Tuesday, 7 September 2021

TUESDAY, 7 SEPTEMBER 2021

TUESDAY, 7 SEPTEMBER 2021

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia/Prayers

Karakia/Prayers

SPEAKER: 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.

Ministerial Statements

Terrorist Attack—Auckland

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister responsible for the NZSIS): I wish to make a ministerial statement on last week’s terrorist attack in Auckland.

At around 2.40 p.m. last Friday, 3 September, a known ideologically motivated violent extremist entered the Countdown supermarket at LynnMall in Auckland’s New Lynn. While in the supermarket, the individual took a knife from the shelves and used to it to attack six innocent shoppers, and a seventh person was also injured. A police team surveilling the terrorist intervened, shot, and killed him. The terrorist acted alone; we are confident of that.

I acknowledge the injured victims of this attack. Seven people have been hurt. Four were in a critical condition when they were admitted to hospital that evening. All are now stable or recovering, and we wish them well for their ongoing recovery. I also acknowledge the Countdown staff and the shoppers in the mall who rendered aid to the victims and otherwise assisted. For everyone who was in the vicinity of this attack, I know it will have caused shock and deep distress, and I trust they will be receiving the support they need from their employer or from Victim Support.

I acknowledge the bravery of the New Zealand Police officers who have been part of the surveillance operation over this terrorist during the last several weeks. Police knew what they were dealing with, and the risks that they and the community were facing. Tragically, the world does now too. The nature of police work means officers face danger every day. In this case, the Police surveillance team stood between this individual—one of the most dangerous in New Zealand—and the rest of the community. So to the Police I say: thank you.

While much of their work must necessarily be carried out in secrecy, I wanted to put on record the work of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS) and what they did over many years to protect the community from this terrorist. The NZSIS identified the individual in 2016 from his disturbing online activities. He remained a person of interest ever since, with the SIS continually appraising and reappraising the risk he posed. The intelligence collected by the SIS was vital to supporting the Police and other authorities to minimise and manage that risk.

Nevertheless, despite the very best efforts of so many, the terrorist did carry out a violent attack. We must learn the lessons from this attack so we can keep the community safe in the future. Inquiries by the coroner and the Independent Police Conduct Authority will be vital to this.

At this stage I can report the following facts about the terrorist’s background. On 14 July 2011, he applied for a student visa. A national security check was returned with no comment the following month. He arrived in New Zealand from Sri Lanka in October 2011. Just two weeks later, he applied for asylum. I can say that the basis of that claim was not a fear of the Government of Sri Lanka. In April 2012, his asylum claim was unsuccessful; he was found to be lacking in credibility. He appealed that decision to the Immigration and Protection Tribunal. In December 2013, he was granted refugee status by the tribunal. He subsequently became a permanent resident.

In 2016, the SIS became aware of disturbing online activity by the individual, and an investigation was initiated. Over the years, the SIS has committed considerable resources to monitoring the threat posed by the individual because of his threatening actions.

In May 2017, the individual attempted to leave New Zealand for Malaysia—although it is believed his intended destination was Syria, where he intended to join Daesh. On investigation, he was found in possession of offensive propaganda material consistent with his ideologically motivated violent extremism. He was also found in possession of a large hunting knife. He was arrested and charged with offences relating to objectionable material and offensive weapons.

To be clear, as a country, we had an obligation to prevent this person travelling to pursue his terrorist ambitions. He was remanded in custody until around June 2018 when he pleaded guilty to the objectionable material offence and was sentenced to supervision. Shortly after his release, the individual purchased another hunting knife and continued seeking and distributing objectionable material online. He was arrested and remanded in custody.

In August 2017, the Refugee Status Unit began a review of the individual’s refugee status, with a request for consideration whether he should be deported. In January 2018, Immigration New Zealand reopened his case, and in April of that year he requested cancellation of his permanent resident visa. His reasons for doing so are unclear.

On 1 June 2018, he was served with a notice of cancellation of his refugee status on the basis of fraud. On 1 February 2019, his refugee status was cancelled. Later, in April 2019, the individual lodged an appeal against the cancellation of his refugee status. On 8 July this year, it was deemed that the individual was likely a protected person. A question remained about whether he would be eligible for deportation because of his immigration status, and this was yet to be tested in the courts.

Despite many attempts to prevent it, the individual was released on bail from prison on 13 July this year. On release, he was immediately placed under intense surveillance, including by the Police with support from the Special Tactics Group.

Through the terrorist’s long periods of time spent in prison, Corrections worked closely with partner agencies to keep the community and Corrections staff safe from the extreme risk that his violent extremist ideology presented. Corrections presently has no ability to compel an offender to take part in rehabilitation activities. Attempts were made to provide him with mental health support while he was in prison, but he refused to engage. He also refused to meet with a Corrections psychologist while in prison. With support from the countering violent extremism forum, Corrections engaged with the local Muslim community with the intention of having an imam meet with him regarding his spiritual beliefs. He met with the imam twice; however, he did not engage in any meaningful way.

Regarding more generally taking action based on the individual’s mental health, I note that the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand has said the individual did not meet the criteria to be involuntarily assessed under the Mental Health Act, and he did not meet the criteria to be sectioned under the Act. I expect that the coroner might investigate any role that mental health issues played in the terrible events that have transpired.

At all times, Government and agencies attempted every legal avenue available to deport the terrorist and to keep him detained and out of the community while we did so. When we couldn’t keep him in custody, agencies took the extraordinary step of keeping him under constant police surveillance and followed by the Special Tactics Group when he was in public. All agencies were doing all that could be done to protect New Zealanders, and ultimately we were frustrated by the law dealing with terrorist activity as it currently stands.

It is important to turn briefly to that law now. In November 2007, the then Solicitor-General found the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 was unworkable. Among other deficiencies, the Act was found not to contain a criminal offence of planning or preparation for a terrorist attack.

Work on addressing that gap in the law did not commence until August 2018. This Government directed officials to commence the policy work required—and it was a very significant piece of work because of the interplay between security, individual freedoms, and human rights. We have also been informed in that work by the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the terrorist attack on Christchurch masjidain on 15 March 2019. The Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill is due to be reported back from the select committee very shortly. As the Prime Minister has said publicly, it is the Government’s intention to pass the bill this month.

There is more to be done. I want to conclude by echoing the words of the Prime Minister: last week’s attack was terrorism carried out by an individual—not a faith, not a culture, not an ethnicity. The individual was gripped by ideology that is not supported here by anyone or any community. The terrorist alone carries the responsibility for his acts.

To those hurt in the attack, and to those in the supermarket and at the mall who witnessed it, we are sorry that this has happened to you. We have now experienced two terrorist attacks that were motivated by different—but no less insidious and repugnant—violent extremist ideologies. New Zealand was not immune to the threat of terrorist violence in March 2019 and we are not immune now and we will not be in the future. It is time for a more mature national discussion about national security than we have had in the past, and now, as legislators—and as a country—we must move forward and do what we can do to ensure it never happens again.

SPEAKER: Order! Before I call the Hon Judith Collins, members will have worked out that that statement was significantly longer than the five minutes’ limit, and as a result of that—I think it was nine minutes long—I will make up to that time available for other party leaders.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition): Thank you, Mr Speaker. First off, can I thank the Minister for his statement—it was very informative—and I’ve got a few questions to ask in mine. I’d like to extend the best wishes and prayers from the National Party to the victims of the terror attack at LynnMall. Nothing could be further from their minds when they went to do their grocery shopping than that they’d be confronted with a knife-wielding terrorist. We wish them a speedy recovery and that they know that New Zealand is thinking of them. The National Party will work with the Government to ensure our counter-terrorism laws and potentially immigration laws are fit for purpose. As the Minister has said, New Zealand has changed, the world has changed, and we need to make sure that we support the Government in its primary job to keep New Zealanders safe. And as the Opposition, we will want to make sure that whichever party is in Government, they have the right tools to do the job.

Before we can establish where the gaps were that allowed for this terrorist to remain in New Zealand and attack New Zealanders, we need to know what levers were pulled by the Government. It’s very clear that this man was a ticking time bomb. He made it very clear his hatred for the West, for New Zealanders, for white people, and Kiwi values. And unlike the Australian terrorist, who caused so much damage and heartache in Christchurch, this terrorist was well known to the agencies charged with keeping us safe. He had been criminally charged with spreading Islamic State propaganda, he’d told acquaintances of his goals to wreak havoc, and he attempted to travel to Syria to fight for the Islamic State. In my eyes he was quite clearly a threat to national security. Given the decision of Government agencies to place 24/7 surveillance on him, it is evident that they saw him that way too.

If we look at the royal commission into the Christchurch attacks, there are two broad priorities from which explicit recommendations for change are drawn. The first is ensuring there is better leadership of and support for intelligence and security in New Zealand. The second is increasing awareness and providing opportunities for a meaningful engagement for all New Zealanders in relation to extremism and preventing, detecting, and responding to current and emerging threats of violent extremism and terrorism. The royal commission’s report was published in December last year. So of those recommendations that we would like to ask about, or certainly mention, is the very practical ones. So they deal with things like unpreparedness, a lack of clear leadership within the agencies, siloed work streams, and legislative frameworks to support counter-terrorism efforts. One recommendation is to “Establish a new national intelligence and security agency that is well-resourced and legislatively mandated to be responsible for strategic intelligence and security leadership”. So I’d like to ask the Minister what work has been completed on this?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister responsible for the NZSIS): That work is ongoing. The significance of that particular recommendation is that it is about ensuring that functions that exist at the moment—some in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, some in other parts of Government—are concentrated to provide an apex, if you like, of our national security and intelligence system so that that strategic work can be done. It is not a substitute for the agencies that we have at the moment, and it is the work of the agencies, the SIS in particular, that has been assiduous and has kept very close tabs on this particular individual and has supported the police and all those others involved in keeping the community safe.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition): This particular terrorist also raises unique issues around refugee status and immigration law in New Zealand. We have international obligations to ensure the rights of refugees are upheld, and we have moral obligations too. However, it is my strongly held opinion that the Government of New Zealand must prioritise keeping New Zealanders safe above all else. If a refugee or an immigrant commits an act of terror or goes overseas to take part in extremist activities, we should rip up their New Zealand passport. The Immigration Act 2009 does provide for this, with some restrictions. I’m interested to hear from the Minister if this avenue was explored.

The Minister of Immigration can certify that a person constitutes a threat or risk to security and, with Cabinet’s approval, through an Order in Council, the Governor-General can order that that person be deported. There are limitations in relation to using this section to deport refugees. However, section 164 of the Act provides that “A refugee or claimant for recognition as a refugee may be deported but only if Article 32.1 or 33 of the Refugee Convention allows the deportation of the person.” So it is evident that the terrorist was considered a serious threat, given the surveillance he was placed under. So did he meet the criteria of article 32.1 of the refugee convention which states that, “The Contracting States shall not expel a refugee lawfully in their territory save on grounds of national security or public order”?

So what legal advice did the Government receive on what constitutes national security or public order grounds to allow deportation, even while the offender was awaiting his appeal against his revocation of refugee status?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister responsible for the NZSIS): I can say to the Leader of the Opposition, I’m not aware of what specific legal advice was given, but I can say that the issue of deporting the individual was actively considered. Advice was received that because of the nature of his refugee status and the place he would be going back to and the danger he would be placed in, he would more likely than not be considered an internationally protected person and therefore could not be deported.

I think the Leader of the Opposition does, however, alight on an important tension that we have, and that is we have given refugee status to an individual because of the claimed threat that he was under, and yet he has posed a significant threat to fellow New Zealanders. That is an intolerable tension for any country to be under. I think it does call for us to examine our laws in the context of our international obligations, but to examine our laws and to ensure that our laws don’t prevent any Government affording the greatest possible protection and safety and security to its own citizens.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition): In order that Parliament can address this issue more carefully and fully, would the Minister consider making the legal advice available for the Opposition to view confidentially, to assist us in coming together with a solution?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister responsible for the NZSIS): Look, we would want to work closely with all members of the House in making sure that the laws we pass through this House on issues, particularly national security issues, are as robust as possible. So I hear what the member is suggesting and I will discuss that with colleagues.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition): Thank you to the Minister. So while in Government, National faced a lot of resistance from Opposition and media and civil society around any changes we ever sought to make to any terrorism measures. And of course, the world is a very different place now—

Hon Member: Oh right!

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: —and the member, the Minister who has unfortunately commented just now, has forgotten that in 2016 when John Key spoke about 40 people being monitored due to links to a terrorist organisation, John Key as the Prime Minister was referred to as scaremongering. So the world is quite different. We didn’t know, obviously, in the first 10 years of this particular century about things like Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or what else was going on, but it is very important to remember that things changed, and that’s why it’s really important as an Opposition that we have committed to not battle the Government on every single issue around this but actually to not force the Government to have to deal with the sorts of protests and what else that we had to deal with in the search and surveillance and GCSB law changes. We’re not going to echo those mistakes, because ultimately Governments do need to be able to put in place legislation that is going to be fit for another Government and successive Governments to deal with.

It’s very tough dealing with issues like this and particularly when we’re up against naturally our instincts around human rights, but we also have to consider very carefully the rights of New Zealanders to be able to go about their business safely. So on behalf of the National Party we support the Government’s moves around the terrorism suppression law changes, and I thank the Prime Minister for her acceptance of that assistance. It simply makes for better law if we can make sure that we don’t have to make changes just based on compromise rather than on what’s the right thing to do. Thank you.

Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister of Climate Change): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Four days ago, the community of New Lynn in Auckland was shaken by a senseless act of hate, and once again, Aotearoa New Zealand, we have seen a response filled with love and compassion. In the days and weeks ahead, as we continue to try and make sense of what happened, and the steps that we take to stop anything like it from happening again, we must continue to find ourselves worthy of the example set by people all over the country, and to continue to act with empathy, with decency, and with kindness. Not only in our day-to-day interactions with the refugee or migrant communities, who continue to shape Aotearoa for the better as our neighbours, as our colleagues, and our friends, but in how we respond as a Government and as a nation.

In everything that we do here, our job is to build a future that is worthy of our children and our grandchildren. A place where everyone, no matter where they are from or who they are, is welcomed and supported with everything that they need for them and their families to thrive. Reaffirming our commitment to this vision, and making it our common purpose, is the best possible response to what happened on Friday. I want to stand here and say to all of those who come to Aotearoa to make a better life for their own children and grandchildren, and for the generations who follow them as New Zealanders, that Aotearoa will be a place where they can thrive, where they can be prosperous, and where they can feel at home.

An Aotearoa that is built on decency, compassion, and kindness stands in direct contrast to the belief of Friday’s attacker. Strengthening those foundations is the best possible way to prevent future violence and radicalisation, and to promote inclusion and equality. Let me join with the Minister by saying that the thoughts of Marama Davidson and me, and the rest of the Green Party, are with those who were harmed in Friday’s attack. I imagine that the grief and the worry that they and their families must be feeling right now is beyond description. Our hearts are broken too, but we are here for you. Our thoughts are also with the local community, who I can only imagine are confused and worried. We stand with you and we are here to support you. We also owe a debt of gratitude to those who responded at the scene; to the staff and the shoppers who were there at the time, going about their lives, picking up a few bits for the weekend or to provide for their families; to the police, who were on hand to move everyone to safety and to prevent further harm; to the doctors and to the nurses who are working, day and night, to care for those who are injured. Looking after each other is part of who we are, and it is a value that runs through our Government and our institutions, a system where people are looked after as we would want our own loved ones to be cared for.

If we want to continue to show the best of who we are, then we must all work together, at every level of Government, to work out the best long-term response to what happened on Friday. Our shared resolve is beyond dispute. None of us want anything like that to happen again. But it is the decisions that we make in the coming days and weeks that will have the most profound impact on whether or not we are successful. These decisions give us a chance to do better, to address past mistakes, and build a genuinely inclusive future, for the goal of terrorism is to scare us into changing who we are. And so, as we work together to protect our communities, let us remind ourselves that upholding our values is not a weakness, it is a strength. Unless the Government knows of another clear and present danger that is likely to crystallise in the coming weeks, the use of urgency to rush through legislation should be opposed on the grounds that it is more important to get right than it is to be seen to be doing something. Rushed legislation in response to events runs the risk of increasing harm to innocent people, particularly Māori, migrants, and refugees. What we have seen around the world is that Governments do not make good decisions when they are driven by fear. Rather, the best way to prevent further violence in the future is by upholding values of inclusion and equality.

The ideology that drove Friday’s attacker is not one shared by any faith, any race, or any ethnicity. It is not shared by us as a nation, or any of those who choose to seek safety and rebuild their lives here. No one who calls Aotearoa home deserves to have this upended by the actions of a lone attacker who does not represent them. Aotearoa has a proud and rich history of welcoming immigrants from around the world. If we act now in any way that stigmatises our refugee or migrant communities, either as individuals or as a Government, it will serve only to fuel the same false grievances that Friday’s attacker used to justify picking up a knife off a supermarket shelf and indiscriminately harming people. Marama Davidson, the Green Party, and I continue to believe that the best way to keep people safe is by solutions that are underpinned by evidence. This means acknowledging the complexities involved, working with communities, and wrapping our arms around the problem, not pushing it away.

Kia tau te rangimārie o Rangi e tū nei, o Papatūānuku e takoto nei o te taiao e awhi nei ki runga i a tātou. Tihei mauri ora. Nō reira tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[May the peace of the Sky Father above, the Earth Mother below, and the surrounding environment prevail upon us. I now begin. Therefore, greetings one and all.]

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I wish to join with other leaders, on behalf of ACT, in expressing sincere condolences for those victims in the terror attack at LynnMall Countdown last Friday. I want to further extend those condolences to their families and all those people going about their shopping who have been terrorised. Sadly, the purpose of terror is precisely to make people afraid to go about their daily business.

I want to add our admiration for those members of the New Zealand Police who fastidiously tracked this dangerous terrorist 24/7 for several weeks and were on hand, having carried out surveillance from the distance they were able, and certainly, or almost certainly, ensured that a much worse tragedy did not take place by neutralising the terrorist. I want to extend that admiration to the bystanders shopping and the Countdown stores who did the Kiwi thing and showed no hesitation in going and rushing to the aid of those victims. That is one of the examples that brings out the best in us.

I want to join with our Prime Minister in her statement that no group of people are responsible for the actions of an individual. It is wrong and inhumane to treat somebody based on their membership of a group before we recognise their inherent humanity, their inherent rights and freedoms, and the fact that we are all bound together by common humanity.

It would be completely wrong to foment further hatred and resentment by having a group of people judged for the actions of an individual, because with freedom comes responsibility, and only that individual is responsible for their actions. In that vein, ACT stands and offers our support to the Sri Lankan and Muslim communities of New Zealand, who some people have, sadly, chosen to typecast as being somehow bearing group responsibility for the actions of an individual. That is completely wrong. On the evidence, on philosophy, on just about any basis you care to name, it is wrong to have that judgment.

These are values that we need to celebrate, especially at a time like this. Our little country has been under attack by somebody with a philosophy that is completely opposed to everything that New Zealand stands for, and I’d add that it is very important that when our country is under attack, when it is terrorised, the last thing we should do is abandon the very values that make this country great—in particular, our system of deliberative, consultative parliamentary democracy.

We should be learning from our history. Last time there was a terror attack in this country, we rushed laws through this Parliament with undue haste, and, as ACT predicted at the time, they’ve been completely ineffective. In fact, today, gun violence in New Zealand is so bad that for the first time in our history, the majority of police officers have said they want to carry them, too.

We should not make the mistake of trying to fix rushed and bad laws with more rushed and bad lawmaking, and ACT opposes the initiatives some parties have put forward. Ironically, in a rare case of unity with the Green Party, we oppose rushing these laws through. If anything, the rushing should have been done earlier. It shouldn’t be done for the purposes of political theatrics now the person who was the prime threat has been removed.

I have a few questions to start what will no doubt be a lengthy debate about the fitness for purpose of our laws and the actions that our Government took. I want to ask, because I didn’t feel we got a clear answer—yes or no—from the Minister in response to Judith Collins’ questions: did any Minister certify the terrorist was a threat or risk to security under section 163(1) of the Immigration Act, and, if not, why not?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister responsible for the NZSIS): I can’t confirm whether or not that had happened. But what I can be clear about is that the agencies who were involved in assessing this individual and keeping tabs on him, both when he was in prison and outside of it, were very clear that he met the definition of a terrorist in terms of our terrorism suppression legislation.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Sections 163 and 164 refer to prohibitions on deporting people on the basis of being either a refugee or a protected person. Was it for either of those reasons that the Government did not define the person as a threat to national security under section 163?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister responsible for the NZSIS): As I thought I’d indicated, the person was the subject of a deportation order that he had then sought to appeal, and under our law you cannot deport while a deportation is under appeal. On top of that, advice was received that because of his status and the grounds for achieving that status, he was more likely than not a protected person, and that bore upon any decision about carrying out any deportation.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): How is it possible that the person could be a protected person when they no longer believed he qualified for refugee status?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister responsible for the NZSIS): Well, this goes to a question of the rule of law. So we have a judicial and quasi-judicial system that makes determinations about individual cases and individual people. He, having been served a deportation notice, was entitled to appeal it, and he did. That appeal had not been disposed of, and under those circumstances it was not possible to deport him.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): So let’s get this straight. The Government was waiting for the person’s appeal to keep his refugee status to pass before they could act, however while believing they might succeed at stripping him of refugee status—because the Government was taking an action to do that—they also believed that he would qualify as a protected person. How is it possible to be a protected person when the bases for being a refugee the Government clearly believed were fake? Otherwise it wouldn’t have removed his refugee status, and he’d have nothing to appeal.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister responsible for the NZSIS): In the end, it wasn’t about the Government’s decision. This was a judicial process that was in train, and Ministers, members of the executive, and Government agencies do not get to determine the outcome of that. The individual had exercised his right to appeal his deportation order. He had done so. That process was in train, and that puts constraints on what the executive can do in relation to that individual.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): How can the Government simultaneously hold the position that the person should not be a refugee, having stripped him of that right, and yet believe that he would qualify to be a protected person, and therefore not detain him on the basis that a deportation would be unsuccessful?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister responsible for the NZSIS): It is not for the Government to make the ultimate determination. The reason we have a quasi-judicial process in our immigration system is precisely because people independent of the Government ultimately make that determination. The Government might have received advice, the Government might have had a view, but in the end it is for those sitting in the appropriate authorities, through the appeal process, to make the determination. That determination had not been made.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): If the Government was waiting for that quasi-judicial process, what was stopping a Minister from declaring them to be a threat to national security under section 163(1)?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister responsible for the NZSIS): Well, I’m not in a position to give legal advice to the House, but I can say that all of the agencies involved in managing this particular individual considered every step available to them to make sure the community was safe. That was the driving motivation for every agency involved with this individual—to keep the community safe.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Does the Minister think it respectful of New Zealanders’ civil liberties to pass legislation under urgency, or more rapidly than planned, that, among other things, lowers the threshold for warrantless searches, redefines “terrorism” as “creating fear”, and criminalises people for things they planned to do, departing from centuries of tradition that you can only be in prison for things you’ve actually done?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister responsible for the NZSIS): I’ll take a moment to reflect on the irony of that member having, apparently, castigated the Government on its failure to breach the rule of law and override a quasi-judicial process, and now, on the other hand, assert rights that, you know, in very extreme circumstances could have caused danger.

The member makes, as he made before, a point about legislation of this nature: legislation that bears upon the very difficult issues of national security threats posed by an individual and ordinarily calling for constraints on that individual is problematic for this House. This House is going to have to weigh up whether or not the laws we have at the moment, and, indeed, the proposed laws that are working their way through the House, are sufficient to keep the community safe. In the end, that’s why we have those laws. In the end, that’s why we debate those laws in this House.

To the extent that that member is claiming there has been some sort of rush on the law—as I said in my statement, the work on filling the gaps in our terrorism legislation started in August 2018. It has been a very deliberative process. The law was introduced some months ago to the House and has been working its way through the select committee process and will come back to the House. But there is a gap in the law, and we’ve shown, where there is a gap in the law, that the community continues to be at risk.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I should just clarify for the Minister, who referred to me as somehow not respecting the legal process, my questions did not indicate the Government shouldn’t respect due process; I was simply pointing out that the positions that the Government had taken with respect to the person’s status as a refugee and a protected person seemed contradictory. And, if anything, the Government had second-guessed those processes and not taken all the actions it could have, as the Prime Minister has claimed.

But, in any case, I have one further question. Is the Government open to splitting the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill into two bills, one to deal with relatively simple and urgent measures, and another that could even have an extended select committee time, if the select committee and Business Committee agreed, to make sure that there was due consideration for more complex matters that may have arisen out of Friday’s attack?

Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern: It’s gone through a full select committee.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister responsible for the NZSIS): Well, there has been a very, very long and considered deliberation of the proposals that are currently before the House. The executive took some time to put together the package that fills the gaps in the current legislation, they’ve been considered by a select committee who are due to report back, and so considerable effort has already been put in. So I think the member can organise his team—as, indeed, other parties can—to make sure that when the matters come back before the House there is good, robust, and considered debate of them. But I know that the select committee has given very careful consideration to it.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I note the Prime Minister’s been heckling that it’s gone through a full select committee process; that’s simply untrue. It’s had four months, there have been submissions made, but what traditionally happens is that submissions are heard and then MPs deliberate. It’s one thing to accept submissions; it’s another thing to have time to deliberate on those submissions and the advice from the department. So when the Prime Minister says it’s had a full select committee process, then it should have been referred to come back now anyway. The fact it’s been asked to come back two months earlier—or, at least, that’s what she proposes—shows it has not been a full select committee process. That’s the second time in two weeks that the Prime Minister has been disrespectful to the importance of Parliament, in my view. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Order! The time for the—

Hon Chris Hipkins: So much for a—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! This is not the time for a Standing Orders seminar.

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

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

SPEAKER: No papers have been presented. No bills have been introduced.

A petition has been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

CLERK: Petition of Qiao Liu requesting that the House urge the Government to take immediate steps to make Brigham Creek Road safer for all road users.

SPEAKER: That petition stands referred to the Petitions Committee.

Select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.

CLERK:

Report of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee on Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Legislation Bill

report of the Health Committee on petition of Nicole Moana

report of the Petitions Committee on the petition of Lisa Er

report of the Regulations Review Committee on the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Order (No 2) Amendment Order (No 10) 2021.

SPEAKER: The bill is set down for second reading. The COVID-19 order is set down for consideration.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Mālō e lelei, and I acknowledge Tongan Language Week. Yes, and I do just want to reiterate or reinforce the statement made by Minister Andrew Little, in particular the best wishes of the Government to those who were the victims on Friday of a horrendous, violent attack, and, of course, reinforce that we will do all we can to learn from what has occurred in the lead-up to those events going forward, including any legislative responses required.

Hon Judith Collins: How many more people could have been vaccinated by now if the Government had secured additional vaccines two months ago?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Our vaccine roll-out has always been based on the supply that we have, noting, of course, that we receive over the course of October the entirety of our Pfizer order, which is more than enough to vaccinate every single eligible New Zealander. What we’ve been seeing over the course of September, of course, through the outbreak is the ability for us to surge up, meet the additional demand through the course of those months. Rather than cap that demand because of our limited supply, we’ve decided to meet it, and then go through extraordinary efforts to, over the course of a two- or three-week period, match the gap in supply that that then presented to us.

Hon Judith Collins: Does the extra supply announced today mean that she will bring forward the target of offering everyone a vaccine before the end of the year; if so, what is the new target date?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: We’ve always said that every New Zealander would have the ability to access a vaccine before the end of the year. That continues to be the case. Even when, actually, all of our supply came forward to October, we maintained that same principle. It’s still, of course, on us making it as available as possible; we still need New Zealanders, of course, to take up that opportunity, as well.

Hon Chris Hipkins: Did she see any commentators earlier in the year confidently predicting that the vaccine programme would fail to reach a target of 50,000 doses a day of the vaccine, on average, being delivered, and is she aware that the programme is now delivering closer to 80,000 vaccines a day, on average?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes, I did see some of that scepticism. I think it’s really a testament to the New Zealanders who are coming forward to be vaccinated, and some of the figures are fantastic. We now have 62 percent of people aged 12 and over who have had at least one dose, but what I’m really heartened by is what we’re seeing in the projections around New Zealanders who have either had their first dose or also booked for their dose: 91 percent of people aged 65-plus are booked or have been vaccinated with at least one dose, then 84 percent of people aged 40-plus, and it’s even 81 percent of people aged 30-plus. So, really good to see those high rates; we just want to see that continue, and we want it to be across the board.

Hon Judith Collins: How can New Zealanders prove that they have been vaccinated?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: At this point, it’s a manual process, so those who need for any reason to demonstrate that they’ve been vaccinated are able to contact the Ministry of Health, who can provide them with documentation. What they’re working on at the moment, though, is a digital solution, which will be able to be utilised for multiple purposes: either domestically, if they need to, or if, for instance, they need to produce vaccine passports overseas. There’s a couple of templates, though. There’s not just one that’s being used globally. We’re working very hard to make sure that what we develop will be compatible with the requirements of overseas jurisdictions.

Hon Judith Collins: Well, when will New Zealanders be able to easily provide electronic proof of their vaccination statement, as has been in place in many other countries, now, for months?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Keep in mind, some of those countries have used them to access venues and the like, and, of course, what we’re trying to do is ensure that we have something that is able to be used when moving through borders, as well, so multiple purposes. My recollection from the time line of health officials is that they’re working on it currently. They’re looking to have, I believe, something that will be available, I think, in the latter part of this year, so near the end of the year. They’ll want to, of course, make sure that they’re trialling and piloting it. I have to say, some of the digital solutions that our health team have worked on—be it the booking system, which, prior to now, didn’t exist; improvements to the immunisation register, which, previously, I have to say, we inherited a bit of a dog’s breakfast on the immunisation register; and then, also, the work they’ve done to develop the NZ COVID Tracer app—just demonstrate the incredible work that that digital team has done.

Hon Judith Collins: Does she stand by her answer to oral questions from me on 2 February in relation to vaccine passports that “I have received copies of advice provided to the Minister of Transport around developments of this regime.”, and why are we still waiting for it seven months later?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member conveniently left out that those briefings would have been around the International Air Transport Association development that was under way. Of course, New Zealand wanted to make sure that we were following the guidelines that were being worked through internationally to ensure that there was something that would be interoperable, so that’s what that briefing was about. Of course, as I’ve said, we are specifically working on an option that we believe should have interoperability, but, at the moment, countries are working on their own passports, and so you’re trying to get that dual purpose of having something that’s readily available but also having something that will be useful when New Zealanders travel.

Hon Judith Collins: So what advice, if any, has she received on whether law changes are needed to allow high-risk businesses to require employees to be vaccinated?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That advice predominantly would be going to our Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety and our Attorney-General, so I suggest a specific question to them.

Hon Judith Collins: Is it her plan that during any future outbreaks, as our level of vaccination increases, that New Zealand will be in a position to reduce the use of lockdowns and gatherings’ size limits?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Look, I think it’s everyone’s goal to reduce the need for lockdowns. They’re incredibly disruptive, they’re very hard on people, they’re very hard on businesses, so that is everyone’s goal. Where our experts have really cautioned is just putting a single number on it, and I can see why. When you look to some countries which many members in this House hold up as being the beacons of vaccination programmes, most of them still have restrictions in place in some form, and many of them sit somewhere between 70 to 80 percent of vaccination rates. So yes, we do want to see an end to those, but we haven’t put a number on it. We want to encourage everyone to be vaccinated as soon as possible.

Hon Judith Collins: Does she agree that if months ago New Zealand had achieved the rate of vaccination that we are currently seeing, we would be in the position today where hospitality businesses would not need to be under a new alert level 2D?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No, I absolutely disagree with that sentiment for two reasons. First of all, countries that started their vaccination programmes in earnest in, say, February and even peaked around April or May, in some cases still have restrictions in place, they still have gathering limits in place, they still have things that are constraining their everyday lives, and in those places where they don’t have that they have record hospitalisations. So I think it’s an overly simplistic analysis. The second issue I would point out to the member is the only thing that has constrained our vaccine roll-out has been supply. We have had in place an order with Pfizer that covers our whole population. Pfizer, of course, have determined globally who receives their supply and when. So regardless, of course, we got allocations for quarter one, two, three, and four, and, as with many countries, the bulk of ours are coming in quarter four, which is why we always designed a vaccine programme that factored that in.

Question No. 2—Health

2. Dr SHANE RETI (Deputy Leader—National) to the Minister of Health: When he reportedly admitted recently there were gaps in hospital preparations for the Delta outbreak, what were those gaps?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): I draw the member’s attention to my original statement, reported in the New Zealand Herald on 4 September 2021, where I said—and I quote—“Most of the DHBs have done an extraordinary amount to be ready and prepared, and they have been. Some things, I think, could have been done a little better. There was extra funding provided last year, and an online module for more nurses to do ICU learning, so that they could go into an ICU environment if they were called for. Some DHBs got on top of it. Others haven’t so much.” However, I will note that, in response to the recent Delta outbreak, all DHBs have accelerated the training of additional nurses in ICU skills to ensure sufficient nurses are available. Last year, all DHBs were urged, also, to ensure their health workforce were properly fit tested for the P2/N95 masks. Many fulfilled that request, but some have not completed the task just yet.

Dr Shane Reti: What gaps were there in the pathway from the emergency department to isolation at Middlemore Hospital that resulted in a subsequently coronavirus-positive patient being placed in a shared room with other people, including a 91-year-old man?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The information available is that the patient that the member refers to was tested the day after he was admitted to hospital and returned a positive test. It’s not quite clear how that could have been detected without a test having been conducted at the time that it was.

Dr Shane Reti: How many staff at Middlemore had been asked to isolate due to this event?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I’m not familiar with that number, except to say that Middlemore Hospital and the Counties Manukau District Health Board are doing an exemplary job in managing the pressure that they are under with COVID-19, running their COVID-19 wards, and making sure that their staff are kept safe with the appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE).

Dr Shane Reti: Does he consider this event to be serious, and, if so, why does he not know the number of staff who may be required to isolate?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Any patient who turns up to hospital with, and detected with, COVID-19 is a serious matter. We have geared up a system to deal exactly with that. That’s why I went through the measures that DHBs have been required to go through, and it’s why additional supplies of PPE and the appropriate training to go with that PPE—and the additional support given to staff to manage that—have been put in place.

Dr Shane Reti: Have there been any other incidents during the current outbreak, where people in hospital waiting for a coronavirus test result have been placed in a shared space with general patients while they wait?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Well, it’s not possible to say whether or not that is the case. Our response to COVID-19 is that anybody who is symptomatic or anybody who has been in a location of interest should get tested and do get tested. That is the way we keep track of what is happening, and that is the way we have managed the response for the current Delta variant outbreak that we’re dealing with right now.

Dr Shane Reti: Should people in hospital who are being tested for coronavirus be placed on a general ward with other people?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Well, people typically don’t go to hospital to be tested. If they want to be tested, they go to other places. But people turn up to hospital because they have other healthcare needs. And in this case, a patient turned up because he had other healthcare needs, was subsequently tested, and returned a positive test.

Question No. 3—Prime Minister

3. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by her statement that “with COVID raging outside our borders, and new more transmissible strains emerging, we have had to both make continual improvements to strengthen our border while continuing to plan and prepare for managing any resurgence in the most effective way possible”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes, as I’ve previously described—all relevant agencies across Government to make continuous improvements to our defence at the border and to plan for any resurgence in the community. This includes changes in anticipation of a variant of concern emerging in Aotearoa New Zealand. These improvements include the wider use of pre-departure testing; continued improvements of our system of managed isolation; the introduction of restrictions on passengers coming from very high-risk countries; the extensive use of whole genome sequencing; waste-water testing; boosting surge testing capacity; system readiness planning and preparation; contact tracing capacity; requirements for face covering; updates to the New Zealand COVID Tracer and Bluetooth app. Our preparedness is why, even in the middle of a community outbreak, New Zealand continues to have some of the lowest number of cases of any country in the developed world. Malo ’aupito.

David Seymour: Does she agree with Professor Michael Baker that “As soon as a positive person arrives in New Zealand MIQ, our risk of a local outbreak goes up exponentially.”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I do agree that, of course, as soon as you have COVID cases at your border, that does present risk, which is why we have such stringent arrangements. And, even in this case, that person having a test once they arrive, as soon as it was found to be positive, you have staff in full personal protective equipment transferring that person to a quarantine facility. We have regular testing of our staff, we have vaccination requirements of our staff, and 160,000 people who have been managed through managed isolation facilities with very few incidents. It just so happens when you do have an incident, it can have a devastating impact. And that’s obviously what many places have experienced.

David Seymour: Why, then, did the Government decide to announce on 9 July that people returning from New South Wales would not need to get a pre-departure test before coming to New Zealand and entering managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ)?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Because that was the advice provided by the Ministry of Health.

David Seymour: Why did the Government accept that Ministry of Health advice, which amounts to saying there is more risk of catching COVID while going out to get a test than there is of that test catching a case of COVID?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Two things to keep in mind. We put in place pre-departure testing ourselves midway through our programme, as an extra layer. However, people are still coming into managed isolation facilities. So the advice of the public health team was that rather than most countries in the world, where people are simply coming from everyday life and coming into New Zealand, we had a situation where New South Wales had already been in lockdown. So the view of the public health team was that because of multiple reasons, including the fact that they had already been in lockdown and that they would go straight into quarantine—it was their view that they should come over on red flights and go straight in. I would also add that there were some other factors there around the availability in red flights and things that were added complications.

David Seymour: Did the Government make any representations to Australian authorities or to the airlines to try and coordinate pre-departure tests prior to repatriation flights leaving New South Wales, which might have addressed those complications the Prime Minister just mentioned?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’ll just caution the member, because the implication here is that, had we had pre-departure testing, we wouldn’t have the individual who came into New Zealand with a case—and that’s simply not necessarily the case. It was a 72-hour prior pre-departure test, and from what I know of the time line of this case, this individual could well have got their clear test, then been infected, and then come into New Zealand. So I just want to just add that to the equation so that we don’t end up down a wormhole. When it comes to whether or not we asked anyone else to facilitate, no, we did not ask the New South Wales Government, in the middle of managing an outbreak, whether or not they would test our people before they departed. However, they have always made available testing generally for those in Australia. We did, however, reach out to Border Force around assistance with the checking of pre-departure tests with other departees who weren’t going into managed isolation. Keep in mind, of all the people who came home, I think we’ve had, in total, three or so cases who came out of New South Wales.

David Seymour: Is the Prime Minister saying that all those people who have a pre-departure test before boarding a flight to New Zealand, from practically every other place in the world, are not making a substantial contribution to reducing the chance of COVID getting out from a New Zealand MIQ?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’m saying that it is not perfect—absolutely not. Because you go and get a test 72 hours before you depart, you still have a possibility of being infected in those 72 hours, or, indeed, in your transit to New Zealand. We’ve seen multiple situations where people have been infected with COVID-19 in often what are very long journeys back to New Zealand. So it is another layer. It is not a perfect layer. We do not rely on it. That is why we test people when they arrive as well, and we continue to test them throughout their duration here.

David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister regret the Government’s decision which led to the person who came to New Zealand and brought Delta not having a pre-departure test, just as Auckland enters its fourth week of level 4 lockdown?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: There is no way anyone in this House—or anyone in New Zealand—would want to be in the place we are with people in lockdown right now, of course. But it is overly simplistic to imply that had that one thing been there this wouldn’t have happened. I don’t think that’s fair, particularly given what I recall of the time line of when we believe this person became infected. I just don’t think it’s a fair summation.

Question No. 4—Workplace Relations and Safety

4. JAN LOGIE (Green) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: Is he confident that Government policies are ensuring working people are safe and supported during the current COVID-19 outbreak?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: Mr Speaker, mālō ‘aupito. Yes. The Government has put in place extensive financial support, including the wage subsidy scheme, the leave support scheme, and the short-term absence payment. Around 350,000 wage subsidy payments have been made since 18 August, and around 2,500 leave support and short-term absence payments. We continue to ensure that people receive the support they need around their employment rights, making additional COVID-19 employment guidance available on the Employment New Zealand website, providing additional resources to our service centre to answer employment queries, and providing an additional early resolution service as part of the mediation service to help resolve employment disputes. At all times, normal employment law and health and safety requirements also continue to apply.

Jan Logie: Will the Minister ensure that essential workers who have to stay home because they’re unable to access appropriate childcare continue to be paid while they put the health and safety of their tamariki first?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: On behalf of the Minister, I am advised that, obviously, the Government has contracted Out of School Care and Recreation childcare providers and licensed home-based education and care providers to provide that childcare to workers in alert level 4, and businesses and services, it’s free of charge, it’s offered for those aged 0-13. There is also the possibility for those at alert level 4 to expand their bubble in order to bring somebody in to provide that support for them as well. So I believe that the Government is taking the steps it needs to to provide that support.

Jan Logie: Does the Minister believe the wage subsidy scheme is working for all working people in Aotearoa, including those in unstable work, casual contractors, migrant workers not able to access support, and early childhood education relief teachers?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I do believe that the wage subsidy scheme is working well. It is true to say that there is a wide variety of employment arrangements in New Zealand. One point I would like to make is that employers can apply on behalf of casual staff who work for them, and I would encourage them to do that. For those who fall outside of the criteria that the wage subsidy scheme has, there are supports in place through the Ministry of Social Development and I encourage them to contact the Ministry about those.

Jan Logie: How has the Government been evaluating the coverage of the wage subsidy scheme and making any subsequent improvements for workers as we’ve moved between different alert levels over the last year?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: There’ve been a couple of reviews of the wage subsidy scheme, one was undertaken by the Auditor-General, actually. There’s also been one that, I believe it may have been Deloitte did on behalf of the Ministry of Social Development, and there is ongoing work as we sit within each incarnation of the scheme to make sure we get it into the right shape.

Jan Logie: What new support has the Minister put in place or advocated for to ensure all workers have access to financial support during this lockdown, even when their employer is not eligible, has not applied, or is not passing on their COVID-19 wage subsidy or leave support scheme?

SPEAKER: Any one of the eight or nine questions!

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Yeah, I was about to say! I’ll pick up some of those points. The first one I would make is the one that I made in my primary answer: employment law stands. If there are examples of people who are not being paid in the way that they should be because of a decision of an employer, then there are rights and, as I have said publicly before, people should join a union, be part of a union, and make sure that those people are there to help them in situations like this. In terms of issues around migrant workers, there have been schemes in place to support migrant workers throughout this period of time, and there is a very small number of people still involved in some of those schemes. Beyond that, I go back to the Ministry of Social Development. They are there for situations where people fall outside of the working environment.

Jan Logie: Did the Minister consider or provide for any agencies to proactively contact employers who had COVID-related health and safety or employment relations complaints after the last two lockdowns to ensure that they would follow the law this time round?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): On behalf of the Minister, within the Minister’s portfolio I’m unable to provide that information today. I’m sure we can get back to the member on that. More generally, yes there have been follow-ups, particularly through the wage subsidy scheme, we’ve seen around $700 million returned from employers from the wage subsidy scheme that they’ve taken. And I do know that the employment parts of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment are constantly following up complaints about things not just related to COVID, I might add, but where people believe there have been breaches of laws.

Jan Logie: When the Minister mentioned adaptations for additional resources for the centre and Early Resolution Service, is he confident that the system is responding to the COVID environment, and, for example, is their online dispute resolution capacity adequate—is the system coping with delays in bargaining?

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I did warn the member earlier.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: On behalf of the Minister, I don’t have advice that the system isn’t working. Clearly, under a COVID environment, there will be an increase in inquiries, and that’s why I mentioned before that additional resourcing has been provided and we continue to direct people to that resourcing. If the Government were presented with concerns that there was inadequate resourcing, I’m very confident the Minister would approach the Minister of Finance with that matter.

Question No. 5—Finance

5. Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) to the Minister of Finance: Does the Minister have confidence in the administration and timeliness of the COVID-19 wage subsidy scheme?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Mr Speaker, mālō ‘aupito. Yes. We have never had to stand up a scheme such as this in New Zealand’s history, and in these circumstances I think the administration and timeliness of the scheme has been excellent. The wage subsidy scheme has so far made 1,133,379 payments since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. From time to time, administration errors can occur when staff are working around the clock, as happened last week when applications were not possible under the scheme for two hours and when the new form was uploaded. This is regrettable, of course, but does not take away from the excellent work that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has done here.

Hon Louise Upston: Will he extend the application deadline for the first fortnight the wage subsidy was available, given the early closure on 2 September and portal issues on 3 September meant some businesses were unable to apply?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As was said at the time, anyone who had issues during the two-hour period that the applications were not possible should make themselves known to MSD. I am aware that 430 people have done so and MSD is now working that through with them.

Hon Louise Upston: How many wage subsidy applications were not processed within the three-day time target set by his Government in the current wage subsidy round and how many are still outstanding?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The information I have here in front of me is that 91 percent of applications have been paid within three working days.

Hon Louise Upston: Why has the Government taken reference to the three-day target off their website?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I wasn’t aware that we had.

Hon Louise Upston: Does the Minister appreciate that delayed wage subsidy payments are creating uncertainty and stress for New Zealanders at a time they are making sacrifices and have done everything the Government has asked of them?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I absolutely accept that many businesses are in a very stressful period at the moment, and we’re doing our level best to support them through that. As I said in my previous answer, I’m advised that 91 percent of applications have been paid within three days. What I can say is that the most common reason for a delay in applications is where the information held by Inland Revenue about a business is different from the information on the Ministry of Social Development’s application—on the application form. That is the single most pressing issue, so if I can put out a plea for people when they are applying to ensure that the details on their application form with MSD are the same as the details that are held by Inland Revenue about that business.

Question No. 6—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes.

David Seymour: Does she stand by her statement from yesterday that “We also want to increase our testing of people who are crossing the Auckland boundaries to ensure we don’t see any spread beyond Auckland.”, and, if so, why hasn’t saliva testing been rolled out more widely in Auckland and at its boundaries?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes. To answer the second half of the question, as we speak, the Ministry of Health is working on contracting a provider to support border testing with saliva testing. The one point I would make, though, is that the ability to do border testing is in no way contingent on having saliva testing. Yes, it’s fantastic to have it available. It’s being used both in our managed isolation facilities, where we have a contract for a provider there, and also it’s being used by a number of firms privately. Border testing is not contingent on having it, but it is something that the Ministry of Health is contracting for.

David Seymour: How is it possible that just 800 saliva tests are currently being done each week, when the Government signed a contract for 20,000 a week all the way back in May?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, keep in mind that saliva testing that we’ve contracted to be provided is doing exactly the same job as the nasal swabs, albeit, obviously, through collecting in a different way. So it’s not as if by not having that scaled up, somehow we have lost something. It is an extra, additional tool that gives some choice to staff members around the way that they’re being tested, because we totally understand—and anyone who has been swabbed will know—how uncomfortable it would be to have that done on a regular basis. So the reason for the numbers they’ve had is simply for uptake in the way it’s being rolled out, but we are looking at using it for returnees as well, so I expect those numbers will only continue to increase. As I say, we’re contracting separately for border testing as well.

David Seymour: So is saliva testing a very good thing when the Government contracts 20,000 saliva tests a week, and not really necessary when it’s only doing 800 a week?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, if the member wants the intricate details on how the Ministry of Health intends to scale up to what they’ve contracted to, I invite the member to ask the Minister for COVID-19 Response, or feel free to put a question like this on notice, and I will happily bring down some of the plans that the Ministry of Health have around scaling up for their contract, because it’s just not information I have in front of me, and I’m sure the member would appreciate that.

David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister stand by her statements earlier this afternoon about how difficult and complex it is to negotiate a vaccine swap with another country?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes. I only said it this afternoon, and I still mean it.

David Seymour: When did she realise it?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, also the member wasn’t, obviously, listening to the entire stand-up, because this notion of vaccine swaps are still actually sale and purchase agreements individually. They’re just in both directions, if that is, indeed, what people do.

Hon Member: Interesting.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: So just—

SPEAKER: Can the member just stop the noise? It seems weird through a mask.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I don’t think the quality of the interjection was either lowered or raised by the fact that a mask sat between it. So, look, that was just a commentary on that. As I’ve said, we’ve been working on some of these arrangements over the past couple of weeks.

David Seymour: Is the Prime Minister saying they only started to negotiate a swap of vaccines with other countries in the past couple of weeks?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’ve already corrected the member on his assertions around swaps, and if the member listened to the exchange between myself and the actual Leader of the Opposition, you would have heard me answer the questions around supply.

Question No. 7—COVID-19 Response

7. CHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Minister for COVID-19 Response: Has the Director-General of Health exempted, under clause 9 of the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Point-of-care Tests) Order 2021, any point-of-care tests from the prohibitions against them in clause 7 of the order, and what is current Government policy towards rapid COVID-19 tests?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Mālō e lelei, Mr Speaker. I’m advised that to date a total of 34 letters of authorisation by the Director-General of Health have been issued under clause 9 of the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Point-of-care Tests) Order 2021, covering the import and supply of or use of rapid COVID-19 tests. Thirty-three of the authorisation letters related to rapid molecular tests that were already in use in laboratories in the national COVID-19 testing laboratory network prior to the order being issued, or to their use in laboratories that have operationalised our PCR tests since the order was issued. In relation to the second part of the member’s question, the Ministry of Health is investigating options for the utilisation of rapid antigen tests in certain settings, such as for the healthcare workforce and as part of the point of arrivals trial within the reconnecting New Zealand work programme. One letter of authorisation has been issued to allow the Ministry of Health to import a quantity of rapid antigen tests so that the potential use of those tests under the public health response can be evaluated and/or piloted.

Chris Bishop: Just in relation to the last part of the answer, in relation to the one letter of authorisation to allow the ministry to import, I think you said, rapid antigen tests for trials—when was that letter issued and when will those tests be imported into New Zealand?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I don’t have an exact date. It would have been within the last few months, though.

Chris Bishop: Will the Government allow rapid antigen tests to be used for essential workers crossing the Auckland boundary who are now required to be tested weekly, and, if not, why not?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: That’s not part of our current expectation. We are looking to ensure that a variety of different testing methodologies are available, including saliva testing and nasopharyngeal and oral throat swabs, as are currently used. We want to have a high degree of efficacy for those tests. We’re not proposing, at this point, rapid antigen tests.

Chris Bishop: When the Ministry of Health says that “Increased surveillance testing in healthcare, border, quarantine and essential workers is a key focus to help stamp out Auckland’s delta … outbreak.”, why are no rapid COVID-19 tests being used, when they could deliver a lot of surveillance tests very quickly?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: In the case of New Zealand, where we’re aiming to identify every single case of COVID-19 that might exist within the community, we need to have a test that is as accurate as possible, and a PCR test, be it saliva or through a throat or a nasal swab, is regarded internationally as the gold standard for reliability of testing methodologies. Other countries that are using things like rapid antigen tests are doing so in the context, usually, of widespread community transmission, where missing a few cases here and there has a lower consequence than it does in New Zealand.

Chris Bishop: Has he seen the comments of Dr Shaun Hendy, in relation to rapid antigen tests, “If we had them widely available now, I think they would be a very useful tool in combating delta.”, and will the Government be listening to its own expert modeller?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Of course, there are a range of experts the Government listens to, and unfortunately they don’t always agree with one another. So yes, Professor Hendy’s advice is a stream of advice that we do take into consideration, and we’ll continue to do so. We do have a team at the moment, a dedicated technical team, working on different testing methodologies. They are producing advice for the Government on emerging testing technologies and other existing technologies that are out there that we’re not currently using. Of course, we’re awaiting some of that advice, and we are eagerly anticipating some of it.

Urgent Debates

Terrorist Attack—Auckland

SPEAKER: I have received a letter from the Hon Judith Collins seeking to debate under Standing Order 399 the terrorist attack on shoppers in a New Lynn supermarket, and Government actions leading up to the attack. This is a particular case of recent occurrence and there is ministerial responsibility for the actions of Government in relation to the terrorist. Under the Policing Act 2008, the Police Commissioner acts independently of the Government in enforcement of the law in relation to any individual and the investigation and the prosecution of offences. These are not matters for which Ministers can answer to the House. Members have had the opportunity to question a Minister on this matter following the ministerial statement. Legislation to address the counter-terrorism aspects of this case will be debated in the House in the near future. However, there are many more elements to this matter, including issues relating to our security services, Immigration, Corrections, and Justice, and it is likely that more than one member from the main Opposition party will want to raise questions across those portfolio areas. The ministerial statement today did not provide adequate scope for such a broad and important debate. Therefore, I call on the Hon Judith Collins to move that the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance. Mr Speaker, point of order, are we having the clock operating?

SPEAKER: Sorry, it’s running.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a really serious matter that I think the whole of Parliament is concerned with, and that is what has happened to, obviously, our country, that we end up with two major acts of terrorism in the last two years, or two and a bit years. The situation that New Zealand now faces as a country with Western values, the rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, all of these privileges that we have are things that many people come to New Zealand to enjoy, become part of our society, embrace all those freedoms, and are the greatest advocates for our way of life.

The particular instance, though, that we’re talking about here is a man who came to New Zealand, supposedly he came on a student visa to, supposedly, study in New Zealand. A month later, he cancelled out of that and then claimed to be a refugee. It is pretty distressing to find out that having had the immigration department decide that they did not believe he met the requirements for a refugee, his refugee status, he appealed it and then ended up—through the tribunal that deals with these, the Immigration and Protection Tribunal, they approved his refugee status. Some years later, when he was being subjected to—his activities had, obviously, come to the attention of security agencies. Searches of his computers showed that he had in fact manufactured the evidence, or a large part of the evidence, that had been relied on by the tribunal in granting him refugee status. Refugee status is something that gives tremendous power and also rights within this country, as we would expect it to do.

The problem that we have with people like this man is that he used that right and then used it against New Zealand, therefore actually putting at risk many other people who are very genuine refugees, who would then say that some New Zealand - born people might look at them differently, might look at them suspiciously. That would be a very bad thing to happen—very bad for our country, very bad for our community. When we had the terrible situation of the mosque massacres in March 2019, that situation led people to believe that, and after the royal commission’s report that the security agencies had been too closely watching what they believed to be Islamist terrorists—in other words, extremists—rather than looking to white supremacist extremists. The fact is, quite clearly, all extremists are a concern when they advocate for the death or killing or harm to others based on their ethnicity, their gender, or their beliefs.

So the situation has occurred today, we’ve had a ministerial statement from the Minister, and I would like to thank him for that. The issue has to be: was there something else that we could do? Looking backwards is easy to do, but looking forwards, what can we do? There must be something that can be done around those who claim refugee status so clearly not, here, compliant with the rules that would normally be required around refugees and their status being granted, but then are found to have fraudulently concocted stories and evidence. Clearly, Immigration took the steps that they felt they could, which was around trying to get this man’s refugee status removed. He appealed, but in the meantime could he have been removed during that appeal time?

Now, the Prime Minister has commented today during interjections that, no, he couldn’t have been because he was subject to an appeal. But then looking at the Act, the Immigration Act, at sections 163 and 164, and also looking to the UN convention on refugees, it appears, certainly on first reading, that he could have been removed, because if the Crown even accepted or said, “Well, he’s a refugee.”, he could still be removed as a refugee whether or not he was legitimately one or not.

So the problem then happens. It occurs. And that’s the question I’m sure that the Government had to consider: is he a protected person? Is he going to be sent back to a country where his life could be in danger? Well, actually, better his life than the lives of those six people, plus another who had their shoulder dislocated—six people who were stabbed by him. His life has to be balanced—and his faith and his beliefs have to be balanced—against those people who actually were doing nothing wrong, going about their shopping in a supermarket. He was known to hate white people. He was known to want to kill white people. I don’t know the ethnicity of those who were stabbed by him on Friday, but it certainly appears that that is what he wanted to do. He wanted to go off and fight with Daesh in Syria. Some people would say, “Shame he didn’t go there. He could have been sorted out another way.”

But I think the Government is right. We have an obligation not to send known terrorists or people who want to be terrorists off to go on to be terrorists. We’ve got obligations around that. So the question has to be not just in the law changes that the Government is bringing through, which the National Party fully supports, but it also has to be: how do we deal with situations where someone is even a genuine refugee—which I don’t believe for a moment that this person was—but who then goes on to become a national security issue and risk for New Zealand? I think these are genuine questions that aren’t going to be—that one’s not going to be dealt with in the current legislation that the Government has before the House.

Now, I don’t agree with my parliamentary colleague David Seymour that this is a rushed process—that the counter-terrorism legislation that the Government is bringing through has not finished its select committee process. The fact is, it has been in select committee for four months. I’ve discussed the matter with my colleagues from the National Party who are members of that select committee and they are satisfied with the quality of the bill following its time in select committee. The select committee process has heard from members of the public and those interested in this legislation. They have considered it. They have very carefully thought about it and they have balanced the rights and the responsibilities of people who live in New Zealand.

So I don’t have any problem or any qualms saying we should support the counter-terrorism legislation that the Government has before the House. That’s why I let the Prime Minister know that if she wanted to bring it through earlier, we would support it. Because this is a big issue for New Zealand. In most criminal matters, we don’t have laws against planning criminal activities, unless it’s the conspiracy law. If someone’s acting by themselves, it’s hard to call that a conspiracy. You normally have to have more than one person. But I think that this is an issue that is very important and it’s not one that we’ve really had to grapple with before. So having found this issue, we now need to deal with it.

We also, I think, need to consider how terrorism laws can be used to prevent people who think that they have a particular gripe or angst against the Government and that they want to be able to protest. People will remember, I’m sure, the Urewera raids, the Operation Eight that caused so much hurt in the Ureweras. But also I’m fully aware that there were activities going on there that caused the security agencies great disquiet. So we haven’t really seen, until March 2019 and now this latest incident, any experience of actual terrorism other than—I think the closest we’d ever had before was the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, and that was by the then French Government.

So we just simply are, generally, as a country—most New Zealanders—reasonably naive about the fact that we might have at any time 30 to 40 people who are giving the security agencies a great deal of concern. There could also be several hundred people that they are concerned with, because things have changed and we need to be able to adapt to them. I think one of the things that we can sometimes do when we’re bringing about law changes like this that we’re talking about, and those that might be needed around the ability to remove from New Zealand people who are legally here as refugees or as protected persons, should they become a national security threat, is that we need to perhaps put limitations, time limits on some of these provisions. Because society changes, rules change, the ability to deal with things change, and we need to be able to adapt.

That’s why we’re quite interested in the royal commission’s report, after the mosque massacres, which was really around recommending that there be a counter-terrorism agency, not instead of but as well as the agencies we have now. I’m sure the agencies, having dealt with them over the years in a ministerial and also in a Leader of the Opposition role, would be very jealous of their roles and would not want to share any of those at all. But it is important that just because they think it’s all going swimmingly well, we should be thinking about these things. I think it is something we should seriously consider, because the March 2019 massacres were clearly not a one-off; there are, in fact, people in our society and they don’t necessarily present as any differently from anyone else unless you know, we all know, what’s going on in their computers or in their minds—that we could have other risks like this.

We believe, some of us believe, that there are such risks as this still out in the community, and people would not know; they don’t have “terrorist” tattooed across their heads. They are, in fact, people who can look like everyone else, go about their daily business, but actually hold to them their views—views that are not just contrary to most New Zealanders but actually have enormous antipathy to New Zealand, our way of life, our rule of law, and our systems. So these are issues that I think do need to be addressed.

The Minister has referred to, in questions from me and in the ministerial statement, the royal commission’s report and the comments around the agencies themselves. Clearly, when you have an agency that is the lead agency, such as Police in this last instance, other agencies are involved in this. There’s no one agency to be held to account. There are multiple agencies. There are multiple Ministers. It is actually something a little bit like a dog’s breakfast when it comes to who is actually in charge. I’m really not sure that we are now at a stage where, as a country, we should accept that the Police do some bits, the SIS does another bit, the GCSB does something else, Immigration does another half of that, and we’re all sitting around saying, “Well, hopefully that all works in well.” There really does need to be some ministerial responsibility in terms of who directs agencies. There also needs to be agency heads who we can call in and question rather than saying, “Oh, that bit was another agency’s mandate.” So I think there is a lot more to be said about whether or not there should be a separate agency for counter-terrorism, similar to what there is in some other countries to whom we align. It would be useful to consider that more fully than simply to presume that everything is going well, when quite clearly it hasn’t.

I would also like to just take the opportunity just before I complete my contribution just to shout out, frankly, to the New Zealand police of the Special Tactics Group (STG) unit who were undertaking surveillance of this man. It’s a very dangerous job, STG; they deal with very dangerous people. And can I say that I’m sure that most New Zealanders feel exactly like I do, that I’m very pleased that they were there that day.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister responsible for the NZSIS): Mr Speaker, thank you, and I acknowledge the Hon Judith Collins, the member who’s resumed her seat, and I agree with her that this is a very important issue and a very important topic. Issues of national security are. This was a matter of national security.

The individual at the centre of this case had been identified as early as 2016 as being a person of interest to our agencies, and it was at that point that the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, doing its job and having identified the person, worked with other agencies to ensure that there were interventions to ensure that whatever could be done to keep the community safe from him was done. It might be noted that, of course, the individual was a fraction younger at that time. He came to this country at a reasonably young age, and we tend to have a view for those who offend at a younger age, even if it’s not a very young age, that every effort is made to turn around troubled lives so that they may lead good lives, and that was no different in this case. Without understating and underestimating the level of risk that he posed, nevertheless, efforts were made to intervene in a way that was constructive and, hopefully, helpful.

Following him being identified in 2016 and interventions being staged, he then undertook to travel overseas, clearly with a purpose to further his ideologically extremist views and to fight with ISIS. He was intercepted and prevented from travelling. That happened in fulfilment of our international obligations. Upon further inquiry and investigation by the police, a considerable amount of objectionable material that he was using, as well as a weapon, was found in his possession, and he was arrested and charged and remanded in custody. He was held in custody for a number of months. He was released in 2018, and within six weeks was rearrested and charged with offences. Different Acts, different actions, but along the same lines: objectionable material and having a weapon. It was very clear to the authorities through the way this man had expressed himself online and the way he had spoken to others that he clearly had a vision, a fantasy, or possibly a plan that he wanted to carry out at some point that was about causing harm to others.

While this was happening, and most of the time while he was in custody, it was this Government that took the step of reviewing the Terrorism Suppression Act, because we were aware there were gaps in that legislation. As I recall as Minister of Justice, it was pretty much one of the first pieces of advice I received. It was that this was an area that needed attention, and through a combination of the Ministry of Justice, at that time, and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, who was giving advice to the Prime Minister—who was also, and is, the Minister for National Security and Intelligence—a programme of work was embarked upon from August 2018. We knew that one of the big gaps was the planning and preparation offences. We knew that that had to be covered off, and so a considerable amount of work had to be done on that.

Our parliamentary colleague David Seymour as well as the Leader of the Opposition have identified that, actually, there is a real tension here between at what point the criminal law intercedes a person’s actions to say that what you’re doing is criminal when there is no completed act of violence or harm caused to another. It’s a challenge for jurisdictions around the world, and particularly in our Commonwealth jurisprudence based on the countries with whom we are most closely aligned, or at least our legal systems are, that our systems struggle with at what point do you decide somebody has acted criminally.

When you look at the events of Friday for this particular person, you ask yourself at what point was it evident that this person had a plan that could fall under any definition of planning and preparing for an offence. He’d left the place where he was domiciled, he’d boarded a train, he had gone to the supermarket—these were all things that were within his routine, or at least such routine as he was able to establish in the seven weeks since his release from prison—and then he found himself in the supermarket, he saw a knife, and he took that knife and he harmed others. When the House comes to deliberate over the legislation that is being considered by the select committee, that is the debate we have to have. That is the debate this House has to have: where do you draw that criminal line? It is clear we need to have one. It is clear we need to have an offence that relates to preparation and planning of violence and extreme acts, and this House will get the opportunity to deliberate on where the drawn line is.

I know there are some who are saying—and the Leader of the Opposition herself alluded to it—what other actions could have been taken under other legislation, and the leader of the ACT Party referred to the Immigration Act. He referred to sections 163 and 164, I think—well, he referred to section 163. It would have been helpful if he had referred to section 164. Section 163 is very clear that the Minister does have a power to deport and give advice to the Governor-General to do that, but section 164 says something else. It says that no person who is recognised as a refugee or protected person may be deported, and section 164 goes on in subsection (2) to say that that subsection applies despite anything in that part of the Act.

It is not possible to deport somebody who has refugee status. Even when that status is being challenged, even when it’s under review, and even when it is being reconsidered by the immigration and refugee tribunal, it is not possible to deport, and that matter was considered.

I’d say what I said in answer to questions following the ministerial statement: I assure this House, as the Prime Minister did as early as Friday afternoon, that every step that could be taken, that any of the Government authorities could take to keep the community safe and to keep New Zealanders safe from this person, it was taken. It was considered. But we are a country of the rule of law, and our agencies do not act arbitrarily; they act within the law.

They did so, and they did a tremendous job and put in a tremendous effort to strive to keep New Zealanders safe, to the point where he, having exhausted his detention time in prison, he could not be detained for any longer. He had been convicted, he had been sentenced, he had served a number of years in prison, the judge had placed him under a supervision order and put orders on what he could and could not do, and the police, with the support of the intelligence agencies, placed him under the most intense monitoring, I suspect, that just about anybody has been under at any time. He was placed under intense monitoring and was followed in a safe way, but followed with a view to keeping New Zealanders safe.

The other thing that can be said about him is that, as is not unusual with somebody carrying his views, he had a level of paranoia. He was, as they say, security aware. He took steps to evade authorities. He suspected he was under surveillance, but he took steps to evade that surveillance anyway, and that posed challenges, as well, for a surveillance team.

Whenever we are faced with events like this, as we were with March 2019—again, a lone-actor attack, but in quite different circumstances—it is right for us as a nation, and certainly for this House as the place where our laws are made, to take pause and to reflect on what we might do that might improve the situation should a situation like this arise in the future—and, God willing, it never will. But we have to have laws that reflect the level of risk and threat that we face at the moment. This Government had started that process. That is why we have introduced amendments to the Terrorism Suppression Act.

But let us look at the other pieces of legislation that might be relevant here: the Immigration Act. What do we do with somebody to whom we grant protection; to whom we say, “This is a safe place for you, you have persuaded our authorities that you were in danger in your home country, and this is now a safe place of refuge for you”. We have an international obligation to offer that to those who seek asylum, to those who come across our border in fear for their lives because of the place that they have come from. But that cannot be unconditional. When we offer a place of refuge and respite to those who genuinely need it, that cannot be an excuse for those who then want to cause harm to New Zealanders and turn that status on its head. Does our law adequately reflect that? Does our law allow us to act in those circumstances, in the very rare circumstances, I expect, that that would ever arise in? Perhaps it doesn’t, and so perhaps we should reconsider it, and we will have a look at that.

Is there anything about the powers of the Police, of our intelligence agencies, that we would need to reconsider and to change? Well, the royal commission of inquiry into the Christchurch mosque attacks had a very thorough examination of our intelligence and security legislation, of our police powers, mainly in relation to the Arms Act. They came up with some recommendations and we are in the process of fulfilling those recommendations, including providing a level of consolidation around the way in which intelligence is led in New Zealand.

I think we have—and you might say, “Well, you would say that because you’re the Minister in charge of them”—two excellent intelligence agencies in the form of the SIS and the GCSB; they do a terrific job. They act under the powers that they’ve got and they are assiduous in making sure that they act within the law. Nevertheless, the royal commission has said that there are some things we could do that would, if not improve the exercise of powers under that legislation, actually make sure that our intelligence function has a style and form of leadership that is looking over the horizon, that is looking for future risks, and that is making sure that the environment within which our operational agencies work is going to have the greatest effect in providing protection and security for New Zealand. But that work is under way and we will continue that. We will continue that sort of leadership and we will continue to examine all those things—the laws, the agencies, and the authorities—that bear upon the events that happened on Friday afternoon.

I might say this, too, in terms of the effort taken by agencies to deal with this particular individual—one of those was to lay a charge under the Terrorism Suppression Act, and that was ruled out by a judge. The judge considered the charge, considered the legislation, and it was that judge that reminded us all—effectively, what the Solicitor-General said in 2007 is that nothing in that legislation allows for prosecution of an act that is an act of preparation or preparing for a violent terrorist offence. We have the opportunity to repair that now. We have the opportunity to fill that gap.

As this House has already done today, it is always important to come back to the people who are foremost in our minds, and that is the innocent victims, the innocent shoppers who were confronted with a most violent and extreme act of terror on Friday afternoon. We bear that in mind. But, in the end, it is for this House using its deliberative function, using the intellect and talent assembled within us, as we consider these important issues—very important issues of national security—that bear upon our freedoms, that bear upon our human rights, but ultimately are there about affording us protection as a nation, to think carefully about what new and next steps we take in light of Friday’s horrific act. I’m confident this House will do that.

I’m encouraged by the messages that have come from the Leader of the Opposition and her party, and others, to make sure that when we get the opportunity to debate the Terrorism Suppression Act, and, indeed, any other piece of legislation that we consider requires further examination, we will do so in a considered function. I’m confident that we will reach the right outcome, because I’m equally confident that every member in this House has, in their heart, one wish, and that is the safety and security of all New Zealanders.

Hon JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I’m very encouraged to hear the closing words of the Hon Andrew Little then, talking about how any legislative change that comes before the House will be done in a careful and considered manner. One of the things that I said in response to the Minister’s statement prior to question time was that when such laws are rushed through in a knee-jerk response to events, they often end up harming innocent people, particularly communities including Māori, immigrant communities, and refugee communities. There is a real risk here that because the terrorist last Friday in West Auckland was someone who had come to this country from another country and was attempting to use the refugee and immigration system in order to stay here, people from his community, his family, other migrant communities and so on, and other religious or ethnic groups could well be stigmatised, and we know that the risk of that is very real.

I am worried about a knee-jerk rush to pass a law in the next few weeks which, although it has received some consideration, has not yet completed its normal process through the House. When it comes to our precedent for this sort of thing, we know that there have been increased harms that have been visited upon communities who don’t deserve it and have nothing to do with the people who are wanting to, or do, or are planning to commit acts of terror in the New Zealand community.

The law as it was drafted—and I haven’t seen the report of the committee yet because, of course, it hasn’t yet reported back—as it went into the select committee, had some real issues to it, and these are things that you might say would be typical for the Green Party to say, but there were very thorough submissions and very firm views held by the Law Commission, the Human Rights Commission, and the Privacy Commissioner about that law as well. That is because it essentially deals with crimes that have not happened yet and the possibility that we could be criminalising somebody for some form of future crime.

The corollary of this, as well, is that every time we increase the powers of the secret services or the police to deal with things, such as through the Terrorism Suppression Act, we have to be mindful of the institutions that are wielding those powers. They have had a history in this country of targeting communities and individuals who on the basis of—it’s politely called institutional bias; at its worst it’s outright racism. This is some of the issue that the royal commission of inquiry pointed to after 15 March when it essentially said that the services were looking in the wrong place—that one of the reasons why we missed the terrorist in Christchurch on March 15 is because he didn’t fit the profile that our services were looking for. So whilst there has been an enormous amount of work done—and I do want to credit the Hon Andrew Little for that and also his predecessor the Hon Chris Finlayson for the work they have done on trying to ensure that those organisations and those institutions that are charged with keeping New Zealanders safe are actually looking at people who may be committing violence regardless of what those people look like, what background they come from. We do need that consideration to be part of the deliberation of this House when we do get around to examining that piece of legislation.

The other thing that worries us is the possibility that we may be making it easier to deport people. The corollary of that is that we are essentially saying that people who commit violence in our society are foreigners and that the solution is to deport them, whereas that is not always going to be the case, and if our attention is on people who do come to this country, then we can quite easily miss our own home-grown terrorists as well. We know that there are still issues of racism and extreme ideology in this country and that it’s not exclusive to people who come here from overseas.

We also know that what happened on Friday was committed by somebody who had huge problems, and that in his multiple interactions with various services in the course of his time in this country before the events on Friday, things that could have happened to de-radicalise him—to provide mental health support and rehabilitation—did not happen. He spent time in prison, and we don’t have in this country a standardised rehabilitation programme across our prison systems. In the prison system, he could have had mental health counselling, he could have been put into a de-radicalisation programme, but those weren’t there—didn’t exist—and one of the challenges there is that there are things that we could have done that wouldn’t have involved deportation and that would also apply to people who are New Zealand citizens as well as people from overseas.

One thing that I said in my response to the Minister’s statement earlier is that it is clear that none of us in this House want anything like that to ever happen again, and the question that I have is: are we now rushing to provide a solution to a problem which does exist but which is in itself ineffective and could create other problems, including the possibility that actions taken under these extended powers actually have the opposite effect from that which we intend? In other words, can it lead to more radicalisation and a sort of counter-reaction, depending on how it’s exercised, who exercises it, and whether there are any miscarriages of justice that occur under it?

I do want wrap up by bringing our attention back to the people who suffered violence on Friday and their families. It is really quite shocking to think that people who are going about business as mundane as shopping at a local supermarket would be exposed to that kind of violence. I know that we’re all very grateful that it wasn’t worse only because of the very rapid intervention of the police who had the terrorist under 24-hour monitoring. If they hadn’t, then we know it would have been a lot worse.

I think where we want to stop and reflect on any lessons learnt is to say: are there things that could have happened over the course of the last few years that could have made a difference and could have rehabilitated and de-radicalised this person before he became so extremely disturbed that he went and performed this act of violence and ultimately ended up losing his own life as a result? I have to say, on the face of it, there do seem to have been some gaps that could have been filled, and our attention should be on those things as much as they are on any of the changes in the legislative framework that we have coming up in front of us.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Prime Minister): Mr Speaker, thank you very much. I want to join with colleagues from across the House in starting my speech by expressing our deep sympathies to those who were hurt during this terrorist attack. As, I think, the Leader of the Opposition noted, going out to do your supermarket shopping, this is the very, very last thing on the mind of New Zealanders, and it would have been a shocking and terrifying event for everyone involved. We are wishing those people well in their recoveries, which, thankfully, are going well at this stage, and thank all those who are supporting them, particularly the families of those who have been directly affected. This will be, again, a traumatic time for them, and we send our deepest sympathies to them as well but also to the community of West Auckland and those in and around the LynnMall. This has been a shocking event, and one where we know that there will be many people who will have been deeply, deeply concerned to have heard about it and, if they were nearby, to have experienced it.

Can I also extend both my thanks and sympathies to the workers at the Countdown supermarket. We know that in recent times at another Countdown supermarket down in Dunedin, there was an incident, and now this incident here. These are our essential workers. These are the people who we are relying upon in these very difficult and challenging times to be able to work, and to have events like this occur is extremely challenging and traumatic for them. I want to reiterate what I said on Sunday when I spoke on behalf of the Government on this matter: we genuinely reach out to those workers to thank them and to support them as they go about their work.

In addition to those thanks, I want to extend them to, in particular, the New Zealand Police and the Special Tactics Group who were there on the day. This is, again, an incredibly difficult set of circumstances. From all reports, the utmost professionalism was shown by the New Zealand Police. They undertook their duties in a way in which I think New Zealanders can be proud of, and, indeed, their actions have ensured that the situation that was already horrific did not become any worse. I want to, on that note, note the bravery of a number of people who were in the supermarket at the time, both in terms of what they did in terms of the terrorist but also in terms of the support provided to those who had been hurt. Some of that emergency first aid that was undertaken was very instrumental in the fact that those people now either have recovered or are in a stable condition.

I also want to thank all of the other agencies who’ve been involved throughout the last few years in relation to this gentleman, and, indeed, to all of those who we have to have security agencies involved with working on, in particular the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service and other intelligence agencies, but also immigration officials and officials from across Government. This has been a very difficult case to deal with, and those agencies have performed their role professionally as public servants.

I want to start with some assurances to New Zealanders. The first of those is to repeat the words of both the Prime Minister and the Commissioner of Police: this was a lone individual. This was a person who acted alone, but also for whom there is nobody else that the New Zealand Police are suggesting would be of a similar nature. In the words of the Police Commissioner, the case is an outlier. Police are not looking for anybody else.

We, of course, must continue, however, to be vigilant. Our security and our intelligence services perform a role in our society to help New Zealanders feel safe and to be protected. It is a role where there are challenging boundaries. I know there are members across the House who have a strong belief in civil liberties, and all members across the House will know that whenever decisions are made around things like surveillance or around making sure that New Zealanders are kept safe by our intelligence officers, this is a difficult and challenging area for all of us, but it is important that New Zealanders know and are assured that our intelligence agencies and the police are continuing with their work to make sure that New Zealanders do feel safe.

An awful lot of material has been covered by earlier speakers, and I just want to pick up three or four matters in the—

SPEAKER: Yeah, the member’s got about 5½ minutes.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: That’s good to know. Thank you, Mr Speaker. The first of those is that I want to provide a further assurance to New Zealanders that every pathway was taken within the New Zealand law to see what could be done to either detain or deport this particular individual. I want to note that the Prime Minister, in her first briefing around this issue in May 2018, raised the question of deportation at that point, and work was done on that issue throughout the last few years.

I think it is worth noting that the terrorist was in prison for much of the last few years—basically from May 2017 through until just a few months ago. So during that time that meant, because there was a series of appeals and a series of court cases involved, it was not possible to return to the issue that had been identified as far back as 2018 that this particular individual had falsified some of the documents involved in his refugee claim. It’s important to note that the process was run through and, at the beginning of 2019, the decision was taken to revoke his refugee status. At that point, an appeal was launched, or just thereafter, and that appeal had not been finally heard. That appeal is taken in front of something called the Immigration and Protection Tribunal. That tribunal—and this is an important thing for those who don’t follow closely how systems of Government work—is totally independent of the Government. It is, in the words of Mr Little, a quasi-judicial process. That process was still under way. The strong advice that the New Zealand Government had was that the criminal cases needed to be dealt with before that matter could be dealt with, and those criminal cases carried on for a significant length of time.

The solution to some of these issues lies in a piece of legislation that is before select committee at the moment and we have discussed that at some length. I do want to note that since around 2007, concerns have been raised about whether or not our terrorism laws have been adequate to deal with the issue of planning and preparation. This Government undertook the policy work on that through 2019, and into 2020 legislation was then drafted, as is normal, and then the bill was introduced earlier this year and has been at select committee. The public submissions on that bill have been completed. The select committee will soon report back, and I do believe it is in the interests of this House to move as swiftly as possible to be able to enact that law. We will do so, bearing in mind the things that have been said today by members in this House and outside to get the law right, but it is important that we progress it swiftly. Significant policy work has been done and the public has had their say, and now is the time for Parliament to deal with that matter.

The other area of law is the Immigration Act. This is an area where we will now further the work that has already started around whether the Immigration Act gets the balance right. What I am absolutely clear about is that the advice that this Government has received is that under sections 163 and 164 of the Immigration Act, we were not in a position to be able to deport this terrorist. The strong advice from the Crown Law Office and others is that while there is a refugee status or appeal against the removal of a refugee status, there is not an opportunity at that point to deport the person. There is, of course, also the issue of that person being regarded as a protected person, which would be another grounds on which it would not be possible to do that.

But the Immigration Act itself is one that we do need to look at, because, as both Minister Andrew Little and the Leader of the Opposition have recognised, this is an area where a tension is created. A person who we cannot deport from our shores because they represent a significant threat to where they might go—or, sorry, have a threat against them to where they might go, is in turn a threat to our own people. Mr Little described it as a tension in our law which we will now have to discuss further. What we will not be able to do at any point is remove from our legal process the rights of appeal. We still have a rule of law; we still have a situation in which people are entitled to utilise those rights. What we have to do is create a system that is sufficiently robust to be able to handle this kind of situation.

In closing, I simply want to reiterate the Prime Minister’s comments on the very first day: these were the actions of an individual. These were despicable and hateful actions. They are not the actions of any community inside New Zealand, of any faith group inside New Zealand, and they are not actions that any New Zealander could support in any way whatsoever. We now find ourselves in a situation where this Parliament will address the legal issues that surround this situation, but, in the case of this particular individual, we as New Zealanders need to come together to support those who have been affected and to ensure that this does not happen again.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you for granting this debate. I think it’s important that it is given a full ventilation, given the level of concern and the victimisation of those people for whom we’ve already expressed condolence and all of those involved in the vicinity. We’ve also expressed admiration for those that were there to help—the police, bystanders, members of the public, and employees of Countdown—who all did the right thing. Everyone did the right thing, except for one person, and it does lead to questioning how that person was at large in New Zealand. Beneath that question are two further questions: number one, how was he not incarcerated, and, number two, how was he not deported? I don’t believe that the explanations that the Government’s given can actually stack up, not from any standard reading of the laws that they’re trying to refer to. The Minister has referred to some parts of sections 163 and 164 of the Immigration Act, but not all, and as a result I think it needs to be put on record that those explanations are not adequate to say that the Government did everything it possibly could have done.

There is, of course, an answer to the first question—why was he not detained? Well, the reason he was not detained, we hear, is that Crown Law advised a deportation might be unsuccessful because the terrorist might succeed in an application to be a protected person under section 164 of the Immigration Act, and, the logic went, if a deportation action was not going to be successful, then it was not viable to detain the person. Therefore, he was at large.

We have to take the Government at their word that they had advice, because they’ve said that they’ll consider but haven’t promised to share the legal advice they received. They had advice that the person might well be a protected person. Well, if that’s true, then that is the first part of our law that needs to be changed, because the purpose of section 164(4) is to protect a protected person, as they’re called, from being deported to somewhere where they might be tortured or subject to arbitrary deprivation of life or cruel treatment. Now, that’s a very understandable provision. I can understand why our Parliament would want to ensure that there were protections against people being deported somewhere where they were going to be tortured, or arbitrarily deprived of life, or treated cruelly. That’s perfectly understandable. But here’s the question: while that law makes sure that the protection of a person, who in this case was a terrorist, is looked after, how does it allow the Government to balance the protection of all the people currently in New Zealand—if we take the Government at its word that it had legal advice that they might be a protected person?

That in itself is very interesting, because the Government’s position was that the person could not be a refugee, and yet all of the claims that were made to the Immigration and Protection Tribunal in 2013, or at least the substantive ones, appear to have been debunked by the Government. They then stripped his refugee status on that basis, and the person then appealed. Now, of course, you have to respect due process and the right to appeal. But here’s the question: the Government clearly had, on the one hand, a view that the person could not be a refugee, but they’d also accepted legal advice that they might be a protected person. Now, it’s very difficult to see—and I’d love the Minister to have answered the question I asked earlier—how a person can no longer claim to be a refugee, in the eyes of the Crown at least, and yet the Crown also believes that he might be a protected person. There is a contradiction there in the Government’s position.

We then come to another issue of whether or not a person can be deported if they’re a refugee. Now, the Government says that they believed that they had to wait for the appeal. That’s understandable, but could the person have been detained while they were awaiting a decision on that, if they were a threat? Well, it certainly seems that they might have, because a deportation on the basis of them being a refugee who is a threat to public safety—well, that would be very likely to succeed. I asked Andrew Little earlier, and he said, “Look at section 164(1), ‘No person who is recognised as a refugee or a protected person …, or who is a claimant, may be deported under this Act.’ ” Well, that’s certainly true, but it goes on to say, “Subsection (1) applies despite anything in this Part, but subject to subsections (3) and (4).” And what does subsection (3) say? Well, it says, “A refugee or claimant for recognition as a refugee may be deported … only if Article 32.1 or 33 of the Refugee Convention allows the deportation of the person.” And what does that say? Well, interestingly, article 32 of the refugee convention says, “The Contracting States shall not expel a refugee lawfully in their territory save on grounds of national security or public order.”

It then goes on to say, in Article 33, that there’s a prohibition on expulsion or return, or “refoulement”, I think—my French is a bit rusty—which says, “No Contracting State shall expel or return … a refugee in [a] manner whatsoever to the frontiers [or] territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” Well, that sounds good, but it also says, “The benefit of the … provision may not, however, be claimed by a refugee whom there are reasonable grounds for regarding as a danger to the security of the country in which he is, or who, having been convicted by final judgment of a particularly serious crime, constitutes a danger to the community of that country.”

Well, this is a guy who had prohibited material, a guy who had had weapons, a guy who was saying that he wanted to kill people. He’d been convicted. He’d served several years on remand and been sentenced to seven months in jail. He’d committed a serious crime. My question is, why didn’t the Minister declare under section 163 that he was a threat to New Zealanders, and then look at the rules—all of them, as I’ve just presented; the Minister only presented half of them—and say, “This guy should go.”? The only reason the Government can put up is they think he might have been a protected person. They had that legal advice, but they were also advised that he wouldn’t be a refugee. In fact, they stripped it off them. So the Government’s position on whether he was a threat does not add up.

Well, there’s another possibility: the reason they didn’t use section 163, the reason they didn’t deport him, was actually political. The Prime Minister did not want to be seen as expelling somebody who would go to no doubt a very dangerous place in Sri Lanka.

Hon Grant Robertson: That’s offensive nonsense.

DAVID SEYMOUR: And the Deputy Prime Minister says that that’s offensive nonsense. Well, perhaps he could have explained in his speech the detail I have, and tried to explain how the person could not be deported, even though the law clearly says that he could have been on anyone else’s reading of it. The Government needs to explain that. And if they can’t, then maybe people are entitled to ask: was it a political judgment that was perhaps expedient at the time but is not now?

Hon Grant Robertson: I know you actually don’t believe that.

DAVID SEYMOUR: I’ll finally ask the Deputy Prime Minister and the Government to stop promising to rush this law through. Rushed law is almost always bad law. The problems in our existing law have occurred precisely because it was rushed. There are holes in it and it was nowhere near complete select committee status. It was supposed to be six months; they’re chopping off two, and that is the time that MPs have to consider and think about what the public have said. It’s one thing that the public have made submissions. It’s another thing to take the time to actually think about what the public have said. To cut that bit off at the end, when the Deputy Prime Minister has just said there’s no one else in this category Police are currently aware of, is undue haste. It’s undemocratic. It will reduce the quality of our lawmaking. Given some of the concerns about this law, the way it defines terrorism, lowers the threshold for warrantless searches—those are things that deserve a lot more scrutiny than being rushed for political theatrics in a panic. The Government must not rush this law through Parliament. Thank you.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to join with colleagues in expressing my aroha, my concern, and my best wishes to the victims of Friday’s hideous attack, and to acknowledge and thank those people who responded. Firstly, the shoppers who put their own safety at risk to assist the victims; our first responders—police, ambulance, and our healthcare workers. Like the Deputy Prime Minister, I want to acknowledge the Countdown workers themselves. They have had a terrible few months because of that nearly equally terrible incident in Dunedin not many months ago. They’ve really had a tough time of it. I think this event and the events of March 15th shatter any illusions that we are a country with innocence when it comes to these matters and distance from the countries that we would watch on the television and be thankful that we didn’t live in one of those countries. We are now one of those countries.

The first responsibility of any Government is to protect its citizens, and I accept, on the face of it, the Government’s statements that it used all of its power to protect Kiwis. I’ll drill into that some more in a minute, but I think it’s worth reflecting that if that’s the case, we have a legal framework that is so concerned about the welfare of people, say, in the Middle East that it prevents an individual from departing these shores, but has a legal framework not strong enough to keep that person away from New Zealanders. There has to be a change in the law, and, as the Leader of the Opposition has said, the National Party will support efforts to keep New Zealanders safe.

In respect of the Government’s actions, we really need to have a thorough and very transparent look at the circumstances that led to Friday’s attack. Now, normally we wouldn’t see and hear so much about the process of the Refugee Status Branch that determines refugee and protection cases, and we wouldn’t normally drill into the processes of the Immigration and Protection Tribunal (IPT). But the individual concerned is now deceased, and I think we can learn an awful lot about what actually goes on in respect of refugee status determination.

I want to go through some of the events and perhaps ask some questions that that should be asked and answered in any review and inquiry. I’ve got to say, from the outset, almost everyone who makes an application to stay in New Zealand, whether as a refugee or not, tells the truth. Some do not, and in 2011, when the individual applied for asylum, having been an international student here in New Zealand, he did not satisfy the Refugee Status Branch that he had a credible claim of asylum, and he was declined. He appealed that decision and he subsequently became a permanent resident. Now here are some questions that I have, however. Firstly, when he attempted to leave New Zealand, he was obviously already on the security agency’s radar, and the Minister talked about international obligations that prevented that. I’d like to know what those international obligations are. I’m aware that we passed a piece of legislation not too long ago that prevented New Zealand citizens from leaving New Zealand if it was reasonably believed that they were going to go and fight in wars and conflicts. But I’m not sure that the same legal framework applies to non - New Zealand citizens, which this fellow was. But if there are international obligations, I think we need to know what they are.

Now, when an immigration officer considers refugee status, they can decline refugee status but apply a protected person status. The last time that was done—in fact, I’m not revealing anything because this is spread across the New Zealand Herald, I think—was a Zimbabwean national who had been one of Mugabe’s secret police and had committed war crimes, and therefore it made him ineligible for refugee status, but he was given by the immigration officer protected person status. He complained to me and requested—when I was Minister of Immigration—that he be granted residence as an exception to policy in order that he could work. I declined that. It’s one thing not to be able to get rid of that fellow; it was another thing to legitimise his stay in New Zealand and allow him to work. Interestingly enough, having declined that, he left the country. I think that underscores the fact that sometimes what people say about their threats to their welfare is not always the case. That’s, I think, what happened here. I’m speculating, but if the immigration officer in the first place did not believe his claims for protection and then revoked his refugee status because of fraudulent statements that had been made, it’s almost certain that the immigration officer who nevertheless has that power did not deem him to be a protected person.

So when the Minister says in his ministerial statement, “On 8 July … it was deemed that the individual was likely a protected person.”, who deemed that? I doubt it was the Refugee Status Branch. The IPT had not heard the appeal, so it could not have been the IPT. Media have reported on a Crown Law Office opinion that he may be a protected person, but that status did not apply to him, and that was probably something that the IPT were going to consider in its appeal. I note also, however, that the notice of cancellation of refugee status on the basis of fraud was issued on 1 June 2018, but the individual lodged an appeal against that determination on 30 April 2019. Now, my reading of the Immigration Act is that that is significantly out of time for an appeal of that decision. So one of the questions I want to know is, why was the appeal being heard when the dates that have been reported by the Minister in his ministerial statement suggest that the individual had no legal basis to do so?

Speaking of delay, I think it’s worth considering the issue in this case of judicial delay. This place, this branch of Government, is always very careful to separate itself from the judiciary, but we have a responsibility (a) to pass laws guiding things like sentencing and when things should be done, and also to resource the courts accordingly. The fact that a case of this import, of this threat, of this seriousness was still before the IPT at the time of the attack I think is a question that warrants examination. Was it a resource issue? Was it a triaging issue? The Immigration Act actually requires the IPT to expedite a case of deportation liability for a person who was incarcerated and to make that determination prior to the person’s parole in order that if the appeal is not upheld, deportation can occur straight away. There’s no legal basis in this scenario, but I think there should be. That’s one of the things that I think we can look at as a law change.

But, nevertheless, I think highlighting the fact that questions of security need to be expedited more quickly than run-of-the-mill appeals against decisions by Immigration New Zealand or the Minister—I find it quite extraordinary—

SPEAKER: I apologise to the member. I forgot the time. He’s got a minute left.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: That’s all right. One minute to go? Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Somewhere in the ministerial statement I think I read that the individual actually sought to have his residence revoked, probably in order to leave the country. I may have misread that. I’m pretty sure he did say something like that. I find that extraordinary. Why didn’t we let him? Well, you know, we’ve had issues around statelessness and people here who don’t want to be here. We’ve had people who do want to be here that shouldn’t be here. Here it is: “he requested cancellation of his permanent resident visa. His reasons for doing so [were] unclear.” So not only have we prevented him from leaving when he did want to, we prevented him from handing back his permanent resident visa when he wanted to. Then when it looked like his refugee status was going to be overturned, he didn’t want to—

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

IBRAHIM OMER (Labour): Mālō e lelei, Mr Speaker. Salaam alaikum. I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this, such an important national issue. Can I first join my colleagues and colleagues from the other side of the House to express my sincere feelings to the victims of Friday, 3 September, the victims of a vicious and horrific terrorist attack. On 3 September 2021, our country yet again witnessed an awful attack by someone who has claimed to be part of a specific community or a specific religion but, yet again, this person doesn’t represent this community or this religion.

I also wanted to add my voice to others, expressing my gratitude to the bystanders who joined and heroically supported the victims of the attack, and specifically the Countdown workers who, a few months ago, went through a lot. They went through a lot throughout the lockdown and working hard around the clock to keep our shelves full and keep us fed, and yet again this happened to them. I just want to shout out to them. I also wanted to shout out to our police officers who followed this guy like a shadow, around the clock, and very grateful that they stepped in at the right time to stop this attack and end the tragedy. It could have been worse without their involvement.

Terrorists always have one thing in common: they claim to be something they are not. The March 15, 2019 attacker magnified himself to be something he is not, and this guy also tried to magnify himself to be something that he is not. He spoke of joining ISIS. This person called himself a Muslim and yet he wanted to join this vicious, evil organisation that probably has killed more Muslims than anyone. In Syria and Iraq, the biggest victims of ISIS are Muslims, and this person, yet calling himself a good Muslim, wanted to join. He was inspired by them, and he wanted to join them. So that says a lot about him. In 2017, this person wanted to travel to join this group in Syria. I’ve heard a lot of comments—people saying that we should have let him go. That would have been irresponsible. We did the right thing by stopping him.

While this is not the issue of the Muslim community or Sri Lankan community or the ethnic communities, I acknowledge the feeling of those communities and the anxiousness among the community members—the attacks that were directed at them in the last few days. I personally, alongside my friends from the ethnic caucus, have been working around the clock in the last few days, and we’ve heard a lot of these stories. And yet again they are very grateful to the way that the Government has responded, especially the messaging from our Prime Minister, who really eased the anxiousness and the tension among our community members.

A lot has been spoken about the gaps in our law that helped this guy to stay in home, but we also heard from David Seymour arguing that the Minister had the power to deport this man. Laws are made by Parliament, but it’s up to the courts to interpret those laws. So speaking about the Minister not being able to do his job by deporting this guy isn’t relevant in this case. But now we have work to do. We have to move quickly. We have to change the laws, and we have to fill in those gaps to make sure that these things don’t happen again.

This is not about politics; this is not the time to play politics. We have got victims who are hurting, who are lying in hospital—some of them in critical condition. We need to think about them. It’s time to rally around them, and, in this case, I am very proud of the way that the Muslim community has responded. They have seen multiple co-funding campaigns by the Muslim communities, who are raising tens of thousands of dollars across the country. In 2019, the Muslim community was on the receiving end. They were grateful for the way that 5 million Kiwis wrapped their arms around them, and now they are trying to do their best; they are trying to support their fellow Kiwis.

One of the things that really is a coincidence is that both incidents happened while Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is leader of the country. Yet again, the comments I hear specifically from our community is that in 2019, yes, the Muslim community was at the receiving end and the way that the Prime Minister led the country, has responded to the event, basically helped to get the nation to get through, and this time the Muslims were on the other side and yet again the response is easing the tension and helping the community to heal. This is the time for all of us to stick together and get through this.

Now, we’ve heard a lot of comments about asylum seekers and that this guy was one of the asylum seekers who came to this country in 2011. He was interrogated vigorously and he went through the process and, after appealing, he got accepted by Immigration New Zealand. Now, I don’t believe that Immigration New Zealand, by accepting this guy based on the evidence and documents presented to them—now, I don’t want this to be interpreted and then again affect the asylum seekers that are yet to come to this country, because that is not where we wanted to go. The last few months, we have been working around asylum seekers because we identified a huge hole and a gap in the system—the way that asylum seekers are being supported. We’ve heard that this guy had a huge, severe mental health issue, and now, in our system, asylum seekers get very little support around their mental health and other support. There is work under way to bring the level of service for asylum seekers on line with refugees, ones that are identified they are refugees, just like many other refugees, but yet they don’t get any support. So we need to look into this as well. While we solidify our law, our legislation, we also need to look into providing people with the proper services to make sure that people are safe, people are getting enough support that they need to get.

Last, I wanted to say, reiterate, the things that everyone has been saying—David Seymour touched on it earlier—this guy does not represent anyone, not Sri Lankans, not the Muslim community, not the ethnic community. This guy is someone who was deluded enough to be inspired by an evil organisation and, based on that, he decided to act and unleash this evil act, and he paid a heavy price for that and has been removed from our community.

So, at the end, while I will reiterate that this has nothing to do with the ethnic community, Muslim community, or Sri Lankan community, I urge members from all walks of this House to reach out to the Muslim community in their local community—to the Muslims, Sri Lankans, or ethnic people—and make sure that they are OK, because I’ve heard a lot of stories: women now don’t feel to go and stand and queue in supermarkets with the hijab because of the way people look at them, and that’s not what we want. All of us have a duty now to make sure that people are feeling welcome, people are feeling OK, and no terrorist, no matter what, will change the way of our life, because this was an attack on our way of living. Every terrorist that unleashes attacks wants to change the way of life in that country, and that is what this guy has tried to do. This is what the 2019 terrorist has tried to do, but it didn’t work, because Kiwis—5 million Kiwis—stood up and said, “No, we’re not going to change.” And now I will just reiterate: may the victims’ wounds heal quickly, and our prayers and thoughts are with them. Kia ora.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Estimates Debate

In Committee

Debate resumed from 11 August 2021 on the Appropriation (2021/22 Estimates) Bill.

CHAIRPERSON (Rt Hon Trevor Mallard): I declare the House in committee for further consideration of the Appropriation (2021/22 Estimates) Bill.

The House is in committee for further consideration of the Appropriation (2021/22 Estimates) Bill. There are seven hours and 36 minutes remaining in the debate. All Votes are available for debate, but only the Minister of Finance and for Infrastructure, the Minister for COVID-19 Response, and the Minister of Education will be available today to speak to the indicated portfolios only.

The first call in each debate will be offered to the chairperson or a member of the committee that considered the Estimates most closely related to the Minister’s portfolio. The Estimates debate should be relevant to the Government’s current spending plans as contained in the Estimates of Appropriations, and I’ll remind members that under the relatively recent rules, we have the ability to be interactive, to go back and forth, to share times, and to have interrogations.

The question is that the Votes contained in the Estimates of Appropriations for 2021-22 stand part of the schedules.

Finance and Infrastructure

BARBARA EDMONDS (Deputy Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee): Thank you, Mr Chair. Mālō e lelei, Mr Chair. As deputy chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, I will take a brief call on Vote Finance, that we, as a committee, examined for Estimates 2021-22 in June and July of this year—it seems a while ago. At these meetings, the Finance and Expenditure Committee also considered the Fiscal Strategy Report 2021, which outlines the Government’s strategy for Budget in the context of its long-term fiscal objectives and short-term fiscal intentions. We also considered the Treasury’s Budget Economic and Fiscal Update 2021-22. I’ll just cover a couple of the highlights of our committee’s report and our discussions at the time.

The committee noted that the appropriations sought for Vote Finance for 2021-22 totalled $8.59 billion. Like previous years, debt servicing is the largest appropriation under Vote Finance, with an allocation of $3.15 billion. The Minister, at the meeting, pointed to the fact that debt-servicing costs for Government are currently at historical lows. A good discussion occurred between members and the Minister during this committee meeting around debt-servicing costs.

The committee discussed at length this appropriation. The starting point set out by the Secretary to the Treasury was that before the pandemic, New Zealand had one of the most sustainable debt positions in the world. We note in the report that our debt to GDP ratio, as explained by Secretary Caralee McLiesh, was 19 percent in 2019, and this allowed the Government to borrow heavily but sustainably to finance the fiscal response to the epidemic shock brought on by COVID-19. That includes the wage subsidy, which I know from a number of businesses has kept their connection with their employees and kept their business going as we move out of alert levels. The Minister also explained that if New Zealand’s debt to GDP ratio does reach 48 percent as forecast, it would still be substantially lower than almost any other comparable country in the OECD.

Some members of the committee did raise concerns around the Government’s spending and, if interest rates increased, the higher debt may come with it. But an important note in our committee report was the response by the Minister, which was the recognition that at some point in the future, although interest rates will increase as forecasted, that he has struck the right balance to support the economy through fiscal policy while keeping debt at a sustainable level in case interest rates on Government debt were to rise. So I go back to that important starting point by the Secretary of Treasury that we started off in one of the most sustainable debt positions in the OECD, at 19 percent, in 2019.

Probably the second most significant appropriation in Vote Finance is the Superannuation Fund contribution. Vote Finance is an allocation of $2.2 billion. The committee noted that this is an increase of $300 million from 2020-21, and an increase on previous years by an additional $600 million. It is at this point where I want to turn towards the questions that I wanted to ask the Minister, and I’ll also just quickly highlight some of the other areas that we did look at as part of the report.

We’ve seen in previous economic shocks—in particular, the global financial crisis—that previous Governments can make a policy decision to stop these contributions to the super fund. This Government had made a conscious decision for two reasons to actually recontribute to that fund: one is part of the 2017 election mandate that they were given to reinstate contributions for the future sustainability of the fund, but also too, during this particular economic shock, they decided to continue those contributions. It’s a very different policy decision, and we had talked with the Minister about this.

So my question to the Minister around the Superannuation Fund is: what is the process to actually decide the amount that is contributed to the fund, and how does this factor in the decision to stop contributions under previous National Government policy decisions and, essentially, the return to what was contributed before the contributions were stopped? So I’ll go back to that question for the Minister, but, quickly, I’ll also highlight some of the other areas that we looked at as part of this report.

BARBARA CHAIRPERSON (Rt Hon Trevor Mallard): The member’s got about one minute. I was a bit slow with the clock.

BARBARA EDMONDS: One minute—OK. So I’ll be really quick. So we did also look at around the climate change and fiscal policy, the financing of climate change policies, and the New Zealand Green Investment Fund. We also asked the Minister for an update around the social unemployment insurance issue, which I’m sure we may ask him some further questions on later on in this debate.

We also looked at housing and asked questions around housing and the modelling for housing. The Secretary to the Treasury at the time—and we commented in the report that, given the shock, there’s always some uncertainty when it comes to fiscal modelling around house prices. We’ve also, as a committee, looked at that further with the Reserve Bank, and also we’ve been really fortunate that both the Reserve Bank and Treasury have done some outside-of-meeting policy workshops for us.

So probably the other two issues we looked at was the ongoing holiday pay issue and also the global company tax returns. It’s all covered within our fiscal strategy report and our report back from the Finance and Expenditure Committee back in July 2021.

So I go back to the question that I asked the Minister around the super fund, which is: how do we get to that amount and how do we, essentially, get back to the contributions that we had before the decision to stop the contributions was made? Thank you, Minister.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Thank you, Mr Chair, and can I first thank all members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee for their hard work in assessing the Estimates and getting an interesting and timely report back to the House. I’ll answer the member’s question specifically, and then just make one or two very brief remarks before taking further questions. The particular group of people who’ve been involved in finance-related committee stages in recent times are well versed in the to-ing and fro-ing.

In terms of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, there is a formula for the contributions that are made—the Chair will forgive me for reading the formula out because it is somewhat technical—and it’s based on funding the cost of aggregate, net of tax, New Zealand superannuation expenses relative to GDP over a 40-year horizon. So, effectively, what that does is it smooths out the contributions that need to be made.

A policy decision was made in 2009 to suspend contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund in the wake of the global financial crisis. A number of decisions—there were some criteria set for when they would be restarted. There were two, but one of those was when the books of the Government returned to surplus. Unfortunately, that did not occur, and so on coming into Government at the end of 2017, we took the decision to restart contributions immediately. We have since that time stayed ahead of the formula in order to try to make up the difference of some billions of dollars that were not put in, and so in this current fiscal year, we’re putting in twice the contribution required by the legislated formula: $2.4 billion versus $1.2 billion.

Over the forecast period contained within the Estimates, we return to the contribution formula. We will continue to try to find opportunities to build this fund up so that we make up for the lost time that we saw in those nine long years.

The other point that I wanted to just make by way of introduction was to do two things. The first of those is to pick up a point the deputy chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee made, and that’s the strength of New Zealand’s position that has emerged out of the first wave of COVID-19 in New Zealand. That put us in a position where we have been able to support New Zealanders across a range of areas within these Estimates. It has meant not only that our levels of debt—starting at 19 percent—have stayed very low relative to the rest of the world but that we have seen GDP growth and that we have seen unemployment come down to levels that were, in fact, in the case of GDP, above where we were coming in, and, in the case of unemployment, below. That strength has allowed us within these Estimates to make very significant spending commitments that will help New Zealanders not only recover from COVID-19 but also build a future for New Zealanders that’s sustainable and prosperous.

Then, the final point I’ll just make in this contribution is to note that, obviously, these Estimates don’t take into account the current outbreak that we’re in. But they do take into account the fact that the Government had set some funding aside but also that within allocated funding that had been put aside, we have room to be able to respond to this outbreak and support New Zealanders, businesses, and communities through this outbreak.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you, Mr Chair. I think the deputy chair’s summation of the Finance and Expenditure Committee’s examination was a very good one—and I don’t want to sound pedantic—but with one exception and that is the Superannuation Fund contributions are actually the third-largest appropriation in this Vote, not the second-largest, with the first one, I think, being debt servicing and the second one being the indemnity for the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. But I am being a bit pedantic.

One of the things I think she did highlight but which isn’t the whole story is the fact that debt-servicing costs are extremely low when we look across international comparisons, but debt isn’t, and what the Treasury also said in another report is that we are heading for an unsustainable spending and debt trap. So my questions for today will be around the transparency, probity, and value of the spending that’s going on that’s going to incur the debt, the costs of which are in Vote Finance. I want to just quote the Minister’s own words back, actually, because, as he said in his answer to Louise Upston in question time, these are unprecedented times and they are calling for unprecedented levels of spending, but what I take issue with is that fact that it’s spending for spending’s sake.

Why do I say that? Well, in early May, when the Minister managed to find $926 million of savings down the back of the couch, rather than not spend that money, he found other ways to spend it, and even in the Wellbeing Budget document, on page 41, he said, “The 2021 operating allowance and allowances across the forecast period have been increased from what was signalled in the Budget Policy Statement 2021 (because of the improved economic outlook and stronger fiscal position. The four-year capital allowance has also been increased”. What I would have liked to have seen him say was “The fiscal position has increased so we do not have to spend as much or borrow as much.”

Now, we’ve had a bit of a tête-à-tête about imprest supply and appropriations more generally, so I’m going to start on that. I think it’s really important that we clarify when we talk about authorisation to spend appropriation and nominal allocation of money out of funds, we get the language right, so my first questions are around this.

So, firstly, can the Minister confirm that it’s the Government’s intention to introduce a second imprest supply bill tomorrow, when we start the third reading? If that’s the case, is he prepared to table that bill so that we can at least examine it and prepare for that debate, or either discuss it now or prepare for it tomorrow, and, if not, can he at least give the committee a sense of how much extra spending he seeks Parliament’s authorisation for?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Yes, I can confirm for the member that there will be a second imprest supply bill, as there has been in every single year since the Public Finance Act passed in 1989. This is a feature of our system. It is—as the member has noted—effectively, the cash-flow supply between appropriation bills passing in the House. The first imprest supply bill in each year is, generally, put in place because by the time we pass the appropriation Act, there’s normally at least three months gone by in the financial year and one needs to be able to account for that. The second imprest supply bill—the one that will be introduced tomorrow to the House—effectively, deals with changes to appropriations after the main Estimates were finalised in April but also provides an authority for in-principle transfers that have taken place, expenditure under things like the between-Budget contingency, and also for a buffer for unexpected expenses.

That brings me to the second of the member’s questions, which is the scale of that. I’m not going to be introducing a bill today. It will be introduced tomorrow, just as it has been every other time an imprest supply bill has been put forward. But, yes, it will be significantly larger than any of us would have expected before there was COVID-19.

The member will be aware, because he was in the House, that from 2020 through into 2021, it has been necessary for us to have significantly more buffer put in place because of unexpected circumstances. I’ve stood in this House as we passed an imprest supply bill going into COVID the first time, when none of us had any idea how long we were going to be in forms of lockdown, and so we had a very large imprest supply bill at that point. We still face the uncertainties of COVID, and so, therefore, cash flow is important.

What I do think is worth clearing up, yet again, is that all expenditure must be appropriated by Parliament—by this House—and that happens through the appropriation bill. From time to time, it is necessary to do expenditure before that occurs. That has happened in every single year since 1989.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): I thank the Minister. I would take issue with his use of the words “cash-flow supply”. Actually, the imprest supply is the authorisation pipeline. It’s the authorisation to spend—and he is right—that usually comes from the Budget, and when there are extras to be spent, that’s when imprest supply comes in. It’s an authorisation bucket. It doesn’t have the same detail in it that the Estimates of Appropriations do, and, therefore, when the $50 billion—actually, it was $54 billion last year in second imprest supply; $36 billion of operating expenses, $18 billion of capital expenditure—we didn’t have any sense apart from the Minister’s own announcements that this so-called COVID recovery fund was being drawn down on about what was being spent, when it was being spent, or whether that was good value for money, and I’m trying to get a sense of that now. In the first imprest supply, the Minister got the $35 billion in imprest one. Most of that was in the appropriations.

A couple of things: how much of the $54 billion authorisation to spend was actually spent, because that authorisation has gone now, and there was a Supplementary Estimates document tabled with this Budget of nearly a thousand pages, and it was impossible to tell how much of that was spent and where it was spent. Secondly, when he introduced the first imprest supply, why did he only allow for $1.54 billion for a COVID resurgence? It’s in two lines in that bill, and one is $1.142 billion and one is $500 million for wage subsidies, which is contained in the $1.738 billion.

I ask that because that’s only $1.54 billion. We’ve spent more than that now in this resurgence, and if—

Hon Grant Robertson: No, we haven’t.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well, OK. Well, maybe we haven’t, so the Minister can just address that. Therefore, how close to running out of money did we get in terms of the authorisations, or was there enough in the Estimates of Appropriations in the $35 billion underspent that gave the Minister the buffer?

So how much of the $50 billion authorised last year was actually spent, how much is he going to spend more than the budgeted appropriations now—because there’s quite a bit of COVID money in the Budget—and how can we tell when the $50 billion that he announced as a COVID Response and Recovery Fund is exhausted and then he’s coming back for more?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): So, in answer to the number of questions in the member’s speech, and I’ll endeavour to try and answer as many of them as I can, in terms of the $50 billion that he refers to—and there is the issue here of operating expenses and capital expenses and capital allocations within every imprest supply bill. The advice that I have is that $33.827 billion was charged against the $50 billion. So, therefore, the cap wasn’t reached, and it never is in imprest supply bills. They’re put up not as a target, but as a cap, because by their very nature they are there to deal with the unknown, and so, therefore, there is not an expectation, and I believe I actually said, when that particular bill was passed, that this did not represent a target; it represented a limit. So that’s the answer to that part of the member’s question.

With respect to the COVID Response and Recovery Fund, I know that the member is asking the two questions together, and I also know that he understands—because he’s just said it—that there is an appropriated sum of money for that that is separate. I would say that’s not so much about this year’s Estimates; it’s about last year’s Estimates, but I will answer the question for the member’s benefit.

So that money had all been appropriated. As I said in this House in the last period of time, not all money allocated in particular buckets within the COVID Response and Recovery Fund had been spent, and so, having gone back through that, we have more than enough of a buffer to meet the cost that we have seen so far.

In terms of the biggest amount of those, obviously, it’s going to be the wage subsidy scheme. By the time we work our way through all of the applications that were made for the first fortnight of that scheme, it will come, I suspect, to around about $1.2 billion, and then, on top of that, we have the resurgence support payment which will come out, and that carries on, obviously, so that hasn’t stopped. But that will come out, I suspect, at around half a billion dollars, so we’d end up somewhere around $1.7 billion for that first fortnight.

Obviously, we’re now into the second fortnight, and because—I think I’ve said in this House to the member, or to his colleague—we were forecasting somewhere in the $2 billion to $2.5 billion, it ended up being $1.7 billion for that first, so we’re significantly under where we thought we would be. But when we put together the money that was available—the just under $5 billion coming out of the Budget, with the money that we then identified, which came to around about $3 billion—the vast bulk of that related to the business finance guarantee scheme and some to the small business cash flow scheme, and then one or two other smaller pots of money that we had allocated too that had not been spent.

When you put all of that together, we’ve got somewhere north of $8 billion that was available, already appropriated, and which we are not yet up against spending. What I would say to the member, though, is that clearly there are ongoing costs associated with COVID-19. That includes—and they are within the Estimates as well—matters such as vaccinations, that includes matters such as those to do with managed isolation and quarantine and so on, and so there is an ongoing need for expenditure in the response to COVID-19. But in terms of where we are now and what is being needed, we have the resources that we need.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): So that’s helpful, in part. I want to just clarify, when he talked about the $33 billion that was, I think he said, charged against the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund—

Hon Grant Robertson: No, no, no—against the imprest.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Against?

Hon Grant Robertson: The imprest supply bill. You asked me about how much money had been in the imprest supply bill.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Right. So $33 billion of the $36 billion of operating expenses (OPEX) in the imprest supply—

Hon Grant Robertson: $33 billion of the total of $50 billion—because it’s just the same number.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I’m trying to work out whether that was nominally allocated or formed part of the Supplementary Estimates.

Now, for the benefit of the committee, the reason this is relevant is that I think it’s very important to understand when we’re examining this Budget and imprest supply No. 2 tomorrow that we understand the degree to which the $50 billion fund has been exhausted—

Hon Grant Robertson: Two different things, though.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I know, I’m just—let me just explain my question. The Minister is right, as he would be—he knows these things. There is a $50 billion fund that he announced, there is an imprest supply in the Budget that he’s allocated, and the two don’t line up—I get that. The authorisation to spend up to $54 billion has now been exhausted, and either those nominally announced and allocated projects are in this Budget, or they’re going to have to be the subject of a subsequent second imprest supply for this year—I get that. But what’s really important across the two years and into the future is whether more than $50 billion has been spent or less or the same, and one of the things that we have been trying to ask the Minister both of OPEX and capital expenditure (CAPEX)—and I’ll come to CAPEX in a minute—is: is the tin empty? Are we topping up the tin, or is there still enough money in the $50 billion fund, because he told the committee that there was about $5.1 billion not allocated—forget the nomenclature about appropriated and authorised.

So let’s say there was $5.1 billion. I interpreted that as being regardless of whether it’s been announced, allocated, authorised, or spent. That’s the sum of all of those categories made up to about $4 billion. What are we going to hear next about COVID? Is there $6 billion, which, inexplicably, was split across future years—I don’t know why that was done at first imprest supply—or are we going to be needing more than $50 billion?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Again, the member is conflating two things that, while they are happening at the same time, are not the same thing. So the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund is an envelope set aside to manage the Government’s response. Imprest supply provides the authority for spending. They don’t actually need to relate to each other at all. They do in part, because there is a need. One of the unexpected things is the response to COVID.

To answer the member’s direct questions, that money, the just on $5 billion that was remaining at Budget time when these Estimates were there—yep, that money was part of the Estimates. The reason in both the Budget and separately in the imprest supply bill as to why it’s spread is that’s the Treasury’s judgment. It’s not a judgment made by the Government; it’s their judgment about when they think expenditure might be needed. I have to say on the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund that that is not necessarily a judgment I would share as to how they spread it out, but that is their job to do when they do the independent economic forecast.

In terms of, then, the substantive question that the member asked about will there be a need to replenish the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund, as I’ve just suggested, there is ongoing expenditure around matters like vaccinations and managed isolation and quarantine, and so on, which may well mean that we need to replenish that fund. What we know right now, today, in terms of the most pressing expenditure and the largest expenditure, which is the wage subsidy scheme and related supports, is we have more than enough money because previously appropriated money is available to us to spend.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. I thank the Minister of Finance for his answers to questions so far. The Green Party has a couple of concerns. Although we absolutely support the Government’s response to COVID-19 and agree that superficially the economic indicators look good, we do have real concerns about how, unintentionally, some of the Government’s actions may be exacerbating inequality, which is not an outcome that we want from the response—in fact, we want to go the other way and reduce inequality—and then some questions about how the response can help us accelerate our work in responding to climate change.

So, firstly, I’ll just talk about the obvious issues happening with house price inflation. While it was forecast that house prices would fall in the face of the COVID-19 lockdown and the economic fallout, in fact, they haven’t done that, and, arguably, the quantitative easing engaged in by the Reserve Bank—because it went to the banks. It has mainly gone to private investors, so most of it’s been lent on residential property, where supply is not increasing fast enough, so you just have more lending on residential property, which is driving up prices. In the absence of a wealth tax or a capital gains tax, there’s no way for the Government to recoup some of that inflation and use that to pay down the debt that’s been incurred by it.

So while I totally accept the Government will say, and I’m sure the Minister will get up and say, “But we’re spending all this money on increasing housing supply.”, arguably, it’s just not possible to do that fast enough. Arguably, the type of fiscal support that would mean that we could rely less on Reserve Bank—I know they’ve been dialling back their quantitative easing, but, arguably, the fiscal support needs to go in a different direction so it’s not leading to asset price inflation. It needs to come from Government; it needs to go to the people who need it most.

There’s a second, related point around infrastructure delivery, because I note that the Government’s response, I think, was a little bit heavy on investing in infrastructure to stimulate the economy when, in fact, the infrastructure sector was already at capacity, and those weren’t the jobs that were under threat—the sectors that were hit by the loss of tourism and loss to the service sector. So I guess the Greens have two concerns around the infrastructure aspect of this. I mean, one is that we want the stimulus support to go to things that are going to employ the people who were affected by the shutdown, and that was predominantly women. It was in the service sector and in tourism. I realise that our unemployment rate is very low right now, but, arguably, where we need the money is more in operating expenses (OPEX) rather than capital expenditure (CAPEX). We need the Government to be investing in midwives, nurses, early childhood education teachers, public transport services, bus drivers, social workers—all things that do deliver economic benefit and wellbeing to New Zealanders, but tend to get underemphasised, in part because of this underlying assumption, I think, that if we’re borrowing money, it’s better used for CAPEX rather than OPEX.

The second problem, I guess, with the focus on infrastructure is if the sector’s already at capacity, and we had the New Zealand Upgrade Programme with some big projects, COVID response and recovery with quite a few infrastructure projects—arguably, now we’re spending more because we’ve put more money in and asked the sector to deliver infrastructure faster than it can. In other words, the Government has actually bid up its own cost of infrastructure delivery. I realise that’s not the only factor. I’m sure land costs and poor scoping of some of those projects have to do with it, as well.

So, finally, that leads to—climate action and action on inequality, it seems to me, have to be the major focus and criteria for ongoing Government investment and stimulus. I guess my question to the Minister is: how is that the case? How are we going to get Government funding to the people who need it to employ the people who will carry out the services that help New Zealanders, that help reduce our carbon emissions, and that help protect our environment, because although I think the will is good, I don’t think the impact from last year’s investment has been quite right and last year’s policy has been quite right.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I thank the member the Hon Julie Anne Genter for the questions. I’ll go in reverse, just because it’s in my head. Initially, around the question of climate action, the member will be aware that as this Budget, these Estimates, were announced, we made the commitment—or I made the commitment, as the Minister of Finance—we would take all of the revenue from the emissions trading scheme and put it towards emissions reductions initiatives. That, in many ways, was a signal from the Government to say that the next Budgets that come ahead of this one will be ones that have a very heavy focus around climate action and around emissions reductions. We need to do more than just that, though, and that is completely understood within Government.

Just as an aside, before I move to go into a little bit more detail around the how, which is a big part of the member’s question, I do want to acknowledge, actually, the role of her colleague the Minister of Climate Change in terms of the leadership that he’s shown in, for example, the New Zealand Green Investment Finance Ltd, which we, under these Estimates, quadrupled the funding for. That’s a signal or a sign of the way in which we see going forward from here that there is not only a massive challenge for us, when it comes to climate action and emissions reductions and also an opportunity for investment in areas where we can make real differences, to also bring in private sector capital and start to actually, really, move ahead of some of the obligations that we’re obviously quite far behind on as a country. So that’s really our signal of the direction of travel.

In terms of the how around that, we are now making climate assessments of virtually every single thing that we do. It’s certainly a part of the investment decisions we are making in Government and at Budget time. It’s also part of the programme within an area the member knows well in terms of transport. I know we aren’t going far enough for the member, but it is now a core part of our decision-making process in that area, and so at every stage and in every way, we are now trying to make climate action central to the way that a Budget or these Estimates are put together.

In terms of the member’s other questions—and I’m really conscious, Mr Chair, of not taking up too much of the committee’s time with my answers, but they’re thorough questions.

CHAIRPERSON (Rt Hon Trevor Mallard): It’s on your own members’ heads.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Indeed. So the question around housing is clearly a very complex and deep one. The member herself has alluded to the fact that the advice we got at the beginning of COVID was that the bottom would fall out of the housing market. It clearly didn’t; it clearly went in the opposite direction from there. There are all of the supply responses that she’s alluded to and I could go into detail on, and some of them are funded within the Budget, but then there are the demand restraints. Obviously, as the Government was putting all of this work together, we’ve moved to crack down more around speculators in the housing market, to move to the interest deductibility policy, and to make sure that we do everything we can. We’re extending brightline out, we’ve had the foreign buyer ban—all of those areas within our housing policy are important for that.

The other side, though, is the monetary policy response, and, obviously, we’ve changed the rules of the game for the Reserve Bank so that we want them to take into account sustainable house prices, which they are doing by virtue, now, both of the monetary policy work and also within their financial stability remit, as well. So I recognise that the growth of house prices that we’ve seen is utterly unsustainable, and we are acting to shift the dial on that, albeit not at the pace, I acknowledge, that the member would want us to.

The question around who got support, I would push back on that. The Government has moved extensively to ensure that fiscal support has gone to our lowest-income New Zealanders, including through these Estimates, by the biggest benefit increase in a generation but also by targeted response programmes as well. So programmes such as the Flexi-wage, the extra support given to apprenticeships and trade training—all of these have been designed to be able to ensure we get a focus. We don’t have time, unfortunately, for stories, but a very heart-warming story I’ve heard about people using the Flexi-wage to create business is women who lost their jobs through the first phase of the pandemic. So there are fiscal responses that I believe have gone there, but we always are conscious of the reduction of inequality as one of our core programmes.

Then, finally, the member’s question around infrastructure. It’s a similar answer, in some ways, in the sense that the bottom was going to fall out of infrastructure and construction last year. It didn’t, and, in fact, construction and infrastructure has continued to go apace. Our responses have calibrated themselves towards that. So things like the infrastructure reference group projects, they are rolling out over a number of years, and they have now given pipeline and certainty to those in the sector, but we also have to acknowledge that we haven’t been able to see them be delivered as quickly as we initially envisaged because, actually, that sector has got a lot of work going on in it. So it is a sector that we still need, but it’s not the only sector we’re investing in.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you. I want to actually expand on some of the questions asked by Julie Anne Genter because I think they speak to the assumptions and fiscal risks as set out in the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU), but I want to touch on—and I’d hate to harp on about it, but I’ll just conclude on this before we go into infrastructure fund. These are really, really complex things, right? We dive deeply into Budget documents and Supplementary Estimates and imprest supply bills and Treasury reports to try and provide a plain English summary of where we’re at to even the business community, the business commentariat, much less the person on the street who’s paying for all of this about whether or not we are spending it appropriately in the right way in the right time for the right benefit.

I think there’s some homework for the Minister to work with Treasury, because bear in mind that the vast amount of this funding—well, he may chuckle, but I think it’s really important, and I’ll come on to another example I’ve got of it. There is simply very little way for people to assess whether the spending is of an appropriate quality, and on COVID-related issues, and, frankly—and I have said this—I think we’ve spent far too much out of the COVID tin on non-COVID things. I think that is coming back now to haunt the Minister, and the Minister is, by smoke and mirrors and through second imprest supply, doing what he did last year. The same scrutiny—

Hon Grant Robertson: I’m confused—I can’t believe it.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Oh, he can chuckle and say he’s confused, but, actually, I think it’s the Minister that’s confused.

Now, I want to talk about infrastructure, because the Minister has made frequent reference in Budget 2021 to a $57.3 billion infrastructure investment over the next five years, and that’s in the Wellbeing Budget document itself. There is an important interest, a public interest, in the transparency around what that infrastructure is, where it’s going to be spent, and whether it’s been appropriated, because it’s just an investment. My colleague Andrew Bayly asked a written question about the $57.3 billion, and the Minister’s reply was simply to point to a graph in the document. That’s not good enough, because the questions were: where are they; what are those projects? A letter has, actually, I think, gone in too, and I’m not sure if that’s been replied to yet, but my questions are around that fund. Will he provide the requested details of the claimed $57.3 billion that is being spent on infrastructure, and, if not, why not?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): A couple of things for the member here. The first of those is to note that the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund is being spent across many, many different Votes in Government. The vast bulk of that is going into Vote Social Development, because that’s where we pay the wage subsidy scheme out of. There’s also a significant portion of it that’s gone to Vote Revenue for the various revenue-related schemes that we put in place, and, very much unsurprisingly, a large amount of money going to Vote Health. The member can find a graph that divides it up on the Treasury’s website, and that’s gone up there as a result of conversations that have been taken place between the Auditor-General, the Treasury, and myself. The member knows this because we’ve discussed this at the Finance and Expenditure Committee when the Estimates were going through.

The system that we have for public accounting and scrutiny in New Zealand defined by the Public Finance Act is the very process we’re going through right now—one part of it. What happens is committees assess through the Estimates process and the financial review process where we are—that is how it works. The member can shake his head, but that is how it works. Now, the Auditor-General, who is, in fact, in some ways responsible in some senses for part of that scrutiny process, has raised with the Government and said, “Well, how do we know this amount of money has been spent on this particular Vote or this particular appropriation under the COVID fund?” Now, our response is to say, “Well, we’ll do our best to be able to show you exactly what that looks like, but it’s actually the responsibility of select committees to go through Estimates and to do financial reviews.” That’s how the system works.

Now, if the system’s not sufficient for the member, that’s an interesting debate that we can have, and it is what the Auditor-General has raised with us, but, actually, that is the process of Government. It gets appropriated into a Vote, the Finance and Expenditure Committee makes a decision on which committees look at which Votes, and then these reports come back to us, and we’re having the debate about it. That is the system.

Now, the argument’s been made that because this is such a large sum of money all at once that’s going out—and it’s not all at once, but it’s spread over a period of time—we should find ways to make sure that we report more on that. That is the response that has led to the work that the Treasury has currently done.

The other matter is the member’s got a concern about what the money has been spent on and whether it was non-COVID-related. I’d just refer the member to the period of time in the last election campaign where all parties were talking about where money would be spent, and the party that he represents said that it wanted to spend what was left at that time in the fund, which was around about $14 billion—that member and his party wanted to spend it on tax cuts and pet transport projects. Now, the member can say to me that those transport projects were vital and essential, and that’s his right. Equally, I can say that the spending that we’ve done in the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund, we believe, fulfils the “two Rs”—response and recovery—and I strongly do believe that that’s happened. But the member is in somewhat of a glass house if he’s claiming that all expenditure had to be in a very, very narrow definition of what he seems to be claiming is a COVID response.

In terms of the member’s question around capital expenditure and expenditure in that space, the member, again, is not fully understanding the way that that works. I’m looking at the table on page 33 of the budget document from which that is drawn. It includes the New Zealand Transport Agency, district health boards, expenditure by Kāinga Ora, expenditure on the City Rail Link—it’s there.

SPEAKER: Can the member indicate which document he’s referring to?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I’m looking at the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU)—yeah. So I’m looking at the BEFU, yes.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: And page?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I’m looking at—in this case, it’s page 33. The numbers differ slightly because of the different years, because this is done over a five-year period rather than a four-year one, which is why we normally talk about four years for Budgets. This is five years. But this is where that comes from, and within each of those areas, we then have the process for financial reviews, for example, of district health boards. So you’d be able to see there where capital expenditure has been spent.

So I get what the member is saying. The member’s calling it a fund; it’s not a fund. It’s a collection of all of the investments that are going to be made in capital expenditure, and the process we have—to repeat myself—is that this Parliament then looks at each of those within the Votes and within the appropriations we have.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Well, thank you very much, Mr Chair. I’d like to start by just following on. The Minister’s being quite exasperated to try to explain the workings of the Public Finance Act, and he clearly professes to understand it very well. I—

Hon Grant Robertson: I’m not exasperated—always happy.

DAVID SEYMOUR: He says he always has. I note that last year’s Estimates, in part, were spent on purchasing land at Ihumātao, using money appropriated for the land for housing fund. The Auditor-General, in response to my complaint, concluded that the ministry did not seek—

CHAIRPERSON (Rt Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Order! The member will come to this debate.

DAVID SEYMOUR: Mr Chair, I’m very much addressing this debate. We need to know that the money that is being appropriated is going to be spent correctly, and it’s relevant that last year, they didn’t do it. I’ll finish by saying what the Auditor-General said: “the expenditure was incurred without appropriation and without authority to use imprest supply.”

So the first thing I’d like is for the Minister to actually give a reassurance to the committee that if we go through this whole process under the Public Finance Act, he actually intends to spend money legally this year, because, unfortunately, according to the Auditor-General, they weren’t able to do it last year. So while the Minister is up lecturing people about the Public Finance Act, he should get up and just tell us the Government intends to spend money legally this year, because it’s very important to New Zealanders.

I’d like to talk a little bit about the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund: in particular, does the Government have sufficient modelling and understanding of the costs of lockdowns, and is it prepared fiscally to compensate? I’d like to ask: how many weeks over this financial year is an upper and lower limit, and an average, it assumes, that there might be spent in lockdown? People need to know that there is going to be due compensation.

I’d just point to many people in business right now. They hope that if they can get through this period, then they’re going to be able to recover. They hope people will spend like mad before Christmas. But if they don’t keep their working capital sustainable and make it through the period from now to whenever this lockdown ends—especially for us poor Aucklanders and Aucklanders refugee down here in Wellington—then they’re not going to be there to capitalise on that recovery, and I’d ask the Minister: have they considered the resurgence payment?

Now, people have been very glad of it because they recognise that the wage subsidy doesn’t cover all the costs a business has. Businesses have costs that are fixed—rates, rent, electricity, other utilities—and they’re grateful that they got one week of resurgence payment. The problem is that this short, sharp lockdown hasn’t been just one week. It’s been many weeks and it seems to be going on, and if those businesses run down their working capital and aren’t there to capitalise on the recovery, then we’re all going to be in some difficulty, especially those people who are currently struggling enormously with great anxiety, facing enormous uncertainty about their future with those businesses.

So has the Minister considered how many weeks of fiscal support might be necessary in this particular year for alert level 2, 3, and 4 restrictions and the impact they have? What sort of envelope has he worked in lower and upper limits and expected number of weeks, and will he consider making the resurgence payment multi-week, just as, sadly, lockdowns have become multi-week?

But of course there is a cost to doing all that, and it’s particularly a cost that falls on lower generations. I was reading an article in the New Zealand Herald by another member of this House called Brooke van Velden, and she said that the impact on younger generations is twofold. One is that we’ve just taken on $140 billion over the four years—that’s what the Government is proposing to do. Now, New Zealand hasn’t increased its productivity—which I hope to get to in a later speech—but has increased its debt that it needs to service. Even if interest rates don’t rise, and I’m sure they will, it’s still an enormous amount of principal to service, and, second of all, a combination of monetary and fiscal impulse means that asset prices have gone through the roof in New Zealand: $200,000 for the average house. A couple in their 20s trying to save a 20 percent deposit on an extra 200 grand, they’ve got to save 40 grand after tax to stay still. They feel their future slipping further away.

So my final question is what has the Government done to think about the intergenerational fairness, because the debt and the asset price inflation seems to have hit younger New Zealanders much harder than others. Thank you, Mr Chair.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Well, that was a very muddled and confused speech there by the member David Seymour. Firstly, the member said that the Government has “taken on $140 billion worth of debt”. He knows that’s not correct. He knows that that is—

CHAIRPERSON (Rt Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Order! Now, the member will withdraw and apologise.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I withdraw and apologise. The member, I’m sure, will know that that is a forecast—a debt forecast—rather than an amount of money that the Government has taken on.

The other response I’d give to the member is to say that the radical transformation from David Seymour and the ACT Party from their concern about the fiscal expenditure to now just “Why don’t you spend more money? Why don’t you spend more money?” is quite remarkable, and I do note that, as I said to Mr Woodhouse, there were political parties who had decided that they wanted to spend the COVID fund. Similarly, the ACT Party had its views about what it wouldn’t spend, the revenue it wouldn’t generate, and how it would get rid of parts of that fund. So I find those positions interesting in light of the debate today.

The member expresses a concern for the intergenerational impact here, and I think that I’m going to take him at his word, as I must, and say that I share that concern. I share the concern that future generations coming out of COVID need to know that the New Zealand economy and New Zealand’s society is going to be there in the way that they would have had expectations, and certainly their parents and grandparents would have had as well. What we know is that the approach that we have taken to COVID-19 has allowed the New Zealand economy to recover better than almost any other.

COVID-19 Response

CHAIRPERSON (Rt Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Order! We’ve now come to the time which the Business Committee agreed—or parties agreed—would be the conclusion of this debate.

We now move on to the debate on the COVID-19 response portfolio. I can’t see anyone here who’s—oh—

Chris Bishop: Normally it’s the chair, isn’t it?

CHAIRPERSON (Rt Hon Trevor Mallard): No, well, I don’t think we’ve got a chair here or a deputy—so anyone can take it.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was waiting for the chair but, of course, the chair is not here, as we are in these straitened circumstances. So can I just start by begging the House’s indulgence to thank once again all the Kiwis out there who are getting tested in their thousands, and we do need to keep those testing numbers up, and everyone else getting vaccinated as well—63,000 yesterday, I think it was; we hope those numbers continue to increase—and all of the healthcare workers out there around the country who are doing such a hard job, particularly in our MIQs, who are keeping New Zealand safe.

I’ve got a series of things I want to discuss with the Minister in relation to the Estimates and the forward-looking projections for the forthcoming year. I thought I’d start with managed isolation. There has been a little bit of interest in the last couple of months, I suppose you’d say, from the Government in purpose-built facilities, moving away from hotels. So, in relation to that, I suppose a couple of questions to start with: what is the Government planning in terms of purpose-built facilities for managed isolation in the next year, and out in the forward Estimates, and is the Government still looking to purchase hotels, as has been indicated, potentially, in the past?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): I was hoping the member Chris Bishop might give me a few more questions before we get into it, but that’s all right; I’ll get into that particular issue around the purpose-built facilities for managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ).

I think, as I’ve canvassed with the member before, all options remain on the table. At this point, when we established the MIQ facilities, the fastest way to do that was to contract existing hotels. It meant that you had rooms available very quickly, fully staffed, fully catered, and that was able to be stood up very quickly. Of course, a lot of work has gone into making sure that we drive as much risk out of those facilities as possible, but they are not purpose-built facilities. Purpose-built facilities would likely take quite a long period of time and be quite expensive to build at the scale of our current MIQ operations.

We can operationalise about 4,500 rooms at any given time. That means there’s a lot more rooms in the system than the 4,500, because you’ve got to allow for the fact that you can’t have rooms occupied 24/7. They have to be cleaned in between use. And then the irregular nature, unfortunately, of travel in and out of the country means it’s not always possible to optimise the use of those rooms—in the sense that a room might sit empty for five or six days. That doesn’t mean it can be occupied by someone, because it has to be empty for the full 14-day period in order for it to be able to be booked. So there is a degree of inefficiency in the system. Because it’s a minimum two-week block booking, effectively, that means that you need a lot more rooms than you need in terms of operational capacity.

The purpose-built MIQ facilities is something that we’ll continue to consider. One of the big question marks, and I don’t think it will come as a surprise to anyone in the House, is exactly how long we’re likely to be using MIQ at the scale that we are using it at the moment. I think it is likely that we will need quarantine facilities; whether we need isolation facilities is another debate. So, at the moment, we have three hotels that we’re using for quarantine—that’s for people who have COVID-19. It is likely that we’ll need to continue to be able to supply quarantine. The Government is looking at alternatives around isolation, and that includes the ability to isolate at home, and the extent of our willingness to do that, of course, is going to depend a lot on what happens in the next few months around vaccination, around the overall risk of COVID-19 spreading in the community, and what that means for us as a country.

So therefore—I know this is a roundabout way of answering the member’s question—we don’t have any plans on the books right now to build purpose-built facilities, but we certainly haven’t taken them off the table. Part of the consideration there around that particular debate would be what we would do with those facilities in the periods when they were not required for managed isolation or quarantine. And so that’s part of the conversation, too.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you for that answer—to the Minister. I suppose, I put the view out there that—my view certainly is, the reality is we are going to need some form of quarantine facilities and they should probably be purpose-built. Can the Minister, on behalf of the Government, envisage a scenario in which high-risk passengers from countries where COVID is quite prevalent automatically go into purpose-built quarantine facilities for a period of time, but low-risk passengers either quarantine, or isolate, I should say, at home for a period of time? And perhaps there’s a middle-ground option for medium risk countries where the hotels continue to be used, or at least used for the short term, and phased out in the medium term. Is the Government considering a stratification system for isolation and quarantine along those lines? Because I certainly think that is something that there would be a great deal of interest in from the public. And perhaps I’ll ask him to comment on that, and I’ve got some questions around other issues not related to managed isolation.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Mr Chair, we set out some thinking—some early thinking—not long before this current lockdown, around what a future reopening might look like and how we might transition from a position where the border is not quite hermetically sealed but certainly very, very restricted compared to what it would normally be to something where we might get a greater degree of movement across the border. We did that at the time and we set out at the time some thinking around a risk-profiling exercise for different countries. It would be fair to say that Delta has actually changed some of the thinking about that even in the last few weeks. We were looking at a situation where you could stratify countries based on risk, and I think in the Delta environment, we actually have to consider whether, in fact, that’s an appropriate thing to do, recognising that all countries, all people coming into the country at this point, have a degree of risk associated with them, and some of the risk protection measures that we’ve had in place previously, like pre-departure testing potentially three days before travel, in a Delta environment where someone can be picking it up and being infectious within 24 hours—some of those things actually do need to be looked at again. Now, that all plays into a question mark about what our medium to longer-term border settings will be. We haven’t set out any new thinking on that. Obviously, at the moment, the focus is on responding to the current outbreak, but I think we will have to look again at some of that thinking around particularly the country risk-profiling, because I think Delta has changed the game.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you. That is a really interesting answer and a very informative answer, so thank you. I suppose the question that follows from that is at what point will the Government outline its thinking around—“reconnecting to the world” is the term normally used, so I suppose we’ll use that. When will the Government outline its thinking around that in light of Delta? Because I suppose the unfortunate series of events that we had, literally contemporaneously with the Prime Minister outlining for the public at the forum a pathway forward, which, you know, was a good pathway—we were a bit critical of some of the lack of detail around the numbers, but at least in principle a good pathway forward. The Minister’s now indicating to the House that that thinking has changed. I wonder if he could perhaps elucidate a little bit more about how the thinking’s changed—I think everyone acknowledges that Delta has fundamentally changed the game, but what are the consequences of that in terms of the pathway and when we might be privy as a Parliament to what the Government’s intentions are in terms of reconnecting to the world, because I think everyone wants that to happen.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): I think it’d be fair to say it’s not necessarily that the thinking has changed, but the thinking is changing and evolving, and it is an evolving situation that we’re dealing with. I think that there are some things that we should put on the table and be up front about; the first of which is: do we think it’s viable for a prolonged period of time to continue to restrict movement at the border to the, sort of, 4,500 rooms’ worth of people in any given fortnight? I think the reality is it is not going to be viable to sustain that beyond the, sort of, immediate global response phase of COVID-19, which is obviously—the pandemic is still raging. So we are going to have to think about alternatives to that. Things like self-isolation are part of the question. Things like the elimination strategy itself and how the elimination strategy evolves, first of all in New Zealand that has a high rate of vaccination, which of course is what we’re all pitching towards, but also in a world that will increasingly become more highly vaccinated over the next year, 18 months to two years. Now, we can look at some of the countries in the OECD and see high rates of vaccination there. Actually, they’re not the ones that I worry about in terms of the spread of the virus. The virus is spreading and mutating in countries that have low vaccination rates. And actually, they are going to have quite a big impact on what happens at our border, those countries where the virus continues to spread, because what the epidemiologists and the virologists and all of the other scientists will tell us is that breakthrough infections—when it comes to vaccination—are more likely while the virus continues to spread rampantly. When we can turn that volume down globally, that is the point at which everybody becomes safer.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. I just had some follow-up questions on purpose-built managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) facilities. Is the Government looking at that as something that would increase the total supply of MIQ rooms, and therefore allow more New Zealanders to come home, at least in the first instance, or would it be a replacement for hotels?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Perhaps if I could take the opportunity—and I should have done this earlier—to just take a moment to thank the people who work in our MIQ facilities, because I do want to take this opportunity to explain that it isn’t just about a physical facility. To isolate people safely for a period of two weeks requires a heck of a lot more than just a room with a good system of air ventilation. We spend a lot of time talking about air ventilation—one of the only countries that has this particular debate at the degree of intensity that we have. I think we’re fortunate to be in the position where we are debating those things.

But actually, it is the human factor that is by far the most important part of the success or failure of our system of isolation. I do want to acknowledge that of the—I think we’d be over 170,000 now. I don’t have the exact figure to the day, but we were about 168,000 last week of people who have come through our managed isolation facilities and back into New Zealand. We are talking about less than a dozen or so incidents, potentially, of transmission. Now, in the global context, no other country—very few other countries, if any—would be able to claim that level of success for their managed isolation and their border restrictions, and it is the people that make that possible. But no system there is without risk. No matter how good you make the facilities, again, there is no system there without risk, because at some point you still have to get food to people. You still have to provide for their ability to get some fresh air. With any of those activities, there’s a degree of risk. You have to attend to their health needs. You have to be able to test them. All of those things involve a bit of human interaction, and with that comes a degree of risk. So I just want to really stress it isn’t just about the physical facilities.

In terms of the physical facilities, when you think about what a purpose-built MIQ facility might look like and how it might differ to a hotel, it ultimately comes down to air ventilation. Actually, the facilities don’t look that different to hotels. You still need to have a room. You still need to have a bed. You still need to have a bathroom. You still need to have food delivered to you. So all of those things which hotels do—and they’ve done it very, very well—would still be required in a dedicated facility. Probably the bit that we would be able to design more carefully and more purpose-built is that air ventilation system. Most of the facilities that we’ve got, we’ve been able to get our air ventilation system to a point where it is pretty good in terms of the needs for managed isolation, recognising that the hotels were not built for this purpose. To build a dedicated facility of the scale that we’re talking about for isolation, it would be a long process and not something that’s going to bring on stream a whole lot of additional capacity quickly. Therefore if we want to bring on additional capacity more quickly than that, it is going to come down to looking at other hotel facilities and other workforces that we can tap into.

So again, it’s not just a case of saying, “That hotel facility looks good.” The question then is: do you have the workforce to do the testing? Do we have the workforce to do the security? Do we have the workforce to do the other specialist functions that go with MIQ—the pastoral care, for example. Our MIQ team have developed a really good model of pastoral care that has served the people coming through the facilities very, very well. So yes, we are absolutely looking at how we can extract a bit more capacity out of the system.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): I thank the Minister for his answer. Based on what the Minister said about the changes with Delta, I’m just wondering if he could comment on if the view to opening the border has changed, not just given Delta but also the other potential mutations, the breakthrough infections in countries that have reasonable vaccination rates, and in particular given that young children are not able to be vaccinated here in New Zealand—I’m just wondering if he could comment on whether he thinks it’s likely we can wait until vaccinations are available to everyone, including children aged two, before we see a real loosening of the border.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): What I can say around vaccines is that the current expectation is that we will see a discussion in New Zealand before the end of the year about the five-plus age cohort, based on the international evidence that’s emerging, based on the fact that many other countries are already into that age bracket at the moment. So we will have good evidence to make a good, informed decision about that.

I do want to say, just on that, I am very mindful that, as one of my colleagues put it, we’re writing a prescription for the nation’s children when we’re talking about that, and so we’re very careful in making sure that we are getting the science right and that’s a very, very robust decision, before we went into that. But I’m optimistic there. In terms of the paediatric vaccination space, whether it’s the current vaccine or whether there’s a specialist paediatric vaccine, that is a still a live question and I don’t have answer at that point on that.

In terms of what all of this means for our border, it is still too early to tell. Yes, new variants of the virus have an impact. They have an impact on our elimination strategy overall, and so the border can’t be seen in isolation to the wider conversation that we need to have around vaccination, around the elimination strategy, around what the future of that is. So the border is only one segment of that conversation.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you very much, Mr Chair, and thank you to the Minister for appearing. I’ve been really interested to listen to the Minister and particularly how candid he’s been, saying that there’s great uncertainty caused by new variants but the Government is openly considering its options even whether or not elimination is the right option. That’s what, I think, I heard him saying. That is quite a big thing for the Minister to say, but it’s not unwelcome that he would be laying out different options; some of the options might be unwelcome, but having that more open discussion is very welcome. I think people really have a yearning to understand what New Zealand’s options and possible pathways and strategies are. Given this is an Estimates debate, I just wonder what sort of cost-benefit analysis the Government is doing on different options when it thinks about what our future might look like in relation to the border and the level of elimination of COVID-19.

I put it this way: when the Government thinks that the costs of saving a quality-adjusted life here from COVID, is it weighing those up against what it is prepared to spend to save a quality-adjusted life here from other things? Because in normal times, just about every day that we meet here in the House, it seems like there will be a group of families of patients who would love to be able to get their hands on a particular pharmaceutical, but because of the envelope that Pharmac has to fund them, they can’t, and often they face real suffering, even at their lives’ end. Everything that we spend on fighting COVID, we can’t spend on doing that.

The Israeli Prime Minister gave a similarly frank speech. What he said was, “Everything we spend on COVID, we can’t equip our soldiers with anti-aircraft guns.” I’m just so happy that New Zealand doesn’t have those sorts of trade-offs—at least not for now. But we do have other trade-offs. You drive around New Zealand, unfortunately it feels sometimes like just about every corner, some family has put white crosses up because somebody died there. There is constant pressure on the Government to improve the safety of the roads. We could go on, but two of our biggest killers—car crashes and cancers—every dollar we spend on facing COVID, we can’t spend on fighting car crashes and cancers.

So I wonder: is the Government doing—since this is an Estimates debate; this is a Budget-related debate—robust analysis of what some of the pathways are? Now, we know that the world will change. We know there could be some crazy new breakthrough variance of COVID—in fact, arguably, there are some already. But is the Government, at least based on what it currently knows, doing scenario planning to say what our strategy might be, what sort of interventions the Government would have—whether they’re testing or tracing or vaccination or movement restrictions like lockdowns—and is it, then, working out what they cost? And, ultimately, what does it cost to save a year of life from COVID, knowing and being fully conscious of the fact that when we spend a dollar on that, it’s a dollar we can never spend on something like cancer or car crashes or other things that threaten New Zealanders. I’d be very interested to hear the Minister’s answers. Thank you.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): There’s quite a lot in that contribution from the member. But I do just want to say that the Government, at this point, is still committed to an elimination strategy. Elimination strategies can take many different forms. Now, in the early part of our COVID-19 response, the best way to achieve elimination was, once we had done the first wave of elimination, to keep it out of the country in the first place. That’s not always the response that we take with elimination strategies. We have elimination strategies for other infectious diseases, and we do that without necessarily needing to restrict movement at the border. So we can maintain, potentially, an elimination strategy without necessarily having to say to people that there’s a limit in the movement of people at the border.

David Seymour: Vaccines are much better.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Vaccines are certainly a part of that. Requirements around vaccines for people to come into the country, I think, are in our not too distant future—I hope would be in a not too distant future.

In terms of the hunger for certainty, I think, that’s evident in the member’s comments—I think we all want to know what the world’s going to look like in the future. If I could perhaps use an analogy, and it’s not a neat analogy but it is one that I think is partly appropriate. After September the 11th, there were massive queues at the airport for airport security, because suddenly every airport in the world had to stand up a whole lot of security that they hadn’t had before. International aviation was massively reduced, there were huge queues, and there were huge delays. The world adjusted within a short period of time to a new normal, and now we just accept that that is part of international travel. I think that there will be a new normal when it comes to things like international travel in a pandemic era. We don’t know what that’s going to look like yet, but we need to be in those conversations and ready to adapt quickly to whatever might come along, and that is absolutely where the Government’s focus is at.

So things like vaccine passports—no, it’s not feasible for New Zealand to develop its own vaccine passport system; it would be futile to do so if no other country could read it and interact with it. We want to be part of a system that’s global; that means that people can share that information seamless and instantly; and that New Zealanders can share their vaccine information, their testing information, and so on, as part of the prerequisite requirements to travel internationally. So we’ve got to be right in there with those conversations. So there isn’t certainty here.

In terms of the other question from the member around the cost-benefit analysis, I can tell him that I’m responsible for a very large part of the Government’s spending at the moment across the two big portfolios I’ve got—education and COVID-19 response—and I would absolutely love to have the volumes of money that we’re spending on COVID-19 response to spend in education, and every other Minister around the Cabinet table would say the same thing. So, inherent in all of the discussions we are having is that constant trade-off about, you know, we want to make sure that we’re investing in New Zealand’s future. This is a particular point in time and we need to respond to the needs in front of us now. But, of course, we also need to think about how we maximise our options for the future.

Chris Bishop: Mr Chair?

CHAIRPERSON (Rt Hon Trevor Mallard): Chris Bishop.

Chris Bishop: Is that me?

CHAIRPERSON (Rt Hon Trevor Mallard): Yep, that’s you.

Chris Bishop: Sorry, I just couldn’t—the mask.

CHAIRPERSON (Rt Hon Trevor Mallard): Yep, all right. Mr Bishop.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you, Mr Chair, and thank you for that illuminating answer. I want to turn to the issue of vaccine supply and ask a couple of particular questions. The first is, a prefatory remark, we’ve been told for most of the year that it’s very, very difficult to get earlier delivery than what we have of the Pfizer vaccine. Every attempt that’s been made by us and other commentators to encourage the Government to get speedier delivery we’ve been told that that’s impossible, that the Pfizer delivery time lines are what they are and there’s nothing we can do about that. That’s been contested, but I don’t want to ask about that because we’ve been back and forth about that in the House.

The issue is: when did the Government go and seek the arrangement, or the arrangements, plural, that the Prime Minister has signalled will be announced in the coming days? When was the period when the Government started to explore those options and first made contact with the Government, or Governments, plural, or company, or companies, plural, that have delivered what will be announced? So that’s the first question. And then the second one is a slightly different one, but relating to vaccine supply. I’ve been contacted by some people who just simply don’t want the mRNA vaccines. They don’t want Pfizer for whatever reason—I don’t really understand why, but they’re just a bit nervous about it. They’ve got the heebie jeebies, some would say, and they’re very keen on either the AstraZeneca vaccine or the Novavax vaccine. And they say they won’t get Pfizer, but they will get Novavax. That was obviously something that is on the table for New Zealand. Can the Minister outline to the House when that might be available as a supplementary vaccine for those who obviously don’t want to get Pfizer?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Perhaps if I could put a few things on record at this point. The first is, going back to late last year, the Government entered into advance purchaser arrangements whilst the vaccines were still in development, for four different vaccines. We purchased enough AstraZeneca vaccine, which everyone will recall at the time was seen as the most promising vaccine, the one that everyone was desperate to buy. We purchased enough for full population coverage of AstraZeneca, enough for the full two doses to be given to every New Zealander. And we purchased enough for full population coverage using the Janssen vaccine produced by Johnson & Johnson, a single shot vaccine. We procured 1.5 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine—which at that time had probably the biggest question marks over it—and we purchased 1.5 million doses, which was enough to vaccinate 750,000 New Zealanders. That quickly proved to be one of the most effective vaccines and early this year we made the decision that for New Zealand we wanted to maximise the effectiveness of the vaccines that we were rolling out, that there were benefits to rolling out one vaccine to the whole of the population.

Our conversations with Pfizer indicated that they could supply us, this year, enough vaccines to immunise the whole population with that. We agreed with them. We negotiated with them. They indicated that they could supply us the balance of our vaccines in the second half of the year, spread through the second half of the year, and that’s when the discussions began. After representations directly from the Prime Minister to the chief executive, they agreed that they could supply us all of our vaccines by October. The conversations have been ongoing ever since then to try and get vaccines into the country as quickly as possible. So it is wrong to say that we haven’t been trying to get vaccines into the country as fast as we can right the way through, but we have made the decision that we think the Pfizer vaccine is going to provide the best protection for New Zealand as a country. So that is where our focus has been, in rolling that out and getting it into the country as quickly as we can.

The final thing that I would note is that as we get into a different phase of vaccine supply globally, there are new opportunities to secure doses of vaccine safely and securely to meet New Zealand’s needs that don’t necessarily mean that they have to come directly from Pfizer. We are exploring those avenues. Those opportunities were not available to us even a month ago, but they are available to us now, so we will absolutely make the most of those.

I’d point out that we’re not the only country in this situation. Australia, since they encountered some resistance to the roll-out of the AstraZeneca vaccine, have been working very hard to secure additional supplies of the Pfizer vaccine and they were no more successful than New Zealand has been up until this point. So things have changed a lot over the last month, which have opened up new possibilities for New Zealand and Australia. We’ve taken a different approach to the Australians in the way we talk about that. We tend to talk about it right at the end once the deal’s been done and the vaccines are on the way; they tend to talk about it while they’re negotiating the deals. Those are decisions for our respective countries. But I can assure every member of the House that the goal of getting vaccines into the country as fast as possible has been driving Government activity since the beginning of the year.

CHAIRPERSON (Rt Hon Trevor Mallard): Chris Bishop. Sorry, I might just explain to people—I’m keeping a rough sort of idea of the balance between the sides of the House as to this debate so far this afternoon, with two Ministers involved in two areas. So far, I think it’s fair to say that the Labour Party has had a bigger share of the speaking time than the rest of people put together. Therefore I’m going to tend to take people from my left rather than my right, other than the Minister in reply.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): A quick point of order, Mr Chair. I just think, by way of constructive suggestion, one of the reasons for that is that when members ask very short but very open questions, the answer’s going to tend to be longer. If members could, in keeping with committee stage, ask a number of questions at once, the answers could often be much more concise.

CHAIRPERSON (Rt Hon Trevor Mallard): I’m just going to rule that if that’s the way the member thinks maths works, he’s got it wrong. If the member has a short, specific question, he should try and answer it in a short, specific way. If he had four of them, I think he suggested he wouldn’t take four times as long to answer different questions, and that’s probably not right. Chris Bishop.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you, Mr Chair. It’d be helpful if when the questions are asked, they’re answered, because, with respect, my two questions in my last contribution were not answered.

The question is a very specific one, which is: at what point in the recent past has the Government reached out to a Government or Governments—plural—to seek additional supply of Pfizer? On what date—or around about what date, if the Minister doesn’t have the precise date in his head—did the Government do that?

Then the second question was in relation to rolling out AstraZeneca or Novavax for those who don’t, for whatever reason, wish to take a mRNA vaccine. So I put those two back on the table and add two more questions, given the Minister’s keen on more questions all at once. The third question is in relation to data collation at the border. One of the things that I think many people are interested in is why we do not currently collect, as I understand it, vaccination records of people who go through managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ); so what vaccine they have, when they got it, what type of vaccine they have. The reason why that’s important is obviously you can then, once you work out who’s in MIQ and if they’re vaccinated, correlate that with the testing data, the day zero, now the day five test, the day 12 test, potentially tests after that, to figure out—well, it would be useful when we devise our future border strategy, and I think many people are interested in that. As I understand it, we don’t do that. I think people want to know why.

Then fourthly, in relation to vaccination is the issue of incorporating proof of vaccination status into some sort of digital app, and what the time line is on that for the forthcoming year. Our vaccination rates are going up, that’s a fantastic thing, but people are worried about being able to prove that they are vaccinated offshore. It’s already an issue for New Zealanders who have been vaccinated and then subsequently travelled. I think people would be reassured if the Government could provide some expeditious assurance as to when they’ll be able to prove electronically that they’ve been vaccinated, as opposed to just having the little card, which at the moment, as I’ve pointed out to the member privately and publicly as well, is not even being filled out in quite a few parts of the country right now.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Just very quickly, the discussions around international negotiations on getting extra vaccines into the country in terms of bilateral arrangements have happened over the last six weeks to two months.

In terms of AstraZeneca, Janssen, and Novavax, I’d note Novavax hasn’t been approved by Medsafe for use in New Zealand at the moment, but our agreement with them is for supply in the first quarter of next year. In terms of Janssen, they have indicated to us that supply is a problem at their end. So obviously that’s a commercial discussion that’s taking place between us and them at the moment, but they have not been able to supply us any so far. In terms of AstraZeneca, we’ve not made a decision to use it in New Zealand. So while it’s Medsafe approved, we’ve not made the decision to use AstraZeneca in New Zealand.

In terms of vaccine data collection at the border, that is being operationalised at the moment. MIQ are asking people about their vaccine status as part of the on-boarding, if you like, the bringing into the country process, as people come into MIQ. I haven’t seen yet that compiled in a way that can be reported, but that process is under way. Ultimately, I think in the immediate term, it’s likely to be built into the—I can never remember the acronym we use in New Zealand for it, but the electronic travel authority process that we’ve got at the moment, I think we’ll have a vaccine question built into that fairly soon. Again, the process is under way to operationalise that. The ultimate goal, of course, is that it gets built into the information that’s stored on the chip of somebody’s passport so that when you’re swiping through SmartGate or through any border anywhere around the world, it’s just all done automatically; that’s the ultimate goal. I can’t give a specific time frame on that because that’s largely an international discussion that will have to happen.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): I just have another question about managed isolation and quarantine facilities. I accept that the Minister said it’s not just an issue of actual space and physical facilities as it is staff. There has appeared to be a reduction in the number of spaces available from earlier this year to now, in part due to policy decisions that are really smart, to keep people safe, around cohorting. I’m just wondering if there is an ability or any plan on the part of the Government to try to increase those spaces back up to what they were, and, if so, does that have implications for needing more staff, or is it just about physical spaces?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Ultimately, the issue that the member refers to—there are two. One is cohorting and the other is a better understanding of the physical spaces that we have on offer. There are some facilities where we’re not able to us every room that they have because of our understanding of how the ventilation systems work, for example. It’s a small number. We’re not talking hundreds of rooms, but there are some rooms that we’re not using because of the ventilation concerns that exist around them. But, ultimately, cohorting is the thing that has the biggest inefficiency.

In an ideal world we would have an equal number of facilities of exactly the same size, and we would have exactly the same number of people coming into the country every day. Then we could manage the system very efficiently. That, of course, is not how international travel works. So we try and align the release of managed isolation and quarantine vouchers with international flight schedules to make the system as efficient as we can, but when we fill up a facility over 72 hours, at the end of 72 hours if it’s not full it gets closed off, and there’s some inefficiency there. But the upside of that is that the risk of people towards the end of their stay coming into contact with people at the beginning of their stay is, of course, more or less completely removed from that. So from the public health viewpoint it is worth that change.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Just a follow-up—I do understand that from the public health point of view, that is desirable. The question, I guess, is at a period of really high demand for people to come back to New Zealand through managed isolation and quarantine, does the Government have any plan to try and increase the number of spaces available back up to what it was earlier this year?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Yes, we are aiming to increase our overall capacity. Any members who wish to come with me to Rotorua in due course and have conversations with the community leaders there are most welcome to join me.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d just like to ask the question—two questions actually. First of all, what is the Government’s current advice on vaccine fade, the reducing effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine over time? There appears to be mounting evidence around the world, particularly in Israel, who started first, that vaccine fade is a real thing. And in light of the Government’s current advice, what is the Government’s plan for purchasing booster vaccines at present? The Minister’s insinuated on several occasions that the information that boosters might be necessary is coming from Pfizer, who are commercially motivated to sell them. I don’t know if that really is his view. He might like to clarify, but he certainly suggested it several times.

Secondly, I just wonder about the Minister’s view on contact tracing and whether we’re getting value for money there, whether it’s fit for purpose. A useful way to think about it is: is he pleased with the performance of contact tracing in the current outbreak? It seems to have taken about three weeks to get to a stage where everybody had been traced and tested in the South Island. The Minister might like to argue it’s less, but that was with only 518 cases—and that in itself doesn’t sound too bad by the time you add on 12 days to have your second test or third test—except the Prime Minister said it was necessary to keep the South Island at the alert level restrictions it was at because she “didn’t know what was out there”. So I just wonder how the Minister might reconcile that statement with the belief that contact tracing has been effective; and if he doesn’t think it’s effective, what can be done in this financial year to get contact tracing that is more effective? I notice digital contact tracing continues to play what appears to be, and the Minister can correct me if I’m wrong, a very minor role in the Government’s contact tracing efforts. It seems to be mostly manual, and they had to hire a whole lot of people and train them up, mid-outbreak, in order to make that work as well as it has.

I’d also just ask about what’s happening in Auckland right now. We’re told, I think yesterday, that we’re down to 33 that aren’t connected. It seems that Auckland can’t really go out of level 4 until all of the tracing is complete and we can be certain there aren’t more cases out there and we’ve traced to the ends of the chains of transmission. But so far, you know, Aucklanders are going into their fourth week tomorrow, and it’s starting to have really mounting costs. So I just wonder, is the Minister satisfied with the value he’s getting out of this contact tracing, notwithstanding the efforts of the contact tracers? I don’t think anyone is in any way questioning them, but there’s no point having the best people in the world working on a system that’s not adequate, so I wonder if he could comment on, first of all, vaccine fade. Does the Government believe that it’s a real problem; and if so, what’s its policy on procuring booster shots? Because we know it’s been a very long delay getting, you know, supply, as the Prime Minister told question time—or told the House in question time that the problem with the roll-out has been supply, if we take her at her word on that. We don’t want to get in the same problem with booster shots. What’s the Minister’s satisfaction with contact tracing, given the Prime Minister said we had to keep the South Island at level 3 for further days because she, in her words said, “We just don’t know what’s out there”. Thank you, Mr Chair.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Firstly, on the issue of boosters, the technical advisory team that we have reviewing this evidence every day and every week indicate to us, at the moment, the evidence on that is mixed, and so they’re monitoring that very closely. So therefore the prudent thing for New Zealand to do in that situation is exactly what we’re doing, which is making sure that we’re hedging our bets, making sure we’re going to have options.

In terms of our current roll-out, we know that we will have around 1.5 million doses of Pfizer vaccine left over this year that will allow us to start the booster programme, and conversations are happening with Pfizer and with other vaccine manufacturers around the supply of vaccines for boosters. We have, as I indicated just before, options for Novavax early in the new year, and there is some international evidence that suggests that that could actually be a good booster vaccine for New Zealand’s purposes as well. So, in terms of those discussions, we do take a different approach to some other countries who we like to compare ourselves with when those discussions are happening; we announce them once we’ve got a signed deal. Other countries have been announcing them once they’ve got, if you like, a handshake or an indication of what’s going to be possible. We don’t do it until the deal is signed and we have absolute certainty, and that’s the approach that we’re going to continue to do.

In terms of contact tracing, yes, I am satisfied with the performance of the contact tracing system in this outbreak. I would note a couple of things. Delta got a head start. It was circulating in the community for a week before we even knew that it was there, and, as a result, there are still some linkages in those early cases that have been difficult to identify. So we know what our clusters are, and there are multiple different sub-clusters, I should say—it’s all one cluster, but multiple different sub-clusters. The linkages between those haven’t, in some of those sub-clusters, been easy to identify, and that is because of the head start that Delta got on us.

In terms of the South Island, North Island, Auckland, all of those issues around regions, I would note that our contact—and also it comes back to the electronic tracing question the member raised. Our system has relied, up until now, on voluntary use of the QR codes, voluntary use of the Bluetooth tracer app, and we have seen very low usage rates of that amongst New Zealanders. The reality, therefore, is that we saw movement out of Auckland during the week that we knew that it was active in there—at least a week that we knew it was active in the Auckland community—across the country, and our contact tracers don’t know who was in locations of interest unless they identify themselves. So there is always the risk that people have not been identifying themselves and, therefore, that there could be spread in other parts of the country. The longer the period of time that’s gone on, the more testing we’ve had around the country, the less that risk has been.

But I think, if I could reflect very candidly about our experience from the first outbreak that we dealt with this year—or the first significant outbreak that we dealt with this year—the Valentine’s Day cluster, I am much more reluctant to go down alert levels, to push hard to go down alert levels, quickly. I would rather that we give people certainty that knowing, when they’re going down alert levels, they’re not going to have to bounce back up again, which is what happened with that Valentine’s Day cluster. So, hopefully, I’ve covered the key points the member was raising.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you, Mr Chair. In reflecting on that, I just urge the Government to adopt a least-cost approach when it comes to boosters. If the evidence is mixed, there at least is mixed evidence and a least-regrets approach means you order now and if you don’t need them, we can give them away and that’s part of our contribution to the Pacific.

But I want to ask about vaccine mandates—two particular questions. Firstly, is the Government giving consideration in this next Estimates period to mandating a wider group of workers or staff that are not currently covered by the vaccination orders through the public health orders? So, in particular, early childhood education staff and aged-care workers. So has the Government given consideration to that, and if not, why not?

And then, secondly, is the Government giving consideration to publicising the legal position for private sector employers who may wish to impose vaccine requirements on people who enter their property or enter their business? I’m thinking in particular of a bar, for example, that wants to set a rule that only people who have been doubly vaccinated, with proof, are allowed to enter the bar. That is something that is happening overseas. I don’t have a fixed view either way on it, but it is something that I think we’re going to confront in New Zealand sooner rather than later and there is going to be clarity required from Government, because it is a very gnarly—I was going to say nasty, but it’s more gnarly—problem of human rights intersecting or multiple rights conflicting, and, of course, the public health of the community interlinking with that as well.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): In answer to that last part of the question, the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety is leading that particular debate for the Government on exactly how persons conducting a business or undertaking under health and safety legislation can keep their workforces and their customers safe and where vaccination might play a role in all of that. We have not made decisions on that at this point.

In terms of the issue around additional workforces that we are considering a mandatory vaccination requirement for, we’ve not considered that for any of our education workforce at this point. We are looking, or I am looking, closely at the requirements that apply to our health workforce around vaccination and whether that should be expanded.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I appreciate time is of the essence, so I’ll get to the point. First of all, I’d just like to acknowledge all of the essential workers who have been working across New Zealand under level 4, and also ongoing in level 2, as well, acknowledging everything they do and continue to do to keep us safe. We know that Delta is a game-changer, and the events of the last few days have once again confirmed the value of going hard and going early. While our approach has allowed us more freedoms, I just want to state very briefly that in no way do we underestimate the impact that COVID restrictions have had on people and also on businesses across New Zealand.

My question to the Minister for COVID-19 Response is in relation to a comment made by the Director-General of Health yesterday. He stated that increased surveillance testing in healthcare, border, quarantine, and essential workers would have to be a key focus to help stamp out Delta in Auckland. What sorts of changes, I’m interested to know, will the Minister and also Cabinet be considering in the coming days in order to understand and give confidence that it is safe for Auckland to start moving down levels?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): One of the things that we’ll be considering is the testing guidance provided around who should get a COVID-19 test. That is important across Auckland. We are seeing a lower rate of testing within the wider Auckland community than the one that I would like to see to give assurance that COVID-19’s not out there. So anything that we can do in the next week or so to boost the overall rate of community testing, particularly in light of some of the things that we’re finding in our current cases around symptoms—then, yes, we’re looking at that.

We are looking at the frequency of testing of our most at-risk workers. Most of them are on a weekly testing cycle. With saliva testing, that is already happening more frequently for those who are opting into that system—a couple of times a week for them. As we get that system up and running—and yes, it has taken too long to get that system up and running—that will increase the options that we have there to significantly increase the frequency of testing of the most at-risk workers. But at this point, I would say that that’s a workforce that’s fairly frequently tested already, and in terms of our alert level decisions, seeing an increase in the overall rate of community testing in Auckland is something that I absolutely would hope to see in the next few days. It would certainly give us all more confidence.

Education

CHAIRPERSON (Rt Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Sorry, I’ll take my mask off. The time agreed for this debate has now expired. We’ll keep the same Minister in the chair but give him his education hat now.

Now, is there anyone here who’s actually a member of the Education and Workforce Committee? No?

Ibrahim Omer: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON (Rt Hon Trevor Mallard): Anyone who wants to take the call?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): I’ve got a number of lines of questions that I would like to take in this Estimates debate. The first one is really looking at what evaluations have taken place into the impact of the COVID lockdown last year, and in the last financial year as well, on student learning and student achievement, and what changes have been made as a result in preparation for the lockdown that we are in now.

Do you want me to keep going with some questions? OK.

So the first line of questioning is exactly around that: what did you learn? What did the ministry do differently this time that is learnt from evaluations from surveys, from evidence, and from research that has then been built into planning and preparation for this lockdown?

The feedback, Minister, that’s been received from some schools is that it was no different than it was in March last year. In terms of access to devices, for example, that’s been a significant barrier for some students’ learning, and just at a time that they get that up and running, those schools have dropped down to level 2, for which they are grateful. For those in Auckland, it’s not as successful. The other question around that was on the clear examples of enormous disparities amongst schools and students in the lockdown last year, and how were those being mitigated and the risks to those students being mitigated in how the ministry has responded and the changes that are being made in advance of this lockdown.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I’ll just quickly run through those issues. In terms of student achievement, the Education Review Office, the New Zealand Council for Educational Research, and others have done various evaluations around student progression and student progress using the data sources available to them, and have indicated that, actually, student progress was about the same or better last year in key learning areas like literacy and numeracy, compared to the years prior. We do acknowledge, though, that COVID-19 creates the challenge around attendance and re-engagement in the end of a lockdown period, and the longer that that goes on for, the bigger that challenge appears to be. So we do have an attendance challenge. We had an attendance challenge going into COVID-19, but there’s no question that that has gotten worse, and that’s something that we’ve focused our energies on. We’ve put about $50 million last year into re-engagement initiatives. Much of that spending actually is still in the pipeline at the moment, so it will help with re-engagement after this particular lockdown.

In terms of the access to learning whilst people are locked out, we did get a lot of devices out last year. One of the challenges in Auckland, in particular, was, because the lockdown happened very quickly, a lot of young people’s devices—at the end of the last lockdown, the ownership of those devices reverted to the school. So we weren’t just giving the devices to the kids; we were saying, “These devices belong to your school.” So at the end of the lockdown last year, they took those devices back to school, and because it happened quite quickly—the lockdown this time—we had a lot of devices just stuck in schools that were there, but the schools couldn’t get access to them. So we worked to make sure that schools could get access to them. In the case of a couple of schools that were locations of interest, where we didn’t want them going on to school sites because there was concern about infection spreading amongst those school communities, we sent more devices out to those schools.

In terms of the hard packs of materials, we had quite a few of them in the store. The ones that we were short of were the NCEA pack, so extra printing work was done. They were dispatched pretty quickly, but we did have to print those ones, whereas below NCEA level, we had the hard packs there, and we have produced more as we’ve been sending them out so that we’re prepared and so that we keep the flow of hard packs going. But these things do take a little bit of time.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): I thank the Minister for that answer, and I’d like to just continue along that vein before coming to attendance, as a separate line of questioning. So, I’m interested in the difference between what the Ministry of Education did in terms of planning and pre-planning and preparation for the lockdowns, as opposed to what the schools themselves were expected to mitigate. So having now been in the middle of a pandemic for quite some time, there still seems to be a disproportionate load that landed on the schools as opposed to support from the ministry itself. So I’d like to know what came out of the evaluations, if they were undertaken, of the split of responsibilities between the Ministry of Education and the schools themselves.

Following on from that, and the point around outcomes and student learning, I’m interested to know how do the internal assessment grades submitted to NZQA by 1 September 2021 compare to previous years, and following on from that, what planning has been done for changes to NCEA and credits for students as a result of the current lockdown? Two aspects of the NCEA credits question: one is, obviously, for those who are in Auckland, and then the question of fairness that’s been raised, Minister, through electorate offices is for those schools in level 2, some won’t be able to be up functioning properly tomorrow—it may be the end of this week, or even next week, on Monday, that the school will recommence—and the differential in terms of the number of days is really then down to one or two days between the Auckland schools where those students will get NCEA credits for the 20 days. So I’m interested to know the evidence behind the 20-day limit and what flexibility is available and how that could be applied.

JAN LOGIE (Green): As a member of the committee, it’s a pleasure to rise and have an opportunity to contribute in this debate. First of all, I do just want to take a moment to acknowledge the Minister who’s in the chair now, the Hon Chris Hipkins, for a second chunk of Estimates. Actually, it is a demonstration in terms of the breadth of his accountabilities and responsibilities in this country at a very, very difficult time. I personally want to acknowledge him for that. In Japan there’s a phrase called “otsukaresama deshita” where you acknowledge somebody’s work and it feels a relevant phrase at the moment.

There are a few lines of questioning I’m interested in following on behalf of our education spokespeople. The first is around early childhood education and the struggles around staffing that our centres are experiencing across the country, and that has come through very clearly in the submissions around the change to legislation to help enable pay parity and the Government’s partial contribution towards pay parity. It’s a kind of a bit of a down payment but we were hearing very clearly from centres that it’s not enough, actually, necessarily to be confident that the policy intent is going to be achieved. And it feels as if that’s been compounded at the moment as well around the uncertainty for relief teachers to be able to get paid through COVID when many centres aren’t currently eligible for the wage subsidy. They’re told that they’re Government-funded centres and they’re expected to pay for relievers out of that pool of funding, yet they’re paying for their core staff out of that funding and they’re saying they’re not able to afford to cover relievers, and it’s created this uncertainty and people are being told to go to Work and Income. Some of them are reluctant to do that because, actually, this is their job. They feel as if they have a job and it’s a critically important one for our children, to ensure that there are teachers available for them in their early learning, the most important learning in their lives. So the Greens are really interested to know what the Minister’s planning to be able to address those staff shortages and pressures around relief teachers and that implementation of pay parity.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): If I return to Louise Upston’s questions earlier on, I was looking to see whether I had the data on NCEA internal assessment submissions with me, because I have seen it in the last few days. Unfortunately, I don’t. I think it might have actually provided an answer to one of her colleague’s written parliamentary questions, which has been why I might have read it in the last few days, but what it does show is that our internal assessments in the first part of this year are above where they were last year but still a bit lower than they had been in the years prior to that. So I think what that suggests is that schools have been acutely aware that this was a possibility, and so have been trying to do more of their internal assessments earlier in the year this year than they had been doing last year.

In terms of the Ministry of Education’s planning around what they would do differently, yes of course they’ve looked closely at what they would do differently, and have done some things differently, but the reality is that the legwork here does sit with individual schools. Schools do have to operationalise the shutdown, if you like, caused by level 4 or even level 3 restrictions, and so the burden does fall to those schools. And so I want to acknowledge that that’s stressful for them, but that is one of the realities of the Tomorrow’s Schools system, where schools are self-governing, self-administering, they run themselves, and so a large part of that burden does fall to them.

In terms of the learning recognition credit and the 20-day limit, that was a limit that we agreed earlier in this year when we were considering what the appropriate threshold might be. Obviously we are now in a unique position where there’ll be a significant number of students—the majority of the students in the country, in fact—who will only be two days shy of that, so I can indicate that that is something that I am having another look at.

In terms of ECE and the issues around pay parity, the Government has made a three-year commitment around pay parity. That will be a three-year process to get to that point. In part, some of the friction that we’re experiencing at the moment is a reflection of the very different employment models that exist across the sector and the very different operating models that exist across the sector. For larger chains of ECE services, where they’ve got a bigger workforce, the ability to spread the unders and overs in pay parity is easier than it is for some of the smaller centres, which are often community based or the mum and dad operations, for want of a better term, and they are finding it more difficult, and that’s certainly clear feedback that we’ve had. I am considering some changes to the requirements for next year in light of the feedback that we’ve been getting from the services, and I would indicate again that this is a three-year process and the money that we put in in this year’s Budget is not the only money that’s coming for pay parity.

In terms of relief teachers, we have guaranteed ECE services that they will continue to be funded as if they were still open, and therefore we are asking those ECE services to continue to pay people as if they were still open. And many of those services are providing financial support to the relief teachers that they otherwise would have been using had they still been open, which is something we should encourage them to do, because they are getting all of the funding from Government that they would get if they were still operating.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d just like to ask the Minister a few questions about the Ministry of Education workforce. It’s reported that the workforce there has gone from 2,632 four years ago to last year 3,486, and I wonder if the Minister could just give an idea to people of what is it that all these extra people working at the Ministry of Education are doing. The Minister’s just been talking about how that’s separate from what is going on with self-governing schools. Every dollar that he pays people working in the ministry presumably are not in the schools, or maybe they are. I don’t think it’s clear how he’s taken on an extra 900 people.

The next question is what does the Minister believe is the Government’s strategy to start getting value for money in terms of achievement? If we look at Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, TIMSS, Programme for International Student Assessment, any sort of standard global comparison, not only are New Zealand students less able in English, maths, and science—or at least in reading, mathematics, and science—than they were at the start of the century, they’ve been declining in almost every test that’s been taken by New Zealand students for 20 years, and yet this is at a time when expenditure on education in each of these Estimates every year has continued to go up each and every time. So I think people would be interested to know: is it a priority of the Government to ensure that reading, mathematics, scientific literacy are actually important priorities; and if it is, what are they doing to ensure that New Zealand’s performance starts to improve again so we get closer to where we were at the beginning of the century when we actually spent less money and got better results?

I just want to come back to the Ministry of Education staff. I just wonder about the standards of conduct and behaviour he expects from the staff. Would the Minister be surprised to learn of an email where ministry staff made light of parents of a student with learning disabilities losing their support, and what would the Minister say if an email like that happened to emerge, as it may well do in the very near future?

I also just want to ask a little bit about attendance. What does the Minister believe is the problem with attendance? Or does he believe there is a problem, and, if he does, does the Government have a strategy for making sure kids are actually at school? Because if you’re spending $15 billion on education, it’s very important that kids are actually there. It’s difficult to learn when it’s at school, which some of my colleagues demonstrated to varying degrees, but it’s impossible to learn if you’re not there.

Finally, just around the Minister’s comments on the different models of early childhood education (ECE). We’ve got $9 billion in these Estimates going to ECE—$9.2 billion, I think—there’s a requirement to pay more. The Minister’s alluded to being possibly aware of a problem that some of the smaller-scale ECEs are less able to average out the unders and overs, as he calls them. I just wonder, is the Minister aware that there are smaller ECEs, some that have approached me, who said, “We can’t make this work. The numbers will not add up for us based on the funding formula that we’ve been given, on the one hand, and the payment for staff that we’re required to make on the other.” They’re between a rock and a hard place. They also said to me, “Actually, I happen to be from a relatively wealthy area where we probably can raise our rates, but in poorer areas we are going to have to either reduce our standards or close, which nobody wants.”

So a number of issues there: number of staff; what their roles are; their conduct; what is the strategy for raising achievement levels that have been declining all century, if the Minister cares about those tests; is that connected with attendance; and, finally, is he prepared to make any tweaks to the ECE funding formulae, because some of the smaller operators seem to say they’re between a rock and a hard place.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Very quickly running through the extra staff in the Ministry of Education (MOE), I don’t have the breakdown but I can tell him where some of the biggest areas of growth have been. School capital investment has been a big area of growth for the number of staff working at the Ministry of Education. Increasingly, schools are asking the Ministry of Education to take over the management of their big capital projects. There is a lot more of that happening at the moment, and that has involved employing people with those specialist skills. Unfortunately, it involves a number of them and they do tend to, unfortunately, be quite expensive.

Learning support has been a big area of growth. So these are the specialists who work with and support schools to support the children with the most complex needs. That’s been one of the biggest growth areas within the ministry. Curriculum and NCEA have been an area of growth. We’re going through a big NCEA change programme, but also are doing more to support schools with the curriculum. So that has been an area of growth for the ministry. So those are three of the big areas of growth for the ministry, but I’m sure we can provide a more detailed breakdown in due course through the select committee process.

In terms of student achievement, the member asked me what do I think are the things that make the biggest difference on student achievement. By far the biggest in-school contributing factor is the teacher. So in terms of bang for buck, investing in teacher professional development is absolutely something that we can do that has a huge bang for buck. The programmes that we’ve got in place in areas like literacy and numeracy are often focused and are largely focused on teacher professional development, because that is how we can shift the dial for some of those students.

The other area is engagement and equity. I’d just caution the member around some of those international comparisons. Everyone looks at the headline issues—you know, what’s the overall trend for New Zealand? Actually, the trend for a lot of our kids has been a very positive one. We started very high on those international league tables and a lot of our kids have stayed there. Our equity challenge has grown, though. The tail of underachievement has grown. You know, for the kids who are doing well, they’ve continued to do well. It is the fact that our equity challenge has grown that should be the issue that we’re all concerned about and where we should focus our efforts—so that engagement and equity.

The member asks, “What’s the problem with attendance?” Well, the problem with attendance is kids aren’t going to school regularly. Ultimately, there are a range of reasons for that. The member might think that the Government is responsible for that and the Government should be raising everybody else’s children. Actually, parents do need to take some responsibility for getting their kids to school as well.

In terms of MOE staff conduct, I’m not going to comment on a broad generalisation around MOE staff conduct. If the member has a complaint about a staff member at MOE then he should bring that complaint forward and we will make sure that that gets investigated. In terms of early childhood education and the small centres around pay parity, as I’ve already indicated, the Government is aware of the feedback there and we are looking very closely at that.

Dr SHANE RETI (Deputy Leader—National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. To the Minister, I have some tertiary questions which myself and my colleague Penny Simmonds have been working on, which we’d appreciate his attention to.

Can he please address which DHBs in the Auckland region are now refusing to accept nursing students on clinical placements for the remainder of 2021? Following that, will any third-year nursing students at University of Auckland or any other tertiary institute in Auckland fail to complete their nursing qualification this year because of a lack of clinical placement hours? Should this be correct, what impact would this have on the number of nursing graduates this year? Should this be correct, what impact will this have on tertiary funding for those institutions in 2022? And what impact would this have on tertiary funding for those individual students in terms of loans and allowances in 2022? If the Minister could address that, that would be useful.

Secondly, I’d like to ask a couple of questions on the Reform of Vocational Education (RoVE). Can he confirm Treasury documents demonstrating that the cost of implementation of the RoVE is $130 million dollars to date? And secondly, what is the change in headcount at polytechnics over the past two years? Thank you.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Mr Speaker, sorry I’m just making a note so that I don’t forget all of the issues that the member has just raised there. In terms of the nursing placements, that is a question for the institutions and for the DHBs. Tertiary education institutions have institutional autonomy when it comes to the delivery of their programmes. I have not been advised that this is an issue, but if I do get that advice, I’m certainly happy to engage with the institutions if they wish for me to do so. But, ultimately, the institutions engage with the DHBs and it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to intervene. But if there is a problem there where the Government can assist, I’m certainly available to have that conversation with them.

In terms of the cost of RoVE, I don’t have the detailed breakdown of the implementation costs. There are a range of different factors to that, one of which is that we’re dealing with significant growth in the vocational education sector at the moment and we are putting additional funding in to meet that exponential growth in vocational education at the same time as the system is being reformed. I don’t have an up-to-date figure on the head count for the number of staff at our polytechs.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’ll lay out the rest of the questions from the Greens in this contribution, covering a few different areas. So the first is a rather topical and possibly vexed issue that’s in front of our Education and Workforce Committee at the moment around the Teachers Council. I’m interested to hear from the Minister—where the bill in front of the committee has received about 1,028 submissions against it, primarily from teachers, with only two in favour. This is linked to the Estimates in terms that Government funding for the council is due to end in the next eight months, and, as projected at the moment, my understanding is teachers will likely face a fee increase of over 100 percent. So we’re really interested to know whether he thinks this is affordable for teachers and whether he thinks such a dramatic increase will help build the—we got a very clear message about very low levels of trust between teachers and the council, and whether that kind of cliff edge to funding and putting it on to teachers as opposed to Government contributing will help or hinder that process, as he sees it at the moment. Will he be providing further public funding for the council’s core functions of certification, registration, and discipline over the medium term so that affordable step increases for fees could be phased in rather than extending their role?

Yes, so that’s one area. The next is on a different matter relating to the work that’s being done around curriculum and the fact that the Government has introduced the new public holiday for Matariki—which the Greens were very excited to see, along with most of the rest of the country, I think—and we’re just wondering what support the ministry will be providing for Matariki education so that whānau, kura, and tamariki have the support to strengthen their relationship to the taiao and whenua so that we can build an understanding about the importance of Matariki in our wider communities? And interested, too, in the kind of associated way of whether the Minister might work with associate education Ministers to embed ecological sustainability in the curricula by having specific learning areas focused on environmental education given the commitment to the climate emergency and ecological importance of Matariki—linking those two things.

Then, also, interested in terms—the Minister mentioned the increase in funding for staff around learning support and noting that since 2018, the Government’s put in about an additional billion dollars for new funding for learning support. I know there’s a case in front of the Human Rights Review Tribunal—I’m not going to ask the Minister to litigate that—but recognising that case was taken after this funding was initiated, whether the Minister wants to talk through what results he had expected to see in our education system by this point. Are we behind schedule? Can we expect to see better results coming out soon for our kids, who are, I do believe, really missing out on their right to education at the moment?

The last point, relating to tertiary education and support for our students who are deeply struggling at the moment. The last time we were in lockdown, there was the doubling of course-related costs—the situation seems the same, but they don’t have access to that. That puts them into debt. It’s not ideal, but it gave them the ability to feed themselves without having to beg for a food parcel. So wondering what the Government’s response to that is?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I’ll try and blitz through those topics as fast as I can. On the Teaching Council, the Government is aware of the concern that’s been raised by the profession. We will have a bit more to say about the legislation when it comes back towards the House, and some potential further changes to address some of the concerns put from the profession. But I would say we remain committed to the commitment of the last Government that the Teaching Council should be self-sustaining, as other professional regulatory bodies are. Lawyers are, nurses are, social workers are—they pay for those professional regulatory requirements through a fee. The Teaching Council, from way back to when it was the Teacher’s Council and it was the Education Council in between times, has never collected enough money through fees in order to be able to meet the costs of its core services. So the council faces a double-whammy where costs have gone up during the period of time that those fees have been frozen, and they were never adequate in the first place. So one way or the other the reality is, for the council to exist and for the council to be self-sustaining, it will have to increase its fees. But I acknowledge there’s some concern about some of the wider functions of the council and who should pay for those non-core functions of the council—we’re having conversations about that at the moment and we’ll have more to say on that soon.

The Ministry of Education will be providing curriculum resources around Matariki. One of the things around ecology sustainability is that there’s a lot around the underpinning principles around that in the curriculum already, and there are a lot of really good resources—in fact, the member’s co-leader, James Shaw, and I launched some of them at a primary school in Raumati South a few years back. So there’s a lot that’s happening in that space, and I think that’s exciting.

In terms of learning support, there is a case before the Human Rights Tribunal. I don’t want to get into the specific case, but I would note we’re aware that there’s a lot of pressure here, there are a lot of kids with additional needs who need that extra support. We’ve put a billion dollars in as a Government already into increasing that, and we know that more is required. So we know that we’ve still got a hill to climb there to ensure that those kids are getting the support that they deserve.

In terms of tertiary student support, watch this space in the next couple of days.

BARBARA EDMONDS (Associate Whip—Labour): I move, That the committee report progress.

Motion agreed to.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Rt Hon Trevor Mallard): The committee has considered the Appropriation (2021/22 Estimates) Bill and reports progress. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

SPEAKER: In accordance with a determination of the Business Committee, the House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

The House adjourned at 6.54 p.m.