued wind that was going to carry through into the evening. That did die down. There was an issue also with one of Genesis’s hydro lakes in the North Island system last night, as well. In terms of the fact that tonight will also be windless, and that is the situation that we are facing, I am assured by Transpower that of that 540 megawatts of spare capacity that we have in the system tonight, only around half of that, roughly, is due to wind generation.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you. I want to note that last night’s increase in demand wasn’t far above what would be expected at this time of the year, particularly during a snowstorm. In fact, we can expect that similar increases in demand will continue to occur next winter and the winter after that, or even potentially again this year.

My next question to the Minister is: what steps is she taking to make sure this doesn’t happen again and that New Zealand can have confidence that when the temperature drops the electricity stays on?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): Just to give some context for the peak demand, which was an historical high, that we experienced last night, it was around 7,100 megawatts. We would expect a winter peak in New Zealand, historically, as being around 6,500 to 6,700 megawatts. So this was somewhat larger than we had experienced. None the less, New Zealanders rightly deserve to know that we have an electric system that has enough generation capacity to cover the fact that we will have a winter storm. The assurance that I can give New Zealanders is that we did have the physical capacity last night for more generation; commercial decisions were made not to bring on-stream some of that generation.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): A couple more questions for the Minister. The Minister has often talked about a pumped hydro scheme as allowing New Zealand to get to 100 percent renewable and security of supply. The Government, however, banned oil and gas in 2018 and, only after this, sought advice on how to replace gas. Can she confirm that officials have told her a pumped hydro scheme will be at least 10 years away, and, if so, can she also confirm that there will be at least 10 more winters before it is built?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): There are several questions in there; I will attempt to answer all of them. In terms of, the member talks about pumped hydro, I think this is a good opportunity to point out that last night the high-voltage direct current cable, which is the cable that transports electricity from the South Island to the North Island, was actually only running at about 50 percent capacity. So there was far more capacity on that cable to transport more hydro power across the strait into the North Island to meet the shortfall.

In terms of the pumped hydro solution, in terms of whether or not that would be a long-term solution, what we saw last night, actually, was the current mix that we have in our system in terms of what our backups are in terms of coal and gas actually not coming and providing that security of supply for New Zealanders. That is why we need to be looking at future solutions, such as this Government has made the commitment around pumped hydro. We have always said that this is a long-term project—

Hon Member: Time line?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: —and we’ve been very clear around what the time line of that project is, and, yes, it is around a decade. I think it is a shame that New Zealand had not taken the opportunity a decade ago to start looking at some longer-term solutions for how it is we would have a fit for purpose energy system in New Zealand. I do note that the last time we got into a situation in terms of a similar analogous position was in 2014.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Given the cable was at 50 percent last night, what is the expectation of the Minister of the transmission—what percentage of that cable should have been running, and, given the dam situation—that we now have plenty of water—why was the cable not fully operational?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): There were some planned outages that were happening in Clyde last night, but I do note that Meridian made a decision when they received the notice yesterday to bring off stream a planned outage they had on one of their wind farms, that they cancelled that and brought that back on.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Have I still got time? One more question: what percentage of last night’s generation was thermal?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): I think you’d probably say not enough, given that the third Rankine wasn’t fired up. We have a system at the moment that does require the fact that we do have both renewables and fossil thermal fuels in our system. What we saw was a commercial decision was made to not bring on the Taranaki Combined Cycle Power Station or the third Rankine at Huntly yesterday. In terms of do we want to change that in the future, absolutely, and that’s why this Government is doing the long-term investments that will get us to that place.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Why did Genesis not put extra load on last night?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): I think that’s a question better directed to Genesis.

Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister of Climate Change): Thank you Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister for her statement, and I notice that the response from some members to my right is that what we need to do is to explore for more fossil fuels in response to the outage last night, and the idea that future oil and gas—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order!

Hon JAMES SHAW: I know it’s a little hard to hear me over the baying masses to the right, but the irony that—or the kind of hole in the thinking that suggests that if there was exploration occurring now for fields that may or may not come on in the late 2020s or early 2030s, that that would somehow have alleviated the situation last night. Particularly given that the head of the International Energy Agency themselves have said that, actually, we cannot bring any more fossil fuels online if we are to stop a climate catastrophe, and, in response to yesterday’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, the United Nations Secretary-General said that he thought that this should be the death knell for the fossil fuel industry.

I did want to refer to something that the Minister had said about, I guess, the shame that actually this country hadn’t invested in more renewables in a distributed grid much earlier, and I wanted to ask the Minister about different forms of generation and distribution in the system. Given that there have been a number of reliability issues on the fossil fuels part of the system, that the Huntly Rankine unit last night wasn’t operating, that the Pohokura gasfield outage caused a spike in demand late last year, and, of course, there was the Auckland fuel pipeline rupture before that: what does that say about the reliability of fossil fuels? And what are her plans to increase distributed renewable energy generation and capacity, such as rooftop solar and batteries, to alleviate demand?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): Mr Speaker, I thank the member for that contribution. There’s a number of questions in there; I’ll start with the last, on distributed energy and around what the plans are there. This certainly holds a very great potential for New Zealand—that the future of any energy system around the world is not only going to be decarbonised but it will also be distributed and it will be digitised as well. These are the things that we know about future energy systems. With that in mind, this Government has to do at least two things to prepare itself for that. One, that we know that distributed energy systems often rely on more intermittent forms of generation, such as solar and wind, and that we need a way to make sure that we are providing the security of supply into a system that does that. That is why the investment in pumped hydro is such an important part of planning an energy system for the future—we have to be planning for dry-year risk, and we have to be doing that in a renewable way.

In terms of how it is that we’re gathering the data and understanding these distributed systems in a New Zealand context, as the member knows, in our COVID Budget we made an investment around a number of trials looking at a number of distributed systems, largely on our public housing systems and in Māori housing. Some of these are array generation, in terms of solar, some of them are on roofs, some of it’s direct to hot water—we’re seeing where we can get that co-benefit of savings for households as well as generation of electricity.

Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister of Climate Change): Given that her view is that it was a commercial decision to withhold generation last night that led to the Rankine unit being offline, would having more oil and gas reserves or more coal reserves available have made any difference to the outage last night?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): No, and the Taranaki Combined Cycle Power Station gas turbine wasn’t utilised, either; so there was more capacity in the system that could have been utilised there. I do note that that does take around three days in order to bring that into action, but I also note that the forecast weather front that we saw pass over the country had been in place. So it wasn’t a physical constraint on capacity that we had there. We did have the physical ability to cover all of the electricity generation that was required last night.

Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister of Climate Change): And, just out of curiosity, how much demand did electric vehicles place on the grid last night, and was New Zealand’s electric vehicle fleet to blame for the outage?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): An excellent question given I’ve seen some reports of this, but what I can report is that last night, if every battery electric vehicle and every hybrid vehicle had been plugged in and charging at the same time that we experienced the peak, between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. yesterday, it would have required 42 megawatts of electricity. This is equivalent to the power used in a town the size of Mosgiel or a quarter of a standard wind farm.

SIMON COURT (ACT): In response to a question from the ACT Party just a few weeks ago about the risk of energy shortages, the Minister said that she’s considering a range of projects through the New Zealand Battery Project. That’s a project that doesn’t even exist yet. It doesn’t have a business case and the most optimistic outlook for construction starting is 2024. But that probably doesn’t factor in getting consents to build a dam in a UNESCO-level wetland. There’s no way it would be operating before the end of this decade. Yet, in reply to the question from the ACT Party, the Minister said that is one of the options that they’re considering to mitigate the risk of energy shortages in a dry year like we’re having now. We’ve heard the Minister say that fortunately the dams in the South Island are full, yet Lake Taupō, the source of hydroelectricity in the North Island, where most of the users are and where the blackouts occurred, is still at a fraction of its normal levels. So the Minister’s claim that the South Island hydro lakes are somehow full and that we should all be happy about that is, frankly, disingenuous.

This Government is focused on everything except price and energy security. We’ve heard a climate emergency declared. There was a housing crisis declared. They can’t solve those problems, and they sure as on earth can’t solve a problem of electricity security of supply at an affordable price. Now, the lights went out last night and the people of the Waikato were asking, “Why isn’t the Onslow battery project here to save us?” Because that’s what they’d been promised. They are also asking, “How much wind and solar was there at 8.30 p.m. last night when the lights went out?” Well, that is a mystery—how to get wind on a still night and solar in the dark.

Now, when this Government announced a ban on oil and gas exploration in 2018, there was no backup plan to ensure that New Zealand had a secure and affordable energy supply. But even without the ban on oil and gas exploration, New Zealand faces increasing demand for electricity and energy. The Government has forecast it. The Climate Commission has forecast it. Industry has forecast it, and every householder who’s installed a heat pump in the last few years knows how much electricity that uses and how much that costs. So there is a real risk that at peak times, even when the weather is certain, we will continue to need a wide variety of energy supplies, including natural gas and geothermal energy—energy systems which do not depend on the vagaries of wind and sun and rain.

Now the Government is carrying out a $30 million feasibility study into the Onslow pumped hydro project. That would be New Zealand’s largest hydro dam—and, yes, flood a UNESCO-level wetland in the South Island. Storing water reserves for a dry-year risk in hydro dams does have merit, but that must be close to where the people who need the electricity live. That water can sometimes be held for years without generating any power or any revenue for the dam operator, and that’s why electricity generators are waiting for the results of this Government’s business case investigation before deciding whether to invest in further renewable or other backup generation. They’re asking, “Why would the private sector invest in new electricity supplies when this Government might build an enormous dam and put them out of business and strand their new assets?” So what New Zealand families and businesses are asking for now is affordable, secure, reliable electricity. That’s why the ACT Party asks the Minister, what actions should or could have been taken to avoid these blackouts? What actions will the Government take to ensure that electricity supplies are secure and these blackouts don’t happen again? And how on earth will the Onslow project bring more electricity closer to where it is needed, Minister?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): I’ll answer the couple of questions that were in there. In terms of what actions should or could have been taken to avoid the occurrence that happened yesterday, I think I outlined that in my initial statement that there are a number of things that need to be looked at. We did have more generation that could have been brought on stream, but it wasn’t, and that is the piece of work now that needs to be looked at: how do we assure that it’s not market decisions that are the limiting factor in terms of whether New Zealanders have their lights on and the ability to turn their heater on?

In terms of Onslow and its ability to bring on more capacity and more generation, actually, providing that dry-year storage is absolutely critical to unlocking the potential of north of Taupō intermittent generation—wind and solar—which would have covered some of the earlier in the day, so it is part of a network that is absolutely critical.

In terms of one of the assumptions that the member made, I’d just like to correct him in terms of the bringing on of new generation. In the last three years we’ve seen 1.4 gigawatts of new generation brought on, with $2 billion worth of investment. Some of that is, of course, non-fossil baseload generation in the form of geothermal, which is a very important part of our system.

Simon Court: Mr Speaker—

SPEAKER: No, the member’s time is expired.

RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Up to 20,000 households lost power and, in some cases, were left without heating after high winds brought down powerlines and cold weather saw power use surge beyond generation capacity. For such widespread failures to occur proves that our system is under serious pressure. This is unacceptable at any time, let alone in the evening in the middle of winter. Our communities deserve more.

It is evident that these failures are a consequence of decades of under-investment in our infrastructure, including our national electricity grid. Using even more fossil fuels is simply not an option, nor are further blackouts. What’s needed is to ramp up our investment in renewable energy so that we reach 100 percent renewable electricity production urgently. That means more solar, more wind, more tidal, more geothermal. Te Paati Māori has pushed strongly for significantly higher levels of investment in transition to renewable energy and clean technology. The irony is not lost on us that this national widespread power shortage occurred on the same day the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released their latest report showing we are on a collision course with climate catastrophe.

Energy resilience is going to be more and more important. The Government must prioritise this alongside strengthening our response to the climate crisis through aggressive action on reducing our emissions. My question is to the Minister: so when can we see a full commitment by this Government to move to 100 percent renewable electricity, what are the time frames, and will Māori and iwi be consulted and/or part of the decision making?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): I thank that member for his contribution. Of course, this Government does have a commitment around 100 percent renewable electricity. In terms of how it is that we ensure that Māori and iwi are brought into that, that is a piece of work that is ongoing. I am working with a number of colleagues—I talked in one of my previous answers in terms of what we’re doing in terms of trials on Māori housing, in terms of distributed energy and what the future might look like there. So that is a critical part of the Government’s work programme.

RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): How does the Government fare in terms of that consultation, when it comes to water rights with Māori?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): That is a separate piece of work that is not part of the energy portfolio.

SPEAKER: We’re also getting slightly wide of the—

Urgent Debates

Consideration of Application for Urgent Debate—Leave to Defer

SPEAKER: I have received applications for an urgent debate. The Business Committee has determined that a special debate be held on the Dawn Raids after oral questions today. An urgent debate is part of the general business of the House, which takes place in sequence, commencing at 2 p.m. each sitting day. General business takes precedence; so any urgent debate would normally be held before the special debate. However, there is significant public interest and interest in the House in the special debate. Therefore, I seek the leave of the House to consider applications for the urgent debate at the conclusion of the special debate. Is there any objection to that? There appears to be none.

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

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

SPEAKER: No petitions have been presented. Ministers have delivered papers.

CLERK:

Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment strategic intentions 2021-25

New Zealand Artificial Limb Service statement of intent 2021-24 and statement of performance expectations 2021-22.

SPEAKER: Now those papers are published under the authority of the House.

Select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.

CLERK:

Report of the Environment Committee on the petitions of Mark Patterson

report of the Health Committee on the Water Services Bill, and

report of the Petitions Committee on petitions related to COVID-19, immigration, and border policies.

SPEAKER: The bill is set down for second reading.

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

CLERK: Education and Training (Teaching Council Fees and Costs) Amendment Bill, introduction.

SPEAKER: That bill is set down for first 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): New Zealanders continue to show confidence in the economy. Statistics New Zealand reported today that card transactions rose 0.9 percent in July compared with the previous month. Retail card spending, which makes up three-quarters of total card transactions, rose 0.6 percent as New Zealanders spent more on groceries, alcohol, and specialised food. Kiwis also spent more on clothing, shoes, jewellery, and watches. In their commentary, Westpac’s economists had expected to see a small decline due to the suspension of travel with Australia. However, it turns out, to quote them, that “New Zealand households are hitting the town and spending up.” The report also shows a dampening in spending in the hospitality sector, which Westpac attributes to a lack of international tourists, indicating, as we have noted several times in this House, the economic environment remains uneven for some sectors and regions.

Barbara Edmonds: What other reports has he seen on consumer confidence?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence Index shows sentiment remains in positive territory. The index did edge down one point to 113 in July, just below its historical average. The proportion of people who believe it is a good time to buy a major household item, which is a key indicator of confidence, rose two points to 24. A net 23 percent of those surveyed expect to be better off this time next year—up one. ANZ’s confidence composite gauge, which is a GDP growth indicator by combining lag business expectations and intentions with consumer sentiment, is now well above pre-COVID levels. The survey does show, however, that consumers remain cautious about the future and the economic environment continues to be volatile as countries such as Australia struggle to contain the highly transmissible Delta variant of COVID-19.

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

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The primary sector is continuing to support and secure the recovery. The ANZ Commodity Price Index was released last week, and while it eased back from its record high, declining by 1.4 percent in July, it is still very strong. Looking at the sectors, there were gains for meat and fibre, which rose 0.6 percent due to higher lamb and wool prices, while beef prices eased back. Horticulture also rose by 0.6 percent. Forestry did slip back from record highs as demand from China eased, while dairy prices also eased, although ANZ said that relatively tight global milk supplies should limit further downward movements in dairy prices. When returns to producers are converted back to New Zealand dollars, the overall index rose by 0.1 percent. Our producers are operating in a volatile market reflecting the ongoing impact of the pandemic but continue to do well to support the New Zealand economy.

Question No. 2—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes. In particular, I stand by this Government’s commitment to take action to mitigate the impacts of climate change, and to create a smarter, greener, more resilient New Zealand through our recovery. Already we have—as has been discussed in this House—ended new offshore oil and gas exploration, passed the zero carbon Act and become one of the first countries to put the 1.5 degree global warming threshold into primary legislation, doubled our climate change - related aid to the Pacific, committed to a Public Service that is carbon neutral by 2025, become the first country in the world to introduce legislation to require all listed companies and large financial institutions to report on their climate-related risks, and undertaken world-leading work alongside our primary sector to tackle what will soon become a global issue around emissions related to food production. I’m proud of this Government’s efforts on climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report demonstrates why it is so important. The future lies in transitioning our economy, including transitioning our energy generation.

Hon Judith Collins: Is it acceptable to her that medically vulnerable New Zealanders were forced to drive themselves to Waikato Hospital last night because her Government couldn’t keep the electricity on?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I totally reject the second half of the member’s question. In answer to the first half, I absolutely do not believe that that is an acceptable scenario, no.

Hon Judith Collins: Has she seen advice that the proposed Onslow pumped hydro scheme will be at least 10 years away from completion, and why did she ban gas exploration before any alternative was in place?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Let’s be absolutely clear. The last gas find in New Zealand offshore was in 2000. If the member believes that offshore gas was the solution to New Zealand’s future energy needs, then her Government, while in office, would have needed to bring it online. Gas exploration takes years. Bringing a gas find online, if you find it, takes years. It would not have made any meaningful contribution to what happened yesterday. Nor are fossil fuels the future answer for New Zealand. I have seen advice saying Onslow would take ten years, which is why we have consistently said it, and which is why the work is starting now.

David Seymour: Can the Prime Minister tell the House of one tangible initiative her Government has taken to improve New Zealand’s energy security in relation to electricity supply?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes. Not only are we doing work on the grid, we have also tried to remove the barriers to renewable electricity generation. I’m holding in front of me a list that particularly focuses on solar and wind but also geothermal, a list of renewable energy generation investment across 2019 and 2021 to increase the renewable energy supply in New Zealand.

David Seymour: How did those investments help New Zealanders last night when solar and wind contribution to the grid was zero?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Let’s be absolutely clear. As the Minister has said in her answer, generation was not the issue last night. Last night the issue was it was not brought online. We had capacity that was not used. That was the problem. No New Zealander would consider it acceptable that we had capacity that was not brought online.

Hon Judith Collins: Does she prefer the Huntly power station burning New Zealand natural gas or Indonesian coal?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I would prefer that New Zealand prepares to transition. But, right now, whilst we are between 80 and, roughly, 85 percent renewable, we do still have fossil fuels in our electricity generation, and no Government, including this one, is going to make decisions that mean that we are unable to continue to meet the demand. But we will make decisions that mean in the future, we have the ability to transition away from fossil fuel use. If only previous Governments had had the foresight to make those decisions.

Hon Judith Collins: Can we get an answer to it? Which is better: natural gas from New Zealand or Indonesian coal fuelling up and keeping the lights on in New Zealand?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The best option is a supply that actually doesn’t have to have an impact on our environment and does allow us to keep the lights on. It is within New Zealand’s power to have 100 percent renewable electricity generation. It will require investment, but that is why we are making the decisions we are now. At the same time, we have to ensure security of supply. What happened last night was that the generation that was available was not brought on, so that did not have to happen with the current mix that we have.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Can the Prime Minister confirm that there was 350 megawatts that was not taken up from the Taranaki combined cycle, and a further 240 megawatts of electricity available from the third Rankine at Huntly that could have been brought on last night, but commercial decisions were made not to bring it on?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes—exactly. We said that the issue that we experienced yesterday was that we simply had capacity that was not made available. That is a totally unacceptable situation, and New Zealanders who were in that scenario, I think, would think it was pretty dire that we had the ability to deal with the situation we had yesterday, but, simply, those generators made decisions not to bring that capacity on and, as a result, their lights went out. That is not good enough.

David Seymour: Will the Government abandon its target for 100 percent renewable electricity generation by 2030, and, if not, was the Climate Change Commission wrong when it said, “The Government should consider replacing the 100 percent target with a goal of aiming to achieve 95 to 98 percent renewable electricity by 2030.”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: So what you can see, I think, is the Climate Change Commission generally sharing the aspiration that we increase our renewable electricity supply in New Zealand, and that is an aspiration that, obviously, you’ll see from our policy, we share. We, of course, built into our policy the ability in 2025 to look at our mix of electricity generation and see whether or not going through to 2030, which is where we’ve had the goal, we should maintain that 100 percent aspiration, but, generally speaking, the goal is the same. We’ve got to increase the amount of renewable electricity supply that we have in New Zealand, and that’s exactly what we’re working on.

David Seymour: Is the Prime Minister or her Minister prepared to repeat the assertion that generators plunged New Zealanders’ homes into darkness due to commercial decisions that they made, outside the House, where she’s not protected by privilege?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: What we’ve presented here are simply the facts. As you will have heard, at 6.43 a.m., Transpower issued a low residual notice to participants. At 1.02 p.m., Transpower issued a warning that there was insufficient generation offers for the evening peak. Another warning was issued at 5.07 p.m. At 6.40 p.m., Transpower issued a request for network companies in direct grid connections to then shed 1 percent. As I’ve said, despite all of those warnings, we had an issue where the Rankine at Huntly was not—was not—fired up. Clearly, we had capacity that was not utilised, despite Transpower’s requests.

Hon Judith Collins: How long has she known that large numbers of front-line port workers are still unvaccinated?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: You’ll see from the decision that we made as a Government to mandate vaccinations at the ports that we had identified that uptake was an issue. It is not evenly spread. Some ports have very high uptakes; some have lower. In response to the issues that we were identifying, on 19 February, a port vaccination hui was held at the port in Tauranga. On 26 February, two sessions open to the port and family at the yacht club were held. On 5 March, there was an online session made available for port workers, which was then shared electronically across other platforms, again, to encourage uptake of vaccines. In March, we talked to those port workers who had taken up a vaccination, to share their stories and, again, to spread the message to take up a vaccination offer. On 4 June, we held two sessions specifically targeted at those groups we were worried about where uptake was low. At the end of June, we had another session with port workers. This is all just at Tauranga, and it demonstrates we were working very hard to increase the uptake. We saw that we were having issues, we heard the port’s concern around it affecting the supply chain, but we none the less decided we had to mandate to lift those vaccination rates.

Hon Judith Collins: With all the hui and the discussions with the port workers, why didn’t she just get the vaccine and the vaccinators to the ports and get them done instead of just talking about it and promising it?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Of course we did. A vaccination site started at the Port of Tauranga on 1 March—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Sorry, I am going to interrupt the Prime Minister. We’ve had quite a lot of discussion in recent weeks about loud interjections from particularly close to my microphone, which are drowning out others, and it means that people can’t be heard—including me having trouble hearing them. I’ll just ask the member with the very loud voice that’s not very far away from me, to turn it down.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Of course this was in conjunction to vaccines being offered. You wouldn’t have sessions encouraging vaccination and then not have clinics to enable the vaccines to be had. They started on 1 March and ran for six weeks. Following 11 April, pop-up clinics were arranged on site as needed, which occurred fortnightly when the port had a group of workers that needed vaccination. That is in addition to the vaccination sites that are generally available, of course, across the Bay of Plenty. And priority spots had been retained for those port workers, or those workers at the border, to ensure that they don’t have to wait in order to access a vaccine.

Hon Judith Collins: Why wasn’t it mandated earlier, given the risk?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I have, obviously, stated many, many times, one of the issues that the ports raised with us was that some of those individuals who had not yet taken up a vaccine were in critical roles and that there was the risk that we may have supply chain issues if we mandated a vaccination that would lead to, potentially, job loss. None the less, we took the extraordinary step of mandating the requirement for those at the port in those highest-risk jobs to be vaccinated. Again, it would be unfair to state that this is an issue across the board. We have very high rates at, for instance, port of Otago, Napier Port, and some other areas. In certain areas, we have had pockets where uptake has been high for certain employees, but in others it has been more challenging.

Hon Judith Collins: Who is responsible for unvaccinated port workers being allowed to continue working on the front line and going on to ships?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, just a bit of context: of course, there has been a period where the world had no vaccines in which we were still operating our ports. So we have had orders in place that mean that, for this entire time, we have treated every ship as if those who are on it have COVID. Keep in mind there is no requirement to test every single cargo ship that comes into New Zealand, because we have 2,000 a year, and some ships, (a) don’t stay long enough, (b) would risk those individuals coming off ship when they are currently banned from doing so, and there is also the risk that they would not come. So we behave as if every cargo crew has COVID. There are requirements around social distancing; personal protective equipment use if you may come into contact; and now, on top of that, we have mandated vaccinations.

Question No. 3—Health

3. WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour—Northland) to the Minister of Health: What recent announcements has he made on the redevelopment of Bay of Islands Hospital?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): Recently, the Prime Minister and I attended a ceremony to bless the site and workers for phase two of the redevelopment of the Bay of Islands Hospital in Kawakawa. The new building will house out-patients and primary care facilities. The Government has invested $14 million in this project to help the Northland District Health Board address inequitable health outcomes for Māori by making services easier to access for communities. These new facilities are an indicator of the future, with a range of services available in a primary setting, and will mean people can get the care they need close to home and close to whānau rather than having to travel to Whangārei or Auckland.

Willow-Jean Prime: What facilities are included in the redevelopment?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: This is the second phase of redevelopment, following the completion of a two-storey building accommodating the new accident and medical centre and a 20-bed in-patient ward in 2018. This phase—the latest one—includes an integrated family health centre to accommodate primary health and out-patient services, an expanded renal dialysis unit, and the introduction of new oncology and haematology services. The new facilities are expected to be operational in 2023. This redevelopment reflects this Government’s commitment to laying the foundations for a better future for all New Zealanders, as well as the wider changes we wanted to achieve through the health reforms.

Willow-Jean Prime: What other investments has the Government made to improve the health and wellbeing of Northlanders?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The new facilities are just one part of the Government’s investment to improve the health and wellbeing of Northland residents. Other projects recently announced in the area include remediation work at Kaitāia Hospital, a linear accelerator at Whangarei Hospital to provide better cancer treatment, and buses to provide mobile surgical and lithotripsy services for kidney and gallbladder issues. A cardiac catheter laboratory and operating theatres were recently opened at Whangarei Hospital, and expanded youth mental health and addiction services are planned across Northland, Auckland, and Waitematā.

Question No. 4—Foreign Affairs

4. GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs: What advice has she received, if any, about the effects of climate change-related events on New Zealand’s Overseas Development Assistance programmes?

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs) on behalf of the Minister of Foreign Affairs: I thank the member from the Green Party for their important question. It is particularly relevant given the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report released last night, which underscored the significant impacts climate change will have on the Pacific and other small islands. It is no secret that Pacific Island countries are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and climate change remains the most significant issue facing the Pacific region despite contributing little to global emissions. I am advised she has received a number of pieces of advice to that effect, which covers climate finance, climate migration, sea-level rise, maritime boundaries, as well as significant general advice given. This is a priority area for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), including in the overseas development assistance programme. We are on track to meet our climate finance commitment made in 2018 to provide at least $300 million in climate finance over four years, with at least two-thirds to the Pacific.

Golriz Ghahraman: How is New Zealand’s overseas development assistance being directed to help vulnerable nations address the impacts of climate change, which the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights says will mean “even under the best-case scenario, hundreds of millions will face food insecurity, forced migration, disease, and death”?

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: On behalf of the Minister, as I have previously said, we know climate change is having an impact in the Pasifika region, and that is why we continue to work in this area and why it is a priority area for MFAT. Building resilience to climate change remains at the heart of New Zealand’s engagement with the Pacific as we move through COVID-19 response and recovery phases. New Zealand’s current climate finance commitment of at least $300 million over four years, 2019 to 2022, announced by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at the United Nations General Assembly in 2018, will see at least two-thirds of our climate finance targeted at the Pacific and at least 50 percent for adaptation, aligning with the Pacific’s priorities, and I am advised that we are on track to fulfil this commitment.

Golriz Ghahraman: Does she think that the best way for New Zealand to assist with climate change - related events is to reduce emissions, and, therefore, does she support a stronger nationally determined contribution, under the Paris Agreement, to align with the targets of other comparable countries?

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: On behalf of the Minister, yes, and it will come as no surprise to people that climate change is having an impact on the Pacific. That is why, as a Government, we are committed to working in this area, why we have advocated for the Pacific in a large number of international forums, and why we continue to fund and support programmes in the Pacific. Some examples of our activities in the Pacific include supporting the Pacific Climate Change Centre to be established as a knowledge hub and centre of excellence in the region; supporting research and regional dialogue on climate migration, in partnership with the International Organization for Migration; providing water tanks to Tuvalu to assist with water security, in partnership with the New Zealand Defence Force; working in partnership with the Department of Conservation Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Programme (SPREP) to combat invasive alien species in the region; and supporting Pacific Island countries to more effectively and efficiently access climate finance in partnership with SPREP.

Golriz Ghahraman: Does she agree that New Zealand’s assistance to other countries to reduce emissions must be backed with strong climate action at home; if not, why not?

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: I can only speak for the work of MFAT, who see their work in the Pacific region around climate change as a priority. I know this Government also has a strong commitment to climate change that is being led by the Prime Minister, but specific questions on New Zealand’s climate change policy should be directed to the Minister for Climate Change, who is sitting right across here, a Minister I work closely with and respect.

Question No. 5—Finance

5. ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato) to the Minister of Finance: What advice, if any, has he received on the economic impacts of recent higher energy prices and the economic consequences of power outages?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I have received advice from the Treasury and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) that this year wholesale electricity prices have been higher than normal and that this could have economic impacts, particularly for the small number of energy consumers exposed to spot prices. The advice also included that, over the longer term, if wholesale prices return to their long-term averages, it is unlikely that there will be long-term impacts on energy consumers. With regard to the second part of the member’s question, on the question of outages, given the event referred to in the House today occurred only last night, I have not received specific advice on the economic consequences of that. Regarding economic impacts, it is worth noting that unemployment has fallen to its pre-COVID level of 4 percent, while employment is growing. Data also shows that economic activity in New Zealand has returned to where it was pre-COVID levels.

Andrew Bayly: How can New Zealand businesses dependent on wholesale electricity manage their operations when faced with a 56,000 percent increase in prices that have gone from $373 per megawatt hour to $211,000 per megawatt hour, as happened yesterday afternoon?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The example the member gives was for a very brief moment last evening, and I do understand that for the majority of those involved, they would be unaffected by that. I also understand that the scarcity pricing provisions in the electricity industry participation code had been triggered and so the actual final prices would end up being much lower than those provisionally traded figures the member has quoted.

Andrew Bayly: How can he say that this Government is doing its best for the economy, when average monthly wholesale electricity prices have increased from $60 per megawatt hour in the six months prior to Labour coming to office to $260 per megawatt hour in the last six months, a 330 percent increase—

SPEAKER: Order! The member’s question is finished.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: A large number of New Zealand’s major users hedge, and so they make sure they stay ahead of the market in that regard. And in answer to the member’s question, I refer him back to my primary answer. Yes, there were issues earlier in the year when we were facing a dry hydrological year, but through that period of time, the New Zealand economy is now operating at a level above where we were pre-COVID. Unemployment is at 4 percent and employment rates are increasing. Once again, the New Zealand economy has shown its resilience through challenging times. The member might choose to celebrate that.

Andrew Bayly: As the finance Minister of a Labour Government, is he satisfied he has done enough to prevent businesses like Tasman pulp and paper or the Methanex Waitara plant from closing due to runaway costs of energy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As the Minister of Finance in a Labour Government I am extremely proud of the fact that the New Zealand economy is now operating above where it was before COVID came along, that people are going into work. There are always challenges within an economic environment and the New Zealand economy and businesses in it have shown their resilience.

Andrew Bayly: What certainty can he provide to businesses that we will see wholesale electricity prices return to the $60 per megawatt hour that existed prior to Labour taking office?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I am not going to speculate on the exact price, but if the member is trying to make out that the spike that occurred for a very brief period last night is somehow or other reflective of where we’re going to go, the member knows that’s not right. I do find it somewhat ironic that members opposite are asking about power struggles. I should take advice from them on that. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order!

Andrew Bayly: Does he agree that an economy plagued by rapidly escalating power prices and rolling power outages is making it harder for New Zealand businesses and consumers to get ahead?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The member needs to come back to the facts of what’s happening in the New Zealand economy. That is, that economic growth in New Zealand is back where it was pre-COVID levels, that unemployment is at 4 percent, that more people are in work, that wages are rising. The New Zealand businesses that I talk to are getting on with the job. The member might want to do that too.

Question No. 6—Tourism

6. RACHEL BROOKING (Labour) to the Minister of Tourism: How is the Government supporting tourism infrastructure projects?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Tourism): It is a priority to support tourism jobs and businesses as we keep up the momentum of economic recovery. The visitor economy in five South Island regions in particular has been seriously impacted by COVID-19. As the member knows, the South Island is home to many of the jewels in the crown of our tourism industry. Our fiords, mountains, glaciers—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I’d just like the member to get on with answering the question rather than giving a geography lesson.

Hon STUART NASH: The latest round of the investment from the Tourism Infrastructure Fund is focused on these five regions. Tourism projects in these South Island regions will receive $10 million from a total pool of $18 million in this round. This enables the tourism industry to once again make a strong contribution to our economic recovery and the wellbeing of workers and businesses in the affected regions.

Rachel Brooking: What feedback has the Minister received from these beautiful South Island regions about the tourism support?

Hon STUART NASH: The five regions are Mackenzie district, the Queenstown Lakes, Fiordland, South Westland, and Kaikōura. I’ve travelled to all five of these regions and spoken to the mayors and other leaders about what is needed to help the communities adjust. Mayors include Jim Boult, Bruce Smith, Gary Tong, Graham Smith, and Craig Mackle. They have responded enthusiastically to the infrastructure support. Mayor Tong said that he was “thrilled” with the support for Fiordland and Stewart Island tourism projects. Deputy Southland Mayor Ebel Kremer said he is “stoked” because “it means a lot to our communities.” Mayor Boult said that he was delighted for Queenstown, and Mackenzie’s Graham Smith said—I quote—“now is the time to put the infrastructure in place” as our iconic tourism destinations plan for the future. Tourism Industry Aotearoa has highlighted that the new facilities will benefit locals as well as visitors.

Rachel Brooking: What sort of assets are being built for the benefit of both visitors and local communities?

Hon STUART NASH: These five South Island communities share the challenge of dealing with infrastructure that has run down over many years. They also face the twin hurdle of funding projects from a very small rater base. Locals and visitors in Queenstown, Wānaka, and Glenorchy will benefit from new lake-front infrastructure like boat ramps. In Mackenzie district, the owner of the Lake Ruataniwha Holiday Park said new assets will make a real difference to locals who have been unable to go boating in the lake because of sewage contamination. Domestic tourism is experiencing a boom as Kiwi travellers—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I think we’ve had more than enough. [Interruption] I don’t really need your support, Mr Doocey.

Question No. 7—COVID-19 Response

7. CHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Minister for COVID-19 Response: Why were unvaccinated workers at the Port of Tauranga allowed to have contact with the Rio de la Plata container ship before crew members on the ship had COVID-19 test results returned, and what steps, if any, is he taking to increase vaccination rates for port workers?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Crew members on incoming ships are not routinely tested. The consistent advice I’ve received is that testing all incoming ships would be logistically challenging and could result in some ships no longer calling in New Zealand, and it could also increase the risk, as all crew would have to disembark the ship for testing instead of remaining isolated on the ship, as they’re currently required to do under the maritime border order. We treat all incoming ships as if they could have COVID-19 cases on board, and rigorous infection and prevention control requirements are in place.

The latest advice I have is that 57 percent of port workers who interact with foreign vessels are fully vaccinated and an additional 7 percent have had one dose. That rate is not good enough. I’ve had feedback that port workers have been more susceptible to misinformation and we are receiving reports that they have been more reluctant to take up the opportunity to receive a vaccination when that has been offered. The current focus is providing one-to-one guidance to those workers at the ports who have been the subject of misinformation so that they can make an informed decision. I am not satisfied with the rate of vaccination of port workers, which is why we have now mandated that all of those port workers in at-risk roles will need to be vaccinated as an additional layer of protection. Many of those are already required to be vaccinated under the existing order—many of the Government employees. The remaining Government employees not covered by the current order will be covered from 26 August, by which point they must have had their first dose, and they have to have had their second dose within 35 days of that time. All other at-risk port employees have to have had their first dose by 30 September and their second dose within 35 days of that, or they will not be able to perform those roles.

Chris Bishop: Why did Maritime New Zealand and the local medical officer of health in Tauranga clear the Rio de la Plata to berth at the port, with a local pilot boarding the ship on Wednesday, 4 August, when the day before the Port of Tauranga received an alert from Maritime New Zealand advising that the ship had been boarded two weeks prior by an Australian pilot who subsequently tested positive for the Delta strain of COVID-19?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: There is some conflicting information about that at the moment. My understanding is that that decision was based on timing and an assumption that it could have been the port worker in Queensland who could have potentially infected the crew, and the timing indicated that that would have been unlikely at that point. So I still have some questions about exactly who knew what and when, and why decisions were made when they were. We are getting more information on that. I’m not satisfied yet with all of the answers that we’ve received so far.

Chris Bishop: Has he been advised that Group 1A port workers in some DHBs have only been able to get COVID-19 vaccinations recently and not earlier in the roll-out, and, if so, why did the Government allow that to be the case?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No, I have not been advised of that. In fact, I can say that port workers have had access to the COVID-19 vaccinations longer than just about every other New Zealander, that we have had vaccination sites operating at the ports, that those vaccination sites have been deliberately set up to operate at times where there have been shift changes to ensure that people who are working night shifts, for example, are not disadvantaged by that, and any of those workers can also get an appointment and get a vaccination in one of the offsite vaccination clinics. Every place that has a port also has vaccinations available in their community.

Chris Bishop: Is it correct that if the public health order mandating vaccination of port workers had been in place earlier, less than 36 percent of port workers would not have had a vaccination?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: To be frank, one of the things that I have been concerned about from the beginning is the level of misinformation at the ports and the potential for a vaccine requirement to stoke that concern and the conspiracy theories around that. And also I’ve been concerned about the potential economic impacts of introducing this requirement too soon, because the last thing I think any New Zealander wants to see is some of our ports unable to operate because there’s insufficient numbers of vaccinated workers. To put that into context, some of our ports employ very few people in some of those specialist roles. It would only take one or two of those specialist people, like ship pilots, to say that they’re not willing to be vaccinated and that port would have to close.

Chris Bishop: Just in relation to that last answer, is the Minister for COVID-19 Response now saying that he and the Government are taking into account the economic impacts of the decisions they make in relation to the border?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: We always have and, in fact, we’re legally obliged to do so.

Question No. 8—Prime Minister

8. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her statements and policies?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes. I especially stand by the Government’s COVID-19 vaccine and immunisation programme that as of yesterday had delivered two and a quarter million doses. We’re now delivering more than 250,000 doses a week, which is more per capita than Australia, South Korea, and Taiwan. I know the member will be interested in that comparison. I also stand by our booking system, which now has over a million active future bookings across 323 vaccination sites. That is why we are able to announce the expansion of the eligible general population to those over 50, from Friday. We are getting on with the job of vaccinating New Zealand, and I do want to thank every New Zealander who has either been vaccinated or has booked to be vaccinated, because it is the best way to support our recovery.

David Seymour: Why then did that policy the Prime Minister is so eager to stand by see only 9 percent of exposed workers in Tauranga this week vaccinated?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As has been well traversed in this House, we want every front-line border worker to be vaccinated. Obviously, you will have seen that we mandated those particularly that the Government has direct employment over early on in our vaccination roll-out. We were very keen to see those who were privately employed, particularly at the port, to be part of that as well. There were concerns that mandating that requirement would lead to skilled specialists for whom a port is reliant on in order to maintain operations potentially moved on from their roles, and supply chain issues. You’ll see from the very lengthy list that both the Minister and I have shared around the activity that has taken place, every effort has been to encourage that voluntary uptake, but when it was still too low, we moved to mandate.

David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister stand by her Government’s appointment of the Strategic COVID-19 Public Health Advisory Group, chaired by Sir David Skegg, just over four months ago, in early April?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes.

David Seymour: Has the group provided valuable advice that might inform her announced announcement about COVID strategy coming this Thursday?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes.

David Seymour: Who funded the group?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Of course, our COVID-19 response is funded by the Government.

David Seymour: Why, then, has none of the advice produced by that group, chaired by Sir David Skegg, in the last four months been released for the people who paid for it—actually, the taxpayer—to view?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Thank you for the opportunity to inform everyone publicly here today that everyone is welcome to tune in on Thursday to the public forum that we have organised in order to, rather than wait for a proactive release of information—to not only publicly provide in writing the advice that we received but to also put on a platform the group themselves in order to provide and respond to questions around that advice. Then, immediately after, we will be providing a response to the advice that we have received. So, actually, I think we’ve taken measures to be very open about the advice we received that, as you can imagine, did not come in immediately. We had separate sets of advice that we added questions to, and we’ll be releasing that this week.

David Seymour: Have any ideas coming from the advice been subject to focus groups or other forms of public opinion research in the last four months?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The most important place for the advice to have come would have been to Cabinet to make decisions. And, of course, the other point that I would make is that our response has been driven by science and evidence all the way through, and that has served us well. Where you have seen the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet engage in additional research, it’s often been around decisions that have already been made, such as the vaccination roll-out, to see why people might be hesitant and how we can overcome that. I would have thought the member would support those initiatives because that is the best way we can protect our health and our economy.

David Seymour: Why couldn’t the Prime Minister just answer the previous question by saying “No”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Because I believe that’s not the case. But if the member ever chooses to put a question in writing in advance, I can be 100 percent sure.

David Seymour: Will the announcement on Thursday include any tangible steps to increase managed isolation and quarantine capacity that people can expect implemented within a month?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That’s not the purpose for which we set up this group. We absolutely have been working to try and utilise and bring on as much capacity as we can, whilst balancing that against the risk that additional capacity produces. So, actually, we don’t need that group to investigate those questions. That’s already something that Minister Hipkins works on on an ongoing basis. At the moment, we have the equivalent of a small New Zealand town in quarantine—over 4,500 people. That is three times what Australia is bringing into the country. We work very hard to do so safely, but we have worked hard to expand that capacity. That is in addition to the efforts we’re taking now to bring in additional—on top of that—Recognised Seasonal Employer workers in September to take a bit of pressure out of the system and to support our horticultural sector.

David Seymour: Will Thursday’s announcement on COVID strategy include any tangible steps to bring new technologies, new types of vaccine, or new ways of distributing vaccination that people might expect to be implemented within a month?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The first thing is, of course, we’ve said we want everyone to have access to the information at the same time, and we’re doing that this week. When it comes to new ways of distributing vaccine, again, this particular group we’ve asked to support us for the next stages of our recovery, particularly thinking about the next six months in preparation for beyond that—when it comes to the vaccine roll-out, we are already utilising all those who can support us in providing new and innovative ways of vaccinating and supporting the vaccination roll-out, everything from setting up sites in malls. I visited one recently that are doing 1,000 people a day. We also have workplace sites that we’ve set up, and the likes of Mainfreight are supporting us to learn from what we can do better in going into worksites so that we can expand that roll-out. We’re increasing into GPs, pharmacies. Marae have played a critical part of our roll-out, and we also have recently made available a vaccination provision at the end of church services. I think we have been innovative in this roll-out, and we continue to seek ideas—I’d happily hear some of the member’s.

Question No. 9—Energy and Resources

9. BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country) to the Minister of Energy and Resources: Does she have confidence in the ability of the New Zealand electricity system to deliver security of supply; if not, why not?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): Yes. The situation last night was not one of physical generation deficit but rather market decisions. I have received assurances from Transpower that there is fair capacity tonight. The latest assessment that I have seen is that there is around 540 megawatts of spare capacity tonight, of which 250 megawatts is forecast wind. I do, however, think that there are questions that need to be answered following this series of events, and that’s why I’ve asked the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) to set up a review of what has happened.

Barbara Kuriger: Does she agree with her own letter to electricity generators this morning that “New Zealand consumers do not expect our electricity market to fail under demand pressures”, and, if so, what steps has she taken to make sure New Zealand has a resilient electricity system?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: In answer to the first part of the question, yes, I do agree with my own letter that I sent to generators this morning. In terms of what steps I’ve taken today, in light of the events that happened last night, this morning I met with Transpower, I met with the Electricity Authority, and I got a thorough situation report of what had occurred. I then wrote to all of the electricity generators and asked them to reply to me swiftly to give me assurances that they were doing all they could, and what their role in the situation that occurred yesterday was. I have also sought further advice from MBIE and am continuing to monitor the situation closely. I’ve also appointed MBIE and asked them to stand up a coordinating agency. There are a number of players that come into this. There’s the system administrator in terms of Transpower. There’s the generators. There’s distribution networks that all need to come in play. So I’ve asked MBIE to be the coordinating authority. I’ve also spoken to the chief executive officer of the electricity distribution businesses to get feedback from his members of what situation occurred last night.

Barbara Kuriger: By what year does the Minister expect new peak electricity sources such as green hydrogen or pumped hydro to be on the market, ensuring avoidance of future blackouts?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I think that the member’s operating under a false assumption around what pumped hydro does. Pumped hydro is about energy storage, rather than bringing on new generation. The role of pumped hydro in terms of providing dry-year storage will actually unleash the ability of other forms of generation that will be required in different parts of the country. We gave a very clear time line of what our expectations around the time line of the New Zealand Battery Project was when we launched it, and when we wrote the press release announcing it, and that is that it will take a number of years. As I’ve said a number of times in this House, I think it is a shame that New Zealand missed the opportunity to look at our long-term solutions many years ago.

Barbara Kuriger: Why did the Government ban gas exploration before it had a ready alternative to provide New Zealand with renewable electricity?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: As has also been canvassed many times in this House, the ending of exploration permits for offshore oil and gas, the decision that our Government took in 2018, was about a long-term transition—that it takes anywhere between five and 10 years to bring on something from an exploration permit to a production permit. This is a long-term managed transition, and I would point that member to the fact that the International Energy Agency is now pointing to this as a series of policies that countries around the world must adopt if the globe is to stand a chance in meeting its Paris commitments. I would like to hear what the policy solutions the National Party—

SPEAKER: No. Order! Order! The member knows that’s out of order.

Barbara Kuriger: When the Minister said earlier today she was made aware at 8.30 p.m. of the outages yesterday, did she find out from the social media site of WEL Networks, as their post was up before 8 p.m.?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: No.

Question No. 10—Transport

10. MARJA LUBECK (Labour) to the Minister of Transport: What recent announcement has he made about improving public transport for West Aucklanders?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): I am pleased to report that construction on the Northwestern Bus Improvements has started. It includes connecting the bus lanes down State Highway 16 between Westgate and Newton Road, new bus stops, crossings, and footpaths on Te Atatū and Lincoln Road, and a major new bus station at Westgate. It’ll make a real difference for commuters, with around 25 minutes shaved off a bus trip from Westgate into the city, and I do want to acknowledge the local member and former Minister Phil Twyford for his work in getting this project under way.

Marja Lubeck: How is the project supporting West Auckland’s economic recovery?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Not only will the Northwestern Bus Improvement project mean better public transport for West Auckland, it’s going to support the economic recovery by creating around 300 jobs. It was one of four Auckland Transport projects funded through the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund to support 1,000 jobs, and it freed up $98 million in the Auckland Council’s emergency budget to be reinvested in other important infrastructure projects.

Marja Lubeck: When will the project deliver better public transport for the West?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Construction of most parts of the project will be completed by late next year, when express bus services will begin. Construction of the Westgate bus station is expected to begin in 2023, with detailed design and consenting starting next year. By delivering faster and more frequent bus services, we’ll be making public transport a real option for more people, reducing congestion and our carbon emissions.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Is the Government still committed to building light rail to north-west Auckland, as it announced on 9 May 2018, and if so, when can the people of north-west Auckland hear progress from the Government about it?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: The Government has signalled that as part of its long-term plans for mass rapid transit in Auckland, it will be important to look at light rail options at a range of locations around Auckland. The key thing is to make sure that those West Aucklanders do have access to adequate public transport, which is what this project is delivering. It’s important to note that the previous Government, when it widened the Northwestern Motorway, did not include any provision for public transport, and we’re having to come back and fix up that omission.

Question No. 11—Pacific Peoples

11. TEANAU TUIONO (Green) to the Minister for Pacific Peoples: What messages, if any, has he received from the Pacific community in Aotearoa relating to the impacts of climate change?

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Minister for Pacific Peoples): It is no surprise I’ve had a number of conversations with Pacific communities in Aotearoa, and the biggest message from them is that climate change is real. It is the single biggest threat facing our Pacific neighbours. It is of significant concern to the Pacific community in Aotearoa, particularly Tuvalu, Tokelau, Marshall Islands, and Kiribati communities. It is also something that is of significance for my international ministerial colleagues, including the Hon Nanaia Mahuta and the Hon James Shaw. As the Minister for Pacific Peoples, I play a strong role in advocacy for the Pacific, and we’ve had a number of important discussions on climate change in the Pacific. In the last month, I have attended a number of virtual engagement, and take opportunities to amplify climate change in the plight of the Pacific region. These include the Franco-Oceania summit, the Friends of Mekong Foreign Ministers meeting, and the ministerial Pacific regional fisheries meeting. I don’t necessarily want to namedrop but the France-Oceania summit was chaired by the French President, Emmanuel Macron, and he asked me to pass on to our Prime Minister his best wishes. The Friends of Mekong Foreign Ministers meeting was chaired by the US, and they expressed, again, to Aotearoa–and the ministerial Pacific regional fisheries meeting was chaired by Fiji. He gave me a beaming smile—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Order! I am going to interrupt the Minister and remind the Minister that the portfolio under which he’s answering these questions is a very narrow portfolio which refers to Pacific peoples in New Zealand.

Teanau Tuiono: Is it his view that urgent climate action by New Zealand is strongly in the interest of New Zealand’s Pacific community in light of last night’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report suggesting the loss of entire Pacific countries could occur within this century?

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: Yes, and, as I said in my primary answer, the community here and abroad is concerned by climate change, and as Ministers we continue to work with the Pacific to support them—

SPEAKER: Yeah. Order! Order! Order! The question was probably out of order, but, in any case, the Minister has answered it.

Teanau Tuiono: Does he believe that the New Zealand Government has a duty of care in the Pacific neighbourhood and that a failure to take strong climate action will be a failure to support our families and friends who are most vulnerable?

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: Yes. That’s why the Minister of Foreign Affairs, as well as the Prime Minister, continue to engage in the Pacific and supports them through a variety of Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade programmes, including the Official Development Assistance programme.

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Again, if the Minister was answering in his previous capacity, that would all be in order, but he’s not, and, therefore, it isn’t.

Teanau Tuiono: Point of order, Mr Speaker. The connection between diaspora Pacific communities and communities in the Pacific is different from other communities. I mean, there is literally no disconnect. And so I feel that the ability to answer that question is relevant.

SPEAKER: I absolutely understand the facts of the matter and the relationships of the matter. Unfortunately for the member, this Minister’s responsibilities are quite prescribed, and, therefore, there are some areas he has responsibility for in this portfolio, and some areas that he has responsibility for in his other portfolio. And because of the way that the question was addressed and the Minister to whom ministerial responsibility to which it was addressed, the line that both the questioner and the Minister are going down is out of order.

Teanau Tuiono: How is he working with others in the New Zealand Government to uplift the Pacific voices and communities fighting climate change, the impacts of which the Pacific community is already experiencing ahead of the rest of the world?

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: Yeah, so as Minister for Pacific Peoples, I pass on the views I hear from the Pacific community to my ministerial colleagues, including the Hon Nanaia Mahuta and James Shaw—and we’ve had a number of important discussions on this topic. I’m also keenly aware that New Zealand continues to support the Pacific COVID-19 vaccine roll-out, and I know that there is no vaccine for climate change.

Question No. 12—Conservation

12. JO LUXTON (Labour—Rangitata) to the Minister of Conservation: What recent announcements has she made regarding Jobs for Nature projects in Canterbury?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Conservation): As part of a Government that is absolutely committed to regional New Zealand, it was my privilege to attend a visit in Rangitata alongside the member of Parliament for that region Jo-Anne Luxton, to announce a Jobs for Nature investment of $16 million. This was to protect and enhance the unique and significant Rangitata River. We went down to the lower part of the Rangitata River and were met by the people of Te Rūnunga o Arowhenua, who are currently employing in excess of 10 young people, and they have received $8.7 million for a project focusing on that lower region. We also met with farmers and others from the upper Rangitata River who had been spearheading a project in the upper Rangitata region, and they were awarded $7.3 million to work alongside farmers and others to preserve the biodiversity values of the upper region.

Jo Luxton: What role will farmers and landowners play in these projects?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: Well, as a Government, again, that is committed to rural and provincial New Zealand farmers and landowners, the upper Rangitata project in particular will see farmers and landowners partnering with the Department of Conservation to fence off stock, restore wetlands, trap pests, and plant eco-sourced natives in a joint move to improve water quality and enhance biodiversity values alongside the riverbank. The Upper Rangitata Gorge Landcare Group and high-country farmers have been doing conservation work in the upper river for nearly 30 years, and I want to commend them for their dedication to the community and to the river.

Jo Luxton: What recent reactions to Jobs for Nature funding has she seen from Federated Farmers, including in Canterbury?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: It was absolutely no surprise that I saw that Federated Farmers had come out swinging on behalf of the announcement that our Government has made, because on 4 August I saw a press release from Federated Farmers titled “Feds Heartened By QEII Funding Boost”. Local Cantabrian and Federated Farmers environment spokesperson Chris Allen—good lad—described the funding as “very welcome and a sound investment and partnership by the Government”. This was in response to an announcement that—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I think it’s fair to say that the question has been answered.

Special Debates

Dawn Raids—Apology

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Minister for Pacific Peoples): I move, That the House take note of the Dawn Raids and the recent apology.

On 14 June, when the Prime Minister announced that this Government will issue a formal apology to the Pacific communities for the harms, trauma, racism, and prejudice that occurred during the 1970s, we literally opened up the floodgates of a sea of wave after wave after wave of emotion. I, in my role of supporting that announcement, was struggling to try and control my own emotions, because that announcement hit home because it’s so personal to me and my family, but my story is one of many stories. I recall Dominic Godfrey on that day also struggled with his emotion, and he was a member of the press gallery. But the emotions have flowed out like a stream and have touched every corner of our Pacific diaspora. It has also touched family members who reside in the Pacific region. It has touched Pacific peoples in other parts of the world, who all recollect now the stories, many of them still emerging.

I want to acknowledge, first and foremost, why this is an important story, because it’s not just a story for Pacific peoples; it is a New Zealand story. I want to acknowledge the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, my ministerial colleagues, all of my caucus, the Māori caucus, and, in particular, the Pasifika caucus, because it’s been your support that has enabled this apology to take place. I want to say that in order to deliver an apology in a way that is meaningful and that is genuine and that can be accepted by those who were directly impacted, it was important that we used symbolism, culture, throughout the whole story, and there is symbolism from beginning to end. I used symbolism because it is one way in order to convey to those who were hurt directly to understand that we, the Government, and we, the members of Parliament, understand the trauma and the pain, first and foremost.

Secondly, I used symbolism to allow the rest of New Zealand who do not understand this story to be receptive to the message that harm was caused and that harm is intergenerational. I wanted to also use symbolism to remind New Zealand of the contribution of Pacific peoples that they have given: the 150 Niueans who performed the war chant; the 500 Cook Islanders who conveyed the pe’e and imene in welcoming the Prime Minister; the Samoans, who have a treaty of friendship—which is another story—who accepted and received the ifoga as a symbol of humility by a head of State. Never before done; usually done when life has been taken. But I believe that this is much, much more—that this is intergenerational. Ask anyone that was directly impacted and affected during that period. Only now, the younger people are beginning to better understand.

I used symbolism to paint a picture for those who do not understand culture of Māori or Pasifika, those who do not understand the harms of racism, to recognise the dreadful harm that it causes on a proud, proud people. I used symbolism to try and convey a very strong message to the next generation of Pacific peoples, one of the fastest-growing populations in Aotearoa. A generation that I refer to as the Generation 6Bs—people who are proudly brown, beautiful, brainy, bilingual, and bicultural—only in Māngere, we make it Generation 7Bs by saying they are brilliant. I used symbolism to try and lift their spirits. I used symbolism to try and make them proud of that cultural heritage, a cultural heritage that spreads thousands and thousands of years.

Of the elders who took their place, who sat next to the ifoga, one represented those people directly dawn-raided back in those days, and one was Taimalieutu Papali’i Kiwi Tamasese, a descendant of the Mau leaders who were imprisoned by New Zealand in Mt Eden prison, but it was Māui Pōmare, Āpirana Ngata, and Māori here who gave them comfort. I used symbolism through the presence of Falema’i Lesa Sega, a woman who took to court New Zealand and the British Government, all the way through to the Privy Council, to fight for her right to have citizenship. That citizenship she gained, but it got overturned by Muldoon, with the agreement of the Samoan Government at the time.

I used symbolism with the presence of Rev. Setaita, who represented the Tongan Methodist Church. The Tongan Methodists in the Tongan community were probably most at harm because police went on the day of worship in their sacred places and pulled people out and took them down to prison. The presence of Father Paulo Iosefa came from the Catholic church down the road, on K Road—the first church in Aotearoa New Zealand to hold mass in the Samoan language. The presence of Rev. Fei Taule’ale’usamai Davis, representing the Pacific Island Church (PIC)—they were the church that brought everybody down the road at the PIC off K Road. That whole K Road was the shopping centre for Pacific peoples in those days, where they could get their produce and meat. Once upon a time, that was a thriving place. Grey Lynn, Kingsland, Avondale—that was where Pacific peoples gravitated to and resided.

I’m grateful to Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, who have offered to help celebrate and commemorate 1 August 2022, the commemoration of this apology. I want to acknowledge Ropota. He is not the usual orator for Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, but he was chosen because he was directly impacted by the Dawn Raids at that period.

There are many stories, and I have tried to weave those stories into how this Government delivered that ceremony on that night, because the stories need people to better understand, not by way of compulsion, but by way that they can seek to understand, and understand that Pacific peoples are here to stay in Aotearoa.

As Her Royal Highness Princess Mele Siu‘ilikutapu Kalaniuvalu Fotofili said, this is Pacific peoples’ home. We are the future of Aotearoa New Zealand, whether others accept it or not. You just need to go around the regions and see the thriving Pacific population from Tai Tokerau to Tai Tonga, from up north to Invercargill, to the east and west of Aotearoa New Zealand. We are a thriving population, but we are being held back when racism and discrimination rears its ugly head, again and again and again, and I’m saying to this House and to all New Zealanders: we have to come together and slam racism on the head. That means that we as leaders of this House also have a duty and responsibility to send strong signals that flow out to all of New Zealand, because, as we say in Samoa, e afua mai mauga fa‘amanuiaga o se nu‘u. From the mountains flow the blessings that will bless the village, and it is the words that matter, as I said that night, because e i ai la matou fa‘aupuga, e pala ma‘a ae tumau pea upu. Rocks and boulders all turn to dust, but words matter to us. Words will live for ever through our oratory, through our songs, through our poetry, and we’re asking our young people: use the words of that night and display it with pride everywhere they may be.

Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora tātou katoa.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand for National to speak against the Dawn Raids and to support the Government’s apology. I think it is a shame it wasn’t able to be extended into a full Crown apology, because even though the Hon Aupito William Sio, the Minister who has resumed his seat, mentioned the Muldoon National Government, he forgot to mention that the Dawn Raids were commenced under the Norman Kirk Labour Government in 1973. I think if we’re going to get right down into it, it was actually a racist and economic response to the fact that New Zealand at that stage had unemployment going through the roof and we were part of an oil shock.

I can well remember the situation in New Zealand at that time. Pacific Islanders had been invited into and encouraged into New Zealand post World War II because of the economic boom and the fact that we needed people to work. Then 1973 came along, we had the oil shock, businesses were closing, people were losing their jobs, and Pacific people were overwhelmingly caught up in unemployment, housing situations, and all of those things. Someone needed to be scapegoated and it was pretty clear—the unions were behind it as well. It was about pushing out the Pacific Island community and sending them back to where they had come from. It was short term, it was cruel, and it was vile. When people have said to me, “But why, Judith, do you care so much about this?”, it’s because not only am I very aware of the hardship that it brought to people but because 86 percent of those arrested in the Dawn Raids were Pacific people, and yet they were just a third of all the overstayers.

If you consider the fact that people like my husband and his family came to New Zealand in the early 1960s, they had not a passport—they didn’t have passports. They had a certificate, a form that was handed to them, and they had that stamped—that was it. So when people say that someone was stopped for their passport, they didn’t have them, because you’ve got to remember as well that in 1962—I mean, that’s the independence of Samoa. Before that, it was a New Zealand colony. It was mandated but, essentially, run by New Zealand. So they weren’t treated the same as other people coming here because they didn’t have the protections of other people coming here as immigrants, and having been brought in here, they were told, “Here’s the jobs. You go for it. You work in the factories, you keep these things going, and you do all this. Oh, and if it all turns to custard, we’ll send you back home.”

So it was a shame on both Labour and National for that to have happened, and you’ve got to own that, in the Labour Party, and stop just blaming National. You’ve got to own it.

That is why it is a shame that the Opposition was not offered any opportunity to formally apologise until now, and I’d do that because just sitting in the stalls is not being part of the occasion. That’s why it should have been extended.

I say to people, you know, when I took my husband, who was then a boyfriend, home in 1979 to visit my father, why was he so racist against my husband? Because he knew the feeling that many people had towards Pacific families. That was the situation: they saw Pacific families as a problem.

So in 1982, when New Zealand citizenship was granted by the Privy Council in the Lesa case, which the Minister has referred to, it was granted to all Western Samoans who were born between 1924 and 1948, and the Act, the New Zealand Citizenship (Western Samoa) Act in 1982—which was brought in through this Parliament under the Muldoon Government—rescinded and annulled any citizenship claims by Samoans living in Samoa, but not those here in New Zealand. Yes, the Samoan Government of the day accepted that. Why? Because if they had not, they feared that so many people would leave to go to New Zealand, and that’s why there is a specific quota for Samoans to be able to come and live in New Zealand and to work here. That is why there is a special deal for Samoans, which a lot of other New Zealanders have no idea about. It’s because something was taken away from them that was legally theirs—that is why.

So let’s just look at what was going on at the time. We know it was a time of economic hardship. We know that people were happy to take people in when it suited them and to not support them when they needed it, but we also need to be very aware that this country can be in danger of doing this again, where it’s other migrants that we bring into work and that we then ignore once it becomes an issue. We have to be really careful we don’t repeat these mistakes of the past, whether it’s around the split migrant families, whether it’s about anyone else coming here, and I can’t think of any Pacific person I know who would not say that they just want people to be treated decently. So we can’t ignore these people or the families themselves.

Also, let me say too that we should be apologising to the immigration officers and the police officers who were forced to undertake this work, and the reason is—there was much made about it in the media about family members of MPs who might be involved—they didn’t have a choice. Police officers don’t get a choice on these things. They had to do it, and for some it would have lived with them for years. I just think we need to be aware that these are the sorts of things that really hurt people and they’re the sorts of things that stay for ever.

So when the Minister refers to racism, it’s racist now on these things—we know that. I think of my own family as well. I think of the racist cartoons that they endure—of course they do. If you ask questions and if you’re not on the same side of politics, you get condemned because they can, and we have to be much stronger as a country against this. We must look at our migrants today and in the past and say, “Hang on, we asked them to come. What are we doing?”, and the answer has to be that we must not repeat the errors of the past.

So I am very happy to stand on behalf of the National Party and say that I understand not all New Zealanders are going to understand all of the things that I’m talking about because they didn’t live in it and they don’t understand it or because they weren’t part of it, but let me just say it is a wrong thing not to apologise. It’s the wrong thing not to accept that wrongs were done, and we must own those.

TEANAU TUIONO (Green): I rise to take this short call on behalf of the Greens, and firstly, I wanted to acknowledge the connection between tangata moana and tangata whenua, and acknowledge that though our islands are many waves, there is but one ocean. I want to acknowledge all Pacific peoples, both past and present, who have come here for better employment and for educational opportunities—that’s whether they travelled here in the 1950s, 1960s, or 1970s, or are going to get off that plane next week to pick fruit as part of the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme.

I want to remind this House that Pacific peoples, when they come to this land, they have aspirations—aspirations of hope. As I was reflecting on this, I came across this poem by the poet Karlo Mila, and she said, “We have all travelled through the bodies of many relatives to be here, all of us wearing those who have passed, fresh on our faces. We are the next wave of a tide that has been coming for a long time. Let us follow the ocean roads that lead us via the stars to the expansions of each other. If we make mistakes on the shore, let us rectify this in the deep ocean. Let us steer through the storms, for our leaders have always been determined on the high seas.”

I was privileged to be in the town hall and to actually feel the emotion. The soundscape—actually, even though at the time of the Dawn Raids, I was but a child, when we heard the soundscape of police dogs and people crashing through doors, it actually reminded me of South Auckland in the 1990s. So I think it’s really important for us to not compartmentalise the time of the Dawn Raids. It wasn’t like racism started with the Dawn Raids; it was there before the Dawn Raids and it continued after the Dawn Raids.

I do support the education perspective of the Dawn Raids. It’s really, really important, and I’m mindful of the saying that “The struggle against powers is the struggle of remembering against forgetting”, and so making sure that this stuff is locked into the curriculum is, I think, an essential part of doing the right thing. I don’t think it should be voluntary, because the one thing I know about New Zealand is if it’s uncomfortable, it gets swept under the carpet—and that should go with all parts of our history that are uncomfortable, whether it’s the Land Wars, whether it is what happened in Samoa in terms of the Mau movement, and it must also happen with the Dawn Raids.

The speech that resonated with me the most at the town hall apology was the Tongan Princess Mele Siuʻilikutapu when she talked about the vā needing to be good between the islands and here within us in Aotearoa. She leaned into the need to fix our broken immigration system—fix this immigration system.

The Dawn Raids were about overstayers—well, we’re going through a COVID crisis and we still have many of our people who have been caught up in the cracks of that. Many of those people also are our essential workers who have carried us through this pandemic. These are more than just workers. They are brothers and sisters and uncles and aunties. They are family, and that’s why it is really important, for this apology to be truly meaningful, that we have a broad amnesty programme for people who overstay and also real pathways for residency. I look forward to that corner of the House supporting that call on behalf of our peoples.

These things get brought to our attention because communities get together. They get together to organise. They get together to get to know each other. They cross over all those different lines, as well.

I want to reflect on and remember those people that came together to push back against the Dawn Raids. I’m talking about our Pacific Island leaders, of course; our church communities; groups like Ngā Tamatoa; anti-racist organisations such as the Citizens Association for Racial Equality, or CARE, and the Auckland Committee on Racism and Discrimination—ACORD—and, of course, the Polynesian Panthers. They remind us that when we get organised in the spirit of solidarity, across difference and diversity, and across our different communities, we remember collectively that the power of the people is always stronger than the people in power. All power to the people. Meitaki ranuinui.

Dr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Talofa lava, mālō e lelei, bula vinaka, kia ora koutou katoa. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of the apology to our Pacific communities for the trauma and injustice of the Dawn Raids in the 1970s. The Dawn Raids were the result of State-enforced policies that were violently imposed, undoubtedly racist, and totally unjustified. That era was a terrible example of the power of the State to persecute and to humiliate people who were simply here to answer the call to fill workforce shortages and to strive towards a better life for their families.

Those that came to this country had to grapple with short-sighted immigration policies that were almost designed to fail, and I applaud them for their perseverance and their forgiveness. For those targeted, the fear that your family could be next in line to being raided in the middle of the night must have been horrendous, especially when you knew what was coming: dogs barking, batons at the ready, megaphones blaring, and children being traumatised in the process. This is a deeply shameful part of our nation’s history.

However, I think it’s also important to note that we’re not here to demonise police officers who were ultimately acting upon the policies introduced by the third Labour Government and continued into the third National Government. From ACT’s perspective, immigration policy should be comprised of liberal values, including the non-aggression principle and freedom of movement. The role of the Government should be to protect people from force, not to carry it out on them. Instead, what New Zealand saw in the 1970s and well afterwards was State-sanctioned harassment, a “Papers, please.” culture, and bureaucrats wrecking the dream of living and thriving in New Zealand.

The effects of this era are still felt today, and there are many in our Pacific communities who have overstayed their visas and, in some cases, by decades. They are understandably terrified at the prospect of submitting a request for a visa under section 61 of the Immigration Act, because they know that if they are unsuccessful, they will almost certainly be arrested and deported. They also know that they could be putting their family members at risk under the Immigration Act. I urge the Government to work with our Pacific communities and develop a way forward for people in these situations.

When the topic of deportation comes up, I often think of a former associate of mine. Some years ago, he had an accident while out exercising and he broke his arm, unfortunately. He went to hospital to get treatment and, naturally, his immigration status was checked. Sadly, he had overstayed his visa and, out of pride, he had never discussed it with anyone or asked for help. He was arrested at the hospital, detained, and a few days later was deported. This was not under the Immigration Act 1964; this was under the Immigration Act 2009—the current one.

Although much has changed since the inhumanity of the Dawn Raids, we still have a long way to go. ACT absolutely supports the apology that we are discussing today. But just as with the poll tax, a New Zealand Government finds itself apologising for immigration policies of the past. I do wonder when we’ll be apologising for the horrendous consequences of our current immigration policies.

I once again acknowledge the perseverance of our Pacific communities and, most of all, their dignity and humility. Despite the enduring scars of that era, they have worked hard to create opportunities, find success, and have added a huge amount of positivity and culture to New Zealand. I sincerely hope that this apology from the Government and the House of Representatives at large helps to heal the wounds of the past and finally closes this chapter of New Zealand’s history. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): Tēnā tātou e te Whare. Kia orana. Talofa lava. Mālō e lelei. Fakaalofa lahi atu. Ni sa bula vinaka. Aloha. Mauri ki a tātou, e hika mā, i tēnei Whare. Ka tū au i runga i te mana o Te Paati Māori i tēnei rā ki te kōrero i ngā kōrero e hāngai tō ki tēnei kaupapa whakahirahira.

[Greetings to us all, my fellow MPs, in this House. I stand today on behalf of Te Paati Māori to talk specifically on this important subject.]

I would like to first acknowledge those who put in the mahi to see this day come. I would like to mihi to the Polynesian Panthers, who this year celebrate their 50th year anniversary since their formation. I would like to acknowledge the Pacific communities in which the legacy of the Dawn Raids still lives on, especially in South Auckland. To the petitioners and the organisers of this petition, Josiah Tualamali’i and Benji Timu—who are here today—for requesting this special debate take place in the House of Parliament, thank you for your presence and for carrying the weight of the 7,366 signatures to this Whare today.

E te rangatira e Te Aupito ka mihi anō ki a koe me ō kōrero kua whakatakatoria i mua i te aroaro o tēnei Whare.

[To the honourable Te Aupito, I again acknowledge you and what you have said within this House.]

We are elated that the Government has finally apologised. This was a Crown apology. But we are excited to begin a new chapter with our whanaunga of Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa; to begin a new conversation that unites tangata whenua and tangata moana towards our collective vision of our Aotearoa hau.

During the Dawn Raids era, Pasifika families were branded as overstayers and they were the target of systemic and personal racist attacks. These attacks sought to isolate and disenfranchise Pacific people from their communities, threatening their jobs and presence here in Aotearoa. This is, essentially, the harm of colonisation. We, as tangata whenua, were robbed of the opportunity to manaaki our tangata moana whanaunga, and that is absolutely devastating. Our right to manaaki and welcome our tangata moana whanaunga into our whare was disrupted by the Government’s colonial Whare, racist immigration policies, and policing tactics. The Dawn Raids act as a tragic reminder of the reality of the racism of our political system.

What do the police see when they see brown faces? Criminals, violence, overstayer, but not brother, father, cousin, leader, or activist. Our journeys of navigation and migration have led us back to each other, and our kinship runs deep and is bound across generations.

Ka whakawhiti, i whakawhiti atu ki Hawaiki-nui, ki Hawaiki-roa ki Hawaiki pāmamao.

[We crossed, we emigrated to the great Hawaiki, to the long Hawaiki, to the distant Hawaiki.]

We, as tangata whenua, have been included in the story from the beginning. As Ngā Tamatoa and the Polynesian Panthers worked together, they showcased the special relationship between tangata whenua and tangata moana, and our shared fight for liberation and justice in Aotearoa. Together, we have stood, side by side, against injustice and colonial oppression, and we will continue to do so.

Te Paati Māori wholeheartedly support the calls for education on the Dawn Raids to be taught in schools. It is part of our fabric of our history and our whakapapa of tangata moana in Aotearoa. It is important that our future generations are able to learn about our shared hardship as tangata whenua and tangata moana as we move towards a Tiriti-centric Aotearoa. This discussion is more timely than ever.

We have a lot of aroha for our whanaunga across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, especially as we face uncertain futures: our climate suffers, te taiao suffers, and our tangata moana whānau feel these impacts more than anyone. We, as tangata whenua, will uphold our tikanga, which allows us to manaaki our whanaunga of Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, as according to our tikanga, so that we may collectively build our Aotearoa hau. We must hold space for this kōrero to take action towards justice. We must learn how to be true whanaunga for each other in the collective struggles. We are the movement that leaves no one behind. Just like the many rivers we identify with and flow out to the moana, as moana peoples, the ocean denies no rivers. Let this be the beginning of the conversation about how we can do better for our tangata moana whānau, and how we as a country can right the wrongs of the past and move forward to a better future.

Tangata moana, this is my message to you: you are not overstayers, you are not a problem to be solved, you are not leeches to this country, and you do not need to be assimilated. Tangata moana, you are our whanaunga; our shared whakapapa tells us so. Kia ora tātou.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Kia ora e Te Mana Whakawā. It is an honour and a privilege to participate in the Dawn Raids debate.

“Keke ‘ilo’ia mai, te’eki ke mafoa e ata, ‘oku ‘a. Ko hoku kaunga fononga koe fetu’u pea moe mahina, na’aku lotu kihe ‘Eiki ke kau mai ‘ihe ‘eku fononga. Peau hiva e ngaahi himi, ‘a hoku hufanga’anga.”—“If only you knew, my companions were the stars and the moon. I found refuge in my prayers to God to keep us safe, and found peace in singing hymns as we’d leave our homes before dawn.” Those were the words of Ailine Tupou Kanongata’a, wife of Siosiua Likiliki. They were members of Fakafeangai Mā’oni’oni Tongan Methodist Church, and were overstayers from 1971 to 1978. They were my parents, who are laid to rest at Waikaraka Cemetery in Onehunga, Auckland.

That’s the extent of the sharing by my mother of how they survived the Dawn Raids. Usually, she’d bring it out when I needed reflection on my behaviour and reminding of my responsibilities.

Ke he lilifu he gutu vagahau, I would like to honour the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, for her leadership in protecting Aotearoa New Zealand from COVID-19 and wrapping a korowai of aroha by providing free COVID-19 vaccinations for Aotearoa and the Pacific nations. To the Minister for Pacific Peoples, the Hon Aupito William Sio, fa‘afetai tele lava.

Before, during, and after the Dawn Raids, tangata whenua were suffering and suffocating from the partnership between the two races known as the Treaty of Waitangi. Fortunately, we have arrived at a time where we understand the race-based suffering that has been confronted by tangata whenua for over two centuries, as well as we, the descendants of the Dawn Raids migrants, who answered New Zealand’s call to come and work in the factories, from the Kingdom of Tonga to the islands of Samoa—the Pacific region—in the 1960s and 1970s.

I call upon Pacific peoples to put away our tears. God has blessed us with the wisdom to know what has to change, the courage to make the change, and aroha for those who we are racist against. Vaa tuatua, on 1 August, the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, formally apologised to the brown-skinned workers who allegedly overstayed. The Prime Minister reminded us—and I quote—“As a nation, we expect everyone in New Zealand to be treated with dignity and respect”. The Prime Minister has offered scholarships. Beginning now, I believe it is timely for the scholars of the descendants of the alleged brown-skinned overstayers and their families to think deeply about racism in migration, education, health, sport, and justice policies, and to make changes for the betterment of all of Aotearoa New Zealand.

In the words of the late Emeritus Professor Ranginui Walker, “Ka whawhai tonu mātou”—we struggle without end. I believe it is appropriate for us who are the descendants of the Dawn Raids to stand together with tangata whenua of Aotearoa to fight all forms of racism, because the longer we are divided, the longer we are ruled by racist policies.

Afioga fofoga fetalai, I am urging e ngā iwi o Moana-nui-a-Kiwa ki Aotearoa: our relationship with Māori is in our DNA. We are whānau. It is time we demonstrate our respect to tangata whenua and learn te reo Māori me tikanga, as well as our own Lea Faka-Tonga, Vosa Vakaviti, Gagana Samoa, te reo Māori o Kuki Airani, among the many Pacific languages.

However, ‘Eiki Sea, Her Royal Highness Princess Mele Siu’ilikutapu Kalaviuvalu Fotofili of Tonga, accepted our Prime Minister’s apology, and she advised us as migrants to stand up, to continue to work harder and smarter, and to count our blessings. As a member of Parliament and a descendant of the Dawn Raids, I agree with the Princess that the apology is in the right direction of the healing process.

This is the new dawn. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa.

Dr SHANE RETI (Deputy Leader—National): I te tuatahi ka nui te mihi ki te iwi moana i tēnei rā.

[Firstly I would like to pay tribute today to the peoples of the Pacific.]

I stand to lend my voice to the apology for the Dawn Raids that so unfairly targeted our Pasifika peoples, friends, family, and brethren.

In 1973, the Government created a task force to deal with overstayers, and they were empowered to conduct random checks on suspected overstayers. The first media record the Parliamentary Library could find around the Dawn Raids specifically—recognising that raids were actually probably occurring from the early 1970s—was 13 March 1974, and the headline was “Thirty-eight Islanders were arrested in a series of dawn raids today, in what police describe as the biggest clamp-down on illegal immigrants.” Seventeen of the men, all of whom were between 20 and 30, were later released when it was found they had applied for extension of expired work permits.

How was this done? Twenty-four policemen and three immigration officers began the raids in Ponsonby and Freemans Bay at 5 a.m. They roused several of the men from their beds to take them to the police station for questioning in a large police van. A police officer said, ‘The immigration department was running the whole show. We were only there to assist.’, and so the concept of dawn raids was enabled.

Five days later, there was starting to be pushback in the public media. The Auckland Star, on 18 March—five days later—said, “The Government has been asked to declare a general amnesty for Pacific Islanders who overstay their visitors’ permits following the arrest of 21 Islanders in a dawn raid in Auckland. In telegrams to the Prime Minister, Mr Kirk, and the Minister of Immigration, Mr Coleman, the Citizens’ Association for Racial Equality has asked for proceedings against those arrested to be stayed and a general amnesty to be granted.” Surely, the red flags were already starting to be seen of those arrested. A good number of them were actually on legitimate visas, they were pulled from their beds, and this was clearly wrong.

The first time the House records any comment of dawn raids is on 29 March, about two weeks after the media started to pick it up—29 March 1974—with an oral question to Prime Minister Norman Kirk, the Labour Government 1972-74. Prime Minister Kirk replied, “The term ‘dawn raids’ is an extravagant use of language. The visits made by the police to various Onehunga addresses on 12 and 17 March commenced at 11.30 p.m. on each occasion. The New Lynn address was visited at 9.30 p.m. on 19 March. Checks of this nature are not new; they have taken place over a long period in accordance with normal procedures followed when information about breaches of the immigration laws are drawn to the attention of the police.” I would contest: who cares what time they were pulled from their beds; it was wrong.

Twenty years later, some of our first apologies were actually to the Chinese community—and I’d advocate here for a full Crown and Government apology—around the poll tax. Prime Minister Helen Clark on the day uttered words which I think carry through to today with what we’re discussing here: “Today we also express”—this is to the Chinese community—“our sorrow and regret that such practices were once considered appropriate. While the governments which passed these laws acted in a manner which was lawful at the time, their actions are seen by us today as unacceptable. We believe this act of reconciliation is required to ensure that full closure can be [brought] on this chapter in our nation’s history.”

I reflect back on Treaty settlements when I look at how we seek to make some attempt at historical apologies and historical redress and would comment the observation of many iwi that it is actually the apology and the acknowledgment that is more important than, certainly, commercial redress. I reflect back at a domain expert’s observations of apologies under Treaty settlements, the first of which was in May 1995, from the Hon Doug Graham with the Waikato Tainui deed of settlement, and the comment here is: “A Crown apology attempts to recognise the impact of the breaches on the claimant group, restore the honour of the Crown, and begin to re-build the relationship between the Crown and the claimant group.”

We offer a very humble apology here today as a step towards acknowledging an historical wrong, and I would say to those peoples, both here and those who have passed, moe mai, moe mai, moe mai rā. Kia ora mai tātou.

BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Much has been covered in the debate today, and I wanted to focus my contribution on the recording of stories, and these records in the House of Representatives, as future debates will focus on where we go to next.

“Aue le tautala le leoleo.”—“Don’t talk or say anything to the police.”—words spoken to children by their parents in Porirua East.

“Aue e galo lau pepa, kei kaofi oe le leoleo.”—“Don’t forget your papers in case the police arrest you.”—words spoken by a minister of the Pacific Island Church in Cannons Creek to his congregation.

“One of the reasons more Polynesians are prosecuted is that, generally speaking, they tell tales on one another. Another possible explanation is that islanders who come to New Zealand and overstay have very little cash, whereas people from the United States or Great Britain who overstay after a holiday do not look for a job and are not detected.”—Minister of Immigration, Parliament, 1975.

“If you have a herd of jerseys and two Friesians, the Friesians stand out.”—Minister of Police, 1976.

“The Dawn Raids were a racist response generated by a huge decline in New Zealand’s economy, which exposed the problem with New Zealand’s system of immigration and revealed how antagonistic the Government had been towards the Polynesian people who’d come to work for them.”—Lucia Bernard, aged 15, from Porirua, 2021.

I was 16 when I learnt of the Dawn Raids. I didn’t learn about them in my decile 10 college that I attended; I learnt about them when I was watching a play called The Dawn Raids, written by my Uncle Oscar. I was bewildered. Why was I not taught this at school? Why had my family not talked about this? When I undertook Pacific Studies at the University of Auckland under the tutelage of Dr Melani Anae, my eyes were opened but my family still did not talk about them. Decades later, I understand why.

On hearing of the upcoming Government apology, my father’s brother Malaesa told his story: “The raids and the targeting didn’t just happen in our homes. They happened in our workplaces and our schools.” My uncle was on the morning shift at the Moore Taylor shoe factory. One early Tuesday morning, police and immigration officers undertook checks at his job. My uncle was arrested while other members of my family looked on helplessly. He was taken to court, held in a boarding home for two nights on Symonds Street, then taken to the Ōtāhuhu Police Station where he was held for a further two nights. On the Saturday, he was taken to the airport where my mother and father met him and had a few moments to say goodbye. He was deported back to Samoa.

My uncle was confused and frustrated as English was his second language and he did not fully understand what was happening to him. Neither my uncle nor my father had shared the story previously. My uncle said it was not something he wanted to share. He held on to that shame and embarrassment for decades. Two weeks ago, my father and my uncles, Malaesa and Oscar, witnessed the apology in town, and I’m grateful they were alive to be able to do so.

This is my family’s story, but there are many other stories. In some of the stories there is the reporting on each other to avoid the heat on your family. Newtown and Porirua were the hot spots for the raids in Wellington. As said to me: “Wherever we brown people were living or congregated, we were targeted. Hanson Street, Hampshire Street, Driver Crescent.” As raids were carried out across the region, the instructions with the community were the same: “Carry your papers and don’t talk to the police.” If the knock on the door was heard, the instruction was “Ave tamaiti I totonu o le potu moe.”—“Take the children to the bedroom. Don’t let them be seen or see.”

The story of a Porirua Samoan woman named Emily is one I leave the House with today. Emily was the chosen one from her siblings to be educated and to carry the responsibility of providing for her family. She was sent to New Zealand on her auntie’s papers and, legally, was a different person. She had the birth date on her papers of 21 January 1935. Emily worked hard to live an honest life. She celebrated her 65th birthday when, in fact, she was only 58. Her children did not know how much the fear of deportation had sat on their mother’s shoulders until she was at the end of her life. Before she died, she asked her children to put on her headstone her real date of birth, as the threat of deportation wouldn’t happen when she died. So let it be put on this record of this House: Sivailoa Emily Mareko was born on 11 January 1942. Like other trailblazers: Toesulu Brown, Josiah, Benji, Lucia, Jaistone. Thank you, keep up the work.

E pala ma’a, ae le pala upu—rocks and boulders will crumble, but words and promises last for ever.

Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): I rise to follow our leader, Judith, to also accept our part in the National Party for the role that we played in what is a tragic and such a disappointing part of New Zealand’s history. Today is not about blame; it is about recognition. If we go to our schools and talk to our young people, so many of them are proud of the country that they live in. They are taught that the largest Polynesian city in New Zealand is Auckland, and they’re taught about what that means to us. Many of them will have role models who play sport, who do so very many other things. But as with every story you can be proud of, the journey to get there is something that also needs to be known.

We know that two major Governments in the history of this country had a role to play in this, and it’s right that those two parties are here today together to offer an apology and to offer recognition. There are many ways this could be done, but, actually, a House of the people, of every person of New Zealand—for us to stand here collectively today, united about what we are so disappointed about but what we want for New Zealand, I think, sends a very clear message.

For my part—and this is a very brief part of what I want to say—I have the privilege of being one of a very small group of people that was made an honorary Cook Islander many, many years ago for my work with the Cook Islands community. That work is less important than the things I learnt and that I was taught in my engagement with Cook Islanders and people from Fiji and Niue and Tonga and all of the Pacific and the things we were trying to do in Europe. I must stand here and say very clearly, very proudly, that if not for that work, for the opportunity that was offered to me, for how welcomed I was in every single part of life that I was engaged in in the Pacific, then I don’t know that I would be standing here today, and would not be doing the job that I am able to.

To hear from members in this House about what it has meant to them and their families in what is not that long ago is more than distressing; it’s something that every single New Zealander should know about, should be concerned about, shouldn’t be ashamed of—because it’s not them that was there—but needs to work hard to make sure that people know about it and that it can never happen again. The last speaker talking about what happened to families, when they said what they had to do with their children if there was a knock on the door, is more than traumatic; it will live in the memories of those families.

I want to say to every single person of Pasifika descent in New Zealand or the Pacific Islands that you can be very proud of who you are, of your heritage, of your culture. There is nothing at all to hide. It is rich, it is vibrant, and it makes New Zealand a better place, because you too are New Zealanders. You are Pasifika New Zealanders but you are New Zealanders.

We often hear about rugby, and everybody celebrates that. To make an example of the game over the weekend, if not for Pasifika people in the Australia team and the New Zealand team, it might have been a very, very boring game. But actually, it’s not just about sport. There are people we should be very, very proud of. I have a list here that’s very long. I want to mention a couple. Ida Malosi—daughter of Tusi, who worked on the wharves, and Jane, who was a hospital cleaner—is New Zealand’s first Pasifika judge. All New Zealanders must be proud of that. David Eggleton, a European Tongan, Rotuman descent, current New Zealand Poet Laureate—we should all be proud of that. Tupou Neiufi is a New Zealand Paralympic and silver medallist in the 100-metre backstroke in the 2019 World Para Swimming Championships on behalf of New Zealand.

In the National Party, I am so proud that over this last weekend, when we were in our conference and 700 members of the National Party were asked to vote on who they wanted to be on our board, they elected Jannita Pilisi, in her own right, because she is a strong woman of values who spoke up and moved 700 people to vote for her, and she will continue to do the job that all New Zealanders must do, and particularly Pasifika New Zealanders.

On behalf of my party, following my leader, I offer a humble apology to all those that were harmed by the tragedy of what was done, for whatever reason. May it never happen again, and may you know that you are valued members of our community. Kia ora.

Dr ANAE NERU LEAVASA (Labour—Takanini): Fa‘afetai lava lau afioga le fofoga fetalai. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to round up this debate and be the last speaker in this Dawn Raids apology discussion.

I also want to acknowledge our generation’s experience that the Minister Aupito William Sio has mentioned, as I come from that generation as well. I also acknowledge, up in the gallery, Josiah Tualamali’i and Benji Timu, who are also part of that generation’s experience, and the initiative they took to bring that petition in that over 7,000 people have signed—so thank you to them both.

I acknowledge all the speakers today, and they’ve said some wonderful things. I thank the previous member, the Hon Todd McClay, speaking about the contribution that our Pacific community has given to Aotearoa New Zealand.

When I look at the Dawn Raids in the 1970s, I often hear the words of my community saying that it was painful, it was an emotional time period, a lot of distrust, and feelings of betrayal. Sometimes I hear silence, because many did not want to talk about it.

My family came in the 1980s, post the Dawn Raids, but my extended family were already here—my grandmother Galumalemana Laloata Taiatu had come here in the late 1960s and settled in Grey Lynn, Ponsonby. She went through the Dawn Raids period, but never spoke about it. I often heard it from other church members, because when she signalled to us in Samoa to come, we came in the 1980s, and she had already given us a place to stay in Grey Lynn. I went to and grew up in Ekalesia Fa’apotopotoga Kerisiano Samoa (EFKS), Grey Lynn, where I acknowledge Toesulu Brown, and her words on the night really made me feel really emotional because that’s the community I grew up in as a young child, as well. Many of the EFKS members, again, did not mention it as much, but I heard glimpses of it throughout my childhood. That is where the generation’s experience, I think, had the opportunity to learn and where this Government has given the investment so that our younger children, our youth, and our kura and schools will be able to learn about the Dawn Raids.

When I look at the ceremony that has taken place, it was such an emotional time for myself and my family, for our caucus, and for everyone of Māori and Pacific heritage, because—remember—if you were brown, you were a target.

As we were getting welcomed by Ngāti Whātua when walking down the aisle and being welcomed by the Niuean and Cook Island communities with their drums, and then we stopped at the front of the town hall and we heard that soundtrack: the soundscape where it was eerily silent. Then we heard the sounds of the night. We heard the knocking on the door, the dogs starting to bark, the feet and the footsteps within the house. It was so—I tried to hold it in, but I couldn’t, and I could see that many of the community that were sitting there in the town hall all had teary eyes, because that was just a glimpse of what had happened in that time period.

Then the mat that was laid over our Prime Minister—how humble it was for myself and our community. To see a Prime Minister come underneath that mat was huge for us. Then, to have the community of those people who were affected in that time period—and I also acknowledge my auntie Taimalieutu Kiwi Tamasese, who was part of the lifting of the mat and symbolising the forgiveness.

I am so proud that this Government and our Prime Minister were able to show humility for something that we had not done. But I acknowledge the policy from both sides of the House—both parties—that was implemented in that time period.

I acknowledge that my extended family, who were already here before we had come from Samoa, had joined the Polynesian Panthers. I acknowledge my uncle and auntie, Reverend Alec Toleafoa and Lupematasila Melanie Anae.

To round up the debate, I am thankful that we had come to this place, that we be able to give the apology, and I thank everyone involved. Fa‘afetai lava.

Motion agreed to.

Dawn raids and apology noted.

Urgent Debates Declined

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—Release of Report

SPEAKER: Members, going back to the matter I referred to before questions, I have received a letter from Teanau Tuiono seeking to debate under Standing Order 399 the release of the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. This is a particular case of recent occurrence. An urgent debate is a way of holding the Government to account for action for which it is responsible—Speakers’ ruling 201/6. The application was not accompanied by any authentication which indicated that Government had announced any action in relation to the report. The application is therefore declined.

Urgent Debates

Electricity Supply—Power Outages

SPEAKER: I have also received letters from Simon Court and Barbara Kuriger seeking to debate under Standing Order 399 the widespread power outages on the evening of 9 August. This is a particular case of recent occurrence for which there is ministerial responsibility. Confidence in the electricity supply is a significant matter and there is no other reasonably foreseeable opportunity to debate it. I must consider whether the subject of the urgent debate warrants setting aside the business of the House today. In light of the time taken on the special debate today, the ministerial statement, and the Olympics motion, I’ve decided that I will consider the applications tomorrow in the context of business before the House at that time.

COVID-19 Orders

Approval

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): I move, That this House approve the following orders made under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020:

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Maritime Border) Order (No 2) Amendment Order (No 2) 2021

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Order (No 2) Amendment Order (No 5) 2021

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Isolation and Quarantine) Amendment Order 2021

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Alert Level Requirements) Order (No 8) 2021

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Order (No 2) Amendment Order (No 6) 2021.

Under section 16 of the aforementioned Act, any orders that I make under that Act have to be approved by the House or they are revoked. The orders first go to the Regulations Review Committee, who do a very thorough job of examining them to make sure they are consistent with the law, and consistent with good regulatory practice. They’ve provided feedback to me on various occasions, including some suggestions for improvement that we’ve taken on board as we have continued to refine those orders. I think it’s worth recalling that these orders are being regularly amended. They’re being regularly amended for two reasons: one was that they’re often put in place quite quickly, and so when you do put orders in place quite quickly, there will be a need to refine them as potential errors or flaws or inconsistencies are identified. The second, though, which is also incredibly important is that the situation around COVID-19 continues to evolve, and, actually, a couple of the orders that we’re going to be confirming today really highlight just how much things can evolve and how quickly they can evolve.

So to talk through the five orders that this motion confirms, the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Maritime Border) Order (No 2) Amendment Order (No 2) 2021 makes changes that clarify the isolation requirements for ships coming into the country—a relatively topical thing at the moment, but it makes it very clear what physical distancing means and so on. So when people are coming in on a ship—many of them don’t even get off the ship—it makes it very clear how we keep New Zealanders safe in that environment.

The COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Order (No 2) Amendment Order (No 5) 2021—this was an order that stopped quarantine-free flights from Australia due to a recent community outbreak. Members will note that there is a further order, the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Order (No 2) Amendment Order (No 6) 2021 which restarted quarantine-free flights with Australia. I can confirm that that has subsequently been superseded by another order that we’re not confirming yet, because that’s currently before the Regulations Review Committee, and that stopped the flights again, which just shows that this is an evolving situation, and these orders, sometimes, by the time we get to confirm them, quite a lot has happened in the intervening period. So we’re confirming a stop of the quarantine-free travel, a start of the quarantine-free travel again, and there’s another one in the process that will have stopped it.

Then we have the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Isolation and Quarantine) Amendment Order 2021. This makes some rules around airline staff, in particular, and clarifies that they don’t necessarily have to do the full 14 days of isolation. This is important because we do have different arrangements in place for our aircrew, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to operate our airline and other airlines internationally. So this does allow for changes to be made to the requirements around them.

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Alert Level Requirements) Order (No 8) 2021—this was the order that moved the Wellington region down from alert level 2 back to alert level 1, where the rest of the country was at that time, and Wellington has subsequently remained. So this was the change made after the most recent potential concern that we had here in Wellington.

The House is also considering the two reports of the Regulations Review Committee on these and other orders. I want to, again, thank the Regulations Review Committee for the way they have approached dealing with these orders. They have been very diligent and thorough, and, I think, quite pragmatic in the suggestions that they have made. I have, on occasion, consulted the committee, including about some forthcoming legislative changes that we’re making, or I’ve sent them to the committee to have a good look at them before we even bring them to the House, because I think whilst there’ll be a lot of politics in COVID-19, I think when it comes to getting the technicalities of the orders and the legislation right, I think there has been a good degree of cooperation across the House on that. I want to thank all of the members who were involved in doing that.

So the committee had no concerns around the isolation and quarantine order that I’ve described, and it had no concerns around the other orders that I’ve also described. So I thank the committee for their very diligent work.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, and I want to thank the Minister for COVID-19 Response for his illumination of these quite technical but very important orders. Can I just start where he finished, by congratulating and saying thank you to the Regulations Review Committee. Perhaps when the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act was passed, it was not envisaged that the Regulations Review Committee would be quite so busy, but they have been very diligent and very busy over the last few months now, actually, in considering the various orders.

I actually think, genuinely, that we have got to a very good situation where the Act gives the Minister quite deep powers—quite broad powers, you would say—to take action around mandatory vaccination, for example, around mandatory testing, and all of the things that I think everyone in the House agrees is necessary. But it’s really important that those powers are exercised responsibly and pursuant to the Act. We’ve got the Regulations Review Committee, which National has members on, led by our shadow Attorney-General, Mr Penk, who’s doing a really good job, and I actually think we’ve got to a situation where things are referred to the committee and the committee does a really good job considering it, and it’s really good to hear the Minister indicate that he’s actually consulting proactively, in advance, with the committee. So we will support the motion to approve these orders.

I do note that, as the Minister indicated, the succession of quarantine-free travel orders and amendment orders is regrettable but necessary. As the Minister was outlining, you know, we had the order that started the travel and then we had the one that stopped it. It’s restarted again, and now we’ve got one before the committee which will, in due course, make its way back to the House around stopping it again. I was pondering whether or not there was a simpler way of doing that, and it doesn’t, off the top of my head, occur to me that there is—and the Minister’s shaking his head, saying no. I suspect he is right, because I suspect he has also asked his officials whether or not there is a simpler way of doing it.

Hon Chris Hipkins: A button. I want a button!

CHRIS BISHOP: Ha, ha! Right, you want a button? Yeah, yeah. Well, it’s almost like a metaphorical button, I suppose. You know, you sign the ministerial order and off it goes. It’s sort of like a button. It’s like the parliamentary equivalent of a button, I suppose. Anyway, I suppose there isn’t a simpler way of doing it, and so we are where we are. But having said that, it is really important that we consider these things properly. So we will be supporting the orders.

I do have one point to make around the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Isolation and Quarantine) Amendment Order 2021, which is in relation to aircrew, and that is the one order that the Regulations Review Committee did have some concerns with, to quote them. In particular, it was not clear, according to the committee, that that order was made in accordance with the objects and intentions of the enactment under which it’s made. It’s not clear to us how this power to shorten the period of isolation and quarantine is justified for New Zealand - based aircrew, given the public health objectives to prevent or limit the outbreak of COVID-19. So this is the order that allows the chief executive of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) to bring to an end the normal 14-day period for aircrew. I accept that there are some practical complications around aircrew, but it’s not totally clear to me, in the response from the Minister that is recorded in the report to the House, that that is a justified one.

I’ve actually had quite a few members of the public write to me saying, “Well, hang on a minute. If it’s good enough for aircrew from Air New Zealand to have their time in isolation and quarantine shortened—I’ve been doubly vaccinated. I’ve had a pre-departure test. I’m happy to have a day-zero test when I arrive. If it’s good enough for aircrew to have their time shortened by fiat of the chief executive of MBIE, why isn’t it good enough for me?” I’m confused by the response from the Minister that’s recorded where it says, “Requiring the full 14 days of managed isolation when that is not necessary for these aircrew would raise issues under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.” Well, if requiring 14 days of isolation when it’s not necessary for aircrew raises issues under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, surely it therefore raises issues for everybody who is subject to a mandatory 14 days of isolation under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act when it is not necessary. So I don’t really understand that point. Perhaps that’s something we can get into later on.

If I could close my contribution by just throwing forward a little bit to what we’re going to hear on—well, I think that there’s some indication that the information will be provided tomorrow, but Thursday is the public forum with the Prime Minister and Professor Sir David Skegg in relation to the future. I suspect coming down the line, hopefully sooner rather than later, we are going to get to a point where the House is going to be asked to consider quite a few of these orders. Hopefully we can get into a situation where there is at least an indication on the horizon or a prospect on the horizon of at least a gradual loosening at the border to allow more New Zealanders to come home, and also people who need to come to New Zealand to fill skill shortages, for example, to come to New Zealand.

We will take a very careful and judicious approach to that from the Opposition, but I think there is a momentum building in the public, and certainly from New Zealanders overseas, to see at least what the landscape will look like at some point into the future around our border, particularly when it comes to vaccinations overseas. There’s a large number of New Zealanders living overseas now who’ve had the double dose of AstraZeneca or the double dose of Pfizer, who do want to come home to New Zealand at some point in 2022 and beyond, once we have a very good level of vaccination coverage in New Zealand. So, hopefully on Thursday, the Minister said last week, we’re going to get the direction of travel, and hopefully on Thursday we do get a reasonably—well, things are never certain with COVID-19, and I wouldn’t want to say that the Minister should outline a path that he should never deviate from. I think COVID has taught us over the last year or so that, actually, deviation from the path is sometimes really necessary. You have to be guided by the science and guided by the public health, but a direction of travel that at least New Zealanders can see and get behind a little bit.

One of the things that I’ve been saying over the last couple of weeks or so is that I think it would be really good to see a target. I don’t just mean a numerical one-off target; I mean a range of targets, and it could even be a range of ranges. What I mean by that is it could be 80 to 85 percent or 85 to 90 percent. Then of course you’ve got the geographic targets as well, because the Minister has previously talked about how it may not be enough for New Zealand to open the border at, say, 85 percent vaccination coverage if there’s one part of the country—say, South Auckland—which is only at 50 to 60 percent, and I do really take that point. I am really worried about vaccination coverage in our Māori and Pasifika communities, for example. I am really worried about it, and I think the Minister should be as well, because I see vaccine hesitancy out there all the time, particularly amongst our Māori and Pasifika communities, and they are, of course, more vulnerable, and we do need to increase that uptake.

So what I would like to see from the Government as we head into Thursday is an indication of what sort of number we need in the community of vaccination coverage before we can start to loosen our restrictions at the border. The reason I say that is twofold. The first is that I think New Zealanders don’t just need the negative message around COVID vaccines protecting you. That is really important, obviously, and it’s true, but, actually, there’s a group of people out there who need the positive message as well. They need to know what vaccine coverage will give them in terms of freedoms into the future. So it’s really important, I think, that we don’t just send a negative message but we also send a positive message.

The other thing that I think is worth mentioning is, actually, we’re pretty good when we get behind a national goal and a national target. I know it’s an imperfect analogy, but you think about the red socks campaign in the America’s Cup in the past, even telethons, and, frankly, last year with the team of 5 million—that moniker and that effort. When we all pull together as a community and as a collective, we can actually achieve really good things. I think it would be worth the Government outlining a number, or at least a range of numbers, and then the Prime Minister using her mana and leadership and saying, “You know what, New Zealand? Let’s go for it.” Let’s get to whatever the number is. Say it’s 80 or 85. Let’s get there. And when we get to 85 percent coverage around the country, that will mean that, in time, New Zealanders with a double dose of Pfizer or double dose of AstraZeneca can come home and maybe spend less time in managed isolation.

But that’s what the future holds for us, and I actually think that would encourage a lot more people to go down and get vaccinated. I actually think it would highlight the benefits of the vaccination programme and send a positive message, rather than just the negative one which is necessary but is just a very one-note message at the moment. So I think that is what we would like to see from the opposition as we head into Thursday and the outline of the science. We always have to be guided by the science and guided by the evidence. That’s something that’s served us well on the COVID-19 response so far, and it will continue to serve us well into the future, but I think there’s a bit of a gathering momentum. We want a number. We want some targets. We want to know what the future holds. We’ve been told we’ll get a direction of travel, and I think everyone in the House is looking forward to hearing exactly what that is on Thursday. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. The Green Party is rising in support of the confirmation of these orders, and I thank the Minister for his contribution. We’re particularly supportive of the one that was suspending the quarantine-free flights from Australia. I think that was a really wise decision given what has been happening in Australia with the community outbreaks.

I did have a few questions for the Minister and concerns to bring from the point of view of the Green Party. While we absolutely acknowledge that this is a trying time for those who have friends and family overseas or who would like to return to New Zealand and are facing really difficult circumstances to get into managed isolation—very aware of those problems—we maintain that it’s absolutely the highest priority to maintain the security of our border, to not have a community outbreak coming from the border. Given the Delta variant and its higher transmissibility, I think this is really a moment of critical risk for New Zealand. We now have spent well over a year living life almost as normal, with a few exceptions, and that’s something quite unique in the world. Now that we’ve made it this far, we’ve got the roll-out of the vaccinations happening, we did have some concerns that, at this late stage, we might have a slip-up, COVID might get in, particularly one of these more virulent variants. And so we did have some questions to put forward to the Minister.

Particularly, I guess, the points of weakness, to us, are around those places where there are exemptions. We do understand there have to be exemptions, such as for diplomatic and Defence personnel, and the specific one here in the isolation and quarantine amendment order around aircrew. I completely understand that, in order for international flights to operate, there needs to be a different process or requirement for aircrew, but it would be good if the Government was able to lay out what the specific requirements are and help give confidence in that system, because it was, I believe, aircrew travelling with a shuttle driver—just that one exposure—in New South Wales that has led to this pretty substantial community outbreak that’s been very, very difficult to manage. So it does just highlight that aircrew, and any sort of exemption, is a point of weakness. Whether or not people have been vaccinated, we know that they can carry the virus and transmit the virus even if they have been fully vaccinated. So it’s vitally important that we ensure that we are not leaving anything open to risk.

I want to acknowledge the Government has done a very good job so far, and we also have had our share of luck, as with the case of the Sydney man who was sick with the Delta variant and travelled around Wellington for several days. We were so lucky that there were no cases in the community that came from that. But I just wanted to raise that issue, from the point of the Green Party, that we are particularly nervous around exemptions and around aircrew, and even diplomatic and Defence personnel, that there are sufficient other requirements in place that can give the community confidence that we are not going to have a case of COVID sneak in through the border in that particular manner—but, otherwise, very happy to support.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): I stand on behalf of the ACT Party in support of the Government’s motions on the COVID-19 response, but I do have a couple of points that ACT would like to make. We think that it’s really quite important, because we keep, monthly, having these COVID-19 motions that are being sought for approval—and we do approve of course—but we’re also seeing the ability for the Government to be able to implement some powers that are not being used.

Where we have confirmed support in other COVID-19 responses such as, for example, getting our port workers vaccinated, we’re not actually seeing that occur. So what we would like is for the Government, when placing these orders in front of us for approval, to actually start using them and using them appropriately to make sure that New Zealand is and New Zealanders are kept safe. When we are looking at these things such as the vaccination of port workers, it’s crucial at times such as this where we have Taranaki, Tauranga, and possibly Napier all on the verge of experiencing what could possibly be quite a big COVID outbreak, and, of course, we don’t want to get into that position at all. So in order to facilitate supporting the Government on the COVID response orders, we also need to make sure that what we do support goes through and is actually being actioned.

That also aligns with testing, and we’d like to ensure that the Government is thoughtful for the COVID-19 orders and motions that they put forward and that they look to implement ways that they could make testing easier and rapid for those that are at the ports and for our front-line workers. I mean, after all, they were meant to be vaccinated back in April, and it’s now September. One of the points about supporting the COVID orders is to be able to assist the Government to function in a way that keeps our communities safe, so it becomes, not meaningless, but almost pointless at times when we do support some of the COVID motions and find that they’re not actually being actioned.

I think it’s actually important that we see some of these COVID orders coming through in a way that would help New Zealanders respond quicker and better to the Delta variant, and, of course, we’ve got another variant out there as well—the Lambda variant—that may also need some work. So in order for us to keep on supporting COVID-19 orders, we need a Government that’s actually going to action them. In saying that, we hope that on Thursday, when there is an announcement, that it’s not an announcement about further announcements, but, rather, an announcement on what’s going to happen in the COVID space that’s going to allow that fast tracking of testing and make sure that all of our border workers are, in fact, vaccinated in order to relieve some of the anxiety that New Zealanders are facing both at our ports, at our borders, and at homes in our communities.

So, in that respect, the ACT Party do support the Government’s motions, and we hope that it also opens doorways for the Government to exercise the ability to be able to make some further orders that will benefit our communities. Thank you.

RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): I rise on behalf of Te Paati Māori to speak to this motion, approval of orders made under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020. Aotearoa has had one of the best national responses to the COVID pandemic of any country in the world. Te Paati Māori has acknowledged, and continues to acknowledge, the Government alongside our people for collectively achieving that. However, the Crown have let complacency set in. We’ve been lucky in recent months. Systems failings have opened us up to the risk of further outbreaks and new and stronger variants. And on at least a few occasions, it appears that we’ve been saved thanks to luck and good fortune. That is not good enough.

Last year, whānau, hapū, iwi, and our urban Māori and Whānau Ora organisations demonstrated exemplary leadership and stepped up to provide the Māori response as the Crown had nothing in place and simply could not reach the places we could. It becomes clearer every day, especially given there is still no public body response plan from the Crown, that this will remain the case. We, sadly, cannot rely on the system in place at a national level. The Government continues to systemically exclude Māori from the pandemic decision-making and coordination. We are being treated like mushrooms and kept in the dark and fed bull tiko. We do not accept that there is one source of truth. That type of kōrero is dangerous. It is an approach that is having the opposite effect of what’s intended. It is eroding public trust, especially in Māori communities, in the Government’s response. This is evident in the low vaccination uptake among Māori under the age of 65. Our people need to be at the table. We need access to real-time information, we need constant communication, and we need to be trusted as the community leaders that we are.

This House has also been prevented from doing its job of holding the Government to account and ensuring there is robust and constant scrutiny of all the real-time decisions that need to be made as part of responding to a global pandemic. Today, I call again on the Government to do what is right and agree to the re-establishment of the Epidemic Response Committee. This is not about opposition for opposition’s sake or even necessarily opposing at all. We are dealing with a once-in-a-generation crisis and we need to use all the tools at our disposal to keep each other accountable to the people we are here to represent.

Let’s take the politics out of this and do what’s best for Aotearoa. Tangata whenua know what happens when pandemics are not managed properly. It is our people who bear the brunt of the virus. Throughout this pandemic, our people have been leading their own responses. We exercised our mana motuhake to lead our own solutions, to protect our whakapapa for generations to come.

Mā te iwi Māori anō hoki te iwi Māori e kōrero. Mā te iwi Māori anō hoki te Iwi Māori e rangatira. Kia ora tātou.

[Māori themselves will speak for Māori. Māori themselves will ennoble Māori. Thank you.]

Motion agreed to.

Orders approved.

Bills

Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bill

Third Reading

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I present to the House a legislative statement on the Reserve Bank of New Zealand 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 GRANT ROBERTSON: I move, That the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bill be now read a third time.

Before I proceed to go through where we’ve reached with the bill, I do want to reiterate my thanks to all members of the House who have participated in this debate; an excellent and detailed examination of the bill in the committee of the whole House stage, which, I think, has shed more light on what the Government is trying to do here with this piece of legislation. I want to particularly thank members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, who worked on this bill and made some very useful and important changes to it. I also want to make special mention of the officials from the Treasury and the Reserve Bank who have been working on this legislation. This bill, as I have said a number of times, is second in a trilogy, and the work that has gone into those three pieces of legislation has been, essentially, for more than three years. A joint team between the Reserve Bank and the Treasury have worked together on this, and I want to thank all of the members of that group for their hard work, along with other officials from both agencies. Finally, in this part of my acknowledgments, I want to acknowledge the independent expert advisory group that we established right at the beginning of this process—

Hon Simon Bridges: What about Andrew Bayly?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: —under the chairpersonship of Dame Suzanne Snively, they have done a tremendous job in supporting the work that we’ve done. And Mr Bridges, I did acknowledge Mr Bayly for his contribution in the committee of the whole House stage; I don’t recall the member’s contribution, but I’m sure it was there behind the scenes, as the member so often is: behind the scenes, manipulating people around, moving the chess pieces about! I’m sure that is what Mr Bridges was doing during the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bill as well!

The core of what we have been trying to do through this Reserve Bank reform process is to modernise the Reserve Bank Act. As I’ve said a number of times over the two bills that have already come forward, the Reserve Bank Act passed in 1989. I was in seventh form; Mr Bridges was tearing up university or somewhere—oh, high school at that point as well. It is the case that in the 30 years that have passed, the functions of the Reserve Bank have expanded somewhat—in particular, in the area of financial policy.

So while we can be familiar with the things we see of the Reserve Bank in the news about—such as monetary policy and the setting of the official cash rate. A core part of the business of the Reserve Bank is its prudential-regulation role; the work that it does in making sure that New Zealand has a stable financial system. That has been added iteratively over the years to the Reserve Bank, and yet the legislation has not really reflected those changes, and so that is the reason for this particular piece of legislation.

As I said in earlier contributions, the first of our pieces of legislation dealt with monetary policy, the decision-making process around that, and the objectives for monetary policy. This is what we have colloquially called the “institutional bill”. This is the bill that sorts out the way in which the Reserve Bank operates in order to fulfil not only the monetary policy objectives, as I say, but also its broader financial policy work.

The bill—and the Act, as it now stands—will continue to uphold the operational independence of the Reserve Bank. That is a very important principle that we worked with all the way through this piece of legislation. There were times in our debate in the committee of the whole House where, variously, members of the Opposition either seemed to want to pull us closer or take us further away from the bank. The fundamental principle of operational independence is important in central banking. Again, that year, 1989, was significant because it followed on from the concerns that arose in the early- and mid-part of the 1980s about what might happen when there are people who perhaps seek to control aspects of monetary and financial policy from a political perspective. We have, in this legislation, protected the independence of the bank.

In terms of what the bill does, the key provisions we’ve covered often. But one of the most important ones is the establishment of a governance board for the bank. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has had a board, but it has not operated in the way that we might expect a governance board to operate, be that from the private sector or be that from a Crown entity. So we now have that. This is a further extension of the concept of a more collective decision-making model that we helped create with the monetary policy committee, and moving away from that concept of a single decision-maker. That puts the Reserve Bank of New Zealand in line with central banks around the world, in terms of how they operate. When we started out in 1989, the Reserve Bank Act was leading legislation and it had that single decision-maker model. Central banking around the world has evolved to a more collective decision-making model and that makes further sense than to have the board undertake the duties as it does.

To ensure that there is a connection between the monetary policy work, which is outside of the board—that remains the monetary policy committee’s job—and the other functions of the Reserve Bank, the decision was made to include the governor as a member of the board. That also was not without some discussion in the committee of the whole House stages, but I am absolutely convinced that is the right thing to do. The Reserve Bank Governor continues to play a very important role in all aspects of the work of the Reserve Bank, and having that person on the governing board gives me confidence that all of the different functions of the bank will be able to be undertaken with clear line of sight for each other.

The bill also strengthens the accountability and transparency arrangements of the Reserve Bank. There is now a formal departmental monitor that the Minister of Finance will appoint. The board has very clear duties and roles and responsibilities. The bank will be subject now to the oversight of the Ombudsman and the Auditor-General, so further strengthening and enhancing the accountability arrangements.

The bill further clarifies the financial stability objective for the bank to protect and promote the stability of New Zealand’s financial system.

Andrew Bayly: But not efficiency.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: That is an appropriate primary objective for the bank. The question of efficiency, that Mr Bayly is rightly interested in and concerned about, is more properly dealt with not as a secondary rather than primary consideration; it will be a factor in everything that the bank does—in particular, in its prudential framework, but also all of its statutory principles. Efficiency is not lost, Mr Bayly, but it is now appropriately placed in the criteria of objectives for the bank.

Also, what the bank does is provide for the Minister of Finance to issue a financial policy remit. This is an important development to give the financial policy and stability work of the bank an appropriate status. So we have a monetary policy remit; it is the agreement between the Minister of the day and the bank around how they will work in monetary policy: operational independence but the Government gives them guidance. This is what we used to call the policy targets agreement when it was done by previous Ministers before we created the monetary policy remit. Having a financial policy remit as a partner to that is really important because it means that there is a clarity of what the Government’s expectations are in financial policy, but then the ability of the Reserve Bank to independently operate and implement them. In the absence of a remit like this, we’ve had the situation where there was concern about house prices and their impact on financial stability, and we ended up having to use section 68B of the Act to deal with that—

Andrew Bayly: After I asked you to do it.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: —financial policy remit. All-powerful, Mr Bayly! The financial policy remit now gives the ability for the Government to be able to have that clearly laid out in law and avoids those ad hoc changes that we have seen.

In the time remaining to me, I just want to note a point that I made right at the end of the committee of the whole House stage: that also within this bill is the first statutory recognition of the Council of Financial Regulators. This is something that I have personally pushed for. It is important for New Zealanders that all of the bodies that are responsible for regulation within our financial sector, regulation of the very important things that happen in banking and in the way in which financial institutions operate—that we actually have a council that is there to make that consistent and to make that work clear to the public, but we’ve never recognised that in statute. So this means that the likes of the Financial Markets Authority, the Reserve Bank, the regulatory aspects of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and the Commerce Commission are now coming together and we can get better, more consistent, and more clear regulation in front of the House.

I am very proud of this legislation. I want to acknowledge, again, the hard work that has gone into getting us to this point. And lest anyone think that we might lose out on the excitement of legislation about the Reserve Bank, I have this promise: we’ll be back shortly with the third in the trilogy, the Deposit Takers Bill, which will be another important piece of legislation and will finish off the reform of the Reserve Bank that we have undertaken that is 30 years in the making and very important to the stability of New Zealand’s finances.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Well, that is what we’re worried about, Mr Robertson: what you’re going to concoct next!

It is my duty to talk on this third reading of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bill. I think I just want to start out by saying that there are elements of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bill that we’re discussing that we have absolutely no problem with. Just picking up on the Minister’s last comment, around the Council of Financial Regulators, those types of provisions we’re very happy with. There’s a lot of good in this bill; however, that’s not to say that we do not have some fundamental issues with this bill. We have sought to work collaboratively with the Government to try and address these issues, because I think it’s particularly important that, as the finance spokesperson and shadow Treasurer for the National Party, at least we as the major Opposition party—the major Opposition party—have the ability to help actually formulate a new framework for the Reserve Bank that will be enduring. And that is the issue with the process that’s been adopted: that there are some fundamental issues that should have been debated more, that should have been taken into account, and I think what went on in the committee of the whole House actually showed up some weaknesses, in terms of understanding, particularly of the Minister, around certain elements.

So we put forward five Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs). The first one was the issue of efficiency. We’ve just heard the Minister talking about this. This is in relation to when the Reserve Bank goes about setting financial stability objectives, whether in fact efficiency should be one of the main elements of that. We believe it is crucial. The reports and the submissions from many in the industry thought also that it was very important. We totally disagree with the concept that it should be subsumed into a secondary role, as the Minister has just noted.

The second SOP that I put up was that the board needs to appoint people of the appropriate calibre, and the weird thing is that we have adopted—and the Minister has talked about this and Treasury officials have talked about it—the lowest sort of issue or framework for providing guidance on who could be appointed to this most august and, in my view, most significant economic entity in New Zealand in terms of its role in our financial markets. So the bill is full of stuff about what you can’t be to be a board member. It says “if you’ve got a criminal record”. You can’t be a serving politician. You can’t have been adjudicated to have been in receivership at some stage—a whole list of absolutely mindless, silly things that, if you even were to put that into your CV or had any chance of being in that situation, these people would not be, or should not be, even contemplated as having any of the skills to be even contemplated to be put on the board.

What we were proposing was that it was very important that this board—which has changed under the new arrangements that Mr Robertson has brought in—now has an executive role. There are four key aspects of the executive role—namely, the issue around financial stability. So we need people on that board who actually understand what financial stability is, how it will be implemented, how it will be managed through the Reserve Bank. The second one is about prudential policy in the sense of how it is managed and how banks are managed. It requires deep understanding. Again, the bill does not set any parameters as to the types of skills we should be seeing on this board. The fourth one: macro-prudential policies as well—another key aspect of the Reserve Bank that most people have no understanding of what I’m talking about, but it’s a crucial aspect of the Reserve Bank. Was that included in the bill? No.

The other one is the ability to manage crises, and we have them. We have them from time to time—Asia flu crisis; we’ve had lots, actually, out of Asia—where periodically we have major financial meltdowns around the world that seriously impact on the financial performance of New Zealand. And those are the four ones that we said, “Fine, you should be looking for a board that has diversity, has different skill sets, but there are some crucial skills that should be on that board and you should be explicit about it.” Because what we don’t want to do is to see retired politicians—and, yes, retired politicians can be appointed to the board. We don’t want to see a whole glut of different types of people that do not really understand the core requirements of the operation of the Reserve Bank. And that is crucial because of the part that this entity plays in our financial system.

The third SOP I put up was around making sure that, if there is a change to the remit—and the Minister talked about implementing section 68B after I asked him to use it and after he called me Muldoon, including the Prime Minister calling me Muldoon, subsequently did it, I think, 10 days later. He used that power to actually instruct the Reserve Bank, under the new bill—under this bill, there was a new process; it’s called a remit process. We said that, if that is to take place, that should be debatable in this Parliament. And the missed opportunity with section 68B is that I should have requested of the Speaker a special debate on it. Unfortunately, because I didn’t, there was no opportunity for anyone in this House to actually debate a major change to the remit of the Reserve Bank, one imposed by the finance Minister. And that is the type of thing that should be open and transparent and subject to debate so at least the Minister has the opportunity to explain why he—and I’m talking about Mr Robertson, in his case—did that change and make sure that it is transparent for people, and that industry and everyone hears why that has been put in place. We said it should be subject—the Minister should still be able to make those changes in a remit, but it should be confirmable in Parliament, which means it is subject to debate. Unfortunately, Mr Robertson chose not to follow that advice.

The fourth SOP I put up was the change regarding the issue of the functions of the Reserve Bank. Now, I’ve been pushing for the Reserve Bank to take a much more active role on cryptocurrencies, and the Reserve Bank Governor has been reluctant to—this pre-dates the introduction of this bill. In this bill, they have put in a specific clause that they’re going to monitor cryptocurrency. In my view, there are times when the Minister of Finance should be able to say to the governor, as an executive role, and possibly to the chair of the board now, that he or she should have the opportunity to require them to have a particular look at some aspects, because it may impact on the Crown. And you may have a governor or a board that chooses not to do it. Now, under the current bill arrangements, a change in the functions of the Reserve Bank can only be requested by the Governor of the Reserve Bank. We think that is appropriate, but we also think there should be the opportunity for the finance Minister to request a change in the functions. So there should be a two-way street to it. It doesn’t change the right of the governor or the board to request the change, but it should be a two-way street. And, again, Mr Robertson chose to ignore that advice.

The fifth thing, and this was an element of much discussion at the committee of the whole House, here on this floor, is changes to the capital structure of the Reserve Bank. We have ended up with, in my view, a very unsophisticated approach in this bill, and the case in point is that the Reserve Bank has been out buying billions of dollars’ worth of Treasury stock, Government stock, from the market. And the only reason that the Reserve Bank Governor went to Mr Robertson, as the finance Minister, was that he thought it would be advisable—he had absolutely no requirement to—to go to the Minister of Finance and seek an indemnity. And, because he did that, that gave Mr Robertson the opportunity to put some parameters around the nature of that spending. Now, if he hadn’t gone to him, there would have been no ability for the Minister of Finance to put in place some controls around the Crown balance sheet. We said that there should be a much more sophisticated approach. We actually provided the wording from the Bank of England, and there’s another example from the Canadian central bank that we provided to the Minister, that they recognise that things like derivatives, contingent liabilities, should be able to be captured, but, unfortunately Mr Robertson showed, on the floor at the committee of the whole House, he does not understand this. This bill is deficient in that regard.

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

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Minister of Finance began his speech by mentioning that when the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act was first established back in 1989, he was in seventh form. At that time, I was in my second year out from university, working as an auditor and, in fact, auditing the Reserve Bank. It was a grey and dusty institution, but the 1989 Act did actually substantially change it and modernise it, but that was 30 years ago in a different world. In the world we are facing today, we actually need to change the way the Reserve Bank operates to give it greater scope to act, but also to give the Minister of Finance greater capacity to work with the Reserve Bank in terms of managing the New Zealand economy for the betterment of us all, and that is precisely what this bill does. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National):Thank you, Madam Speaker. That gave me at least 45 seconds to get ready. I think Dr Russell made the very point that concerns me about this bill. She talked about the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act when it was passed by the fourth Labour Government in 1989, and that this is some kind of a tidying up of a dusty old piece of legislation—32 years old—that, as she said as a sort of a “by the way”, gives the Minister a bit more influence over the Reserve Bank.

Well, I remind the House that the 1989 legislation was designed to do quite the opposite. It was actually designed to place the Reserve Bank in a more independent and arm’s length distance from the potential of an interfering Government. Now, it took a while to frame up, and it was in year five of the six years of the fourth Labour Government and it was part of a raft of amendments to legislation that were specifically designed to do two things. One was to free up a controlled economy, and the other was to reduce the influence, not so much of Parliament but of the executive, on the decisions of so-called independent institutions. My concern right throughout this process was that the creeping hand of the influence of any Minister of Finance, not just this Minister of Finance, becomes more likely.

In earlier readings, I talked about what the Hon David Caygill, the then Minister of Finance, had as his goal for the Reserve Bank Act, and it was simply this: the Act, when it was passed, placed the bank on a more independent but also more accountable legislative basis than at present. The National Party would love to be able to support it. It is a Reserve Bank bill, for goodness’ sake. It is one of those things that we should have bipartisan support for because it’s lasted 32 years; we hope it will last 32 years more, and as a consequence, it’s going to traverse the oversight of successive numbers of Governments on both sides of the aisle.

So the deeply disappointing part of this actually started with the fact that no other political party who has to consider and then vote on this bill was consulted with at any stage prior to the introduction of the legislation. The Minister says, “Oh well, you know, the parties can have their say at select committee.”, and they did and we had very good submissions. We had good support and good advice from the officials, and we made what we believe were constructive suggestions to improve the bill and to go back to its original purpose or to remind the committee of the original purpose which was that independence and accountability. None of them were successful, and that, I think, reflects the attitude that this was: the Government knew best; the Minister knew best. He had a particular vision of what the Reserve Bank Act should do and he was going to pass it, and that is the prerogative of the executive, but I am disappointed that there was zero consultation prior to it being brought in. It may have been a much more smooth passage had he done that. So we’re now faced with the situation—there will be a future centre-right Government in this country. It will be led by National and supported by ACT and we’ll be back here changing this and we won’t take as long as this lot did. [Interruption] There’s the arrogance. There’s the socialist arrogance that that’s not going to happen. Simply pointing out that Government’s change got them chuckling.

Barbara Kuriger: They do. They do and they will.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Exactly. I won’t be laughing then—

Anna Lorck: Led by who?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —because we’ll have a job to do. Oh, there’s Ms Lorck, the very reason it will happen sooner rather than later, I think. I think whoever stands for National in Tukituki—there will be a scramble in Tukituki in 2023 to get that candidacy. The campaign strategy will be simply to replay her Parliament speeches.

But we will be back here and we will have to amend this to maintain the integrity of the independence of the Reserve Bank, and we will be doing so, consulting with all parties. That’s what we’ll be doing. It’s something that didn’t happen in this bill and it’s deeply disappointing. It’s the reason the National Party hasn’t supported it so far and cannot support it now.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): I was quite surprised. I thought that member Michael Woodhouse, with his passion about this bill, would have gone on to at least take his full time.

However, this is a bill—its time has come. There was a time when central bankers were people who sat in back rooms and were not particularly relevant. They certainly weren’t well known. Come 2008, all of a sudden the world looked to them and said, “Save us, because we’re going down the tubes very quickly.” So names like Mario Draghi and Janet Yellen became household names. They, central bankers, all of a sudden were elevated to a place in the financial system that gave them extreme power. Any hint of an interest rate rise or drop would see markets spiralling upwards and downwards. So we exist in that world; our legislation is part of that. It’s essential that we have good legislation with which to background that sort of power, that sort of movement, and this legislation will do it. I recommend it to the House.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. The Green Party is supporting this bill. In fact, there are several changes that it makes that the Green Party was calling for for quite a long time, one of them being ensuring that a broader representation of people, such as the board, was overseeing key monetary policy decisions rather than just the Governor of the Reserve Bank alone. I do think it’s totally fine to have the Governor of the Reserve Bank be a member of that board but it is crucial that there is a broader perspective and that all of that responsibility doesn’t just sit in the hands of one person who’s deemed to be some sort of technical expert.

I think probably the area where the Green Party departs from some of the views that were expressed by the Hon Michael Woodhouse and even Andrew Bayly is that back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was a certain change in the way that people approached monetary and fiscal policy. There was a kind of belief that there were some technical experts, I mean, they all happened to be English-speaking white men, more or less. But, yeah, what a coincidence—technical experts who were somehow able to manage the economy as a kind of machine as if it were something separate to communities of people, and that they somehow knew better than communities of people.

Ultimately, money just is one tool for representing value that we have in our communities and in this world. It’s really important that it is democratically accountable and that the functions of the Reserve Bank are actually serving the needs of the community, because the economy is just one subset of our society and our communities. All the economy is is a representation of the commercial transactions that we undertake with each other. Really, the economy is just some of the stuff we do as human beings; it’s when we buy and sell things from each other or give each other services that we pay for, but there’s a whole lot of things that humans do that is not caught by the measure of GDP; it’s not caught by paid work. There’s a lot of things that enable our society to function that aren’t currently represented in commercial transactions. All of society, human society, is ultimately reliant on ecosystems to survive and thrive. If we aren’t looking after our ecosystems we are going to be in deep trouble. So while back in the early 1980s and 1990s there was this view that somehow the economy was something that functioned on its own, separate to humans, and we couldn’t possibly make trade-offs to protect the environment or to look out for the needs of people because of the economy. Well, in fact, the economy is just one part of what we do as humans.

It’s really important that the Reserve Bank is a democratically accountable institution. Of course we understand that there could be a desire to ensure that there is independence from the Government of the day, but that should not be independence from the community as a whole in New Zealand. There needs to be broader interests represented. This bill takes it in that direction.

I wouldn’t say that all of the concerns of the Green Party have necessarily been met by this particular legislation, and it will be interesting to look after the third bill that the Minister spoke of, which is coming to the House. But I would say that with the recently released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that states what a critical emergency it is for us to respond to climate change, that this is an existential threat to all humanity, not to the planet, just to the planet that supports life for humans on it. So it is going to be vitally important that all of our institutions are retooled to be able to deliver the solutions to that; that becomes our primary driver.

It can’t just be about people getting rich for the sake of getting rich and living their lives and using their billions of dollars that they’ve accumulated thanks to the work, blood, sweat, and tears of many, many other people, such as Jeff Bezos going into space. It’s just a perfect representation of how financialisation and a growing of the financial sector as part of the economy over the last 20 to 30 years has not actually produced the supposed economic benefits for humans, for all humans, and that, actually, we’re going to need to look at money, how fiscal and monetary policy are used by Governments, and whether or not they’re achieving those objectives of supporting widespread flourishing of well-being, protection of our natural ecosystems, and climate action, or whether they’re meeting the needs of a small number of people, mainly white men, who are amassing all of the wealth, and using it on their ego trips to go into space, which is completely useless to most humans.

So, yeah, as I said, we need a paradigm shift. Unfortunately, I don’t think that—the Opposition’s kind of still stuck in the 1980s and 1990s on this. This is making some interesting changes that we can support. Ultimately, as a society, we need to have a conversation about what kind of economy we want and what is going to support our aspirations as human beings who have relationships with each other and who rely on the natural environment in order to live our lives.

DAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening, which is on the last part of the bill. I’m not, obviously, going to agree with my learned colleague from the Green Party on various aspects; I just want to concentrate on the bill.

One of the jobs of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) is to be ahead of the curve, not behind it. We’ve seen since May a disconnect between monetary policy, fiscal policy, and the structure of this bill, and I don’t think this bill will last triple decades. We’ll be here very shortly again to revise some of its aspects.

The Reserve Bank, in terms of its operating environment—this bill has never been about structure. It always should have been about transparency and how the system gets managed and how they make their decisions and how individuals in the economy can benefit from a free and open market system that allows prosperity, the protection of property, the minimisation of taxes, and the ability to have certainty when it comes to wealth planning and superannuation planning as well.

It’s interesting that if you look at what’s happened with the Reserve Bank, the function of what Mr Robertson is proposing is that it actually does rely on people to make decisions, and a call for tightening an expansionary phase of $100 billion in the quantitative easing programme, the choking of the labour market. The situation has been quite clear, even with house price forecasting, that financial stability has been threatened, even in this current year, and it’s not because of COVID; it’s because of decision making around the institution.

So, structurally what happens appears pretty obvious. We’re now bringing in the world’s toughest capital requirements, which may squeeze credit. One of my concerns with the bill is that in terms of minimum capital allocation, which now needs to be raised to 16 percent from tier 1 equity of 10.5 percent, is that this is going to place too much emphasis on capital and far too little on risk mitigation. We realise that there will be another shock to the system. There may even potentially be a recessionary period in New Zealand within this time frame that’s severe, and the RBNZ should have a really balanced, in a sense, and calibrated capital requirement structure with what is missing—as Mr Bayly said, prudential requirements of Governments who run risk management, similar to Australia, the US, Singapore, and Japan.

We also anticipate that some of the decision making will make the cost of loans to customers more expensive. And to the Green Party, who lives in another world: in the household itself we see these distortions around capital affecting lots of individual citizens.

So the bill itself is near its conclusion. We’d just like to put on the record that we have concerns with regards to the managers at the Reserve Bank and the design of the bill. It’s either a case of they’re underqualified or they haven’t seen what has been coming in the economy or they’ve overcooked the economy, even with the COVID response. So if you look at the sensible framework that Mr Robertson laid out, accountability and transparency of the Reserve Bank was the number one goal. Let’s hope that that stays relevant and can be delivered in the future. Thank you.

BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just want to add a contribution that when we looked at 1989, the Berlin Wall collapsed and there was the crackdown in Tiananmen Square. As the Minister of Finance said, he was in college. As Dr Deborah Russell has said, she was at university—oh, actually, no, sorry. She was auditing at the time, and I was eight and at primary school. So this Act is far from overdue to be updated. The fact that we have an Act that is over 30 years old is probably not a good starting point.

When you look at Schedule 4 of the bill—and it is 15 pages—Schedule 4 covers the amendments to other legislation. That’s how much other legislation needs to be changed just for the title of this bill.

Therefore, I commend this bill to the House, and I thank Madam Speaker for the call.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break, and the House will resume at 7 o’clock this evening.

Sitting suspended from 5.56 p.m. to 7 p.m.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The House is resumed. When the House rose for the dinner break, we were under consideration with the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bill’s third reading. National have the next call.

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Madam Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to this, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bill. So, obviously, at this late stage, the position of the National Party has been made clear by previous speakers, so—

Matt Doocey: Yeah, we don’t like this.

CHRIS PENK: —I don’t intend to rehearse that too far. My colleague has said, “We don’t like this.” I just thought it would be worth indicating some of the reservations that we’ve had, notwithstanding the good intentions that may have—and let’s be generous—of course, underpinned the intention of the bill.

So whereas the purpose, of course, is to promote the prosperity and wellbeing of New Zealanders and contribute to a sustainable and productive economy, we do, nevertheless, have some reservations about the extent to which this can actually be achieved. Of course, we are concerned that there may be counterproductive effects, indeed, notwithstanding that we’re told, according to the legislative statement, that it’s a strengthening of the Reserve Bank’s institutional arrangements that’s intended as an enhancement of the bank’s role as a prudential regulator and intended, again, to increase coordination and the regulation of the financial sector.

So, of course, the context is the work that’s been taking place in relation to the monetary policy amendment Act and the bigger picture is, you know, the Government’s reasonably interventionist approach in this area. Our finance spokesperson, Andrew Bayly, has, obviously, been pretty hot on the heels of Grant Robertson in that regard. So while the Government’s intentions, as I say, may have been positive, to achieve consensus such as they were no doubt hoping for, perhaps a more collegial approach across the House would have been good, such that the Government could have reached out to us at a much sooner stage in proceedings.

So we’d previously suggested a number of amendments. Those were not supported at the committee of the whole House stage, as the record will note. Of course, to have put forward those, unfortunately, belies the fact that we are comfortable with a considerable amount of the bill none the less.

So the reference to efficiency that should have been in there, that’s something on which we’ve made our point pretty clearly, so at this, the third and final reading, I don’t intend to go into the detail much more than that. I’ll just note, perhaps, one other aspect of the Reserve Bank activities that we thought could be handled better, which was in the area of allowing the Minister of Finance to manage the risk of those activities where it would be said that those would negatively impact the Crown’s financial position. So the National Party statement on that has been along the lines that we would require the Minister—the relevant Minister, of course, the Minister of Finance—and the Reserve Bank to agree a capital and financial risk management framework.

So all that said, I think, as I say, on this side of the House, between the various stages of the bill, between the committee stage, at which we put forward those constructive suggestions, we’ve made our position pretty clear. Of course, we expect that it will pass in the way of these things because, of course, the Government can put through what it likes. But that, if anything, just reinforces the fact that with a bit more consensus seeking from that side of the House, we could have ended up with a better result than this. So National continues to oppose this bill.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare, te Whare e tū nei e mihi ana ki a koutou i tēnei pō.

[Greetings Madam Speaker, and greetings to all of you in House this evening.]

It’s my honour to rise to take a short call this evening on the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bill. This bill has been developed as part of phase two of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act review. The significance of this bill is that in 2017, the Government announced it would undertake a review of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 1989, and this review is the first review of the Act since it came into force.

So what this bill does is: it’s an important bill that adds an overarching financial stability objective to complement the recently updated monetary policy objectives. It’s in its third reading and it’s really good to hear this evening much more of a passive approach from my colleagues across the way. We’re all in this together. We’ve got work to do and we are committed to doing it.

So without further ado, it’s the third reading and I’d like to commend this bill to the House. Tēnā koe.

ANNA LORCK (Labour—Tukituki): I rise to speak as a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee. This bill is the result of extensive consultation and stakeholder engagement. Critical to the modernising of this bill has been to ensure we protect the Reserve Bank’s operational independence and its governance and accountability, and those have been two of the most critical things in setting up for this bill here today. I have really enjoyed being part of this process and seeing this through. When the finance Minister said that he was in the seventh form in 1989 when this bill first came in, I can say that I was in the seventh form too, and what a long way we’ve gone. I commend this bill to the House.

CHRISTOPHER LUXON (National—Botany): I want to rise and take a short call on this bill as well, because the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bill, at its third reading, is an important one. And I’d say my colleagues, I think, have made it very, very clear as to why we’re opposing this bill over several readings of this legislation that’s been coming through. I guess we have concerns around several things, and the first is the changes that this reform makes. Unfortunately, the fact is that all of our amendments that we were talking about that could have addressed our concerns have not been supported at the committee of the whole House stage.

I guess there’s sort of four big concerns. The first is really that reforms of this nature—to one of our most significant economic institutions—shouldn’t really be taken lightly. It is National’s view that the Government could have worked in a much more consensus, cross-party manner in putting these changes forward. The bill is, as you all know, the second of three bills that the Minister of Finance is trying to take through the House to reform the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act, and that is the first time, in fact, that our legislation for this critical institution has been reviewed in over 30 years. Therefore, I do think it is important that we look at these reforms, that we make sure they are enduring, that they last. It is therefore regrettable that cross-party consensus hasn’t been taken, because, ultimately, what we do not want happening is we do not want, every time a new Government comes to power, that we go and upend and open up and recreate a whole bunch of new legislation around the Reserve Bank. That’s not good for New Zealand and it’s certainly not good for the Reserve Bank.

We were, as we’ve talked about over several readings now, quite comfortable with big parts of the bill, but we do have serious concerns in several areas, and I think the first was that the bank’s traditional objective that it is efficient has been omitted here. And we really believe that efficiency should be part of the core charter of what the Reserve Bank is about. I think, also, the New Zealand Bankers’ Association, in their submission, said as much, as well. Efficiency is a really important objective for a prudential regulator, there’s no doubt about that. We see that all around the world. We believe it is equally important that the bank pursues a financial system that’s both stable and efficient, and that’s important because trying to get the balance right between efficiency, but also having enough dynamism and innovation in the system such that we can see innovation from the regulated financial sector, is a very important thing.

I think the other big concern that we’ve had, and colleagues have spoken about in some detail, is that one of the bill’s more significant changes is, in fact, to the Reserve Bank’s governance arrangements. The bill creates an executive board responsible for all the financial policy decisions of the bank, and it vests all those functions and all those powers of the bank in the bank, other than those with the monetary policy committee, which has been how we’ve historically managed it and which are currently invested in the governor and will be vested in the new board. National, fundamentally, believes that if you’re going to have an executive board responsible for all financial policy decisions of the bank, there should be some basic technical competencies that each of those members of the governance board, or directors, should have. That includes some basics around understanding of financial stability, understanding of prudential regulation, macro-prudential policy, and, certainly, crisis management and resolution. We believe the Parliament should be given more oversight over changes to the bank’s monetary policy remit.

I guess the other big concern that we have is that we believe there should be a much better mechanism to allow the Minister of Finance to manage the risk of the Reserve Bank activities that could negatively impact the Crown’s financial position. We would have required, I think, the Minister of Finance and the Reserve Bank to agree between themselves a capital and a financial risk management framework, and that would have been to ensure that the Crown isn’t just picking up a position that the Reserve Bank takes.

So, Madam Speaker, in our minds, we think it’s a real shame that there’s an enduring piece of legislation here that is setting the Reserve Bank up for the future, and it should have been done in a cross-party consensus way. We do think efficiency as a measure of the purpose of the bank is important to have had in it, and we also believe that the governance arrangements and the changes to those mean that we need to make sure that people who are put on those governance boards have a set of skills. Finally, we think that there’s a risk framework that needed to be created between Minister of Finance and Reserve Bank to manage that. So it is disappointing that National’s very, very constructive amendments were defeated, and we regret that we must oppose this bill.

HELEN WHITE (Labour): Thank you. I rise to commend this bill to the House. I’m the last speaker, so I just want to really focus on wood for trees here. This is actually a bill which modernises the structures that are in place around a system, and it is very cognisant of the rest of that system. So we’re going to have a board instead of a single person, and that board will have responsibilities. And the people on that board, it is true, are not prescribed in the kind of person they are. As pointed out by Hon Julie Anne Genter earlier, that actually allows for a kind of great latitude, because what you want on that board is people with different skills and different experiences, and those people all contribute to the whole, and so does the governor, who will also be on that board. That board will be linked, it will work together, with the Council of Financial Regulators. Those are things like the Commerce Commission, and those are really important institutions, and they will work together. So this bill is all about working together, and I commend it to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bill be now read a third time.

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.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Fair Trading Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Debate resumed from 3 August.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party to finally give our call on the Fair Trading Amendment Bill’s third reading. It’s been a long time coming, so I am glad we’re finally going through the motions of the House.

Look, this bill will go some way towards ensuring that consumers have a better deal when engaging with businesses. It also ensures that smaller businesses have better access to trade contacts.

I think, to me, the thing that stands out around this bill is the protections around ensuring that uninvited sellers are now warned against by the introductions that this bill puts in. So, for example, the “Do not knock” stickers provided by Consumer New Zealand now will have far more weight, and I think this is quite important as I think of some industries like electricity retailers and, often, the aggressive tactics that have been employed to poach consumers. In the last debate, I spoke about my own really brief experience of doing almost a one-off gig with one of these retailers. I think of just the predatory nature of these tactics against low-income communities and migrant communities, and I want to acknowledge the lengthy commentary that the member to my left, Naisi Chen, has given around the vulnerabilities of households where maybe English, for example, is not their first language and how they’re at far more risk. So this bill will introduce some good protections.

I think plenty of debate has been held around the definition of unconscionable conduct. I don’t think the Greens want to further extend our legislative session on this bill any more than it already has been, and I would encourage viewers to look at previous contributions for an enriching debate on this definition. So we commend this bill to the House.

DAMIEN SMITH (ACT): This bill is typical of what Adam Smith called the misconception of the man in the system, and it actually opposes individual freedom of businesses and consumers to interact together. It’s based on the personal vision of the Minister, based on the greater good for all, as he perceives it, and it’s a leverage which lords over all of us. There is a myriad of rules and laws to protect unfair contract behaviour.

Extending the prohibition against unfair contract terms and actually defining unconscionable conduct is a major omission from the parity that he’s hoping to achieve with colleagues in Australia. It seems inconceivable to me to bring a bill to Parliament which is based on something that actually has 16 cases in Australia of businesses dealing with each other, and established case law, which clearly allows us to be able to define unconscionable conduct quite easily. In terms of retail leasing, an example of that would be: a landlord has sought an unreasonable rent for the renewal of his shop lease, which it represented as below market value, and has required a very short time frame for its tenants to respond to the proposal of the rental offer. The landlord’s conduct involved a small-business owner who had little or no ability to speak English, and the landlord was aware of this, so the landlord’s conduct was deemed unconscionable because of its actions. It was reckless, it showed no regard for conscience, and that was irreconcilable with the rights and reasonable behaviours of a business transaction.

So I’ve got a list of these, which—this one’s around franchises. This one’s around door-to-door selling. As an example, Craftmatic was found to have used misleading and unfair sales tactics to sell beds to elderly people during the course of home presentations. Craftmatic sales and promotional letters were designed, scripted, and conducted, as found by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, to unduly influence potential consumers to create and take advantage of an unequal bargaining position, and so the conduct was deemed unconscionable.

So there are various elements of Australian competition law which allows us to define unconscionable conduct quite easily, and we find it a mystery that this is not included in the bill. It will lead to court time and will lead to a very, very quagmired system, where we believe this is to be unnecessary.

Also, the impact analysis left a lot to be desired. If you look at the noughts and crosses of it, this is a sort of 50:50 call. It’s a “nice-to-have” bill, but it actually doesn’t change the landscape as such, as opposed to overcomplicated transactions.

So we would ask the Minister to consider looking at the redefinition of unconscionable conduct. It’s not difficult, and I’m sure his analysts could come up with a Supplementary Order Paper to that effect. We also believe that extending protection to businesses with a $250k transaction value cap is too small in this modern era, and we recommend anywhere between $450,000 and $650,000 to allow reasonably priced transactions and negotiations to be resolved. So in that context, we believe that it has a role to play in the system, but it will affect free enterprise and free trade, and for those grounds we can’t support the bill.

HELEN WHITE (Labour): I rise in support of this bill, and it’s in its third reading now. During those discussions that we’ve had in previous readings, we’ve talked about the reason why unconscionable conduct is simply not defined. That’s because there’s criteria set out in that bill, so if you apply the criteria, then, actually, it is possible to predict whether the actions are unconscionable. But when you’ve got people who actually are creative in the way that they are basically holding people—or being sneaky, then you need something that’s more flexible and this bill does that.

It also extends the protections to unfair contract terms and consumer contracts for small-business contracts. That’s an area that’s needed a fix for a very long time, and I’m very proud that we’re fixing it in this legislation. Thank you.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Well, it is a pleasure to speak on this bill, the Fair Trading Amendment Bill. I actually think it’s quite interesting that this bill seeks to level the playing field, and there’s no doubt that the playing field is not level often in transactions. In fact, having had quite some experience in this, I’d almost say it’s never level. If you’re a seller selling into a market which has lots of options for supply, then you are definitely on the wrong side of the scale. On the other hand, if you’re a buyer when there’s very few sellers, you’re also on the other side of the scale, and so it can be quite difficult.

I’d have to say that BusinessNZ opposed this bill. They said that “Despite exhaustive issues and discussion papers over time, we still remain perplexed as to why these same issues keep coming up when no legitimate problem has been … identified.” I think that is kind of the problem here. We all want to try and level things up and make things fair—whatever that means—but it gets pretty difficult when you try and put this into writing and into a bill.

I can give you a bit of an example, Madam Speaker, because I know you’re aware of these things and you’re quite interested in them. So I thought I’d like to bring a story from personal experience selling wine into New York. I went to a Harlem wine store which would only be about the size of this Chamber—quite small, two floors—and the person that ran that won a Porsche car, a brand new car, from Johnnie Walker for selling the most Johnnie Walker in New York. From a small store like that, you’d wonder how the heck they did this. I was trying to sell wine to this guy. I was successful in the end, but, boy, did he drive a hard bargain.

Turns out he sold the most Johnnie Walker in New York because he sold to illegal nightclubs in New York. They had to buy their liquor at retail rather than wholesale because they were illegal. They’d run for a while, and then they’d be shut down, so he’d just go around selling all this alcohol. This guy knew how to bargain, and I can tell you, it never really felt to me like there was an even playing field there.

I don’t think this bill would have made much difference had it been in operation in New York. I know it doesn’t go that far, but, actually, that is the world of commerce, and until you’ve actually operated in it, you don’t actually know—not you, Madam Speaker, but everyone will not really understand how it works. It is never equal.

Also, we have to understand that people often suffer from what’s known as buyer’s remorse, and we have to be careful that these sorts of things don’t actually try and capture that. I think that with the definition of unconscionable conduct being so unconscionable that no one actually knows what it is—despite Dr Webb giving us a bit of a lecture about it in, I think, the second reading—it turns out that it is so difficult to define that we can’t get it into law. So then we end up with some people making a decision on a very broad definition, which will undoubtedly capture people that don’t deserve to be captured by this law. It is understandable that people want to go to an extreme of trying to cover everything off. It’s actually very akin to hate speech legislation—so broad that nobody really knows what it is, and innocent people will be captured.

I think the law of unintended consequences, with all these good intentions, is going to cause more problems than anyone in New Zealand deserves. I think it’s really very sad that we are here today in the House dealing with this bit of legislation, which is misplaced. It might be well intentioned but, unfortunately, takes me back to my time in Harlem and brings back some fond memories. I have to say, I had a—

Matt Doocey: Tell us another story about Harlem.

STUART SMITH: Well, I could. I could tell a story to you, Madam Speaker, but the whip warned me before not to incriminate myself, and, taking his wise counsel, I will leave it there. But I’m having a very qualified “not supporting this bill” opinion, and so therefore I do not commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour—Wairarapa): One of the reasons I like this bill is a very simple provision in here, which says that persons engaging in an uninvited direct sale must leave, or not enter, a consumer’s property as soon as possible after being directed. So if there is a sticker on your door that says “Do not knock”, once this bill passes, that will actually mean anything.

I’m thinking about my late grandmother, who was a bit vulnerable. If someone—despite her having a sticker—came to her door, she’d probably feel obliged to listen and then we’d probably end up with a vacuum cleaner.

I say that because my good mate Damien O’Connor, in a previous life, was a very, very successful door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman. I don’t know if the House knows that, but that is why he is such a good communicator, because he could sell ice to the Eskimos. But he would’ve appreciated this law, because it sifts the cowboys from the gentlemen. He is a gentleman, he supports the bill with real life experience, and I support it with him.

NAISI CHEN (Labour): Through this bill we’ve learnt a lot about the values of this House. Let it be known and let it be for ever remembered that we, as the Labour Party, are the party that supports small businesses. We are the party that supports tradespeople, we are the party that supports the underdog, and we are the party that will protect consumers every single day no matter where that trade is happening. Whether it’s on their front doorstep or whether it’s in their homes, we will be there to protect them, and this is what this bill will do. It will make sure that people who are vulnerable feel safe in their own houses.

But also this bill will protect our economy going stronger, which I’m always still surprised about. The Opposition keeps telling us that New Zealand is built upon small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs)—and I completely agree. So here is a bill that will protect SMEs, and so therefore there is no hesitancy on this side of the House to support it.

This is also a bill that has shown us that a Labour chair does very well. Thank you to Mr Jamie Strange, who has actually shepherded through almost every single bill that we’ve got in this term, unlike this one, which was done through the last term. So, with that recognition to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, I commend this bill to the House.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (Third Whip—National): Point of order, Madam Speaker. I just wanted to make sure that we were following the speaking order appropriately, but I believe we are. So I will let you carry on.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Well, I’ll just deal with this point of order, and I would advise Mr van de Molen that that is not a point of order, so I’m looking forward to the next call.

Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): In the short time that the House heard that last speaker in the debate—Naisi Chen—they would be so very disappointed. It was all of 30 seconds on a bill that the Government has said is important and that they want to rush through, but it actually isn’t.

The National Party will be opposing this, not because we don’t believe the intention is correct—in fact, if you look at the work that we did when we were in Government, there was a huge amount here—but it’s because it actually won’t achieve anything at all, and, as with many things that this Government does, it’s big on announcements and very, very light on actual achievement. I say to the members opposite that instead of taking 30 seconds on their call when they have all that time left available to them, why don’t they get into the detail of what the bill actually won’t be doing when they’ve said that they want to achieve so very, very much?

Actually, much of what this bill is trying to do is already covered in law. There are some real challenges when it comes to trading and what can and can’t be done, but, actually, this doesn’t do this. You see, one of the provisions of the legislation says that if you don’t want somebody to come to sell something to you, then you have the ability to tell them not to come to your property. Actually, you already have that under the law, so I don’t know how it is that somebody is safer when it comes to any unfair trade practice as a result of this. Anybody at home that has fallen foul when it comes to this type of selling actually gets no greater protection from this legislation on the day after it has passed and enters into law than on the day before, because vulnerable consumers are already covered by it.

When we were on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, we had submissions on this from many different organisations and individuals who said that there is an issue here that needs to be dealt with. Many of them recognised the work that was done under the National Government when we made reforms and we focused on these issues, and they said that those had helped and, in some cases, had helped significantly. But the feeling that was left in the committee, at least to those of us on the Opposition side, was one of disappointment because the legislation was not achieving the things that the Government said it will and, at the same time, it doesn’t achieve the things that those submitters said.

Consumer New Zealand said that they supported it but recommended tighter drafting. Well, Consumer New Zealand would have to say that because, actually, if there was anything that would protect the consumer, they’d be in favour of it. But when they say that they want tighter drafting so that the provisions of the bill on entering into law will mean that the people the Government say they want to help actually will get that protection and when the Government doesn’t do that, in effect, what that means is it is a missed opportunity.

We’ve heard a lot over the last four years of this Government about intention, and there would be nobody in the country that would say that they are not well-meaning in their intention. But this bill is a little bit like KiwiBuild. It’s really, really hard for a hard-working Kiwi family to live in a KiwiBuild house that the Government has announced with a press release that will never be built. A vulnerable consumer that needs protection actually won’t be protected just because a Government says they’ve done so when a Government doesn’t do its work properly, and this piece of legislation doesn’t do the Government’s job properly.

We spent a lot of time in committee trying to convince Government members to make the changes that were needed. We were willing participants. Even though we voted against it, we said that we’d like to fix it and we’d like to make it better. We actually want businesses to thrive and strive in New Zealand and we want consumers to be protected, and I’ve got to say that although our meetings are closed to the public when we negotiate these things, I sense that those members of our committee who are in the Government—the Labour Party MPs—wanted to make the changes that consumers had asked them to make, but they were not able to because of some disconnect. I don’t know on what floor of the Beehive the Minister sits, but it feels a long way away from the consumers that were so concerned that they wouldn’t get the protection that they deserved from this legislation.

I’ve got to say that I feel for those Government members of the committee wanting to make change and not being able to. I remember when we were in Government and I was on a committee and Ministers wouldn’t listen, and then I remember when I became a Minister and I was not able to listen always, but the point was that the door was always open. What we always tried to do was make sure that our legislation achieved the lofty goals that the Prime Minister’s press release would promise New Zealanders, and that’s why I feel for these Government members of our committee. They are genuine people, good people, and hard-working, and today they are letting their constituents who are consumers down.

I think there are other speakers in the debate after me. I would love a Government member to explain to us exactly why they think that consumers are better off. Not what the notes say, not what they’ve been given by their research unit—not the things that they read out all of the time. I think that the consumer sitting at home at the moment—

Kieran McAnulty: He’s reading his notes now.

Hon TODD McCLAY: —no, there’s really nothing on this page; believe me—that hopes that with the Government putting this legislation through they will be safer tomorrow than they are today, they deserve a member from the Government to take more than 30 seconds to talk about what it is that they think this bill will do, so that they can be held to account in the future when we look back and say, “Look, in this debate, actually, they promised large, but delivered so very, very small.”

I will say it again: when in Government, we’re very proud of the changes we made to support consumers to make sure that they got the things that they needed, but this Fair Trading Amendment Bill brought forward by this Government doesn’t achieve those sorts of things. It is quite, quite disappointing, and members opposite should hang their heads in shame.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. I just want to thank Todd McClay, the previous speaker, for the six minutes and 30 seconds of his contribution to this House. That’s almost as much as he contributed to this piece of legislation in the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. We appreciate that.

I am here to support the Fair Trading Amendment Bill as the final speaker of the Government, and I’m proud to stand up and say that this Government is committed to protecting New Zealand businesses, to protecting consumers and all our practices. This bill is here to address, to support, and ensure that we have fair trading and a fair trade in our businesses and our consumers.

I also want to mention living in the beautiful electorate of New Plymouth—yes, New Plymouth. Talking about press statements and—as the previous speaker said—KiwiBuild, well, 18 months ago, there was a press release around KiwiBuild in New Plymouth: 68 houses. The sod was turned about a year ago, and I have to say that 68 families are living in their KiwiBuild homes in Marfell in New Plymouth.

So I’m really proud of this Government’s progress and what they’re doing. I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Fair Trading Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 77

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

Noes 43

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Bill

Third Reading

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Associate Minister of Justice) on behalf of the Minister of Justice: I present the legislative statement on the Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation 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 AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: I move, That the Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Bill be now read a third time.

I thank all the members in this House for their contributions to the debate on this bill. I acknowledge my predecessor the Hon Andrew Little for initiating this work under the previous Government.

Hon Simon Bridges: Why?

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: Because he was a good man. The importance of improving the process for children and their whānau when they’re going through the separation process cannot be overstated. This bill forms part of the Government’s commitment to getting things right for children and young people. It is one important step towards a family justice system that is more accessible, safe, and responsive, where all the parties have a voice. It supports the Government’s Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy, particularly our aim for New Zealand to be a place where children and young people are loved, safe, and nurtured.

The bill emphasises the importance of the child’s right to participate and of engaging children appropriately in processes that affect their care. It will help ensure that children feel supported, safe, and informed as they move through the Family Court. The academic literature is clear about the benefits of appropriate and safe participation, both for children and for decisions made about them. Studies show that providing children with opportunities to participate can help parents focus on the needs of their children rather than their own conflict. It can also help children adjust to their parents’ separation.

There can be both medium- and long-term consequences for children who are not listened to. The immediate effects include feelings of isolation and loneliness, anxiety and fear, sadness, confusion, anger, and difficulty coping with stress. Longer-term effects include a deterioration in closeness in parent-child relationships, feeling of loss, and loss of trust in parents and adults. The bill will help us avoid these outcomes. Its purpose is to reinforce the expectation that a child should have reasonable opportunities to participate in decisions affecting their care and welfare, (2) ensure that lawyers appointed to represent children in proceedings are suitably qualified to represent the child and that they can explain proceedings to them, (3) require lawyers to facilitate the efficient resolution of disputes in order to minimise harm to children, families, and whānau, and (4) reinforce the need for the court to respond appropriately to family violence, particularly its impact on children.

I want to thank the submitters and the members of the Justice Committee and all those who participated in the select committee process for giving their time, making submissions, and sharing their experiences and expertise. I’d particularly like to thank the Justice Committee members for their efforts to improve this bill. I commend the bill to the House.

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

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga): The member opposite, the Minister on behalf of the Minister of Justice, Hon Aupito William Sio, didn’t even make four minutes for his speech. That is how little he actually believes in this bill. I can understand that, because, as I said, standing here at the first reading of this bill—and I still say—it is a really well-intentioned bill. I think the soft-headed thinking over the other side that it is nice and it is about children and that is really good is—yeah, it is well-intentioned, but we can’t support a bill that, actually, in the end, is going to make things worse. The reason I say that is because, actually, the system we had in place wasn’t perfect, but on the Ministry of Justice’s own numbers, in terms of what it meant for children and time in court and the period of time to resolve these things, they are better under the system we’ve got than, I am sure, they will be under this system. See, the answer from the other side of the House—and I accept, they’ve got red members all the way through, they are about to pass this law—is simply this, can sum it up in two words: more lawyers. That is literally all this bill does. They are going to supply more lawyers into a Family Court system—

Shanan Halbert: Who’s a lawyer?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: —as if somehow—well, I am a lawyer, and that is why I know it is such a stupid idea, right? It is not going to make the difference; in fact, I think it will make it worse.

By the way, yep, I talk with lots of lawyers, and a few of them, you know, I think, ultimately, because they are institutionalised, think it is a really great idea. But what was surprising to me was, at the Justice Committee, in terms of the oral submissions we had, the overwhelming majority did not support this bill. I’ll come back to that point very shortly.

But it will make things worse—more lawyers; in this case, lawyers for the child. It will result in more disputes, a more legalistic approach, and a prioritisation of in-court—which, as we know, whether it is sexual abuse, whether it is in this family arena, which, of course, can involve physical and sexual and not to speak of emotional abuse as well, they are prioritising that in-court process, with the trauma attendant to it, over out-of-court solutions, which, as I say, in the laws that Judith Collins, when justice Minister, passed have been shown to work and resolve things better, quicker, and more smoothly.

Even from the perspective of the child, we heard at the select committee that this law will not—from experts; quite a number of them—necessarily be positive. You see—and I’ve already mentioned this point—I just want to make the point that this is what experts on sexual abuse and physical abuse and child psychology, who came to the committee, said to us: the court process can, if not done well, result in more trauma, acrimony, with—and I wish I could think of a more felicitous phrase to use, and I certainly don’t mean this about our children—a sense of piggy in the middle for the child, where they are being pulled each way and have to choose. And that is what the court process will have done to them. The reason for that is because this bill is—as is true for so much that the Labour Party in Government unthinkingly, well intentioned, but with soft thinking, puts through this House—putting the cart before the horse. More lawyers for the child, but real concern at the select committee stage from not one, not two, not five but from many submitters, actually, about a lack of training and skills for lawyers that they need when dealing with children.

So we give children their own lawyer in the process. This bill, fundamentally—it’s got a few other bells and whistles—prioritises lawyers for the child. But as, as I say, so many who came along made quite clear, when—when—at any time in their career, does a lawyer in New Zealand get training and skills in child development, in child psychology, in sexual violence, in trauma? I’ll tell you the answer: never. They just don’t. You get—and I don’t mean to be mean to them; I fit most of these criteria—

Kieran McAnulty: Hopeless!

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: middle-aged—no, no, that’s the member for Wairarapa; he shouldn’t be so hard on himself!—white men who get their law degree, and then suddenly they’re away and they’re counsel for the child. There is no ongoing education. There is no sense of understanding of child development and all of these things that are so important, and would be important for someone when dealing with a child in the most traumatic experience they’ve ever seen or had: the separation of their parents. As one expert—I think it was the Law Society—said to us, only the bad stuff comes before the court. Right? You are not dealing with functionality; it is only dysfunction, ultimately, that ends up in these court cases, and we are leaving it to lawyers and not the real experts.

And I want to say this, as well, I think it was the departmental report that we got at the end—I could be wrong; I think it was—that made the point: almost invariably—we asked to see what was happening in other jurisdictions—other jurisdictions, the Canadas, the Australians, the United States, and the United Kingdoms of this world put much more emphasis on psychologists, social workers, and the like with the real knowledge and training; not on lawyers doing this kind of work.

Finally, I just want to make the point I’ve already made but with some examples from the select committee process. I was surprised, actually: I knew, and had a sense, that this wasn’t good law, because, actually, what we were doing was working, and this was a solution looking for a problem—not saying that it was perfect, but a solution that didn’t fit the problems here. But I was surprised that the majority of submitters who came along and gave oral submissions in one way or another opposed this bill. I remember a child sexual abuse specialist who made quite clear, actually, that, in the court process, children are subject to manipulation before they go in, with treats, with other things. Prior to talking to their lawyer in the court process, they are readily susceptible to manipulation. This not something that lawyers, counsel for children, are in any way equipped to deal with.

We had iwi leaders—I think it was Dame Naida Glavish, a very clear, forthright leader amongst Māoridom, who warned “Don’t”—I’ve got it here in quotes; I wrote it down—“create a cottage industry.” That’s what this bill is doing. It is creating a cottage industry for middle-class lawyers who actually aren’t equipped to make the system, let alone the Family Court, better and to resolve things in a less traumatic and more just way for children and their whānau.

The Children’s Commissioner described the bill as—I wrote this one down, too—“weak, insipid, and inadequate”. I think I said to him at the time, “Tell us what you really think, Child Commissioner”. But that’s what he said: weak, insipid, and inadequate. And he said, as his daughter would say, “This bill is a real de-buzz”.

I want to quote probably one of the most eminent Queen’s Counsel in the area of family law Simon Jefferson, from an interview on From Nine to Noon, talking about a lawyer for the child. He said, “The risk, sounding a bit banal, a lawyer”—he was talking about lawyers for the child, as I say—“is someone with a law degree; that does not necessarily equip you to ascertain the views of a child or to exercise a judgment as to just what is relevant and what is not, and then to convey it to the court. Lawyers are lawyers. Now, of course, it’s a legal system, so that’s why they’re lawyers. But is it the best model? I’ve got my doubts. The lawyers who represent children, and I am one of many, we don’t really have much in the way of in-depth training; it’s just dumb experiential. What we pick up on the way about child development and understanding adult dynamics, understanding some of the typical dynamics that occur between parents in a Family Court, but it’s a bit crude; it’s a bit simplistic.”

I wish we could support this bill, but it’s the wrong track in family law—

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

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity, but I am quite concerned that the previous speaker, the Hon Simon Bridges, was, in fact, in fairyland, and I think we need to put it straight. We need to bring this room out of fairyland and into reality. So one point I’d like to make is the only thing I got out of that tirade of fairy dust was that this bill, evidently, provides more lawyers. Now, if we take a short trip back in history, the exact problem was brought in back in 2014, under the previous National Government, which actually took away the rights of people in the Family Court to have lawyers, which caused a huge backlog of cases. Madam Speaker, I would like to put it to you that justice delayed is justice denied, and the delay in the resolution of issues—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! I would prefer to be left out of this debate.

GINNY ANDERSEN: Sorry, Madam Speaker. Delay in resolution of issues in court is widespread, and these are the findings of the report that came back in 2019 on those changes: “It is a significant factor in undermining [the] confidence in the Family Court and can contribute to [the] deepening [of] parent … [family] whānau conflict.”

So what this bill does, in fact, is it restores the child at the centre of the case, it enables legal representation, and, furthermore, it puts a lens of family violence across the court that previously was lacking. So there are some excellent changes that will make our Family Court far more responsive to young people and far more equipped to resolve issues, instead of making them wait and wait and wait, as we’ve seen in the past. I would like to commend this bill to the House.

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, for the chance to speak at this, the third reading of the Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Bill. This is a piece of legislation that’s worked its way through the House over, of course, a number of months, and a little bit of time, of course, at the select committee. I wasn’t involved in that select committee process, but I made a point of trying to read and understand as many of the submissions as possible in that time, to get a flavour of the inherent tensions involved in this area of law and life, of course, from the perspective of families, and especially children going through this kind of situation.

I think the two fundamental tensions involve the role of the lawyer and the role of the child, if I may put it like that. In the case of the lawyer, we’ve heard already a couple of different perspectives across the House about the positive or negative aspects of a lawyer being involved, and I think it’s probably fair to say that all would agree that there are pros and cons to the involvement of the lawyer. Of course, the general thrust of the legislation is to increase the role of the lawyer, whereas the reforms of the last Government had been in the direction of wanting disputes to be settled without recourse to legal representation. The opposite now is true, and so I just want to explore a little bit the ways in which that might be helpful and also unhelpful.

So on the positive side of the ledger, the lawyer is trained and, indeed, required ethically to preserve the position of her client. The relationship between the lawyer and the client is a fiduciary one. It’s characterised by privilege, obligation of confidentiality, and so on. So we have a very traditional understanding of the fact that the lawyer is there to fight the corner of their client, or perhaps we might say the child who is in their care, so to speak—probably the incorrect phrase to use in the family law context, but I hope that the House knows what I mean by that.

On the other hand, to be less positive about the situation, even with the best will in the world, while the advocacy from the lawyer’s point of view might be in the best interests of the child as well as one or other of the parties—generally the parents, let’s say, for shorthand—the trouble with that, of course, is that there can be a hardening of positions, there can be a crystallisation of positions such that it makes it harder and slower to reach resolution. I think the previous contributor to the debate, Ginny Andersen, made a fair point in that, you know, the hoary old truism, justice delayed is justice denied. That’s fine as far as it goes, but the potential for this legislation to move us in entirely the wrong direction in that regard is very high indeed. The involvement of lawyers, traditionally, would lengthen rather than shorten proceedings, and while there are good reasons that we have lawyers advocating on behalf of parties in an adversarial system, and also in ways of operating our justice system that are perhaps a bit softer, the reality is that it seems inevitable to me that time frames will blow out even further with the greater involvement of lawyers.

Perhaps more importantly, though—well, actually, definitely more importantly—the role of the child and the place of the child in all this is something that we should consider very seriously as a Parliament. I think the case for involvement of a child is less finely balanced than in the case of the lawyer. I think, in the case of the lawyer, there are serious pros and cons either way. I think, in general terms, for a child to be involved in the proceedings in the sense of being kept informed and given opportunities to participate, I think that’s mostly positive, because, of course, it does relate to their situation, their life. We’ve got international legal obligations that say, of course, that the best interests of the child are to be met. Instinctively, it would probably feel to most of us as though the greater involvement the child has, the better chance they have of having their say about what is best for them.

On the other hand, though, it does need to be stated for the record that over-exposure of a child to what is an essentially difficult situation, one of dispute—that’s the nature of these things, as the Hon Simon Bridges has noted. You know, no one’s coming to Family Court to have a chat and pass the time of day; it’s characterised by dysfunction, not function. So the over-exposure of children to that process, however well-intentioned it may be, the reality is that that is a considerable potential avenue and cause of stress for a young person. As I say, those points were made by submitters to the select committee process.

So how do we bring these two together? If we think about the role of the lawyer and the role of the child, these being the two key players who are affected by the legislation, I think the answer must be that while changes should be made to the system—because, as I say, we don’t pretend that it is perfect now; certainly, it is not—the answer, surely, must lie in having better dispute resolution, and to the extent that lawyers do need to be involved, that they have better training to deliver the kinds of outcomes that the Government envisages by this bill. Because merely to state that the appointment of the lawyer for the child should take into account such considerations as the cultural background, personality training, and experience of the lawyer to represent the child—that’s all very well, and I don’t think anyone here would disagree with that. But to simply prescribe that without a corresponding shift or lift in the ability of the legal profession to actually deliver that, it is something in the realm of, well, I mean, good intentions, let’s just say that.

So, you know, again, you can understand the intent of having the age and the maturity of the child taken into account to the extent that the lawyer must explain proceedings to them. Again, I don’t think anyone would disagree. Again, I would say—actually, I would go further than to say that that would be a matter of common sense; I would say that’s already a matter of ethical obligation. I think that it’s clear that any lawyer who fails to keep the child involved to the extent that is appropriate would be failing in their duty. So that’s non-controversial, as far as it goes, but it also doesn’t do anything really to solve the practical problem of how a child’s interests are best served.

Just a couple of quick further notes in passing, this being the third reading. While a couple of issues were aired in the committee of the whole House stage, including by yours truly, the common practice oftentimes for people trying to understand the background of legislation is simply to go to the third reading speeches. If anyone’s reading this now in the years to come, I say you’ve made a good choice. The commencement of the bill reflects the fact that there will be a stocktake, so-called, of matters that are relevant to the passage of the bill, and so it’ll come into force at different times, as indicated in that commencement section. More detail on that I don’t think we need, at this stage.

So I think I’ll simply close by again highlighting that on this side of the House, we’re not convinced that these fundamental tensions will be resolved in a way that is helpful, that of the role of the lawyer. In particular, we fear that there will be an increase in time, not a reduction, by requiring and encouraging greater involvement of the lawyer in this, as opposed to experts such as those in the realm of psychology, and so forth. Of course, in relation to the child, we do sound a note of caution about the intent of maximising involvement potentially being one that is limited at best and potentially actively counter-productive when a child is over-exposed to negative matters in what is already, of course, a stressful situation. So I’ll end my contribution there, reiterating the position, as already stated by our first speaker on the bill, the Hon Simon Bridges, that we cannot support it.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I do feel sorry for the member, Mr Bridges, who I suspect may receive a call from the Children’s Commissioner at some stage this week in relation to that partial quote of his submission. I’d recommend to those interested at home that they review the Children’s Commissioner’s full submission, many of whose recommendations were picked up in this final version of the bill.

As my colleague has mentioned, this bill takes its genesis from the findings of the Te Korowai Ture ā-Whānau report—the report of the 2014 National Government reforms of the justice system. And the nub of that report essentially said that the system at the time reinforced that decisions be made about children, not that decisions be made involving children, and that is the nub of the problem. That is the nub of what we’re trying to resolve with this bill. What the situation was then was not a smoother, better, quicker system. We base our changes based on evidence. We base our changes based on the recommendations of the experts who produced that very thorough report. I commend this bill to the House.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just want to mihi to the work and the kaupapa of my colleague who has just resumed her seat, Vanushi Walters, in the space of children’s rights, because we have worked in that space together. I also hoped to raise some issues that might educate the member who resumed his seat before her, Chris Penk.

The genesis of this bill might, in fact, go further back than any report that took place in Aotearoa New Zealand and our broken system of justice when it comes, in particular, to treating children and young people, right back to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child—one of the most binding, universally accepted, consensus-based pieces of international human rights law, which New Zealand has ratified. In fact, the views of the child must be taken into account as a matter of law in order to uphold their welfare and their wellbeing in all decisions that impact them. So this bill is ensuring that New Zealand’s justice system is more compliant with law that we’ve already acceded to in the international space. It is already domestic law that we were breaching when we abolished the lawyer for child under the last National Party - led Government. In that way, it will mean that our justice system is more effective, more compassionate, and more consistent with what we know as being the absolute bottom-line rights of all children and young people. It’s not about expediency of decision making; it’s about those decisions being right, and this bill moves us toward that.

Lawyers for child were some of the most highly trained, specialised, effective members of the bar. They don’t need extra training. They were made redundant by a Government that didn’t believe in human rights or children’s rights, or respect the expertise that already existed at the bar, and we are restoring that. This is an evidence-based piece of law because we know that decisions that impact the wellbeing and welfare of children, the rights of children, will only ever be effective if their views are taken into account appropriately, both culturally and in terms of their age. The lawyers for child have that training. That’s what makes this effective.

More than that, if members opposite are concerned about the exposure of children and young people to the justice system being harmful, they are right. I suspect that this would then mean that they would agree with us that the age of criminal responsibility should never have been lowered to 10 years old, that 17-year-olds should never have been left in the criminal justice system. They don’t agree with that, so that isn’t their concern. What we’re seeing with this bill is a return to a human rights - based child rights system in our criminal justice system. We have a long way to go, but this is a step in the right direction, and so I do commend the bill to the House.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I stand and take a short call, and I won’t be taking the full 10 minutes on the Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Bill.

Now that we are at our third reading, we know that this bill is actually going to go forward into law without our concerns having being met, both from this side of the House and from the National Party. But there are some things that we do like about this bill, and I think it’s important that we pick out those things, because the ACT Party will be supporting this through its third reading, and I think it’s quite important to pick out what we like about it.

What I do like is the stocktake that’s going to occur, because what we are, effectively, doing is assessing in real time what works well and what doesn’t, and then we look to implement what works well in our Family Court system. I think that that’s a far better try than doing nothing at all, and after many years of watching our Family Court system fail our children, I’m pleased to see that we have a way forward. I think a stocktake in the first instance is pretty good, because we don’t have the ability right now to be able to say that certain things that will be implemented will work. We need to trial them first.

We know as well that the Family Court are struggling under tremendous pressure at the moment. Their workload is absolutely huge. And with that, I do understand what the National Party has raised, those points that they’ve made, but don’t feel that doing nothing at all is right. I don’t feel—well, the ACT Party does not feel—that that’s an option, to do nothing, and we’re willing to back this bill because of that.

One of the other things I like is the implementation dates. If used smartly, they can ensure that when parts of the trial are proven, they can be confirmed instead of unnecessarily waiting for a magic date for it all to happen. So I think that being able to have that stocktake and then implement a rolling implementation on the Act is actually beneficial for our children.

That brings me to what I like the most about this bill, and that’s the focus on our tamariki, the focus on our children, making sure that they have an understanding of what is actually going on around them. We’ve raised concerns during the select committee process and also during the committee stage about how we would like to ensure that the best lawyer is appointed for the child, not a lawyer based on what their ethnic group is or their skin colour may be, and that has been ignored. But, hopefully, during the stocktake and during the trial, we can find what works and what doesn’t work. We have put our concerns on record and we will be looking to see how that actually works out in practice. Nevertheless, we still think that this is a good way forward, and the setting out of both the stocktake and that staged implementation should mean that we see some improvement overall and better outcomes for the families at the end of it.

There was much to be agreed upon here, and it’s sad when so many raised concerns that were brought before the House, hoping in a way to get some sort of middle road and finding that there was no middle road to be got at all; it was just forging ahead. Ultimately, the middle road would have seen benefits not just for our tamariki but also for the families and, hopefully, for the courts as well. Because at the end of the day, when we do create these laws, we are placing them on the communities and, hopefully, for their benefit. In that respect, I hope that this does go through for the benefit of families as well as our tamariki.

ACT believes that this is a good bill for our children and we do support this through its final reading. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour—Wairarapa): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Good on the ACT Party. We may not agree on many things, but for the second time in a week they have demonstrated that they’ve been able to apply some principles and despite some misgivings, they can vote for a bill because, on the balance of things, actually they can see the sense of it.

What a shame the National Party can’t do the same. Here we are in the Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Bill and the root of the need for this bill comes from the 2014 reforms that the National Party brought in under Judith Collins, the Hon Judith Collins who was justice Minister at the time, forcing us to bring in an independent panel to look into it. And they say, “What we have heard, seen, read, and researched has convinced us that the elements of the 2014 reforms must be changed.” And here they are with an opportunity to admit to the country that they tried something, it didn’t work, let’s go back to what it was and actually make some improvements. They can’t do that because they cannot admit that they were wrong and they cannot admit that their leader was wrong, and I think that’s a shame.

HARETE HIPANGO (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Taking this call this evening—I only have a short call, but I will share with you, Madam Speaker, the House, and listeners that it’s somewhat galling to hear people in the House this evening speak on something they do not know other than based on what they have read.

So I speak, having been a Family Court lawyer and also lawyer for children, and I speak from experience, and I’m not going to talk about politics; I am going to talk about good law. This, in my submission, is not necessary, and therefore it’s not good law. We, as Family Court practitioners, have been directed by Family Court practice notes—as lawyer for children, as counsel for children. This bill is not necessary. What it replicates, again, is the State telling Family Court specialists, Family Court lawyers—those lawyers who are in continuing legal education; we prize the relevance and the significance and importance of learning more about what we do as child advocates, and giving the best of what we do to the children, their welfare, their best interests, and articulating their view. This bill is not necessary to do that.

Also, it’s somewhat galling that the members in this House and Government fail to deliberately listen to the views of the experts in this field. The submissions that were made by the New Zealand Law Society family law section, representing 1,100 family law specialists—half of whom have 20 years’ experience in this field; I happen to be one of those—and referencing to my former colleagues the fact that this Government and, regrettably, the Justice Committee declined to listen to the relevance of their views and the application of what we know best in terms of advocating and representing the welfare and the best interests of the children. Apparently, this Government seems to know better.

The National Party, for good reason, did not support this bill. It is not necessary. When it came to the committee of the whole House, there was just total dismissal of some amendments that were proposed, and it’s interesting, because this bill is flawed in many ways. It highlights the fact that there should be evidence-based research as to how best to deliver the representation of the children’s interests and the children’s views. This bill is also deficient when it highlights that there’s amendments just to the Care of Children Act and just to the Family Violence Act. Interesting, because, as a Family Court counsel appointed specialist for children, our practice note actually talks about representation under the Care of Children Act, the Family Proceedings Act, the Oranga Tamaraki Act, the Family Violence Act, the Property (Relationships) Act, the Child Support Act, the Marriage Act, the Civil Union Act. However, there’s only two amendments that have been expressed within this view overlooking the application of counsel for children, representing them in all those other specialist areas of law that impact on the child.

So, as I say, it is somewhat galling to hear members in the House advocating as if they know best, but interestingly enough, as I said in the first reading and in the second reading of this bill—and I do happen to know more about this than any other member in this House—

Kieran McAnulty: Ha, ha!

HARETE HIPANGO: —in this area of law, and it’s interesting that those who laugh and smirk and sneer are actually not doing that to the member, as I stand and address this House, but to the children and to the advocates. That’s why I’m passionate and so fired up, because the members in this House are doing a disservice to our children.

I gave my career in making sure that our children and our vulnerable were given the best service, were given the best articulation of that representation, and, regrettably, this bill fails to do it. That’s why I’m disheartened, and I’m disheartened that members in this House who laugh and who smirk and who toss discourtesies across the House are unbecoming and inappropriate, because this is not about the member who’s addressing the House or the public; this is about our children. As I said, this is a done deal, and irrespective of what other members in the House will express, I shall continue to articulate and to advocate for those who are most subjected to vulnerabilities. This is a done deal, and I am saddened and do not support this.

HELEN WHITE (Labour): I rise in support of this bill. I was actually an employment lawyer, but I was married to a senior family lawyer who did exactly this kind of work. I often actually was pleased to be doing something that meant just slightly less to people than their families and their children. I was absolutely admiring of the work done by counsel for children in the time that I saw them working. They were extremely selfless. They were sensitive, and they were not egotistical. They didn’t actually make themselves the most important person in the room. They often made the children that, and that was one of the things that will be very important to fulfilling that role.

In 2014, the National Government got rid of a whole lot of support that people had in the most terrible crisis of their lives. They lost their buddy. They lost their lawyer. So I don’t agree with Mr Bridges when he talks about lawyers in the way he does, because there are different kinds of lawyers, and these lawyers that are supported in this legislation are going to do an excellent job supporting our children and their whānau, and they will look to conciliation, and they will be an asset to this country. Thank you. I support the bill.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): It’s a pleasure to speak on this bill, the Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Bill, which I very much support, but I’d like to take a short opportunity to discuss some of the amendments here which have been made by a very hard-working Justice Committee. I thank my colleagues on the other side of the House, from the ACT Party, from the National Party, who also participated in what has been, despite all appearances of fire and brimstone in this debate, a very collegial process, one of finding consensus around very complex points of law, where we have relied on the lawyers’ expertise in the room and those presenters to us.

I will commend the committee on what has been, as far as my observation of select committee goes, an unusually proactive approach to the development of policy. And may I just highlight the opportunities for children to participate in decisions affecting them being one of those nitty-gritty issues which everyone in the committee room, even those members who ultimately opposed it, has gotten into in a very detailed and complex way, and I commend everyone’s work on that, and the Office of the Clerk, who has ably assisted us in calling experts and discussing these issues with the experts in the room. So thank you to all of the members, and I commend this bill to the House.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Madam Speaker. That member, Arena Williams, spoke for one minute and 11 seconds. Congratulations!

It’s great to take the opportunity to take a call on the Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Bill, a bill which the National Party will not be supporting. But I do think it’s important here to highlight that this is dealing with a very important and a very complex area of law and one which does have a huge impact on many, many New Zealanders. I think it’s important to acknowledge all of the different people who play such a critical role helping families, helping children through these situations, trying to seek resolutions in these difficult times.

The National Party is not supporting this bill because, effectively, it is not actually going to provide much of a solution to the challenges which we do face in our Family Court. Effectively, we have a situation whereby this bill simply does one simple thing, which is it seeks to put in place more legal representation without trying to deal with the underlying issues which need to be dealt with. Nor does it seek to actually try to ensure that those lawyers representing the child, who are now put in place, will actually have the necessary qualifications or experience or tools to be able to do this.

It ignores the, I think, very important submission from the Law Society, which said that the bill should be deferred until more appropriate participation models are researched in order to ensure that the child’s voice is actually given a voice appropriately in the process.

So we’ve heard lots of impassioned speeches—very short speeches, I must add—from the other side, talking very briefly about their passion to ensure that children have ability to have lawyers and representation and talking about the people that they know of, who they know are lawyers and can do this job. But, effectively, what this bill does is it says in clause 7, “When appointing a lawyer to represent a child, the court or Registrar must, so far as is reasonably practicable, appoint a lawyer who is, by reason of their personality, cultural background, training, and experience, suitably qualified to represent the child.” Nothing in this piece of legislation does anything to ensure that there will be lawyers available with the appropriate personalities, cultural backgrounds, trainings, experiences, or qualifications to represent those children.

Effectively, it’s putting in place a situation where it says, “These children must have a lawyer and their lawyer must be able to do all these things.”, but no ability to actually ensure that lawyer can do all of those different things. So this piece of legislation is a piece of legislation which, to put it kindly, like the Law Society says, “Should be deferred.” Or, to put it bluntly, as the National Party says, “It will make no difference.”, and therefore we will not be supporting the piece of legislation.

I think it’s important to point out that the Ministry of Justice review of the 2014 reforms that the National Party did undertake showed that out-of-court proceedings take on average 37 days, whilst in-court proceedings take approximately, on average 268 days—a substantial increase in number of days where proceedings are taking place in court rather than outside of court. And therefore, the Government’s role and the Government’s focus should be in seeking to try to see as many cases being dealt with out of court as possible, because we are dealing with family situations where there are children and where 268 days—whilst it might not seem a long time to Kieran McAnulty on the other side, it is a long time for a young child like me! No, no—like the children elsewhere.

Hon Member: They are awake.

SIMEON BROWN: And now they’re awake. I was just checking to see if he was actually listening and he is listening, so that’s fantastic.

Hon Member: Five minutes till bedtime!

SIMEON BROWN: Five minutes till bedtime, Kieran. Five more minutes.

Arena Williams: Five minutes of this!

SIMEON BROWN: Five more minutes of this, that’s right. You have me to keep you awake, Kieran, before your bedtime.

Hon Member: Or lull you to sleep!

SIMEON BROWN: Or lull you to sleep. So the priority here for the Government should be about ensuring that the process is undertaken in the most time efficient and effective manner and as that Ministry of Justice review found, that the out-of-court proceedings was the most timely and most effective way of dealing with these situations. Our concern on this side of the House is that by simply inserting more legal representation into these situations—particularly without ensuring that they have the adequate training or qualifications in these situations and without, as the Law Society says, actually having the research basis to ensure that this is the most appropriate form of trying to deal with these situations—that all this piece of legislation does is change the law. It means that the Labour Party MPs can say they’ve done something, ticked a box. But, actually, the families and particularly the young people, the children who are involved in these situations, are no better off at the end of the day, and, in fact, we may see more cases going through the court proceedings, which we know will take that much longer and with much more difficultly and challenges for those young people as they go through this process. So the National Party will not be supporting this piece of legislation.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): This bill is about refocusing the Family Court on the children, at its heart, and focusing lawyers for children on children, but it has tonight become an opportunity to relitigate the frankly disastrous Collins reforms of 2014, which so incredibly lengthened the times taken by Family Court cases for the very children that the other side claim to be able to protect. I am delighted to stand up and support this bill not just as a member of the Justice Committee but also as a lawyer of some 25 years in the Family Court—not only that but as someone who, just before she was elected, was in the process of completing a study on whether Family Court lawyers add or take away from Family Court resolutions for children. I can tell you, having spent the 18 months prior to my election doing that work, the international research and the New Zealand research is in fact conclusive: lawyers shorten disputes, not lengthen them, and that is what the disastrous experiment of the Collins reforms proved. I am delighted to recommend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 87

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

Noes 33

New Zealand National 33.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Hazardous Substances Assessments) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): I move that the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Hazardous Substances Assessments) Amendment Bill be now read for a first time. I also present a legislative statement to the House.

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 DAVID PARKER: Madam Speaker, given that I did that in the wrong order, do you want me to move that name again, or is it OK as I’ve—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): OK, go on.

Hon DAVID PARKER: I move, That the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Hazardous Substances Assessments) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Environment Committee to consider the bill.

The Government has committed to making changes, where needed, to improve efficiency and to better safeguard people and the environment, and this bill actually advances all of those three aims in that it better protects the environment, it has positive outcomes for the health and safety of our people and communities, and it does both of these things by preventing or managing the effect of hazardous substances.

The purpose of the bill is to amend the underlying Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996 in order to improve the assessment and reassessment of hazardous substances. These substances include the chemicals that are widely used in industry and in agriculture. The main changes being made to the hazardous substances law relate to substances—chemicals—not to new organisms. Under the HSNO Act, which I’m now going to shorten my reference to, the Environmental Protection Authority, or what we know as the EPA, is the regulator responsible for making decisions on whether or not to approve new hazardous substances for use. The EPA sets the necessary controls to manage risk and to safeguard people and protect the environment. These controls set out conditions as to how a substance can be used. The EPA also reassesses hazardous substances already in use and makes decisions about whether the controls need to be updated and whether the substance should continue to be approved.

Right now, the assessment and reassessment of hazardous substances in New Zealand is very time consuming and very resource intensive. As a consequence, since 2001, the EPA has only been able to complete 54 reassessments, and, in addition to that, there are outstanding 43 chemicals in urgent need of reassessment. These lengthy and costly processes mean that it takes time for beneficial chemicals, including safer alternatives to existing ones, to be approved for use. Delayed reassessments may also mean that chemicals continue to be used when their safety and environmental controls may no longer be fit for purpose. For these reasons, amendments to the HSNO Act are needed to improve the process for assessing and reassessing hazardous substances and to enable the EPA to make better use of relevant information from international regulators. The amendments include changes to enable better use of information from comparable international regulations and make other improvements to the reassessment process.

It had originally been envisaged that these changes would be made both via changes to the HSNO Act and via associated changes to the related secondary legislation, which is known as the “Methodology Order”. However, in the process of the bill being drafted, it was decided that it would be better to put all of these changes into the Act itself. It had originally been intended that the EPA would undertake a subsequent consultation as part of the process of amending the Methodology Order, and, as a result, some of the details of those changes were not consulted on in the 2019 consultation. However, there will still be an opportunity for public submissions on proposed changes to the Methodology Order as part of the public submissions that will occur during the select committee process.

The bill also includes three technical amendments to the HSNO Act to correct omissions or ambiguous language. These are not related to the main policy changes in the bill; however, the bill presents a timely opportunity to make these corrections too. These amendments, overall, enable the use of international regulator information. Amendments will enable the EPA to apply information from international regulators, considering the New Zealand context, without, effectively, having to redo the research from the start. An obvious example of this is some of the work that’s done in Europe. They’ve got very thorough practices in terms of their assessments of new chemicals. Quite often there isn’t a compelling economic case for those new chemicals to be registered in the New Zealand market, because we’re quite a small market, and we want to encourage the registration of new chemicals, especially where those new chemicals are more effective and less environmentally harmful and less risky for humans using them than the current chemicals being used. So we think that this will facilitate the consideration by the EPA of alternatives. The amendments will also provide a simplified process for the EPA to update hazard classifications of substances and corresponding controls based on information from international regulators.

Furthermore, the changes to the Act will enable the EPA to temporarily restrict certain uses of hazardous substances during a reassessment process. The bill will also make other improvements to the reassessment process to either increase efficiency or increase transparency. These improvements will enable the EPA to engage in more targeted consultation for certain reassessments. They’ll require the EPA to develop a publicly available work plan for reassessment. They’ll provide a simplified process for the EPA to update hazard classifications of substances when the EPA has undertaken a recent assessment of a related hazardous substance. They’ll enable the delegation of some EPA decision-making. They’ll also enable the EPA to align the time frames of assessment and reassessment of related hazardous substances.

As I mentioned earlier, there are three technical amendments to the Act which are unrelated to the policy of improving assessments but have been included to correct omissions or improve ambiguous language. Those amendments are an amendment to section 68 of the Act. This is a provision relating to ministerial call-in, where an application can be called in and determined by the Minister for the Environment rather than the EPA. The bill amends the Act to make it clear that the ministerial call-in provisions apply to publicly notified reassessments. Currently, there’s an ambiguity regarding this. The second technical amendment is to correct an omission that occurred in 2015, when section 103A was created—that relates to powers of entry for inspection related to hazardous substances—but the references to the new section were not included in other parts of the Act. The amendment fixes that. And the third technical amendment is an amendment to create a penalty for an offence under the Act which was created in 2015 for failing to comply with any of the requirements in an EPA notice. There was an omission in the 2015 amendments, in that an offence was created without a corresponding penalty. So that’s fixed too.

To conclude, this bill will improve the efficiency and speed of assessment and reassessment of hazardous substances. It’s important that we can more quickly get safer and more environmentally friendly chemicals in use in this country, and better controlled use of older, less safe substances. Transparency is improved, particularly by the requirement of the EPA to publish a work plan for reassessments. For those reasons, I commend the bill to the House.

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

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s appropriate that on a cold winter’s night when the Parliament is in session—

Maureen Pugh: And the lights are on.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: —and debating issues of high importance, the lights are on. It’s a good thing. That’s a good thing, because after the Minister’s speech—and I have to say, my colleague sitting to my right here, Stuart Smith, said he would wake me up. He said, “You won’t miss your call, Scott. I’ll wake you up when the Minister is finished.” This bill—look, without making too much mockery of it—falls, I think, into the category of “dull but worthy”. It’s actually, on the face of it, I think a pretty practical change to the way that the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) assesses and reassesses the multitude of hazardous organisms and products and substances that they have to look into and that they’re charged with providing information to us about.

The thing that fascinated me most about my reading on this bill in advance of speaking in the House tonight was that I thought that this may have been a grand, bold, inspirational idea of the Government. Well, it turns out it wasn’t. Actually, this is an initiative taken by the EPA themselves. This is something that they have said, “Well, look, we are having to use a very cumbersome, a very slow, a very intense process to assess and reassess hazardous substances, and there’s got to be a better way of doing it.” I come to this Parliament having had a number of years in the commercial sphere, long before being a member of Parliament, and one of those roles involved me leading a company that was working in the occupational health and safety area, providing personal protective equipment for people.

It always amazed me that New Zealand had its own standards, for instance, for hardhats, and we had our own standard for steel-cap boots, and we had our own standard that we had decided for hearing protection and earmuffs and earplugs and things like that, and yet here we were able to import these products from overseas countries that had their own very good standards. But no, we thought that in New Zealand, we had to come up and invent our own wheel to define what the protection level for earmuffs should be or what the impact measurements should be for hardhats. So too it is that we have this kind of culture in New Zealand that sometimes serves us very well. It’s sort of the number eight wire culture, where we try and invent our own solution and cure and fix for almost anything, when, actually, if we took a bit of time and effort to have a look around at what happens in other jurisdictions and see what they do and how they do it and how they’ve done it and how they’ve arrived at the answers that they have, then in many instances we could shortcut our process.

So I was delighted all those years ago when at one point in the health and safety game, with earmuffs and hardhats and steel-cap boots and things, all we did was simply adopt the Australian standard. We adopted the Australian standard as being our standard and said, “Well, if it’s OK for the Aussies, it’s probably OK for us.” I get a sense that this piece of legislation is attempting, in its own way, to try and straddle that kind of issue in terms of what work the EPA do on hazardous substances. To me, on the face of it, I think it makes sense. I would think that our Environmental Protection Authority would rightly and properly want to consider and have a look at the testing regimes, the science, the analysis, and the investigation that’s been done by sister organisations to their own in other parts of the world, in places where we would trust the work that is being done.

So I’m thinking that perhaps if a substance or a chemical has been assessed in Australia or the United Kingdom or in Europe or maybe Canada or maybe in the United States, well, we would want to have a look at those and say, “Well, why do we need to start with a blank piece of paper and assume that no knowledge has been collected on this substance by anybody else anywhere else in the world? And we will be a beacon of light as New Zealanders and we will find out what the pros and the cons of this substance are, and we will come up with it, and we’ll just pretend that the rest of the world hasn’t done any investigative work, and we’ll pretend that the rest of the world hasn’t done any analysis or scientific interpretation of this particular substance or organism, and we will try and invent our own.” I think the risk of that for us as taxpayers and citizens is there’s a relatively high risk that that will be, firstly, painfully slow; secondly, it will be incredibly expensive and time consuming from a resource point of view, and, for us as taxpayers, we’ll all be paying for that.

There’s also a potential risk—although I have faith in the credibility of our EPA. I think they do a very good job, but I think that there would be a potential that we would be somehow out of whack and off beam in terms of some of the work that had been done in other jurisdictions and other parts of the world. So from my point of view, I think that this initiative taken by the EPA themselves—initiated by them, as I said—is something that they should be given some credit for. I think that the fact that they have been able to convince the Minister and his advisers that this is a piece of worthy work that is worth pursuing and that the reasons for it should be brought to the Parliament and that a piece of legislation should go through—I think that they need to be congratulated for that. I think also that the Minister needs to be congratulated for saying, “Well, actually, recognising the EPA, this is a good idea.” I think that if we can improve the timeliness of the assessment and reassessment of these hazardous substances, then that would be a good thing.

I was actually quite surprised, in my research leading up to this debate tonight, to find that the EPA actually is responsible for something in the order of 150,000 individual hazardous substances and organisms. They’re not responsible for them, but they are the agency, the regulator, that is required to decide what the level of risk is or what the level of safety is in terms of having those substances available and introduced and used in New Zealand. So that’s a very, very big responsibility, and the Minister mentioned the relatively small numbers of assessments and reassessments that are taking place, primarily because it’s a big job to have to do it. It’s an expensive, time consuming, and difficult job to do that if you’re starting from scratch on a blank piece of paper and not taking into account the work that’s been done in other jurisdictions.

So we, on this side of the House, are happy to support this bill at first reading. We look forward to teasing out some of the more technical issues at select committee, and I’m hoping that the Minister will give the select committee the full length of time required to do that, because I’m not anticipating that we will have thousands of submissions on it, unlike some other legislation that the committee is considering at the moment. But I do think that there will be a number of organisations that will want to make submissions, and I, for one, will want to hear what those are. I want to hear what the arguments for and against are, because there probably will be some, and we’ll see how it goes. But I think that, as I say, this piece of legislation falls into the “dull but worthy” category. It’s certainly very appropriate that the Parliament should be discussing it at quarter to nine on a winter’s evening when the lights are still on.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I call on Rachel—

RACHEL BROOKING (Labour): Brooking. Yes, thank you, Madam Speaker. I am sitting next to the other Rachel B and she might take a call in a minute but thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m delighted to be able to make a short contribution on the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Hazardous Substances Assessments) Amendment Bill that is—

Hon Scott Simpson: Say it again with meaning!

RACHEL BROOKING: Ha, ha! Very excited about this HSNO amendment bill. So as the Minister has said, it’s a piece of work to really add to the efficiencies of the system, and great to hear from the previous speaker, Scott Simpson, that we can agree that this is a good, even if dull, but worthy piece of legislation.

The Minister in his speech touched on the consultation process, as did the previous speaker, with where it’s been initiated from. Happy to talk briefly about how it was initiated with a compliance systems report done by some experts, and then both the Ministry for the Environment and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) went out for consultation in August and September in 2019. That discussion document mentioned this trusted regulator a lot of times through it, and that’s really this idea of having an international regulator that the Minister spoke about. Then the submissions were summarised and reported on at the end of 2019. So now we have this dull but worthy bill.

So not only—

Hon Scott Simpson: Ah, it’s a concession.

RACHEL BROOKING: Ha, ha! But I’m still excited by it. Not only does it improve the efficiencies, but it also requires the EPA to develop a publicly available work plan, and this is for hazardous substances reassessments. So this will be very useful for HSNO users to know when they can expect reassessments. So it’s in clause 4 of the bill, which will be the new section 20C, and this work plan is to list the chemicals or substances to be reassessed and give indicative time frames for the start of that work by the authority, and then it’s to be publicised on the internet. So I look forward to the submissions to the Environment Committee and working across the House on this bill. Thank you.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I sympathise with the previous speaker, Rachel Brooking, because I have had my name mistaken, but mine’s so much more difficult than yours, so it is quite understandable! I also have sympathy for the Minister who—you know, this is quite a mouthful really. The Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Hazardous Substances Assessments) Amendment Bill—fortunately, I’m only going to say it once. The Minister had to say it several times and so I can see why he had to struggle with it a bit.

It is a dull but worthy bill. I know from experience that we are a small market, as the Minister said in his remarks. And actually, it’s quite important because often these chemicals are brought into the country, or attempted to be, into such a small market that the chemical companies just simply don’t find it worthwhile to actually bring them into the country and go through the process, given the size of the market that we are, to get the relevant process, to get the approvals.

That has a significant impact on our industries in New Zealand and often also it can be something like, for example, a chemical used in cereal crops that could be used in vegetables or something else, say a fungicide, and that actually has to have a label claim. So it’s not just having the original work to say it’s safe; it also then has a claim process that it has to go through for the particular crop that it’s going to be used in, because it may well be used in a different way, but it’s the same base chemical. They run up against those costs that can be quite significant and crippling, and then we as a country are poorly affected by that, because our industry is unable to utilise those products.

So this is a really sensible way to go about things, to be able to utilise existing research from other jurisdictions. We like to think of ourselves as being quite unique in a unique climate, and we are indeed in some respects, but most of these substances that are being used will not be affected by the slightly different climate and conditions that we have in this country. So a significant step forward.

I note that the consultation for this began two years ago, which shows how long it takes to get through the process to get a bill in front of us. You’d think in that time they’d, hopefully, come up with a better name for the bill that’d be easier to say. However, it is what it is and there’s probably good reasons why it’s sheeted home to the legislation that it’s amending. But none the less it is kind of hard work.

I think one of the things I’ll be looking to find out during the process in the select committee—and I think it will actually be one of those select committee processes that while there won’t be a large number of submissions, they will be enlightening because they’ll all be the people that are utilising the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) at least annually if not more often, and we need to make it easier for them. So we’ll be getting a lot of good information from those entities on how this bill can be made to work as best it can.

I think that I’ll also be looking to find out would this apply to something like the GMO grass that would lower methane emissions quite significantly, and I know that’s something the Green Party are very keen on. They want to get that GMO out in the market as quickly as possible, as we do, because we want to lower our methane emissions, and so that will be fantastic when we get that up. I know the Green MPs will be just so excited about this when it gets to select committee, and we’ll just come in behind and we’ll support the Green Party through that. I know they’re very keen on GMOs!

There are 150,000 hazardous substances that the EPA are administering. That’s a significant number and they do require reassessments quite frequently. I’ve seen that through ag chemicals that I’ve used in the past, and I know that for very good reasons they do have to come up, new evidence comes into the realm, and we do need to go through that and in our own environment. I note that the Minister said there will be a provision here for temporary changes to the regulations for using those particular chemicals, or may be used in that period while that reassessment is being carried out. I think that’s a very sensible change.

Some of these things, with all the best intentions in the world, the regulators are tied to the legislation that they have to work under. And if they can’t work efficiently through that, then it is not only an economic cost but also potentially a health cost and an environmental cost. I note that there’s only a relatively small cost-benefit here of $10 million to our economy over 10 years, which doesn’t sound like a lot. I actually wonder about that assessment, because I seriously doubt that includes the cost to the users of these chemicals, the opportunity cost that’s lost because of these chemicals not coming into the country in a timely manner or, in fact, being removed if they are no longer appropriate, because I suspect that would be a lot more than $10 million. But we will explore that through that process.

So, look, we’ve got a great select committee in the Environment Committee. We have certainly got our share of work at the moment, and that is a big workload to get through. But this will be quite different, something which will be kind of light relief, I suppose it might be, for the committee to get our teeth into, and it’ll be a quite different style and tenor from the submitters, I suspect, than the bills that we’re working through at the moment. So with that, I commend the bill to the House.

TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. It’s appropriate that I start this with an acknowledgment of a kaumātua who passed away last week, from Tauranga Moana. His name is Dr Kihi Ngātai, and he was a well-respected person. His legacy lives on through his descendants. Last week he lay in state at Whareroa Marae. It was a very important occasion, and I want to acknowledge his passing. And also, connected to the bill that we’re talking about, the people at Whareroa Marae have real concerns about some of the chemicals that are floating around in the air, around down at the port of Tauranga. They have real concerns about the quality of the air around them. They have real concerns about the industrial estate that’s popped up around them, that has very hazardous substances and chemicals that give them great cause for concern.

So I want to stand and, with the other side of the House—all sides of the House, it seems—give my widespread support for this, which is something that’s been brought forward, as said by a previous speaker, by the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), who are the regulators of those hazardous substances that we have here in New Zealand. We understand that their job is to assess and to reassess those chemicals in our environment that are dangerous to us but, if managed correctly, actually don’t pose the imminent threat that they could do if they didn’t have that level of management around them. We also acknowledge that the Environmental Protection Authority have noted that it’s a very timely process, a time-consuming, resource-intensive process, to be able to go through assessments and reassessments as well. So this bill should give New Zealanders some level of comfort that we have a watchdog that is out there that is monitoring the chemicals in our environment, that is reassessing whether or not chemicals are dangerous to our health. And it should absolutely give some certainty to the whānau that live around Whareroa Marae that we have a watchdog in place. It is the EPA, and they’ve brought this bill before the House.

I look forward, as part of the Environment Committee, to ushering this bill through, but also to hearing some of those submissions, whether in support or against, so that we can better understand how this legislation really does and is going to affect New Zealanders into the future. So I commend this bill to the House.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker, thank you. I am pleased to take a call on the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Hazardous Substances Assessments) Amendment Bill, and the Green Party is pleased to support the bill.

So what are the hazardous substances that this bill will improve the regulation of? Well, hazardous substances are, according to one definition I found, chemicals, mixes of chemicals that can be explosive, flammable, corrosive, have a capacity to oxidise and/or be toxic to people and the environment. They include substances such as petrol, cleaning products, fireworks, solvents, cosmetics, and, one review panel noted, even the ingredients of toothpaste. I found estimates of 200,000 different substances which fit this definition and which are in use in New Zealand. So the safe acquisition, use, and disposal of hazardous substances is important for human health, for nature, and for the economy. There would be some native plants and wildlife which would be potentially extinct without the use of 1080, the aerial pest control operations using about a teaspoon of 1080 per hectare. So that’s one really beneficial hazardous substance—but then substances like PFOS and PFOA, those organic pollutants which are used in firefighting foams and have caused significant impacts with their leaching into waterways.

So the purpose of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act in section 4 is “to protect the environment, and the health and safety of people and communities, by preventing [and] managing the adverse effects of hazardous substances and new organisms”. I’d like to correct the misrepresentations by Stuart Smith: the Green Party is not looking forward to encouraging the use of GMOs. I think he was being sarcastic. To protect human wellbeing and nature, we need to have a really robust assessment system for chemicals, for their impacts and whether particular substances should be able to be used, in the first instance, by whom, and under what conditions. We need a similarly robust system for assessing the sites where they’re used and stored. We need solid, reliable information on the transport, use, and disposal of hazardous substances, a track and trace system to understand where they are and what volumes are in storage and in use around New Zealand from the time that they’re imported or manufactured here through that whole transport, use, and disposal system. That is something we do not currently have.

We need a really good system for dealing with hazardous substances at the end of their life. We need a clear regulatory framework where agencies are clear about their responsibilities. We need a strong and effective compliance monitoring and enforcement regime, and we need a good financial assurance regime so that manufacturers and users are responsible for the disposal and reprocessing costs and we don’t get orphan sites where the clean-up costs fall on the community and Government rather than the user.

This bill is focused on the first of those seven elements, the whole assessment process. While the Green Party certainly supports the bill, there needs to be a lot more work in other areas to improve the regulation and management of hazardous substances in our country. Government needs to allocate significantly more resources and the Ministry for the Environment more staff time to prioritise improving the regime. There was, as Rachel Brooking noted, an independent review panel which looked at the whole compliance and monitoring and enforcement regime for hazardous substances and found that it was a very cluttered landscape without clear responsibilities. So that’s a bit of work that has still to be progressed by Government.

Returning to the bill, the role of the Environmental Protection Authority, the EPA, is to, obviously, consider applications for the use of individual hazardous substances, assess them, identify their hazardous properties, set conditions of their use if they approve them, and also provide guidance. And they can reassess chemicals which are already approved for use and see whether the existing controls are fit for purpose. So this bill is part of a programme of work by the EPA and the Ministry for the Environment to modernise how hazardous substances are regulated. In progress there’s work on shifting the whole classification system for hazardous substances to the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals, the GHS system, and developing a new database to support it. That was due to be finished by the middle of this year. I haven’t seen anything in the press release section of the EPA’s website, but I hope that work is well under way. That’s an internationally agreed system, and we are bound to implement it by being a member of the OECD.

There was consultation—there were about 44 submissions on this document as a prelude to this legislation—and certainly it’s going to improve the reassessment process with this concept of trusted international regulators. It’s going to provide a simpler process to update hazard classifications for substances and controls. As others have noted, the current system is very slow and resource hungry, and we’ve got a low profile in chemical manufacture, so it makes sense to rely on international data where those regulators are trusted.

One key point the Greens want to make is that when the EPA is using information from overseas regulators, they need to ensure that they are not relying on the data and research produced by chemical companies when they’re assessing impacts. The information must be scientifically robust and it must be from independent sources. The EPA must also demand much more transparency from applicants and agrichemical companies around the chemical formulation of proprietary products so that the public and regulators know exactly what they’re dealing with and can better assess the impacts. Apiculture New Zealand made a submission on the consultation document, and they noted that they had attended a pre-hearing meeting for approval of an insecticide containing sulfoxaflor—I’m not sure that’s correctly pronounced—but the applicant had withheld all of the information. They were only allowed to see the data, but not to take it away and study it.

One of the really good improvements in this bill is allowing the EPA to order the immediate suspension of particular chemicals. The thresholds in the principal Act are too cumbersome. They’re too high, because they require, and I quote, “significant actual or imminent danger to human health or safety [and] the environment”. Because of that, the EPA has never been able to suspend the use of a substance. I just note, in our history, when organophosphates and carbamate insecticides, which are quite widely used in New Zealand—international regulators began expressing concern about their use between 2000 and 2010, and in New Zealand reassessment of carbamate and those other organophosphate insecticides only began in 2012. There was a decision in 2013 where the EPA revoked approvals for some of them. Canada had done that 10 years previously. So this ability to suspend and this ability to rely on trusted international regulators will help phase out, I think, some of the more problematic chemicals.

We still need to deal with the compliance, monitoring, and enforcement, and we need a track and trace system so that we’ve got a much better handle on hazardous substances coming in, where they’re stored, where they’re used, and a much better system to prevent orphan sites which the Government has to clean up, as happened at Mataura. Thank you.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. ACT generally agrees with the problem definition set out in this bill, but what is the opportunity that’s being left on the floor of the Minister’s office?

There is an Environmental Protection Agency which is tasked with administering the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act and the regulations under that Act. The Environmental Protection Agency is simply an aspirational title. Imagine if New Zealand truly had an environmental protection agency, then we wouldn’t be having this ongoing discussion about why rivers and streams are polluted with sewage from council waste-water systems, whose contamination it is in the river, or which council or which agency is tasked to clean it up, and about how come local government gives itself 25-year consents to pollute and to discharge waste water into our urban environment, because nobody is actually protecting the environment and enforcing the existing rules we have. So an environmental protection agency currently is in name only, but they do have this important task to regulate hazardous substances and new organisms.

It wasn’t that long ago that New Zealand engaged in a social, cultural, and political debate about this original Act and the genies that might be let out of the bottle that were new organisms. Now, what we know is that at the time, there were genuine concerns about biotechnology, and about what would happen if a dangerous new organism escaped a lab, infected people or animals, and spread around the world and caused great harm and, potentially, millions of deaths. Well, I can tell you that the kind of biotechnology that New Zealand needs is actually good. It is the technology that’s going to allow us to solve the climate crisis by allowing grasses that when cows eat them, they produce very few emissions, and when the cows decide it’s time to let one go and what they’ve let go ends up in the paddock, those discharges do not end up in rivers and streams.

These solutions are available in laboratories and they’re being used in our competitors’ farming, and yet they’re not available here because New Zealand still has social and cultural objections to the use of this technology and these systems that other countries that we compare ourselves to that were got over decades and decades ago. So while ACT generally agrees with the problem definition in this bill, we believe there’s a huge opportunity left on the floor of the Minister’s office, and that is actually to address how difficult it is to get consent for new biotechnology to be made available to actually solve some of our worst environmental problems.

When you think about the problems of didymo, a contamination in our beautiful freshwater streams, it’s algae and slime that’s transported easily by fishermen and by boats. Using conventional chemicals and physical clean-up techniques, it’s impossible to clean that stuff up. That is where biotechnology has an answer, potentially, and yet it’s next to impossible to consent that and to release it from outside research facilities. New Zealand needs to grow up and to accept that some of these things sound scary but actually they are good.

Now, it’s important to streamline regulations and yet one question that we have for the Government is: where actually is the ambition to reduce compliance costs and improve efficiency? Because while this proposal actually describes a simplified process, what we’ve heard from the previous speaker actually sounds like a desire to impose more rules, more restrictions on what you can do with basic products and materials that are incorporated into hundreds of thousands of manufactured products that we use in our home and in our businesses every day. And while the aspiration is laudable, the ACT Party does believe there’s a real risk during this regulation reform process that actually the compliance costs will increase and the compliance process will be opened up. Rather than having experts carefully assess the information, the process will be opened up to all and sundry to object.

Now we know what that means when it comes to land-use consents and resource management consents when there are a whole lot of organisations that have no skin in the game but have their own axe to grind—activists, Extinction Rebellion, climate activists—who might want to protest or object to a particular product that they feel doesn’t meet their social test, and are climate shaming and fearmongering about products that are used every day by people with no evidence of risk. It’s important that any regulation very clearly sets out what risks need to be evaluated, who are the people qualified to evaluate them, and which voices, while well-meaning, will not be considered in any look at hazardous substances. Because it’s no good saying, “Well, we need to adopt a precautionary principle.”, actually, we need to be not just thinking about protecting our environment and human health. We need to be ready to accept that there are many new products coming on the market much faster, at a much more rapid rate than previously, developed to deal with some real, real problems.

When we think of varroa mite that was killing our beehives and our bees, it took a very significant amount of courage for the Government at the time to actually agree to allow that insecticide to be used in our beehives with all of those risks that it would reduce the number of beehives and the status and quality of our honey that’s produced in New Zealand because we had to use a dangerous chemical pesticide. Well, as far as I’m aware, apart from a very small number of teething troubles, there has been no effect on human health recorded from allowing the pesticide used to control the varroa bee mite, but we still have beehives; we still have pollinators; and our farmers, our pastoral, and our horticultural producers can still rely on bees because the alternative, based on the fearmongering campaign that was run at the time about that particular pesticide, would have been no pollinators. So it’s important to recognise that while there are many well-meaning people who have genuine concerns about hazardous substances, it’s not necessary to take account of everybody’s concerns when we’re actually talking about some very limited risks that are well understood and that decisions can be made relatively quickly to allow new products and new substances to enter the market.

In terms of regulatory reform, ACT supports this bill to the first reading for some very simple reasons: we are seeking regulatory reform that simplifies and reduces compliance costs. We believe that Government should respond quickly to new information about existing substances where hazards and risks to human health are found and that a process should be applied to low-risk products in a timely and efficient manner. And that is the key: “timely and efficient”. Now, this is the same Environmental Protection Agency that’s been tasked with fast tracking consents. And what we know is it doesn’t appear that they are any faster than your local council. So, of course, in any reform process, we hope that the Government adequately resources this agency and sets some very clear targets and goals for what efficient processing, cost-effective processing, looks like to the businesses that will be applying for permits and applying to use new, manufactured substances in the course of making products and delivering services in New Zealand. For that reason, ACT supports this bill at first reading. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to rise for the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Hazardous Substances Assessments) Amendment Bill. Before I have a very quick contribution, I’d just like to speak to the member who just resumed his seat, Simon Court. The concerns that you’ve raised—this is exactly what this bill is going to be doing. It’s going to speed things up, it’s going to make things a lot more sensible and a lot more practical. It is, essentially, going to make sure that we can use international knowledge and skills to speed up this process. So I think it does what it says on the tin, and I think you’ll be quite happy with the process.

Look, I am going to take a very short call, but I do want to just raise new section 76E, the international regulators. I think this is our key area that we need to be looking at at select committee. As a member of the Environment Committee, I’m very much looking forward to this matter. So we need to look at what has similar operating standards as the Environmental Protection Authority internationally. We need to look at a legislative regime that is comparable. So we need to look at similar comparable legislative regimes across the world, and we have to make sure that those decisions that are made are readily accessible. So we need to be able to easily find that information.

Now, that is going to speed up the process for us remarkably. This is a really important bill, and I just have to say to the Minister, I appreciate the work that has gone into this bill. It’s a really important bill and many of us knew about the aluminium dross that happened recently and how upset we all were in this country about that situation. This bill goes to addressing those issues; I commend it to the House.

PENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a very short call to speak in support to select committee stage of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Hazardous Substances Assessments) Amendment Bill. Now, we support it not just because it is dull but worthy, as my colleagues have somewhat unkindly characterised it, but mainly because it’s such a shock that this Labour Government is promoting anything that might address and reduce time-consuming, resource-intensive, inefficient and cumbersome bureaucratic processes, because quite frankly, most of the bills they put up for us to deliberate on have exactly the opposite aim and effect.

So following best-practice parenting skills, we should catch them when they are good, and give positive reinforcement in the hope that they might continue on in this vein. However, my colleague Scott Simpson has ruined that completely for me by telling us, in fact, that it was initiated by the Environmental Protection Authority, not the Government. So, clearly, we’re not entering an era of new, enlightened Government direction, and my initial euphoria has evaporated.

The bill, however, on the face of it, makes sense. We should try and avoid duplication and over-complicating processes, especially where they could have unintended consequences around the safety and environmental costs around delaying safer alternatives, and the continuation of use of not fit for purpose chemicals. Of course, we should be using relevant information from other international regulators instead of reinventing the wheel. Perhaps Pharmac might like to think about that also. We should be supporting an amendment that allows quicker and more efficient processing by the Environmental Protection Authority.

So we are happy to support the bill to go through to the select committee stage to enable further scrutiny of it and public input. I commend the bill to the House.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): It is a pleasure to take a call tonight on the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Hazardous Substances Assessments) Amendment Bill. On behalf of the bill, it’s been called dull and uninspiring tonight, but, actually, I’ve got quite a pack of fascinating information that I’d encourage you all to read—including, as members of the House have pointed out tonight, the discussion document and the submissions that had come from the Environmental Protection Agency.

I must just respond to the previous speaker, Penny Simmonds, because it is disappointing, after a night of goodwill and camaraderie across the House in what I like to call “silly hour” at the end of the night, to see politicking around a bill that, actually, I think, many of us around the House tonight believe will make a positive difference to our industries, to our businesses, and to those organisations that have to work with hazardous substances.

So just coming back to the bill—because it took the previous speaker quite a long time to get to the bill tonight—as colleagues have pointed out, including my neighbouring electorate MP Stuart Smith from Kaikōura, this bill is actually incredibly important when you think about industry and the way it operates globally. As we recover from COVID and as we deal with some of the pressing issues of our time, like climate change, it is important that we reduce the unnecessary regulation and processes that we have. It is important that we do that to ensure that we can continue to trade, we can continue to grow our economy, and we can continue to assess the status of a chemical and how hazardous it is or isn’t; that we can make that assessment quickly. What this bill specifically does is it ensures that we are referencing global information, global best practice, and using that information to enhance our processes here in New Zealand.

On that note, it has been a pleasure to take a short call on this bill tonight. I commend it to the House.

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Hazardous Substances Assessments) Amendment Bill. I have to say, at the start of this debate the contributions were somewhat reasonable and then as we’ve got closer towards the end of the debate, the only relevance, I think, from the other side of the House is that the contributions have been hazardous and of limited to little substance. I certainly hope that, perhaps, the speaker from the Opposition that will follow perhaps will rectify that record moving forward.

As the Minister indicated, this is a bill that will continue to protect the environment. It’s actually quite discrete in nature because it will focus on an increase in the efficiencies, particularly in that regulatory process, but only relative to assessment or, alternatively, reassessment of hazardous substances. So it’s very, very defined in terms of the bill in front of us.

However, those efficiencies won’t be at the expense of the integrity of the process. So I think we just need to remind ourselves that it is quite a discrete bill that we are talking about here and previous contributions, I think, have missed that point. So as a member of the Environment Committee, I’m looking forward to getting my teeth into this, alongside colleagues, and on that basis I commend the bill to the House.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Well, I was going to be complimentary about my neighbouring MP until he took an unnecessary crack at the other side of the House. I won’t respond in kind but I will make the point that I’m of a generation whose father only listened to the Budget to see what the subsidy on 2,4,5-T would be. So I will appreciate the need for a hazardous substance piece of legislation going through this House.

I also am old enough to remember the lectures we got from Steffan Browning on the use of glyphosate, and he would’ve spent the full 10 minutes and glyphosate would have been mentioned every second of that speech, were he here tonight.

But I think this is a very good bill. The reason I think it’s a very good bill is because if you go back in history and you look at our history as a country, and our use of—or our, I guess, application of what we call hazardous substances, and a lot of them, of course, aren’t hazardous substances at all because the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) makes sure of that. In this country we find that we’re a very small market but they’re a very important part of what we do as a very small market in that we’re food producers. We use all sorts of products to produce that food. We’re large-animal users in New Zealand for various reasons, and, of course, a lot of these substances apply to animals. I guess if you take it to the extreme a lot of these sort of products apply to humans as well, but not necessarily through the EPA or hazardous substances and new organisms (HSNO).

But it is necessary for us to have access to the best possible products we can get around the world. Many of the big international companies that supply these products have difficulty justifying coming to New Zealand because our market’s so small, and the cost of entry here is so large. So I think this bill and the protocols around this bill and the method it intends to use to introduce product to New Zealand, I think, will be of great value to the country, and I think will improve, in my view, endlessly the process of getting product approved in New Zealand and ensuring that we are competitive in the international marketplace.

Only last week, interestingly, we had the EPA in the Primary Production Committee talking about this, not this bill but these very issues and how they go through the processes that they do to approve product in New Zealand. I think we should be pretty pleased or pretty proud, actually, of the way the EPA operates, given that we are a very small market, and we’re dealing with hundreds and hundreds of different products. They have a pretty challenging situation. So for them to be able to use international information from countries of like interest to New Zealand will be hugely valuable as we go forward in life.

As a person who’s spent half a lifetime, I guess, using these products, it’s always been a concern to me that New Zealand wouldn’t have access to the best international products. If we don’t have access to those best international products, whatever they might be, then we become uncompetitive. I think that would be a great challenge for New Zealand. So that’s one of the—well, that is the reason I think this bill has got such a lot of value to New Zealand.

Just going back to those Budgets of old, and if you think about subsidy on 2,4,5-T, for example, I can think of at least Bill Rowling and Rob Muldoon, both of whom as finance Ministers approved those sort of subsidies. Those days are long gone, but none the less it is necessary for us in New Zealand to encourage the use of the right type of product, and also to encourage the use of product that we can later justify in the international marketplace. That’s why I refer to the things like 2,4,5-T because at the time those products were perfectly legitimate, and they were they were accepted as being products that would do no harm in the future. I don’t know whether the work had been done on those products, but none the less they were products we used, and that’s how life seems to evolve. We go through stages where things that are perfectly acceptable, later on in life, become unacceptable.

I think that it’s hugely important for the science behind the work that the EPA does to be as good as you can get at the time. Of course, science evolves as well. One product that comes to mind for me that was mentioned by the Greens speaker earlier is per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which we thought was a perfectly legitimate product to New Zealand. It was used in firefighting and all sorts of, I guess, community-good projects. Now we find it contaminates water supplies. So that’s how things evolve and change. I guess at the time PFAS was introduced, for example, we didn’t understand the potential damage it might do; we now do. So the world changes quickly. So it’s important that not only is the EPA able to use the best information available worldwide, but it’s also able, I guess, to fund the work that it needs to do, and clearly they’ve got a mechanism in place to do that.

I have great faith in the EPA. I have great faith in the HSNO Act, and I think that bringing it to the House is probably—well, it’s not probably, I think it’s certainly—very good for New Zealand. I hope the discussion that happens in the select committee is constructive, I’m sure it will be, and that we get this bill passed as quickly as possible. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Over the last couple of years, I’ve had quite a few people contacting my office and quite a lot of concerns about the chemicals and sprays going into the environment, and not just in the context of the Mataura dross situation, but a lot of them are concerned around the use of herbicides, weedkillers, and the tendency to spray them in our waterways or around our waterways or just along the kerbsides rather than manual weeding. I think that’s why, thinking about the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, it’s really important to make sure that we know that chemicals are safe and they’re used in a safe way.

I think that’s one of the main purposes of the Act, to protect the environment and the health and safety of people and communities from the adverse effects of hazardous substances, but the problem we’ve got at the moment is that reassessments and assessments of hazardous substances can take a long time, take quite an in-depth process, and so what happens is it may mean the delayed entry of new chemicals coming in which could actually replace more unsafe chemicals. That happens. Then, basically, the other issue is that some chemicals may continue to be used, or the controls continue to be used, when they really shouldn’t, and so it’s really important that we do get more efficient in terms of the assessment process.

So what this bill will do is allow the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to make better use of information from international regulators, leading to more timely assessments and reassessments of chemicals. So, basically, for example, the rapid assessment for importation and manufacture of hazardous substances, that part of the Act—what it will now mean is the EPA potentially could approve a hazardous substance if the same substance has been authorised by an international regulator. There are a lot of other issues around that to be considered, but what it will mean is that things can happen in a much more timely manner. So it’s a small but very effective bill, and I’m very happy to commend it to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is, That Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Hazardous Substances Assessments) Amendment Bill be considered by the Environment Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Environment Committee.

Bills

Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for Oceans and Fisheries): I present a legislative statement on the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Amendment Bill.

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

Hon DAVID PARKER: I move, That the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Amendment Bill now be read a second time.

The Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Amendment Bill 2021 is an important bill that amends the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act 2004 to improve the allocation and transfer process of aquaculture settlement assets. The amendments in the bill are the result of extensive process with the trustee Te Ohu Kaimoana. It also involved iwi, other Māori, and Government over several years. Currently, iwi in some regions are facing indefinite delays in receiving their aquaculture settlement assets from Te Ohu Kaimoana, as it has not been possible to get unanimous agreement by all of the iwi in those regions on how the assets should be allocated amongst them. The dispute resolution process provided in the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act has been unable to address those issues because unanimity has been required and unable to be achieved, and there’s a risk that similar situations will arise in future regional settlement processes. So the policy objective of the bill is to improve the allocation and transfer process provided for in the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act, to better enable the allocation and transfer of aquaculture settlement assets to iwi.

The remedy that the bill provides is to enable assets that have already been allocated to an iwi by Te Ohu Kaimoana to be transferred to those iwi aquaculture organisations who wish to receive them. It seeks to improve the delivery of assets in regions where some do not have the required governance structure to participate in regional negotiations or the dispute resolution process, and it also ensures that assets will be preserved for those iwis who choose not to participate in those regional negotiations.

The bill achieves its objective by amending the sections in the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act relating to the allocation of settlement assets. It provides Te Ohu Kaimoana with a limited discretionary power to allocate and transfer aquaculture settlement assets to iwi. The bill will ensure iwi can access their aquaculture settlement assets within an appropriate time frame. It will improve the delivery of the Crown’s aquaculture settlement obligations, and it will protect the interests of iwi who do not wish to claim their aquaculture settlement assets at this time, whilst also supporting iwi aquaculture aspirations and the growth of the aquaculture industry more generally.

Can I thank the Māori Affairs Committee and the submitters for their time and contribution to the bill. The committee received 10 written submissions and six oral submissions—the majority of whom were from Māori groupings. The Māori Affairs Committee heard that the current provisions of the Act prevent Te Ohu Kaimoana from delivering aquaculture settlement assets; this is due the inability of iwi in those regions to reach agreement between themselves in accordance with the Act. This is partly because some iwi don’t have the required governance structures to participate in regional negotiation. It’s also partly because some iwi are unwilling to participate in those negotiations, from their perspective, as a matter of principle. The Māori Affairs Committee agreed there was a significant risk of similar situations occurring in future settlement processes if we don’t make the change in this bill.

Submissions on the bill were supportive. The Māori Affairs Committee also heard that the proposed option for asset allocation is similar to a provision for the transfer of assets provided for in the Maori Fisheries Act 2004. As noted in the select committee report, if the bill gains Royal assent, then the limited discretionary power could be used almost immediately for allocation issues in Northland and the Bay of Plenty. Some submitters said that they’d been waiting for years to access their settlements and they don’t want any more delay. Submitters also commented that iwi have an important role in the Government’s aquaculture strategy and could contribute to the growth of the aquaculture industry and therefore the improvement of the economy.

The Māori Affairs Committee also referenced in its report two matters raised by submitters which were considered to be outside the scope of the bill, and I thought I would address them for the benefit of the House. The first was a request for wider recognition on the involvement of hapū and whānau in the allocation process for settlement assets, with an amendment requested to widen the definition of relevant iwi to include hapū and whānau. The Māori Affairs Committee were advised that these suggested amendments would require governance changes that are beyond the remit of the bill and would require substantive additional consultation, which would yet again further delay the transfer of settlement assets.

The second request was to include provisions that give consideration to applicants who are currently before the High Court on Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2011 applications or who are in negotiations with the Crown. The select committee were advised that including such provisions would be repetitive of section 6A which is already in the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act, and already describes the relationship between that Act and the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act. The Māori Affairs Committee accordingly, after its considerations, recommended that the Act be passed without amendment. I again thank the members of the Māori Affairs Committee for their thorough consideration of the bill and the submitters who went to the trouble of providing their written or oral submissions to the committee. On that note, I commend the bill to the House.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s wonderful to be able to speak here tonight on the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Amendment Bill at the second reading. Now, I’ve heard a very robust summary there from the Minister of the process this bill has been through and the select committee contribution to that. Ultimately, we’re supporting this bill, as we did at the first reading, and the reason for that—well, there’s a number of them. I’ll outline some of those now, but primarily it’s around providing economic opportunity. That is what is really important for us here. These iwi that are impacted by this are unable to realise some of that economic potential, and from the National Party’s perspective, that is a key opportunity that we need to ensure any party is able to do. Economic potential means jobs for the regions. That means people innovating, adapting, expanding their businesses, and all those things will ultimately be beneficial for New Zealand. But of course, for the iwi involved, it has a lot more impact than a nationwide perspective.

Now, we’ve seen under the Budget this year that just over $16 million—I think $16.19 million—of funding that had been set aside for aquaculture settlements has had to be carried forward from last year’s Budget because it simply hasn’t been able to be resolved and distributed to those impacted iwi. So that to me is a pretty clear indicator that the current model is challenging and it is complex and it takes time and it can hold up that progress. So these amendments that are proposed here, the limited discretionary power given to Te Ohu Kaimoana to allow them to have some more flexibility when there are clear disputes that would otherwise hold up the process unnecessarily—and, look, the key thing here is actually not that they are making a judgment on the validity of any particular dispute, but they are able to instead say, “Well, OK, let’s park that dispute to the side, and, in the meantime, these other parties who we are confident in their claim, their allocation, or the willingness to get on and proceed—we can make a limited discretionary allocation on that basis to them to enable them to capture some of the opportunity in front of them at the time.”

So aquaculture in New Zealand, in my view, has a huge opportunity. There’s huge potential in that space, and I commend the Government for coming out with an ambitious strategy for aquaculture growth. We just now need to see that implemented, and we haven’t seen much detail around how that might actually roll out. The delivery of that, of course, will be the test for them, which will be measured over the next few years. But ultimately, that plan to grow the industry is a good one, and I’ve seen strong support for that amongst the aquaculture industry. When we consider that in any new aquaculture space that’s consented, 20 percent of that is allocated to iwi under the settlement basis, that presents a significant opportunity for those iwi players, as well, to develop those skills, to make that economic contribution, to provide jobs and employment within their particular rohe. So this is one of the key things that’s important in this particular bill.

As I mentioned, funding at the moment, that $16-odd million carried forward—hopefully we’ll be able to see a significant portion of that allocated out under the current financial year as a result of this bill progressing. So I think it’s quite ambitious. We’re looking at, what, a $600 million aquaculture industry. They’re wanting to go to $3 billion. That is ambitious, but I believe it can be achieved if we put the right processes in place. Part of that is actually overhauling the Resource Management Act (RMA), because the current RMA makes it incredibly difficult to consent new aquaculture space, and that is one of the key issues that the industry are facing. So when we talk about unlocking that potential—which is always a priority on this side of the House—and providing the platform that enables people to get on and do business, that’s one of the key factors that we really need to see addressed.

So I’m hopeful—always the optimist—that we might see some progress from the Government in that space that will enable the aquaculture industry—

Hon Mark Mitchell: That’s a lot of optimism.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN: —to proceed. Yes, perhaps it is a lot of optimism, Mr Mitchell, but in the Waikato, that’s how we roll. So, look, I think I’ll wrap it up there. We’ve heard a good summary, as I said, from the Minister. We support the intent of the bill. There is massive potential here, and we always love the idea of being able to capture potential. So on that basis, we support the bill and look forward to it proceeding. Thank you.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. I’m delighted to speak in support of this bill, because it’s returning settlement assets to iwi and it’s putting those settlement assets into their hands to ensure that it can grow the aquaculture industry, which is so important to our regions and to growing our food and export-led recovery.

We know that the aquaculture industry, as it grows, Māori will grow with it, because this is a prospective settlement. As it grows, 20 percent of it, whether it’s through space or cash, will be transferred to iwi. What we’re doing here is we’re just removing these little blockages which probably weren’t contemplated at the time when it was originally crafted, which will enable the trustee to be able to transfer those assets to those iwi that have been long waiting for those assets to be received. Likewise, those that may not agree, their assets will be preserved to a future time when they may be in a position to receive those assets.

So this is all about ensuring those assets can flow through so that we can continue with the growth of this exciting aquaculture industry. Can I support the Minister David Parker, the work of the select committee and all the submissions that were made on this bill. I commend it to the House.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Oh look, thank you, Madam Speaker. It seems somewhat strange to be speaking for the second time tonight supporting a Government bill. I listened carefully to the speech of the Minister and also my very learned colleague Tim van de Molen, who gave, I thought, a very good analysis of the situation. I’ve got the good fortune to represent the Coromandel electorate in this House, which has one of the longest coastlines in the country actually—of any electorate in the country. We’ve got a thriving aquaculture sector in my part of the world and one that has potential to grow significantly.

Hon David Parker: Mangroves.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: Well, no, that’s a subject that my predecessor used to get very exercised about in this House, but she’s now the mayor of the Thames-Coromandel District Council, so that falls well and truly into her sphere of influence, Minister.

So I didn’t have the opportunity to sit on the select committee but I do understand the issues that are at play in this bill and that are trying to be resolved and they are, as a previous speaker has said, an opportunity in this legislation to remove some of the little roadblocks that are preventing the distribution of the aquacultural assets. That’s probably a very good thing, because if we can free up the distribution of those assets to enable those assets to be used for the creation of greater opportunity, greater wealth, greater initiative in the aquacultural sector, then we on this side of the House are all for that. So I find myself twice in one evening having to support a Government bill. I know that the members on the other side will think that this is a rare and unusual rush of blood to the head, but on this occasion I think it’s probably deserved and I do support the bill.

TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to talk on this. The iwi that presented to us in the submissions are looking forward to this passing quickly. They have been waiting for a very long time to be able to realise their aspirations when it comes to aquaculture, and I want to thank for that Chris Insley, who led the charge from Te Arawa Fisheries; Dickie Farrar from Te Whakatōhea; and Rikirangi Gage from Te Whānau-a-Apanui. They are passionate about aquaculture because they believe that, actually, we can do some really cool, really innovative stuff: offshore rainbow trout, offshore kingfish for premium seafood, offshore seaweed, offshore greenshell mussels for high value nutraceuticals, offshore scallops for premium seafood. All of these things are possible, but they haven’t been given the opportunity to be. This bill frees them up to be able to realise those aspirations, and for that reason, I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I call on Dr Liz Kerekere.

Hon Member: Mōrena!

Dr ELIZABETH KEREKERE (Green): I’m awake! I’m paying attention! OK—thank you for the opportunity to take this short call on the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Amendment Bill.

Tim van de Molen: Good speech.

Dr ELIZABETH KEREKERE: Yeah, I’m nearly done. At the first reading of this bill, we raised two issues that helped determine our support for it. The first was the level of consultation that went into the first creation of the bill, and that’s probably why there were so few submissions to the Māori Affairs Committee—that, generally, people were quite happy with what you had done, and the ones that you did receive were quite supportive. So I think that is a testament to the work of that committee, but also that that tautoko was because iwi saw that the powers given to the Te Ohu Kaimoana to allocate and transfer assets to iwi would advance their interests and their aquaculture opportunities. Importantly, it would allow iwi to progress their economic, social, and cultural objectives: their own tino rangatiratanga.

The select committee also heard that iwi were well over waiting to access their settlement assets, and then part of the problem creating that delay is the Government’s instance on large natural groupings, or regional negotiations, in its settlement processes. This practice is based on the colonial proposition that iwi which are small should all just get together and sort things out amongst themselves. We’ve experienced massive delays back home at Tūranga-nui-a-Kiwa because of this. The Greens have long disputed this process that pits small iwi against each other while larger iwi have the mana to directly negotiate with the Crown. This process undermines the mana of smaller iwi and unnecessarily delays them having their assets returned to them. Unsurprisingly, some iwi have refused to engage with the process, which, inevitably, ends up in dispute. So, with this bill and Te Ohu Kaimoana given limited powers to resolve those disputes, we think that is a good thing.

One of the things we also notice with successive Governments is that they do not trust iwi to take care of their own assets. They require iwi to jump through multiple hoops and add heavy administrative and compliance burdens. For the Treaty settlement, we see this in the requirement for iwi to establish post-settlement governance entities, or PSGEs. As we have travelled the country to visit land occupations, we have heard from many iwi that their PSGEs are using their status, as the organisations with the cash, to override the wishes not only of the iwi leaders and their rūnanga and trusts but also the wider iwi. In the case of Māori aquaculture, iwi are required to establish iwi aquaculture organisations, or IAOs. Some submitters suggested that whānau and hapū should have greater recognition in decision-making in relation to those IAOs. Let’s remember that hapū signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi, not iwi—hapū.

So one of the Green Party’s six priorities for our Māori priorities is that whānau, hapū, and iwi have a say in the issues that directly affect them. So we wholeheartedly agree with this; however, we understand it is outside the scope of this bill to have that better representation. Engari, in support of all the iwi just wanting to get on with their life and their work, and waiting for assets, which, let us always remember, were theirs in the first place, we commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

MARK CAMERON (ACT): Well, thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party to take a short call on this Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Amendment Bill. This bill can only be considered to be a clear, concise, and transparent piece of legislation with full cross-party support of all the members of this House. Its premise is to give certainty to assets for those that own them in the commercial aquacultural industry. The bill seeks to allocate assets in aquaculture in the event that a dispute process is unable to be resolved. The bill has broad support of the respective iwi that were involved in the consultation process. As the member Mr van de Molen previously noted—and I quote—“potentially 600 million could be several billion with 3,000-odd people employed in the industry.”

What was noteworthy recently in select committee, in several conversations with New Zealand fisheries, it was suggested that the aquacultural industry could grow substantially. This bill seeks to streamline that process where discretionary powers are given to the trustee, Te Ohu Kaimoana, to allocate settlement assets to iwi. This ultimately allows for greater industry certainty.

The largest sum of the bill is found under clause 7 in replacement section 49, noteworthy of which new section 49B(2) states “a transfer of settlement assets … must be made in proportion to the length of coastline … relevant [to a particular] iwi who agree on a partial allocation and that the trustee is satisfied [and] is unlikely to be disputed.”

The overarching premise of this bill seeks to add clarity to assets and owners and gives certainty to iwi settlement claims to minimise disputes. Previously, the member Dr Kerekere noted in the first reading that Te Ohu Kaimoana and iwi had extensive consultation in support of this bill.

Obviously, this bill meets consensus across the House and gives further weight to supporting the bill in its entirety. The ACT Party, therefore, supports this bill, and I commend this bill to the House.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): I commend this bill to the House.

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

CHRISTOPHER LUXON (National—Botany): This is an outstanding bill. We fully support what the Government is doing. We commend this bill to the House.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Brilliant, outstanding, wonderful bill. I commend this bill to the House.

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): This is a fantastic moment, and I commend this bill to the House.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): I commend this bill to the House.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

The House adjourned at 9.59 p.m.