Tuesday, 21 September 2021

TUESDAY, 21 SEPTEMBER 2021

TUESDAY, 21 SEPTEMBER 2021

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia/Prayers

Karakia/Prayers

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

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

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

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

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

CLERK:

Statement of performance expectations 2021-22 of:

Privacy Commissioner

Public Trust

Health Quality & Safety Commission

Pharmac

Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission

Education Payroll Ltd, and

Office of Film and Literature Classification

statement of corporate intent 2022-24 for KiwiRail

statement of intent 2021-25 for Education Payroll

Attorney-General’s report under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act on the Freedom Camping (Infringement Offences and Other Matters) Bill.

SPEAKER: Those papers are published under the authority of the House.

Select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.

CLERK:

Report of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee on the Commerce Amendment Bill

report of the Education and Workforce Committee on the Education and Training (Teaching Council Fees and Costs) Amendment Bill

report of the Governance and Administration Committee on the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Urgent Interim Classification of Publications and Prevention of Online Harm) Amendment Bill

report of the Health Committee on the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill

report of the Justice Committee on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill

report of the Petitions Committee on the petition of Josiah Tualamali’i and Benji Timu

reports of the Regulations Review Committee on:

the complaint about Health and Safety at Work (Hazardous Substances) Regulations 2017

complaint about Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008, and

complaint about the Unit Titles Regulations 2011

report of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee on the Maritime Transport (MARPOL Annex VI) Amendment Bill.

SPEAKER: The bills are set down for second reading. The complaints are set down for consideration.

The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of bills.

CLERK:

Animal Welfare Amendment Bill, introduction

COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill (No 2), introduction.

SPEAKER: Those bills are set down for first reading.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Finance

1. Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central) to the Minister of Finance: What do the latest reports on New Zealand’s GDP show about the strength of the New Zealand economy, and how does this support the response to the Delta COVID outbreak?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Statistics New Zealand reported last week that GDP rose by 2.8 percent for the June 2021 quarter—the strongest quarterly growth since 1999, with the exception of the one-off bounce-back in September 2020, and a significantly better result than even the most optimistic commentators had forecast. The economy in the June 2021 quarter was 4.3 percent above where it was in the pre-COVD December 2019 quarter. What this gives us room for is our quick and decisive response to the current outbreak, including providing cash flow and confidence through schemes such as the wage subsidy, which also in turn help the economy to rebound quickly again. We do know, however, that the impact of this outbreak has been uneven, and we are continuing to work with affected sectors to support them in these challenging times.

Dr Duncan Webb: How widespread was the growth in the June quarter?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The expansion was broad-based, as our approach meant households and businesses have the confidence to move about and operate more freely than in many other countries during this period. The primary sector grew 5 percent in the June quarter compared with the March quarter, led by fishing and agriculture. The goods-producing industry was up by 1.3 percent, with solid activity in construction and manufacturing. The services sector, which makes up two-thirds of the economy, expanded by 2.8 percent in the quarter, with retail, accommodation, and restaurants benefiting from New Zealanders spending more time at the shops, eating out, and on holiday. Business confidence in the economy was also reflected in investment levels, which remained high and above pre-COVID levels. The ANZ noted that this broad momentum is what we want to see to be confident that the economy can keep going. Nevertheless, we know that some sectors and regions are doing it tough, and we will continue to monitor and assess that situation.

Dr Duncan Webb: How is this growth in the economy supporting the response to the current Delta COVID-19 outbreak?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Economic growth has been reflected in the Government’s books, which shows that revenue is well ahead of forecasts, along with lower deficits and debt than had been forecast. This gives the Government greater fiscal headroom to combat the outbreak, which we have done by topping up the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund by an extra $7 billion. There is also an additional $3 billion available to spend from money previously allocated in the fund that had not been spent. We have already boosted support to business in this lockdown and the extra funding will be targeted at further economic support, as well as building further resilience in our health system and supporting initiatives such as the vaccination roll-out and border and managed isolation and quarantine provision.

Question No. 2—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes, including our announcement yesterday that Auckland will move to level 3 from 11.59 p.m. tonight. This decision was based on advice from the Director-General of Health and was made because level 3 is an extension of the strict social distancing protocols that will help keep New Zealanders safe and, of course, it continues to ask Aucklanders to stay in their bubbles and reduce interaction with others as much as possible. By moving Auckland in this way, we’re ensuring that we protect against the spread, and Auckland will be in level 3 for at least two weeks, because the director-general was clear that given the long hard tail of Delta we will need time here. But this move gives Aucklanders greater certainty as we continue our work to combat COVID-19.

Hon Judith Collins: Is the Government still committed to eliminating COVID-19 from the community?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As the member will have heard me say yesterday, we continue to take a zero tolerance approach to COVID-19, and that means stamping out, as we’ve said consistently all the way since the very beginning, cases whenever we see them arise. That has not changed and we continued to commit to that yesterday.

Hon Judith Collins: How many more times is she prepared to put Auckland or other parts of New Zealand into a level 4 lockdown in order to continue with her strategy?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I’ve said time and time again, lockdowns have been used because we haven’t had other tools available including, for instance, as has been noted by almost every country that has used lockdowns—and they’ve been a strategy around the world until we had the ability to treat COVID or indeed vaccinate against COVID. We now have vaccinations available and we are working incredibly hard to ensure that everyone who is eligible is vaccinated. Fantastic to see how close Auckland is to reaching 80 percent of eligible Aucklanders having received their first dose. We have the capability to, within another two weeks beyond that, reach 90 percent, but it is incumbent upon all of us to work with all of our communities to ensure that people who may have concerns have those concerns addressed and are vaccinated, because it is the best way to remove the need to use those harshest public health restrictions.

Hon Chris Hipkins: Has the Prime Minister seen suggestions that the New Zealand Government should have set a vaccination target of around 70 percent, and is she satisfied that, based on first doses, we’ve already well and truly exceeded that?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes, I actually have seen various members of the National Party—the member asking the questions, I think, has suggested something like 70 percent. I’ve seen Chris Bishop suggest something closer to 80; Dr Reti more around the 90 percent mark. The point that I would make—

Chris Bishop: Different thresholds for different things.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The point that I would make—

Chris Bishop: Don’t even understand the policy.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —we need as many people as possible to be vaccinated. You will have heard Dr Bloomfield say 90-plus—

Chris Bishop: This is hopeless.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —and the reason that you’ll—

SPEAKER: Order!

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —hear us talking about such high rates is the higher you go, the fewer ongoing restrictions that are required on a day-to-day basis to ensure people’s safety.

Chris Bishop: That’s the whole point!

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: And perhaps, Mr Bishop—perhaps that’s something we all agree on.

Hon Judith Collins: So if vaccinations are critical to preventing level 4 lockdowns, then why were only 20 percent of eligible New Zealanders fully vaccinated against COVID at the start of the Delta outbreak?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Vaccinations are critical for us not having to use them in the future, but you can see that even countries who have had months of availability of vaccination, they have in some cases had low uptake. My hope for New Zealand is we won’t be one of those countries. We’re in shooting distance of passing, for instance, the United States’ vaccination levels in the coming days, I believe. So that’s a demonstration that despite having had a country that for a long period of time has had availability, it all comes down to your ability to work alongside your communities and ensure good take-up rates. That is something surely this House can work collaboratively on.

Hon Judith Collins: Then, again, why were only 20 percent of eligible New Zealanders fully vaccinated at the start of this latest Delta outbreak?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I note the member is referring to “fully vaccinated” rates. The member well knows that we at that time were using all of the supply available to us, but we did not have enough supply from Pfizer to enable a greater rate of vaccine at that time. That is no longer the case. We long signalled from the beginning of the year that the arrival of our largest orders of doses would be in the latter half of 2021. That is—

Chris Bishop: Exactly. The Government chose that.

SPEAKER: Order!

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Mr Speaker, if I may—

SPEAKER: I’ll ask the Prime Minister to resume her seat.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That is totally incorrect.

SPEAKER: I just want to make it clear to Mr Bishop. He may not be aware that his leader’s mike is open and his very loud interjections, very frequent interjections, his interjections that are sometimes repetitive and therefore on all bases out of order, are interfering with people’s ability to hear the answers, including mine. I rely on the microphone systems within here to do it, and when the Prime Minister’s being drowned out by him because he is using his leader’s microphone, then it means that people outside the building have trouble hearing as well.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Point of order. Putting aside any difference of view I might have on the degree to which Mr Bishop’s interventions were rare and reasonable, if there is a problem with the sound system, that is a problem the House has, not Mr Bishop. What we’re hearing is that those interjections—rare and reasonable—are being moderated because of a failure in the sound system. I think that’s something that needs to be looked at.

SPEAKER: No. I just want to make it absolutely clear: from when I was first an MP here, and, in fact, earlier on, when there were overhead microphones hanging down, some of them were turned on and off in order for a particular individual to get the call. That’s what the staff do. The Leader of the Opposition’s microphone is not turned off in between her primary question and her supplementary or other supplementary questions. We can do that, if the member wants; if that is the member’s request, we can move to a system whereby his leader’s microphone is turned off and then turned on again. But that has not been the practice in the House, and what has occurred is that members who sit around people who are asking questions have always given some respect to the person who is asking the question by not using their microphone. Had the Prime Minister finished?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes.

Hon Judith Collins: What advice has she had on the economic cost of five weeks of level 4 lockdown on Auckland?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Perhaps I can assist with the microphone issue by no longer continuing to answer Mr Bishop’s questions, rather than the Leader of the Opposition’s questions. I have in my mind—

SPEAKER: Order! The Prime Minister will resume her seat. I’m sorry, it’s not appropriate for the Prime Minister—or any other member—to comment on the rulings that I have made. Continue.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Thank you, Mr Speaker. My recollection of the last advice we received from Treasury was that, for the extension that we last had in Auckland, that amounted to a $700 million cost. There is no question that there is, of course, a cost to the economy, and, indeed, people’s lives, through restrictions. However, we have to, of course, factor in the cost of widespread uncontrolled outbreaks and the impact that that has on people’s lives and livelihoods also.

Hon Judith Collins: So is that per week? Or is that over the five-week stretch, where people have been locked down in a level 4 lockdown?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I just said, that was for the one-week extension. I’m sure the member can extrapolate across the five weeks, keeping in mind we have had different parts of the country at different alert levels, and therefore, the draw-down on, for instance, the wage subsidy and the resurgence payment varies. If the member would like me to bring the precise figures for each of those weeks, I can do that; happy to do so if she pops that one on notice.

Hon Judith Collins: So why did she wait until a Delta outbreak to buy additional vaccines from other countries?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I completely reject the assertion in that member’s question, as I do the statement made by the member behind her, who, in the course of asking her questions—and the member may wish to take issue with the fact that he has done this over the top of her—gave the assertion that, in some way, we have delayed the delivery of vaccines to New Zealand. I find that an outrageous claim. At every step, we have sought to access the Pfizer vaccine as quickly as we were able; in fact, entering into arrangements with Pfizer before the completion of clinical trials. The fact of the matter is, though, most countries have not received their vaccines at a time that is convenient to them, but rather at the time they’ve been available from manufacturers. As they have arrived, we have distributed. To answer the member’s question on the outbreak: as soon as we had that outbreak, there was a huge surge in demand, and rather than curtailing that demand to meet the supply that we had, we met it, and pulled out all the stops to then try and supplement that supply through other countries who may have had availability to support that. We were able to do so, and I stand by that work.

Hon Chris Hipkins: Can the Prime Minister confirm that the market for vaccines—much like every other market—relies on there being a willing buyer and a willing seller, and it is only in recent weeks that there have been other countries willing to sell?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That is absolutely right. Of course, other countries have sought to purchase vaccines to cover their entire populations, and in some cases have found that with the reasonably short shelf life of this vaccine, most countries have about four months to have them distributed across their population, and have not been able to use their supply necessarily across their whole population. That’s where you’ve, only in recent times, seen those kinds of arrangements, and that is, really, captured by the fact that New Zealand was the first country to use the EU template agreement for the purchase and supply of vaccines within the EU, because we had not had that template arrangement available to other countries prior to that point.

Hon Judith Collins: Would a willing buyer of vaccines be expected to raise an order for those vaccines before 29 January this year, given that other countries did so well earlier?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, the member completely—completely—misrepresents the process for purchasing vaccines. As I said, we began discussions with Pfizer in July of 2020. In August, we had a purchasing payment. In September, Pfizer presented to our research panel, and we made our first logistics call with the Ministry of Health. We signed an advanced purchase agreement in October of 2020 before Pfizer even completed their phase 3 trial. Again, so many times in this House we’ve tried to correct the member. I cannot help the member if she does not understand the process for the purchasing of pharmaceuticals in this country.

Hon Chris Hipkins: Has the Prime Minister seen predictions that the inventory management system for the vaccine wouldn’t be ready, that the booking system would fail, that bookings were going to have to be cancelled because we were going to run out of vaccines, that we hadn’t purchased enough syringes for vaccines, that we couldn’t extract seven doses out of a vial of vaccines, and that we didn’t have enough vaccinators ready to deliver the vaccine—and did any of these predictions prove to be true?

SPEAKER: Order! The Prime Minister can answer one of those nine questions.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I have seen those claims; they have proven not to be true. At this point in our process, I wonder if it would be more helpful, rather than the member misrepresenting the process of purchasing Pfizer vaccines, if the member actually got on board and continued to encourage—as I’ve seen signs the National Party have—people to be vaccinated.

Question No. 3—Prime Minister

3. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by her statement, “We’re in lockdown because we do not have enough New Zealanders currently vaccinated to stop an outbreak that would devastate our community”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes, and within the context of that interview, where my recollection is the claim was being made “Why have we used a lockdown in this situation rather than alternative measures?” But I’d more generally say lockdown has been used the world over and, in fact, less in New Zealand than in many other countries, and has helped us achieve the lowest case rates, death rates, and hospitalisations that we’ve seen in the OECD. But now we have vaccines that are safe and effective and that can help us change the way we have used public health restrictions, and we need to use that tool now we have it.

David Seymour: Can the Prime Minister name a country whose geographical isolation, population density, population age, and wealth gave it a greater head start in battling a viral epidemic or pandemic than New Zealand?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That actually squares with the answer I just gave. We’ve used those advantages to the best of our ability, and the team of 5 million has helped us not only return to pre-COVID levels in terms of economic growth—and you saw where our GDP stats were taking us—but also some of the lowest case rates, death rates, and hospitalisations in the world, so I’m not sure which table the member is suggesting we should top out. We compared ourselves to ourselves, and did what many others did not achieve.

David Seymour: Why didn’t the Prime Minister add the Government’s response to that list of advantages I just gave?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Because it’s implicit we led the response all the way through, and perhaps I’d noticed the member had stopped using the one country he did use to use, which was Taiwan, who I see has had to deal with extra outbreaks and is continuing to try and lift its vaccination rates.

David Seymour: Which country, if any, has high enough vaccination rates to stop an outbreak from, in her words, devastating their community?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I think you’ll see every country is trying to get their vaccination rates high enough that they can use a lower level of public health restrictions. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone that is using nothing, though. Even Denmark, who many are referring to, does have very high vaccination rates across their total population, but is still using border controls. Businesses are still using what they call their corona pass. So I think you’d find very few places that are managing to keep hospitalisations low without using a coupling together of vaccinations and other measures, including their border measures.

David Seymour: If the Prime Minister can’t name one country with a high enough vaccination rate to stop outbreaks that would, in her words, “devastate their community”, what strategy is this country relying on?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member is putting words in my mouth. It’s only for those countries to determine whether or not their case rate is able to be managed in a way that they find acceptable to their community and to their health system. What I just gave you an example of, though, was a country that has managed to reduce down their public restrictions because they’ve had high rates. On the flip side, Singapore—just as high vaccination rates, but they’ve continued to still use restrictions. I think the thing that I would say to the member is we have always had the ability and the benefit of casting our eye around the world to see what other countries have done, and we’ve very rarely simply replicated ourselves on others. We have designed our own strategy that is fit for purpose for our unique population, for our circumstances, and that meets our goals of keeping people safe and protecting their livelihoods and having as many personal freedoms as possible.

David Seymour: Will the vaccine roll-out be complete when, as Chris Hipkins has clearly said—and she agreed—every New Zealander has had an opportunity to be vaccinated, or, as Ashley Bloomfield has said, when 90 percent of New Zealanders eligible are vaccinated?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member is incorrectly trying to portray there is a difference in opinion here; there is not. Both the Director-General of Health and every Minister that you will have heard speak on this issue has pointed to us aspiring to have the highest vaccination rates in the world if we can, but, certainly, having as many eligible people as possible vaccinated. One of the concerns we’ve always had is if you set a rate too low, you immediately give the ability for someone just to opt to be a part of the percentage that is not vaccinated. We can’t afford that. Roughly, 40 percent of this outbreak has been those under 19 years of age, so a good portion have been children who cannot at this rate be vaccinated. They require all of those who can be to be, to care for them.

David Seymour: If 89 percent of New Zealanders are vaccinated, and everybody’s had an opportunity, will the Prime Minister deem the vaccine roll-out complete, even though we’re not at 90, and will we be able to start taking steps to abandon the use of lockdowns and connect with the rest of the world?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: We actually presented our plans around reconnection several weeks ago, so I refer the member to that work, rather than being repetitive on that. You will have heard us say that we have plans to alter the way that we’re working at our border in the first quarter of 2022, and that includes the self-isolation pilot that we’re establishing for the latter part of this year. On the question of whether or not we suddenly just close off the vaccine programme, vaccines will need to continue to be available. I will never take away the ability for anyone at any point to change their mind and take up a vaccine. So, so long as there is any New Zealander who has not been vaccinated, vaccines will be available to them.

David Seymour: Was the number of vaccine doses administered yesterday down to only 50,000 from a peak of 90,000 a month ago due to supply or demand?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Demand. We have more than enough supply. Supply will no longer be an issue for the course of this vaccine roll-out. We have long signalled—long signalled—that October was the month when supply no longer becomes an issue, and with the additional doses that we managed to secure from Spain and Denmark, that certainly made that the case from September. One thing I’ll also point out is we do expect, of course, those numbers to move again once that big cohort we saw come through early on in the outbreak return for second doses. In fact, today was the first day where second doses outnumbered first doses. Pleasingly, the uptake for second doses is at a very high rate, so we do anticipate being able to mirror that high first rate uptake with second. But it is going to take all of us. That last, kind of, 10 percent is going to be the bit that every country has seen takes that extra bit of effort.

Hon Chris Hipkins: Did the Prime Minister see projections only two months ago that New Zealand would fail to achieve a vaccination rate of 50,000 doses per day, a rate that now some people are regarding as a failure?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes. I do recall, when we said that our expectation was that we would hit a peak of 50,000 a day, being told that wouldn’t be possible. Not only did we show it was possible, somehow now that is a sign of failure.

David Seymour: Why hasn’t the Minister given a date by which she will be able to say every New Zealander has had the opportunity to be vaccinated?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Every New Zealander has an opportunity to be vaccinated now. As a member of a traditionally liberal party, I’d be surprised to suggest—the member seems to be suggesting that we should take away anyone’s free will as they seek those vaccines. That seems to be the suggestion from the member. Everyone has the opportunity today. There will be some who may have access issues, and we’re actively reaching out, particularly to those who may be isolated or disabled, to overcome those barriers. But everyone who wants one today can get one today. We have walk-in clinics; we have bookings. There is no question of capacity.

Question No. 4—Finance

4. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by his statement, “Ministers have decided to use the greater fiscal headroom to top up the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund by an extra $7 billion”; if so, does that indicate that the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund would not have been topped up had that fiscal headroom not been apparent?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): In answer to the first part of the question: yes, and I stand by my full statement, “The stronger economy has been reflected in the Government’s books, with lower deficits and debt position than had been predicted, and well below that of other nations that we compare ourselves against … the extra funding will be targeted at further economic support as well as building resilience in our health system, supporting the vaccination rollout and border and MIQ provision.” In answer to the second part of the member’s question: I know that he is fond of hypotheticals, but I don’t get to deal in hypotheticals in this instance.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Does he accept that any perceived fiscal headroom arising from the previous quarter will have evaporated due to the protracted lockdown, and, if not, why not?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I think the member underestimates the resilience of the New Zealand economy that we’ve seen over the course of the COVID outbreak. He will recall that when we saw a significant drop in the June quarter of last year, we saw an even greater bounce-back in the September quarter. I have faith in the New Zealand economy.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Does describing a massive spending and debt burden that might be ever so slightly massive meet his definition of fiscal headroom?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What the definition of fiscal headroom is is that the Government has overseen an economy that has produced more revenue in terms of tax, that has seen lower deficits and lower debt. That means that the Government is in a strong position to support New Zealanders through this outbreak.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Is using the May year-to-date projection of $6 billion less debt to justify $7 billion of extra spending an example of the Government’s fiscal discipline?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What it’s an example of is the fact that the New Zealand economy, up until this outbreak, was performing extremely well. It was generating high levels of tax revenue, and it means that when we do come back out of this outbreak, I am very confident that the New Zealand economy will be resilient. I know the member doesn’t want New Zealand to succeed, but on this side of the House, we do.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Did he receive advice from Treasury on alternative approaches to making use of the so-called additional fiscal headroom, and, if so, what was that advice?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I receive a steady stream of advice from No. 1 The Terrace, but we’ve been focused most recently on our response to the COVID outbreak.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: How much of the $7 billion top-up would not have been needed if the Government didn’t spend as much as $12 billion of the previous $50 billion fund on items with tenuous or no link to COVID-19 response and recovery?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I completely reject the premise of the member’s question. The COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund has been spent on ensuring not only that we have the resources for the direct response and the health system, or through the wage subsidy scheme, but also to support, for example, New Zealanders to stay in work. When we put out the Budget in May 2020, where the first part of the $50 billion was allocated, we were facing down a 9 percent unemployment rate. New Zealand’s unemployment rate peaked at just over 5 percent and has come down to 4 percent. That is a good outcome for New Zealanders. We have helped keep New Zealanders in work through the COVID fund.

Question No. 5—Police

5. GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South) to the Minister of Police: What recent reports has the Minister seen regarding Police’s efforts to disrupt organised crime?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister of Police): I’ve seen reports that police will continue to relentlessly target gangs and organised crime, with the extension of the successful Operation Tauwhiro. Already, as part of Operation Tauwhiro, police have seized 987 firearms, seized $4.99 million in cash, and charged 865 people with firearms offences. This is a fantastic result. We have never been more active in cracking down on gangs and organised crime, and we’ll get gang leaders off our streets. With the extension of Operation Tauwhiro, this Government is continuing to take action to make sure New Zealanders and their families are kept safe.

Ginny Andersen: How is the Government continuing to support Police’s efforts to disrupt organised crime?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: This Government has put a record number of police on the front line, including those with a specific focus on organised crime, and the result of this investment continues to pay off. In the last four years alone, police have seized $500 million in cash and assets from organised crime. We are also committed to introducing the firearms prohibition orders to protect the public from firearms harm, and to hit gangs where it hurts—their pockets—by amending the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act to give the police new powers to seize assets from organised criminals.

Question No. 6—Foreign Affairs

6. TEANAU TUIONO (Green) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs: Does she stand by her statement that “We’re acutely aware of the environmental risks associated with deep-sea mining”; and if so, why did New Zealand abstain on a motion supporting “Protection of deep-ocean ecosystems and biodiversity through a moratorium on seabed mining” at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature last week?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Yes, I do. New Zealand is committed to the protection and preservation of the marine environment. We recognise that deep-sea mining poses risks to the marine environment. New Zealand is one of the few countries to have a robust regulatory framework to govern seabed mining within its national jurisdiction. Internationally, we are actively engaged as a member of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) in the development of a regulatory framework to govern seabed mining. We’re calling for a robust legal framework, effective governance structures, and high standards of environmental protection to ensure that deep-sea mining does not take place unless we can ensure the protection of our oceans.

Teanau Tuiono: Does the Minister agree with Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s recent submission to the International Seabed Authority on its mining code, which states that a precautionary approach “should be incorporated into the framework of regulations, standards, and guidelines in a more considered, deliberate way.”; if so, why?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: Yes, I do, and alongside that, as we advocate for the application of the precautionary approach, for public participation in decision making, for robust standards of environmental impact assessment and environmental monitoring and management plans, and having a regulatory framework where there are set international rules and norms that sovereign nations can abide by when they consider deep-sea mining—it is a great guide to go by.

Teanau Tuiono: Why is a moratorium on sea-bed mining inconsistent with developing high standards of environmental protection, then?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: It’s not a matter of whether a moratorium is inconsistent with high standards; it’s a matter of what international rules and norms will guide countries as they make their sovereign decision around deep-sea mining. That is why New Zealand continues to participate in the International Seabed Authority to develop the regulations that will guide these countries.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Will New Zealand support an international moratorium on deep-sea mining if development of the mining code at the International Seabed Authority fails to ensure the protection and preservation of the marine environment; if not, why not?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: Thank you for the question. We are not at that stage yet. We would hope that by participating in the ISA to develop a strong regulatory framework where there are high environmental standards to guide sovereign nations on its consideration of deep-sea mining, that is the first port of call that we would go to. Any other consideration beyond that will have to be dealt with at that point in time.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What will she say to tangata w’enua in Aotearoa and tangata moana across the Pacific who have been consistently opposing this destructive mining of the seabed?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: That New Zealand participates in a regime where we want a strong environmental framework to guide significant decisions such as seabed mining. In participating in the ISA and in establishing rules and norms that sovereign nations can abide by, we are, in effect, trying to achieve the same standard that we are applying on ourselves.

Teanau Tuiono: Does the Minister agree with the position expressed within the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) motion that there should be a moratorium until and unless, where relevant, the free prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples is respected and consent from potentially affected communities is achieved; if not, why not?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: I’m aware of a number of views that have been expressed in relation to the views around the moratorium, but New Zealand’s position remains the same. We participate in the ISA to ensure that there is a strong regulatory framework to guide sovereign nations in the way that it considers deep-sea mining. That framework sets a very high environmental bar for those sovereign nations to be able to apply a mining code, and it would be the responsible approach as they are considering their deep-sea mining opportunities.

Hon Eugenie Sage: In abstaining on the motion at the IUCN, is the Minister concerned that New Zealand’s position on the deep-sea mining motion is different from most other Governments and Government agencies at the IUCN, 81 of whom supported it; if not, why not?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: Our position on that particular motion, alongside the UK, USA, Australia, Canada, France, was set to ensure that we could continue to work in a very strong way to build the regulatory framework through the ISA to guide countries in their determination—their sovereign determination—of deep-sea mining. It is a very high standard that we’re trying to set and assure ourselves, and, with multilateral countries who are of a common mind, they took the same position as New Zealand.

Question No. 7—COVID-19 Response

7. CHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Minister for COVID-19 Response: What percentage of the eligible population in New Zealand had received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as at 7 August 2021, and what modelling, if any, has he seen relating to how the level of vaccination coverage could affect the severity of COVID-19 restrictions?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): As at 7 August 2021, 19 percent of those aged 12 and over had received two doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine; 33 percent had received at least their first dose. We’ve seen an extraordinary uptake of vaccination since everyone aged 12 and over became eligible to book a vaccine. To date, more than 4,762,000 doses have been administered. Approximately 39 percent of the eligible population are now fully vaccinated and approximately 74 percent have received their first dose. I’ve received a range of advice that emphasises the importance of widespread vaccination in preventing the spread of COVID-19, which, in turn, reduces the need for restrictions. That’s why right now we’re encouraging all New Zealanders to come forward and be vaccinated.

Chris Bishop: Why did New Zealand only have 19 percent of the eligible population of the 12-plus population with double vaccination at 7 August?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: A range of factors, but the most notable, of course, was supply.

Chris Bishop: Has he seen any modelling or advice from officials indicating that if New Zealand had had even 50 percent vaccination coverage in August, as opposed to what happened, which was less than 20 percent, the most recent lockdown could have been shorter and more regional?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No, not necessarily. One of the things that we need to think about when we are talking about vaccination rates is actually a focus on the unvaccinated population and the characteristics of the unvaccinated population. What we’ve seen from around the world is that COVID-19 hunts out those parts of the community that are unvaccinated. They tend to be lower socio-economic areas. They tend to be people who are more susceptible to COVID-19 and an adverse health outcome from that. So setting an arbitrary target, for example, around vaccination isn’t, actually, the ultimate answer here. We want to get everybody vaccinated.

Chris Bishop: So is he saying, firstly, that he hasn’t seen, or, secondly, that he doesn’t agree with, the paper from Shaun Hendy on 30 June that shows that a 50 percent vaccination rate compared to a 30 percent vaccination rate halves the length of time lockdowns are required for?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Again, the member didn’t listen to the last answer that I gave. Yes, I’ve seen a whole variety of different models, but let’s talk about this current outbreak. This current outbreak is disproportionately skewed to young people, a significant proportion of whom are not currently eligible for the vaccine.

Chris Bishop: Does he agree with the Prime Minister’s comments from February in relation to the vaccine roll-out that “We’re not in a race to be first”, and does he now accept that if we hadn’t been the slowest in the OECD for most of this year, we’d be in a better position now?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No, I utterly reject the assertion in the member’s question, along with all of the other assertions that he has made, like we were going to run out of vaccines, we didn’t have enough syringes, we didn’t have enough vaccinators, the booking system was going to fail, and we weren’t going to be able to deliver 50,000 vaccines a day. Instead of undermining the vaccine campaign, perhaps he should get behind it.

Chris Bishop: Does he agree with the Prime Minister and other Ministers who have said words to the effect of “It doesn’t matter how fast our vaccine roll-out is, because other countries need it more”, and does he think that the Aucklanders who are now enduring the longest lockdown in New Zealand history might be reflecting negatively on those comments?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: What I do agree with is that the member should stop spreading misinformation. That is not what any Minister in this Government has said. I would say to any New Zealander listening to him that they should think twice about any of the statements he makes, because most of them don’t stack up.

Question 8—Research, Science and Innovation

8. IBRAHIM OMER (Labour) to the Associate Minister of Research, Science and Innovation: What recent announcements has she made about helping New Zealand’s COVID-19 response and preparedness for future pandemics?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Associate Minister of Research, Science and Innovation): On Sunday, I was pleased to announce that the Government is investing in a new Infectious Diseases Research Platform. New Zealand’s response to COVID-19 has been informed by science from the beginning, and as a result, we have saved lives, but the lack of a dedicated infectious diseases research fund has been a longstanding gap in our domestic science capabilities. When the pandemic hit, scientists either volunteered time to support the COVID-19 response or received ad hoc grants for small pieces of research. To address this, we are investing $36 million over three years in the new programme of research to sustain the contribution of cutting-edge scientists to the COVID-19 response.

Ibrahim Omer: What will the major research focus be?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: The first priority area is improving prevention and control, including through better understanding of disease transmission and future vaccine research. The second is improving our management of infectious diseases—for instance, through diagnostics, surveillance, and therapeutics. Reducing the impact of infectious diseases on Māori and Pacific people will also be a key focus. That work can only be done here in Aotearoa New Zealand. I also see this research platform as promoting the development of our next generation of pandemic scientists. This work will not just help with our current response to COVID-19 but also help prevent future pandemics.

Ibrahim Omer: What reaction has she seen to the announcement of the Infectious Diseases Research Platform?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: I’ve been heartened by the positive reception of local experts. Arindam Basu, associate professor of Epidemiology and Environmental Health at the University of Canterbury described the announcement as “an excellent and welcome move”, saying, “additional infectious disease research funding focused on COVID-19 will be immensely beneficial to everyone.” Epidemiologist Dr Amanda Kvalsvig from the Department of Public Health, University of Otago, Wellington, also welcomed the announcement, saying it “has the potential to make a huge difference [to] the lives of New Zealanders.”, and immunologist Professor Graham Le Gros, director of the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research and programme director of the Vaccine Alliance Aotearoa New Zealand said, “This is very good news and a much needed investment in the skill-sets and technologies that will be needed to protect New Zealand against the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.”

Question No. 9—Immigration

9. Dr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT) to the Minister of Immigration: What communications, if any, has he received from Afghan translators who live in New Zealand about bringing their families to New Zealand, and what actions is he taking as a result?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Immigration): I have received a number of communications from Afghan translators who live in New Zealand setting out their concern for their community and their family members who remain in Afghanistan. Understandably, these concerns have heightened as a result of the fall of the Afghan Government. Many of them are seeking pathways for their family members to join them here in New Zealand since the emergency evacuation window for getting people out of Afghanistan closed. They’ve also turned to what more New Zealand can do to assist in the plight of people still in Afghanistan, and our focus remains very much on those who are included in Cabinet’s criteria. Immigration New Zealand is working alongside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the New Zealand Defence Force, who in turn are discussing with international partners how to help others leave Afghanistan. Consideration is also being given to short- and longer-term support services for individuals who have recently arrived. We know the situation in Afghanistan is volatile, and I’m expecting advice from officials on what additional support New Zealand can offer, shortly.

Dr James McDowall: Has he met with the Afghan translators waiting outside Parliament for him, and, if not, why not?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I don’t meet all the groups that come to Parliament to make their point, but what I would say is that the letters that they have sent me have been received—certainly the ones in the last 24 hours—and their message has been heard. The priority of the Government, as I said in my primary answer, is to assist people who are very much in a similar situation to them when they were allowed to come to New Zealand—those who assisted agencies in Afghanistan and their immediate families. It has been a very challenging situation to evacuate all of those people back as well as New Zealand citizens and residents. As I’ve said, we are currently looking at what other options we can to make sure we can assist those who are also looking to leave Afghanistan.

Dr James McDowall: How is the Minister able to spend 10 minutes sitting in the debating chamber before question time today joking with other MPs while the Afghan translators continue to wait for him outside?

SPEAKER: Order! Order!

David Seymour: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, the Minister has said that his time does not allow him to meet. I think that the question from the member is perfectly in order and reasonable.

SPEAKER: Well, the member might be of that view, but what we do not do in this House is question members as to their movements around the buildings on the way to and in the Chamber before question time. It’s been a longstanding convention of the House.

Dr James McDowall: Can the Minister guarantee that action will be taken to expedite the visas of translators’ relatives, and, if so, when?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I’ll point the member to my earlier answer—that the Government is focused on making sure that we can get New Zealand residents and citizens who are in Afghanistan home, and also those who are within the strict Cabinet criteria while the evacuation window was open. We are also considering what other options we might be able to take in order to assist other people who would like to leave Afghanistan. Those decisions have not yet been made.

Dr James McDowall: Does the Minister understand that relatives of Afghan translators who helped Kiwi soldiers are under constant threat of persecution by the Taliban, and what will he do to uphold the principles of kindness this Government has set itself?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: The Government takes very seriously its values of kindness, which is why we are making sure that we take a very measured approach to the assistance that we offer those people that we have prioritised. One of those things that we have to make sure that we do, as I said both to select committees and publicly, is that we have to make sure that we have the ability to resettle these people who might have come from Afghanistan in a first-class way. We’re working through some of those issues and we hope to be able to do that to make sure we can help the plight of some of those people still in Afghanistan.

Question No. 10—Women

10. BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana) to the Minister for Women: What support is the Government providing for women and girls adversely affected by COVID-19?

Hon JAN TINETTI (Minister for Women): As the Minister for Women, I have announced a $2 million community fund to support vulnerable women and girls adversely affected by COVID-19. We know from the last nationwide lockdown that women experienced disproportionately adverse effects, including job losses, loss of income, increased unpaid care work, and additional barriers to those seeking to leave violent and abusive situations. This Government has acted quickly to ensure we take rapid and effective action to reach women during the current lockdown and safeguard their wellbeing.

Barbara Edmonds: Why is this type of community fund needed?

Hon JAN TINETTI: Last nationwide lockdown, we established the same fund, which allocates funding through established community groups and organisations at grassroots level. All evaluations found that this is a highly effective way to reach vulnerable women, as there is an existing relationship with this cohort. The fund supported 155 organisations and over 10,000 women and their families. While there are other Government supports available to vulnerable New Zealanders, including women, through schemes such as the wage subsidy, we know there are additional gender-based needs—examples include help with leaving an abusive partner, culturally appropriate support networks for migrant women, mental health support for rainbow women, and a lack of access to basic toiletries.

Barbara Edmonds: How will the $2 million be allocated to community providers?

Hon JAN TINETTI: The funding is to support organisations who (1) work to improve outcomes for women and girls, and (2) are seeing an increased demand for services, and/or reduced resources, because of COVID-19. The three objectives of the fund are: to prioritise grassroots investments, making sure funds are spent to improve outcomes for women and where they are needed most; support women, in all their diversity, who face intersectional challenges within their communities, such as women in Māori, Pacific, rural, and migrant communities; and supporting the Government’s priorities, such as ensuring healthy and safe communities, reducing family and sexual violence, and improving child wellbeing. Each organisation can apply for up to $50,000 of funding and applications are currently open until 1 October, and organisations can apply on the Ministry for Women’s website.

Question No. 11—Corrections

11. Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel) to the Minister of Corrections: Is he confident that the Department of Corrections’ policies are keeping New Zealanders safe from COVID-19; if so, why?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister of Corrections): Yes. As we saw in this recent case, it was Corrections health screening that helped us to identify that there was potential that COVID had spread in the community. While Corrections have strict policies in place to stop the spread of COVID in prisons, this case has identified that there are areas where we can look to create improvements around transportation. While these are outside of the control of Corrections, given bail conditions are set by the courts, I have asked my officials to work with other agencies to see what improvements can be made around transportation. This approach was outlined by the Prime Minister earlier today. I am confident in Corrections’ processes to minimise risks relating to the transmission of COVID-19, though. These include health screening for every person who enters a prison, all prison staff are required to wear masks at all times while on site, and when staff are interacting with prisoners, they are wearing personal protective equipment to prevent transmission. The secure and controlled nature of the prison environment means Corrections are able to quickly isolate prisoners as required, restrict their movements, and identify people who would have been in contact with them if required.

Hon Scott Simpson: As corrections Minister, does he think it’s fair that essential workers should be required to show that they have had a COVID-19 test before travelling through an alert level boundary, but a Black Power member recently released from prison should not be required to?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Again, this is an issue around the transportation of prisoners. Corrections doesn’t set those conditions, the judges and the courts set the bail conditions, so he needs to really address his question to the correct Minister.

Hon Scott Simpson: As corrections Minister, does he place more trust in prisoners who are being released from prison to travel through an alert level boundary without being tested for COVID-19 than essential workers?

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Order! The Minister doesn’t have responsibility for either of those groups.

Hon Scott Simpson: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I was asking whether he thought it was fair or did he have trust. My question was: does he place trust?

SPEAKER: Well, people who’ve been released from prison and essential workers—neither of those groups are the responsibility of this Minister.

Hon Scott Simpson: Point of order, Mr Speaker. The prisoner is still in the care of Corrections staff—still in the purview of the Corrections department.

SPEAKER: Well, no, the member said the person had been released from prison.

Hon Simon Bridges: He’s on bail.

SPEAKER: It’s exactly what the member said.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Point of order. Mr Speaker, we’re getting into a tangle between whether the question is in order or whether the answer should have been given in that way by the Minister. I’m suggesting to you that while that may well have been the answer the Minister could have given, it doesn’t render the question out of order.

Hon Kelvin Davis: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister of Corrections is responsible for people who are in prison. The judges and the courts set the bail conditions. The Minister of Corrections is not responsible for them.

David Seymour: Point of order. In case I can assist, Mr Speaker—

SPEAKER: You’re always here to help!

David Seymour: That’s me! He may well have been released from prison, but he was still in the care of Corrections, and surely the Minister’s perception of and the Minister’s attitude towards the behaviour of prisoners and their trustworthiness while under the care of Corrections is something that is very relevant that this House is allowed to ask about. That’s what the question was about: does the Minister trust those prisoners who are under Corrections’ care. His attitude towards prisoners is of great interest to this House.

SPEAKER: And if the question had been asked like that, it would have been in order.

David Seymour: It was asked like that.

SPEAKER: I’m prepared to be generous and let the member rephrase his question so he makes it clear that there is ministerial responsibility. I am being very kind.

Hon Simon Bridges: Oh, come on!

SPEAKER: Mr Bridges—sorry, is the member trying to fly or—I’ve heard him described as Samson recently.

David Seymour: He was brushing his hair back!

SPEAKER: That’s right—Samson!

Hon Scott Simpson: As the Minister of Corrections, does he place more trust in persons who are in the care of Corrections staff recently released from prison to travel through an alert level boundary without being tested for COVID-19 than essential workers?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: I trust the Corrections processes.

Hon Scott Simpson: What specific measures, if any, did the Department of Corrections take to ensure the transportation of the prisoner to northern Hauraki would be done safely and appropriately given Auckland’s lockdown status and in light of Corrections deeming him unsuitable for bail?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: I’ll refer to my primary answer. The case has identified that there are areas where we can look to create improvements around transportation. While these areas are outside of the control of Corrections, given bail conditions are set by the courts, including the transport of prisoners, I’ve asked my officials to work with other agencies to see what improvements can be made around transportation.

Hon Scott Simpson: At what point did the Department of Corrections realise the prisoner had stopped at four different locations, including two private addresses, and why wasn’t he arrested for breach of bail, when his bail conditions required him to travel without any unnecessary stops?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: So Corrections and Police jointly manage electronically monitored bail. Corrections assesses a person and their proposed address for electronic—“EM”—bail suitability and carries out the electronic monitoring. Police are responsible for responding to all non-compliance and managing any other bail conditions imposed by the courts. Corrections has no involvement in non-EM bail, though.

Hon Scott Simpson: Why did Corrections staff allow the prisoner to be picked up by three individuals when his bail conditions stated that a specified family member was to collect him from Mt Eden Corrections Facility, and does this demonstrate a complete failure by Corrections to monitor the prisoner effectively, given they had concerns about him being unsuitable for bail?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: No.

SPEAKER: That concludes oral questions. I call on—[Interruption] Oh, sorry! Angela Roberts—No. 12. I apologise.

Question No. 12—Conservation

12. ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour) to the Minister of Conservation: What recent announcements has she made regarding Jobs for Nature projects in Otago and Southland?

SPEAKER: The Hon Kiritapu Allan—I doubly apologise.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Conservation): Mr Speaker! As part of our COVID recovery, on 16 September I announced a package of nine Jobs for Nature projects across Otago and Southland. The projects represent an investment of more than $17 million into nature and the community, and they’re collectively expected to create more than 200 jobs through protecting threatened species, making a well-known lake swimmable, and supporting areas hit by the downturn in international tourism.

Angela Roberts: What projects will be delivered in the Queenstown lakes district?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: As we all know, the Queenstown lakes district has been impacted by the downturn in international tourism as a result of COVID. And the key focus of Jobs for Nature is providing investments into these communities: $4.45 million is being provided to a project to rehabilitate Arrowtown’s Lake Hayes, which aims to make the lake swimmable again by working with community groups to undertake native planting, wetland restoration, predator control, and installation of sediment traps; $2.98 million is being provided to the southern lakes sanctuary project, assisting more than 80 local predator control initiatives across 150,000 hectares of the southern lakes region to protect 23 threatened and at-risk wildlife species from invasive species.

Angela Roberts: What projects will be delivered in Fiordland?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: More good news. A range of projects in Fiordland are receiving funding coming at an important time for another beautiful region for which international tourism is a key part of their local economy. These include bringing the park to the people through trail enhancement: $973,000 for the Fiordland Trails Trust to protect threatened bird species; Tamatea Restoration has received $700,000 for the Pure Salt cruises to develop and use new technologies to eliminate predators within the Tamatea / Dusky Sound region; the Routeburn Dart Wildlife Trust predator trapping project has received $4,116 for additional predator control in the Routeburn, Dart and nearby valleys; and the Big Bay / Awarua ecosystem restoration has received $383,000 to establish a trapping network at Big Bay / Awarua and Waituna Lagoon to help protect vulnerable native birds such as fernbirds, bittern, rail, and kākā.

Bills

Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill

Second Reading

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Justice): I present a legislative statement on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill.

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

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I move, That the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill be now read a second time.

Can I also take this opportunity, again, to acknowledge the victims, whānau, and communities affected by the events of 3 September. We and this House continue to send our thoughts and our prayers as they continue their road to recovery. Of course, too, we will never forget the attack in Christchurch on 15 March 2019. As we all know, that attack took 51 lives and affected many more. The impacts of these attacks on the New Zealand community has been immense, and we must do everything we can to try and prevent such events from happening again.

It is clear from the actions that have happened in New Zealand and overseas more recently that the nature of terrorism is changing, and our laws need to change in order to respond to it. Across the world, we’ve seen more lone acts or small groups rather than larger organised terrorist groups, and, as we’ve seen, New Zealand is not immune to these events. This is why the objective of this bill is to strengthen our counter-terrorism laws to better prevent and respond to the threat and risks of terrorism. It provides our enforcement agencies with clear legal authority to disrupt terrorism-related activity, and, hopefully, before it occurs.

Can I acknowledge the Justice Committee, which has reported back on the bill and made some changes. I thank the committee for its diligent and efficient work in consideration of the bill, and everyone who has submitted on the bill at the select committee stage. I understand the committee received 81 submissions. The committee, as I have mentioned, has made several changes to the bill, and some technical changes to improve clarity.

The bill tackles a number of extremely complex issues and, by the very nature of counter-terror laws, consultation on the bill was necessarily limited. Consulting any earlier than strictly necessary could have exposed gaps for exploitation in our counter-terrorism system, which would have created another avenue for national security risk. But I do want to acknowledge that it is crucial the powers in this bill are not used disproportionately against any group of New Zealanders. Once the proposals in the bill were sufficiently developed, the bill was made available for public consultation, and this minimised risk to our national security to the greatest extent possible while allowing for informed submissions to the Justice Committee on specific legislative proposals from anyone who had an interest. It is a challenging balance to ensure the safety of all New Zealanders and to develop the policy and also this legislation.

As I mentioned, the committee recommended changes to the definition of a “terrorist act”. The definition of a “terrorist act” is the cornerstone of our legislation. To be a terrorist attack, a person must intend to cause some level of apprehension in a population. The committee considered whether this level should be intimidation, fear, or terror, and the committee, I understand, unanimously has recommended intimidation. Cabinet agrees with this recommendation from the Justice Committee that intimidation is a more appropriate standard. It is the standard used by the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada, and the threshold for meeting the definition of a terrorist act still remains appropriately high because a person still has to meet all three components of a terrorist act—that is, an intention to cause a serious outcome such as death, the purpose of advancing an ideology, and the intention to induce intimidation in a population.

The committee also recommended changes related to new offences of planning or preparation for a terrorist attack, and the committee recommended a change to clarify that it is not an offence to attempt to plan a terrorist act or to conspire or incite another person to do so. The committee also recommended removing the clarification that planning to plan a terrorist act is not an offence, and this was intended to clarify the scope of the offence, but submitters also found it confusing. Its removal will not lead to over-criminalisation by the new planning and preparation offence within the bill.

It is an offence to provide also funds or material support to a terrorist entity within this bill, but the bill as introduced contained an exception for when support does no more than satisfy essential human needs. Submitters during the select committee process, I understand, had concerns that the exception did not allow the provision of legitimate humanitarian support. So to respond to this, the bill clarifies the scope of the funds and support that can be provided.

The committee also recommended including New Zealand’s territorial waters within the scope of the travel offence within the bill, and recommended a change to ensure that terrorist activities in our territorial waters are captured by the new offence of traveling to, from, or via New Zealand intending to commit a terrorist offence.

An important aspect of the bill is balancing the need to counter terrorism with individual rights, and some submitters expressed concern that the bill does not adequately protect human rights and freedoms. I believe the committee considered these concerns and determined that where rights and freedoms are impacted, these limitations are justified and proportionate to the aim.

The committee also carefully considered the concerns raised by submitters about the bill, and these included a lack of consultation on the bill, including from the likes of Māori. The committee considered that the select committee was the appropriate place for that consultation to happen, and given the high threshold to meet the definition of terrorism and requirement to seek the Attorney-General’s consent before prosecutions are taken, the committee thought that there were sufficient safeguards within the bill to uphold the Crown’s obligation under Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Submitters also questioned a lack of oversight of the implementation and operation of the proposed legislation, and the need for an independent oversight body will be considered as part of wider counter-terrorism work to respond to the recommendations of the royal commission into the Christchurch attacks. Submitters also commented that the bill would not have prevented the Christchurch terror attack, and that is because the perpetrator had not come to the authority’s attention. The new offences and powers provided by this bill will allow early intervention and may be critical to preventing further attacks.

Sadly, we have been recently reminded that terror can take many forms here in New Zealand as well as overseas, and the actions of the lone attacker in West Auckland on 3 September have reinforced the importance of this legislation and raised questions about whether other parts of our laws should be looked at—dealing with issues such as detention, deportation, for example. The Government has requested further advice on these areas of work because we have to make sure Parliament responds in every way that we can.

The Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill will enable us to better prevent and respond to the threat of terrorism, which, as we have, unfortunately, seen recently, is a very real one. I commend the bill to the House.

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

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, thank you to the Minister of Justice for his contribution. This is a bill that the National Party supports. Our members on the Justice Committee, led by the Hon Simon Bridges, have worked very hard to make sure that the bill has a good balance between the rights of those who might be accused and the rights of New Zealanders not to be subject to terrorist attacks.

Until, really, 18 months ago, New Zealand had not seen terrorist attacks, although there is an arguable point that there had been certainly some occasions where terrorist attacks may have been planned. But what we now know is that there are around 300 people who give concern to security agencies around their wish to do damage to New Zealand or New Zealanders or those who are our allies, and they are living in New Zealand. We know that there is a significantly smaller number that give serious concern.

If we need changes to terrorism legislation, it certainly is now. We can be reminded of the fact that there were seven people injured—four stabbed—by the terrorist attacker in New Lynn a few weeks ago. The National Party would like to express our sympathy for those victims who were going about their weekly shopping and suddenly were attacked by someone with a very strong hatred towards, apparently, white people. I would also like to express our sincere thanks to those police officers on the scene, whose swift action was able to prevent this from being an even worse tragedy than it already is.

This person was clearly operating, as far as we know, as a lone wolf. But he is not the only lone wolf out there. After the horrors at the Al Noor Mosque, the Linwood Islamic Centre, and now New Lynn, it is very clear that we need, as a Parliament, to move swiftly to plug the gaps in our counter-terrorism law by passing this bill.

I understand that there is concern—very deeply held and genuinely held concern—that this is, essentially, criminalising people who plan a criminal offence. While we have that already in law when it comes to conspiracies, as in more than one person planning it, the law has not previously criminalised a lone person planning an attack like this. The problem is that now that there is communication via the internet and other means, and social media, it is very important that we recognise that things are not the same as they were 10, 20, or even 30 years ago. Things have changed. In the last 18 months, we’ve had two terror attacks on our shores here in New Zealand and there has not been a terror attack before, so things have definitely changed.

It is important that we support the Government in this move. After we knew of what had happened on 3 September, I contacted the Prime Minister after speaking with my colleagues, who agreed that we should support the Government because our select committee members were happy with the process and the work that had gone into the bill. Not everybody will be, but it is important that we do this. When we were in Government last, we would have loved to have had the sort of support that we are now giving, and that is because we believe very clearly that this is a very real threat to New Zealand, a very real threat to our way of life. We do not need any more instances like this for us to take this seriously. This is a very serious matter.

I have reviewed, obviously, the work of the royal commission into the massacre in Christchurch of 18 months ago. The royal commission was very clear that we need to have a separate counter-terrorism agency. We haven’t heard from the Government as to what progress, if any, has to be made on that. We have agencies involved in intelligence, we have agencies such as Police that are involved in law enforcement, and we have other agencies such as the Department of Corrections who have input into this. But when I come to the terrorist in New Lynn, Samsudeen, it is a question that needs to be asked as to why he had the Crown not opposing his bail, and, in fact, being party to an application to bail for him before this incident happened. So these are questions that I have asked the Prime Minister to hold a public inquiry on. This does not meet the threshold for a royal commission such as the Christchurch massacres, but this does need to have questions asked and answered.

It is also important to note that no legal advice has been provided as to why Samsudeen could not have been deported back to his country of origin. We’ve heard advice from the Prime Minister that Cabinet sought advice and was disappointed to find out that he could not be. But having reviewed the Immigration Act and also the United Nations convention on refugees, it is clear that where there is a threat to national security, someone can be deported back.

The other issue has to be around what is the definition of a threat to national security. This is something that I believe needs to be considered by this House. It is important that New Zealand undertakes our responsibilities to refugee claimants and also to those who seek our assistance because they’re stateless. That was not the situation with this man, who was not stateless. He had an option.

It is very important that our number one job as a Parliament is to protect the rights and freedoms of New Zealanders. In these cases where we are weighing up the ability of the Crown and Crown agencies to protect New Zealanders versus the rights of New Zealanders or people in New Zealand to plan criminal attacks, I will come down, as will the National Party, very clearly on the side of protecting New Zealanders from these sorts of attacks. We cannot be held to ransom by people who have no commitment to our way of life and no understanding that these great freedoms have been fought for. Unfortunately, these people are in this country and are of concern to the intelligence and security agencies and to us, and the police and others must have the ability to deal with them.

So on that note, I have appointed a spokesperson for counter-terrorism. This is the first such appointment that we could find in New Zealand and that we undertake to work towards a specific counter-terrorism agency to work across and to direct in terms of this particular area. It is not something that we can just leave for matters to fall through the gaps, or for one agency to decide that they will pick up the lead on a particular potential terrorist. It is important that some agency, some Minister, is held accountable for the actions or inactions of those agencies, and it is very important that we take this very seriously as a Parliament.

So, today, I am pleased to be able to confirm that the Government does have our support on this issue and that we will proceed with voting for the legislation, but there are still questions that should be answered. As this piece of legislation will not be the only piece of legislation that this House sees on it, it is certainly something that if the Government does not pick up the opportunity to look at and establish a counter-terrorism agency, or does not look at further legislation that might be required, this party—the National Party—will do so. Thank you.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister responsible for the NZSIS): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I acknowledge the Leader of the Opposition, who has just resumed her seat, and acknowledge the support that she has pledged on behalf of the National Party for the passage of this legislation.

Can I just correct the member who has resumed her seat on one or two things. The royal commission of inquiry into the Christchurch mosque attack did not recommend a standalone counter-terrorism agency. It certainly recommended a Minister be given discrete and specific responsibility for counter-terrorism, and it also recommended that a new national security and intelligence agency—one to sit above the operational organisations that sit there at the moment—be established to ensure that there is that strategic leadership, that kind of looking over the horizon to look at the risks and threats, as a source of advice to the Prime Minister and Cabinet and relevant Ministers of the day. I can assure the member and, indeed, the House that that work is under way and is ongoing as we continue the journey to fulfil the recommendations of the royal commission of inquiry into those mosque attacks.

Can I also say too that this legislation started following work commissioned by this Government in its first term—work commissioned in 2018, as the Prime Minister has confirmed in her media statements—and it continued even following the mosque attacks. But the work was not concluded pending the completion by the royal commission of inquiry of its work to make sure that any proposed changes to the legislation, principally the Terrorism Suppression Act, took account of the work of the royal commission of inquiry, and this does that. My colleague the Hon Kris Faafoi introduced the legislation with the benefit of the insights of the royal commission of inquiry’s report and the work that had been done. It was referred to the select committee earlier this year. I know there have been some comments made publicly that somehow this has all been dealt with in haste, and I reassure the House that it has not. It has been done appropriately. I’m thankful for the work that the select committee has done. When I look at the changes that have come back to this House as a consequence of that work, I think that it is good work. They are good, constructive changes that have been made.

As the Leader of the Opposition has acknowledged, and, indeed, the Hon Kris Faafoi, there will be, through the work that has to be done—that is the work that will be done in light of the events of 3 September. This bill was not conceived around the events of 3 September. If anything, this bill goes back to events that happened in Aotearoa New Zealand in the 2000s, and, of course, in 2019, because the reality is that we now know this country is not immune from terrorist activity and the threat of terrorism. We know that precursor events that lead to terrorist activity—namely, preparation and planning—can have evil intent and can be intended to cause harm. We should have a criminal code that captures that activity, and that’s what this legislation seeks to do.

So we’ve had counter-terrorism legislation for nearly 20 years now. It was found to be wanting only a few years after it was enacted and the work has now been done to address the gaps that were identified at that time. Those principal gaps were in preparation activity.

I think it’s also important to remind the House that when we think about planning and preparation of a terrorist act, we are still dependent on the definition of “terrorist act” that is in the Terrorism Suppression Act—that is, the extant definition that is in section 5 of the existing Act—and that definition has three elements to it. First of all, the action that is the subject of the planning and preparation has to be an action intended to cause death, or risk of harm or destruction; secondly, carried out for the purpose of ideological, political, or religious causes; and, thirdly, intended to cause fear in a population. So that is a very high threshold to meet when it comes to considering a charge for a planning and preparation offence when it comes to an act of terrorism. Added to that is the further safeguard that for any prosecution, it has to be approved by the Attorney-General.

I might add too there is a further clarification—extant clarification—under current legislation that makes it very clear that a protest activity, activist activity, does not constitute and cannot constitute an act of terrorism, so there are a number of safeguards already built in. But the reality is we know from our experience in this country now that it is possible for someone motivated for the right reasons, or we might say the wrong reasons—but, in their warped view of the world, they’re motivated for the right reasons—to cause harm and to start making preparatory acts for it. There is the constant juggling act that this House and the State, generally, has towards its citizens of working out where the line between ensuring safety for citizens and ensuring the freedom of expression and action and movement is, as we have to look closely at those who express a will to do harm and prepare for an act to do that, and particularly when motivated for ideological reasons and also particularly when intended to induce intimidation, as the bill now proposes to create. So there are a number of safeguards already built into this, and in the end it is for our agencies, including the police, to make the assessment about threats and where to take appropriate action.

I might add, as the Leader of the Opposition said too, we already have offences on our statute book. They are called the inchoate class of offences. Conspiracy is one of them, attempting to commit an offence is another, aiding and abetting is another. No offence has been committed, but an action has been taken that is intended to cause or encourage others to cause harm, and that is an offence under our Crimes Act right now. So there is nothing unusual about ensuring that our criminal law keeps up with the actions of those who would do harm and captures the level of criminality at the right place, at the right time, to prevent harm being caused, bearing in mind that at least in this case, there are good safeguards around the intended offences.

The other concern that has been expressed, I know, is about the extension of the search and surveillance powers under the Search and Surveillance Act, because this bill amends that piece of legislation. Those powers are, effectively, extended, but, again, there are safeguards in the existing legislation, the Search and Surveillance Act, which say that in order to exercise those search and surveillance powers, a constable has to have reasonable grounds to suspect that a relevant offence is being committed or is about to committed, has to have reasonable grounds to suspect that there is evidential material which the constable wants to get access to, and, thirdly, has to form a reasonable view that if entry is delayed, that material will be destroyed or removed and, therefore, prevent the enforcement of the law.

So, again, those who are concerned about overreaching or overweening powers of the State when it comes to this sort of activity can be assured that there are safeguards in place. In the end, I come back to the reality of the situation that has been illustrated by the events in March 2019 and, now, September of this year that there are those in our community—some who come to our community from abroad—who would cause us harm and who would do so for what we would describe as warped ideological reasons, and who are prepared to take actions and plan to do so. Some of those actions will be very hard to detect, as we have seen. But others, with appropriate exercise of suspicion and inquiry, we can detect, and we need our authorities to be able to take appropriate action at the right time to keep us all safe. I commend the bill to the House.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga): Thank you, Madam Speaker. On 3 September, there was an ISIS-inspired terrorist attack at LynnMall Countdown in West Auckland, and, as we’ve heard from the Hon Judith Collins, several people were badly wounded. As other members have, I want to record my deep thanks to those at the supermarket, who were brave and helped in that situation, and also, of course, the police officers—the men and women in blue—who are so brave and do their job so well. I also record our condolences and thoughts with those who were so badly wounded. I also want to condemn the acts of the perpetrator. They have no place in society, in our country, or, indeed, anywhere. As Andrew Little has just said, they are clearly off the back of a warped, evil ideology.

The perpetrator was, of course, known to authorities and was under 24/7 supervision. We, I think, can just imagine when we hear the number of people involved in those supervisions how incredibly expensive they are for hard-working taxpayers. He was the subject of a number of court cases, and courts had held that the law fell short—there was an ellipsis in the law, if you like—in terms of what was required to protect New Zealanders, particularly in relation to that issue of planning and preparation short of an actual seeing-through, if you like, of a terrorist act, and that brings me to this law. National has unequivocally supported it at first reading and at select committee.

It’s a bill that does quite a number of things. I’m not going to run through them all. It updates the definition of “terrorist act”, and Andrew Little has spoken to those changes. It creates precursor offences, and, as he’s made the point, there are of course offences already in our law generally around attempts, conspiracy, and the like, but here we are creating specific offences criminalising the planning and preparation of a terrorist act, criminalising terrorist weapons and combat training, and criminalising travel to and from or via New Zealand for international terrorism. This law does a host of other things as well, like extending the terrorism finance offence framework to criminalise material support for terrorist activities or organisations, which is very much in keeping with our international obligations: United Nations obligations, conventions, treaties we have signed up to as a nation.

For the purposes of this 3 September attack—the stabbings—the new offence of planning and preparation of a terrorist act addresses the gap that is there in the law. I’ve heard—and I go along with him, largely—what the Hon Andrew Little has said, which is that this law was not really because of this perpetrator. There’s no doubt there’s case law as a result of actions of the earlier perpetrator that was sent by Justice Downs to the Attorney-General and, I think, other Ministers as well. So we are addressing a perceived gap identified by the royal commission of inquiry into the Christchurch terror attacks and also by the High Court, and that’s a good thing, a significant thing that we do.

In relation to the details of the provisions, I just want to delve into one aspect of the changes to “terrorist act”, which, of course, have to be proven as part of this new precursor offence of planning and preparation, and that’s the debate that was had in wider society and media articles and also in the select committee. It was a very civil debate, I might say. There was not strong fundamental disagreement on these points about whether, in the offence, we were to use in terms of the intent that a perpetrator would have on the population, “terror”—coming down a bit—“fear”, or even, at a lower threshold, “intimidation” as the operative word, as the intention as part of that act that needs to be proven.

In the end, I think, fundamentally and unanimously, the committee agreed with “intimidate”, and I would say, as we say in the report there, the case law is clear on that. So it’s a particular word that is well understood in our courts, and internationally that’s accepted. The Australias, the Canadas, and, I think, the United Kingdoms of this world—it’s the same in their terrorist laws. To those who oppose that, I would simply say—again, as I think we say in the committee report, or at least the majority of the report—that that’s hardly Draconian. It’s still a high threshold. I think Andrew Little made the point that the Crown still has to prove intent to cause death or serious harm in, the advancement of an ideological, a political, or a religious cause as well as that intent if this law passes—which I’m sure it will—to intimidate a population. It’s not as if it’s an easy thing for the Crown to prove.

Just in the remaining time, I don’t want to be party political, fundamentally, about this. I think it is right on something of this significance—the protection of New Zealanders—that we don’t dredge up the past and say, “Well, they did this.” or “They didn’t do that.”, or “We did this.” and “We didn’t do that.” But I would make a couple of points that I think are important. The first is to commend the leadership of Judith Collins and Mark Mitchell. On this side of the House, there is new spokesperson for counter-terrorism in Mark Mitchell, and I’m sure in a different world where we didn’t have level 4 going to level 3 in Auckland, Mark Mitchell would have given a fine contribution to this debate. He has real experience and expertise on the ground internationally on these issues, and a credibility, I think, that it’s hard to fault.

The second point I’d want to make is one which joins with the Government—the Labour Party—on, and that is to make this point: the law was not rushed. There is no rushing here in relation to this bill. It was a normal, thorough process that we saw in Parliament and select committee. So I just say, knowing that my friends in ACT and the Greens have put in minority views, when they do say that “The ACT Party opposes the passage of this bill due to the process adopted by the Government to progress it.”, it’s simply wrong to say that there was anything done here to rush it. Fundamentally, we had agreed and gone through the submissions and the changes that we thought should happen on this bill at or before the 3 September terrorist attack.

National is the party, as the Hon Judith Collins has said, that actually does see for itself a role in being responsible on these issues, and on the right side of protecting New Zealanders from terrorism, whether that is from outside, out of country, or indeed, sometimes, tragically, enemies are within. Consistently, in the last couple of years, as we’ve seen significant terror tragedies in this country—of course, the March 15th terror attacks in Christchurch; awful events that have changed this country, but then also this significant 3 September attack—we have been on the right side. We’ve supported sensible rule-making and lawmaking, and we do so, again, today in relation to this Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill. Look, as chair of the Justice Committee, first and foremost, I would like to acknowledge all of the committee members present and I would like to note, as Simon Bridges, the previous member speaking, pointed out, that there was consensus in terms of some of the most significant issues the committee was required to consider and make a decision on. I would like to acknowledge the importance of that for all New Zealanders to know that there was consensus from parties—from Labour, National, ACT, and the Green Party—at that committee in terms of very important issues, particularly relating to how we define the act of terrorism. So I would like to take a moment to thank my parliamentary colleagues from other parties for your constructive work in that committee and for our ability to come to a good decision that, hopefully, will serve the safety and wellbeing for all New Zealanders in years to come.

Events over the past two years have shown that New Zealand is, in fact, not immune at all to terrorism, and that has reinforced the Government’s resolve to put stronger and more up-to-date legislation in place to stop such activity. The Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill does exactly that by bringing in new laws and new powers of search and surveillance to mean that somebody who is planning or preparing a terrorist attack is able to be apprehended before that act takes place. The changes that we are making here today bring New Zealand law into line with counter-terrorism legislation in other similar jurisdictions, such as the UK, Canada, and also Australia.

I think it’s important to note that the committee did a job in terms of looking at the evolving nature of terrorism that we see across the world and also domestically. That changing threat requires New Zealand to give a legislative framework that supports the early management of risk—being able to detect and prevent activities that support or enable terrorism to take place—and the bill does that. It clarifies the Terrorism Suppression Act to provide law enforcement agencies with the means and clear legal authority to intervene early and to help prevent harm and to also escalate things when required so as to better protect against tragic events such as we’ve seen on March 15th in 2019 and, only too recently, on 3 September this year.

The bill makes a range of changes, but I would like to quickly point out the major change that the committee went through, which was on the definition. I think it’s really important, for people tuning in or trying to understand what can be quite complex, to point out that there is a three-bar test in terms of that definition, as Andrew Little has pointed out already today. There needs to be a motive, an intent, and an outcome in order to prove that, and the intent is really important.

So, currently, under the law a “terrorist act” must be done with the intent “to induce terror in a civilian population; or … to unduly compel or to force a government or an international organisation to do or abstain from … any act.” The bill makes the following amendments: “induce terror” is changed to “intimidate”, “civilian” is removed, and “unduly compel” is changed to “coerce”. So those are the key changes that in fact bring New Zealand’s definition of a “terrorist act” into line with corresponding jurisdictions, and it’s at that point, really, that the committee had a thorough discussion and was able to reach consensus around the correct term for New Zealand’s legislative framework.

I’d like to note that on top of that three-bar test, we also have an additional check. That’s for the Attorney-General to approve prosecutions, and it’s particularly in relation to those preparatory offences.

So I know I shouldn’t speak too long, but I should briefly talk about some of the submissions: 81 written submissions were received by the committee and 22 oral submissions were heard. One of the main points that we heard from submitters was the concern around human rights, and, again, it’s difficult. The committee was confronted by that balance of having to weigh up the safety and security of New Zealand people alongside of also protecting freedoms in our human rights of people.

While many submitters highlighted concerns in that space that the bill may impact on the rights and freedoms in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, officials were really useful in explaining to members that they took a human rights approach in terms of developing the offences. In taking this approach, offences have been drafted in a more targeted manner to comparable jurisdictions. As such, officials considered that where rights and freedoms are impacted, these limitations are justified and proportionate to their aim. The consequential outcome was this was confirmed by Crown Law in its assessment of the bill’s compliance with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and people can also find that online. That assessment is available to read.

I’d like to conclude by saying that this has been a hard time in New Zealand’s history, but I would like to acknowledge all of those who took the time to submit on this bill, and all of those members on the committee, who took their time to most thoroughly consider the difficult decisions that lay before us with the thought in mind of making sure that we make New Zealand as safe as possible. I feel reassured that we have done our job in bringing this bill back to the House in its current shape. Therefore, I commend the bill to the House.

TEANAU TUIONO (Green): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. Like the other members around the House, I would also like to acknowledge the whānau up in New Lynn, the impacted whānau, and acknowledge that it’s been a tough time for them—tough time out West; the lockdowns and then to have that tragedy happen for them as well. So the Greens, our hearts go out to them as well—acknowledging the impact on close family, and also the work that many of the community members of the perpetrator who tried to wrap support around the individual to try to deescalate him from his extremist beliefs, and making sure that we also wrap support around that community as well.

Also, I acknowledge that this bill passes within the context of what happened on March 15 in 2019. And again, thoughts to the whānau—our Muslim whānau—down there in Ōtautahi and the rebuilding and the reconnecting that they have had to do and the journey that has been tremendously heavy for them and also for all of us at this particular time. From that, we saw the many recommendations from the royal commission as well. There’s a number of them—there’s round about 44—and to really actually give those recommendations the space that they need, that really takes time. So a lot of the opposition from our perspective comes from that lack of time—what appears to be the haste in this bill. I’m glad that some members around the House are comfortable with the speed of that, but that’s not the same for some of our community—some of the communities that I’m connected with.

I reflect on, I think, in the last sitting, or maybe the one before that, when we passed legislation to speed up the reviewing of the GCSB and the SIS because that was part of the recommendations for the royal commission report, where, as part of due process, it was really important that we dealt with what happened there, in a timely fashion. But it seems to me that we are, in this case, putting the cart before the horse. That’s because there are many questions that the SIS and the GCSB must answer—must answer. One of those questions from me is around the allocation of resources. We hear it all the time from our communities that the authorities have learnt their lessons and now they’re going to be focusing on right-wing extremism and, in particular, the rising tide of white supremacy, but we need to actually see that that is actually happening. We have to see it in terms of the numbers, the amount of time that they are actually spending specifically on those types of individuals and on those groups as well, because often what you find is that you have the talk and then you find out, as happened on March 15, that they were looking completely in the wrong direction—they were looking in the wrong direction. Instead of looking for white supremacists, they were watching our Muslim whānau and they were completely distracted. So in order for us to really get a sense of moving forward with this, we need to actually have some answers to those questions.

I’d like to acknowledge the work of the Justice Committee as well. It was a very heavy kaupapa. I know on a lot of these issues there is consensus. We all want the safety for our families. We all want the safety of our communities. We all want what’s best for all of us living here in this whenua as well. But I am concerned about the balance—the balancing of keeping people safe while also making sure that we uphold human rights. And in order to get that balance, that balance takes time. That balance takes time in order to make sure that we don’t, by mistake, target the wrong audiences and target the wrong communities

We’ve seen this before. If people remember back in 2001, we had the war on terror, the towers went down, and so of course New Zealand jumped on board and passed the 2002 Terrorism Suppression Act. At that time many Māori communities, social justice groups, and environmental groups said, “Hey, if these people don’t find terrorists, they will come looking for us.” and they did. In 2007, we had the Urewera raids, where they raided our whānau in the Ureweras and Ruātoki and across the country as well. They also raided social justice activists and environmental activists as well, and that was because we had not considered the implications of taking something that’s happening internationally in the national context and in the domestic context. And in order to do that, you actually really need to take the communities with you. It’s one thing to listen to them, but it’s another thing to actually walk that journey with them. So I think it’s also really important that we actually do that, and I don’t think that’s happening in this particular case.

Secondly, the new planning or preparation offence has been characterised by some experts as thought crimes—difficult to define in practice or defend against in legal proceedings. The warrantless search and seizure powers that sit with this offence make the risks for human rights abuses even more significant—again, another call for more time. And I do understand that sometimes things are really, really urgent and we’ve got to get things moving and so on and so forth, but if there is some imminent threat, well then there’s a good excuse for us to get to move this thing forward, but if there isn’t, then it’s important that we take our time and get that balance right—make sure that we are not too heavy in one area and not at all doing what we should be doing in another particular area, and make sure that we have all the educational stuff that we need to be wrapped around, which was recommended within the royal commission report as well; doing that, and making sure that we actually hit the marks appropriately.

In terms of one of the suggestions that the erosion of rights is justifiable because of the harm terrorism causes and the public interest in safety, we would like to reiterate the concerns of many submitters that the erosion of these rights affect all of us. We said that counter-terrorism legislation must include adequate human rights protections. Without these, the broad powers this bill confers on agencies may lead to disproportionate surveillance and criminalisation of our communities. So it is in terms of the way that this could potentially undermine social cohesion, potentially leading to unintended consequences—that is the reason why we cannot support this bill. Thank you.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I seek leave of the House, in the first instance, to acknowledge that it’s World Alzheimer’s Day today, and I’d like to just take this opportunity to thank the families and the caregivers of those who look after people with Alzheimer’s and dementia in our communities.

I’m standing today to speak on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill. The ACT Party opposes the passage of this bill due to the process adopted by the Government to progress it at speed. The bill was due to be reported back to the House on 5 November, and we see no clear reason for its passage to be hurried. We recognise the increase in worldwide terrorist attacks, and how we are now more involved in the consequences of terrorist actions, so we view this as an important bill that needs careful consideration. Care must be taken when we start to trade off the provisions intended to increase security of the public against the freedoms and rights of the very people that we’re trying to protect.

We made great progress with the bill, and I would like to thank the Ministry of Justice and Parliamentary Counsel Office for attending to our questions, and the Ministry of Justice for preparing their substantive report in answering the many questions that I had. However, having the liberty of time that should have been afforded this bill, we could have perhaps weighed in on some other matters with more consideration and perhaps even sought further changes.

The Prime Minister announced that there is no concern that another terror attack would be imminent, but rather the Government now wanted to have this bill progress and be done by the end of this month. ACT had argued that we would have been prepared to support a more streamlined process where specific parts of the bill were advanced in order to fix the gaps that had been identified in the national framework, so that we could then spend more time on the rest of the bill and weigh up that much-needed balance between security and impeding on freedoms.

This bill goes beyond the specific events that have occurred. It goes beyond fixing the gaps identified in what was already the rushed legislation of the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002. It goes beyond fixing the mistakes that were made in the 2007 amendment, and we simply cannot justify supporting rushed legislation that advances the wholesale rewriting of our counter-terror legislation. Now, that’s not to say that we’re opposing it for opposition’s sake, because we are not. ACT supported the Government’s Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Amendment Act earlier this year because there was an imminent problem about to emerge that did concern public safety. The differences are that the child sex offender Act was narrow in its scope. It sought to solve a well-defined problem and also had significant sensitivities to it. But this counter-terrorism bill is vast in its scope. It seeks to solve several problems which people have raised concerns of the unintended impacts on. I hope that during the select committee process we actually manage to capture all of the concerns raised, but we are now restricted by a shortened time frame from having the ability to garner feedback from those communities on our changes.

ACT maintains what was stated in the first reading speech, where I said, “While ACT believes that such legislation is justified, the onus is firmly on us elected lawmakers to make sure that the problem the legislation is seeking to solve is well defined, that the provisions are justified, and that we are also balancing infringements on liberty with the needs of suppressing the risks of potential terror [attacks].” In the next paragraph, I’d made a statement about trusting in the robust process, allowing the full time to be set aside for select committee. Such is our distrust in some of the lawmaking processes where speed, for no real reason, is at the heart of how our law is made—at times with errors and to the detriment of others.

As a lawmaker, I take interest in—and ACT believes we should all take an interest in—law that seeks to widen the power of the State and ensure that it is being used well. Rushing this bill’s progress, despite the significant concerns raised by submitters, can risk gaps being left and exploited. That can leave the trade-off between security and freedoms being unbalanced, with executive overreach then being permitted. The risk is always that if provisions are not used well or are ill defined, people who are not intended to be affected by these provisions end up being harmed by them. Those from the licensed firearms community raised concerns about the section that increases the powers of warrantless searches and surveillance. But they should have some relief in the knowledge that officials must have reasonable belief that planning is under way and there is intent to commit a terrorist act, and also in the fact that the warrantless searches should only occur where a court warrant was reasonably unobtainable. This section should not be used as a means of targeting minority or ethnic groups.

Concerns have been raised around the history of our approach to security towards certain communities. Similar concerns have been raised about the potential to lower the bar for what criminal behaviour is and whether this is a credible barometer for a threat of terrorism. To give an example, there is a new section 8, which relates to providing material support in the form of collecting, using, or distributing funds. The Justice Committee have made changes to make it quite clear as to what activities this material support would include, but we’ve used words that aren’t defined for this context, such as “reckless”. It’s used throughout section 8 and subsections (1) through to (2B), where, in paragraph (d) of each, the bill speaks of “intending that the [funds or] material support be used, or knowing that, or being reckless about whether, [they] will be used”. The word “reckless” is one that should cause some concern, because the case law around its use differs depending on where it was used, and therefore there is no defining case law, as it changes depending on its context. I would have liked us to explore this a bit more. It may actually be OK, but I feel we haven’t made it clear for the courts to interpret.

The new section 13AA that speaks to the weapon and combat training was one section where I was particularly interested in its wording, and I have, pleasingly, found that the threshold of an instructor or provider is one of knowledge of the intent of the person being trained. That is very clear, and not as ambiguous as using “reckless”.

ACT commends the work of submitters in raising some of their robust concerns in their submissions, especially the ethnic minority and religious groups that appeared before us speaking of concerns where situations like Operation Eight could occur, and also those who raised concerns about sending money overseas to their families. I hope we’ve managed to allay some of those concerns with the changes that have been suggested. I also hope that we have allayed the concerns of the New Zealand Law Society, the Human Rights Commission, and the Privacy Commissioner.

ACT also commends the work of the officials and the work of the select committee, who strived to deliver workable solutions for all. But, nevertheless, the ACT Party cannot, unfortunately, support the progress of this bill at this stage. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Kia ora, e te Mana Whakawā. Thank you—and a pleasure to rise and speak on this bill. I really want to make a brief contribution, making two points. The first point is that, obviously, the use of the powers in this bill are very much a matter of last resort, and our first resort should always be to strengthen our communities and to make sure that we have an inclusive community which makes extremism—which pushes it out and really strangles and suffocates those thoughts that can lead to the horrific attacks that we’ve seen here in New Zealand in recent times. And in that, I would commend the work done by the Christchurch Invitation, talking about reconnecting, spreading peace, and extending hospitality amongst others.

The second point I’d make is really about just one provision of the bill, and it is an unusual provision. It is the planning and preparation offence. As Andrew Little noted, this goes further than the traditional inchoate offences under the criminal law, such as conspiracy and attempt, in that it prohibits something which isn’t just a thwarted attempt but merely contemplating. But I do want to make it clear that the select committee has done a good job in making it clear that sort of planning to plan is not making a plan; that planning is, in fact, a systemised putting into place a series of steps by which to operationalise a terrorist act. It’s something much more than simply fantasising or dreaming about doing something evil. It is actually taking the first step in operationalising it. So whilst I accept that some parties—the Green Party has concerns around thought crimes, about making thinking about something a crime; I don’t think that that’s the case here. This is an offence which prohibits taking the very first steps, putting in a plan to operationalise a terrorist act, and for that reason, I think the balance between human rights and protecting the public has been struck correctly here. I commend the bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I understand this is a split call. I call the Hon Gerry Brownlee—five minutes.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): I think the final comment made by the member Duncan Webb that this bill does, in fact, strike the appropriate balance between, you could say, human rights but also the right—I’ll take my mask off; sorry, I was getting a bit carried away there—to go about your business freely in our society, and the restraint that has to be on people preventing others from behaving in that very lawful fashion. Everyone got a little bit of a surprise, to say the least, with that supermarket attack at just how easily some of these things can be done. Here you had someone who was on the New Zealand watch list, who was being very closely surveilled by the New Zealand Police, and there was concern about some of what he had been, effectively, planning but no capacity to restrain him under the law. So this particular change, while some might say it can affect the general freedom of New Zealanders to do what they want, to express what they want, to say things without any particular meaning, I think does go right to the heart of the fact that if there is a plan to materially affect the lives of people through the sort of violence that we saw at that New Lynn supermarket, then there should be capacity to restrain people like that. And we can get all concerned about civil liberties, etc., but we live in a world where there are, these days, far too many people using those freedoms to push agendas that are totally anti-freedom.

So the National Party does support this. We think it’s a good idea to change the definition of “terror” to “intimidate”, in some circumstances. There will be many cases where people have suffered through intimidation where there is no actual law broken, but, in fact, their lives are very much constrained by that threat. The other aspect is around the coercion side of it, and whether it is illegal to coerce someone into a violent act. Well, this makes it very clear that it is. I think the Justice Committee have taken the time to hear all of those 82 submissions and to take the concerns that were laid out in those submissions, and the supports that were in there as well, and make recommendations to the House that see the bill back in its current form, and, as it’s presented to the House, we are of a single mind that it should be progressed into law as soon as possible.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call Greg O’Connor—five minutes.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): As someone who had to work with the law a lot in life, often by the time legislation arrived, you thought, “How the heck did this happen? How was it watered down so much? How was it so weak?”, and often it was because there was no context. We should be very lucky, and those that come after us should be very thankful, that we’re able to pursue this legislation now even though it was ready to go before what happened in West Auckland happened, because we have the context. We don’t have to wonder what might happen; we know. We’ve had two outrageous terrorist attacks this year, one of them where the offender was unknown, a failure of the Australian authorities, and one where everything was known; and the one thing that did come out of it was our law wasn’t adequate. So this legislation, purely by luck, is actually right at the right time, the right place, and it will not be watered down.

I’m confident, looking at it, that it will be actually a workable piece of legislation. I see it’s focused on people who are worried about what might happen. Well, think about this: to actually surveil someone, you’ve actually got to have a warrant. You’ve got to go back every 28 days. You’ll have to go back to a High Court judge to get a warrant. Well, as the evidence builds up, at some stage that judge is going to have to decide will he issue another warrant or are we close enough to the offence that actually he’s not going, or she’s not going, to actually issue another warrant: “You need to act, Mr Police Officer, or Mr Agency.” And that may not necessarily be as theoretical a situation as we might say. So I have no hesitation in recommending this legislation.

Also, many people have talked to what happened in that supermarket in West Auckland. Actually, let’s just think how well our agencies operated to be on that spot, how much had to go right, as Mr Brownlee has just pointed out, for those agencies to be there, and how easy it was for that offender, in the very limited time allowed him, to carry out those six stabbings that he did. So, very good work by the agencies, very good piece of legislation, and I think New Zealanders can be assured that, because of the context in which it is going through, it will be a pragmatic, workable piece of legislation, which is more than can be said for much legislation that goes through this House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Harete Hipango: Mr Speaker?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: It’s a Labour Party call, and I’m not sure if the member down there is seeking one or not. Is he?

Ibrahim Omer: Thank you, Mr Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: You’ve got to seek the call.

Ibrahim Omer: Thank you.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yep—Ibrahim Omer.

IBRAHIM OMER (Labour): Salaam alaikum, Mr Speaker. The incident on 3 September and, before that, 15 March reminds us to act. It reminds us to get our act together, to do something about our legislation, to fill in the holes and the gaps that exist in our legislation.

Can I first say something about the 15 March perpetrator and also the LynnMall attack stabber. They both were lone wolves, and they both idolised and were inspired by entities and individuals whose whole purpose is to kill people, and those entities are ISIS and also Anders Breivik, who killed dozens of young people in Norway. Most importantly to me, they both betrayed the people—the people of New Zealand—who welcomed them with open arms.

On the back of these two evil acts, gaps in our laws and legislation must be addressed, and changes are needed. These changes are preparation for a terror act, weapons training or combat training for terror purposes, international travel for terrorist purposes. Unless we address these issues and these gaps, the two incidents won’t be the last. In saying this, we’ve got people who expressed concerns throughout the select committee process, and we acknowledge those concerns. The last thing we want to see is human rights watered down because of this bill. But this bill doesn’t do that.

This bill has been overseen by the Ministry of Justice and other agencies, including Crown Law, and the select committee process. There was enough scrutiny by the public on it. We have to get things right. We’ve got to have a balanced approach between civil rights and also protecting our country from terror actors. So this bill went through enough scrutiny, and I personally have no concerns whatsoever that this is going to erode human rights. While this legislation alone might not stop future attacks, combined with other things, it will keep our country safe. We will allow our agencies to do their job in full capacity.

I’d like to thank the work that the select committee has done, from across all the political parties, and the members of the public that submitted to this bill—those who supported and those who opposed. Today, with this bill passing soon, our country will be safer and our people very assured, feeling that there is a law that is going to protect them, a law that’s effective, and, combined with other things, there is no doubt it’s going to keep us safe. On that note, I commend this bill to the House.

HARETE HIPANGO (National): Kia ora. Thank you. I take this call for the second reading of the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill, and I do so with a sombre note, and first and foremost acknowledge the victims of recent incidents that have struck at the heart of our country, and those recent victims from the incident of the LynnMall attack on Friday, 3 September 2021. Then, of course, our minds turn to Linwood, the Al Noor Mosque, and the mosques in Christchurch on 15 March 2019.

Also, Mr Speaker—you will be aware of this, coming from Whanganui—we had an event, an incident, in Whanganui where one woman was killed as the result of a knife slashing attack, and five others, members of her family, were injured. That wasn’t deemed a terrorist attack as such, but it struck terror at the heart of our community, as these recent events have at the heart of our nation. So this Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill is timely, despite some of the submissions, the contributions that have been made in the House today, requiring further care and consideration and more time to do so. I think the majority view, as well, was espoused in the House this afternoon, that due care, consideration, and time is given, and it is more than timely for this bill to be passed into law, after that careful consideration.

Those of us gathered in the House well know what a second reading is about. I’m always conscious of the people, the members of the public who may be listening, tuned into this, and so I’ll just express that the second reading of this bill is after the first reading puts the bill to the select committee, where there’s been careful scrutiny and due consideration. Accordingly, I acknowledge the members of the select committee who gave service at that time. However, importantly, the officials, who have sat and listened to the full extent of the submissions, and there were, in total—the Justice Committee received and considered 81 submissions and heard evidence from 22 submitters. So the select committee was ably assisted by officials from the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Office of the Clerk providing advice on the bill’s legislative quality, and the Parliamentary Counsel Office assisted with the legal drafting.

I sat on the Justice Committee up until 31 August 2021, and that date, again, coincides with another event, where the New Zealand Government sent a rescue deployment mission of our New Zealand Defence Force to Afghanistan. So the timing of dates and referencing the timeliness—we’re cognisant also that there was a gathering on the parliamentary grounds yesterday of the interpreters from Afghanistan, having given service, and this will correlate to counter-terrorism, and this bill before the House is to address that in the finer detail.

I’ve talked about two particular instances or events that have really been the impetus for the speed of this, but not compromising the quality of this legislation and the bill. So it’s well known that there has been a commission of inquiry, and Minister Little, who is the Minister responsible for leading that commission of inquiry, made reference to the Leader of the Opposition getting it wrong in terms of a specialist counter-terrorism agency and ministerial appointment being set up. I think that’s just debating the semantics.

I have a copy of the inquiry, which was triggered as a result of the 15 March terrorist attack, 2019—that is in Christchurch. That inquiry commenced on 10 April 2019, and it concluded with a report presented to the Governor-General on 26 November 2020. Significantly, the recommendation in that report—and that was recommendation one—was to ensure a Minister is given responsibility and accountability to lead and coordinate the counter-terrorism effort. This bill doesn’t specifically address that. However, it is going to be the precursor, anticipating that that recommendation will be followed through.

The second recommendation, which the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon Judith Collins, made mention of, was to establish a new national security agency. Minister Little indicated that that would be a national intelligence and security agency. So it’s very important that the agencies are implemented so that the tools of the legislation may be applied.

I’m moving on now to just addressing some of the detail around what’s been reported back to the House by the Justice Committee. Of course, it states that this Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill is an omnibus bill. Some would consider that it’s also an ominous bill in the sense that there have been these ominous events in the history of our nation recently, triggering this to occur. The bill’s aim is to improve New Zealand’s counter-terrorism legislation to enable Government—and I’ve talked about the enabling tools with a Minister being appointed and a specialist national security agency being set up—to better prevent and respond to terrorism and associated activities.

The bill would create new offences to criminalise travel to, from, or via New Zealand with the intention to carry out a terrorist act. It would also criminalise planning or preparation for a terrorist act—and we’ve heard members in the House this afternoon speak to the detail of that—and then further criminalise weapons training or combat training for terrorist purposes.

We’ve heard contributions talking about the specifics and getting into the detail of what a terrorist act is, and so, of course, the Justice Committee, after hearing advice and also contemplating many submissions that were made before them in person, would be to amend the definition of what a terrorist act is by changing some of the purpose and intention elements. That gets to the legal construction of the action or the omission in itself.

We’ll hear further contributions at the third reading also. It’s important, however, to give feedback from the commentary of the Justice Committee report, which is proposing amendments. Those amendments total seven clauses specifically, and that’s detailed in the report. I invite members of the public who are listening in to this to go to the Parliamentary Service’s website, and you will be able to obtain a copy of the report and also the details of the bill. However, the contribution this afternoon is to say that the National Party recognises the significance and the importance of this bill, and has, with our submissions and contributions at the select committee stage, supported that, been cognisant of contributions from various interested parties, including legal experts, counter-terrorism experts, humanitarian experts, and those other people and persons concerned about the shaping of this legislation, how it impacts on the shaping and the protection and security of our nation.

In my opening, I made mention, as is appropriate, to the victims of these incidents that have struck at the heart and the security of our nation in recent times. In closing, I wish to acknowledge those persons and personnel who give service to the protection and the security of our nation and our peoples. They often go hidden and unknown, as is the nature of the security and counter-terrorism work that they do. They are a special force, and they are an elite group, and it is appropriate that they too are acknowledged for the service that they give in putting themselves on the front line often indiscreetly, often indiscriminately, but trained with a special force elite skillset that is required to be able to implement such legislation as is being proposed and put to the House this afternoon. I stand in support of the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill on behalf of the National Party.

TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I am standing in support of this bill, as the final speaker in this round on the second reading of the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill. For those people that are listening, know that this has been carefully considered. There have been a lot of organisations, a lot of individuals, putting their effort into making this the best possible legislation that we can to protect New Zealanders. As we’ve seen from the last couple of years, we need to make sure that we’ve got laws that are fit for that purpose—the terrorist killings in Christchurch, those affected on 3 September in West Auckland, to name just a few.

But, without getting too much into the detail of this bill, can I thank all of those people that came forward in their submissions to the committee to ask really pertinent questions about where this legislation was going to leave us as a country. Questions came through such as “Would the changes have prevented the Auckland terrorist attack?” Well, we can’t be absolutely certain about that, but the amendments in this bill—particularly the planning or preparation offence—would be a valuable tool in the Police’s resources to make sure that we’re combatting any potential terror attack or terror offence. It would enable police to be able to disrupt those terrorist activities, particularly during the planning stages, for any kind of future terrorist attack, and also to prevent escalation to a full-blown terror attack here in Aotearoa. “Will the changes make it easier to stop those terrorists?” Yes. As I’ve said, we have, through this legislation, made sure that we’ve widened that range of terrorist activities and potential terrorist threats based on what we know, the best information that we’ve got. “Why are these changes being introduced?” Well, it’s really important that we can respond to the full range of terrorist activities seen today both here in Aotearoa but also overseas as well. It responds to the increasing threat from small groups or lone actors—or lone wolves, as some have called them—as opposed to focusing on large, organised terrorist groups.

There have been some changes made through the drafting of this bill, and, again, I thank all of those people that have submitted—on both sides of the fence, actually. But one of the key considerations kept coming through again about the impact that these changes would have on Māori. Can I say that committee members were absolutely careful to consider that any new or expanded offences would not apply disproportionately to Māori. There’s an overrepresentation of Māori in our justice system, and the bill shouldn’t exacerbate that issue. It was also important to highlight that counter-terrorism laws would help protect vulnerable communities—any vulnerable communities—who may be the target of terrorist activities. So you’ve heard a lot from various speakers this afternoon, so I’ll be another one to add my support, and I commend this to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 98

New Zealand Labour 65; New Zealand National 33.

Noes 22

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

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister of Climate Change) on behalf of the Minister of Transport: I present a legislative statement on the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill.

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

Hon JAMES SHAW: I move, That the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Transport and Infrastructure Committee to consider the bill, and, at the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 2 February 2022.

Our Government has declared a climate emergency for a reason. It is abundantly clear that we must take action urgently to ensure a livable planet for our communities here in Aotearoa and also around the world. Our action must be sufficient to the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Let’s keep in mind that temperatures have already risen approximately 1.2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, so the window of opportunity to turn this around is closing fast. We only need to look at more recent events made more intense by climate change, such as the Buller district and Marlborough regional flooding, to be reminded of just how important and urgent this is. For the sake of our futures and those of our children, we must act now. A collective effort involving every sector of the economy, every community, and every Government agency is needed to tackle the climate crisis.

Transport is a critical part of the challenge and of the solution. We have made progress by investing significantly more in public transport and rail and walking and cycling, but there is much more to do. The clean vehicles bill represents a major step towards decarbonising our transport system, which produces nearly half of New Zealand’s carbon dioxide emissions. The transport sector currently produces 43 percent of New Zealand’s carbon dioxide emissions and 20 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve major emissions reductions, we must clean up the light vehicle fleet in New Zealand, which is currently one of the most polluting and least efficient light vehicle fleets in the OECD.

The policy objective of this bill is to achieve a rapid reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from light vehicles imported into New Zealand by first increasing the supply and variety of zero and low carbon dioxide emission vehicles available for purchase in New Zealand by applying a clean vehicle standard to importers of new and used light vehicles; (b) increasing the demand for zero and low carbon dioxide emission vehicles by providing for a clean vehicle discount scheme, designed to incentivise, through the issue of rebates or the imposition of charges, the purchase of zero and low emission vehicles; (c) informing New Zealanders about vehicle emission levels and fees or rebates in relation to light vehicles offered for sale by requiring vehicle labelling requirements.

This bill does represent a significant change for the motor vehicle industry in Aotearoa, which over the course of this decade will need to significantly adjust the types of vehicles that it imports, advertises, sells, and services. For that reason, it will be important for there to be a full select committee process to consider the bill and its implementation.

In January, we announced the Clean Car Standard, which requires vehicle importers to improve the emissions profile of new and used imported vehicles coming into New Zealand. The clean vehicle standard will regulate the supply of high-emission vehicles by requiring vehicle importers to comply with carbon dioxide emissions targets. This standard will apply to importers of new and used light vehicles. Importers of new vehicles will be required to comply with applicable targets on an annual basis across their fleet of vehicles. Charges will apply where the carbon dioxide emissions across the fleet of imported vehicles exceed applicable targets. Used vehicle importers can apply to comply on an annual basis, but by default will be required to comply when they import each vehicle, and charges will apply where their carbon dioxide account does not have sufficient credits to cover the emissions of the vehicle.

The charges are designed to incentivise meeting emissions targets. A range of flexibility mechanisms are built into the scheme to assist vehicle importers to meet those targets. Targets for vans and utes will be higher than those for cars and SUVs, to account for the difference in engine sizes and the loads that they carry. The standard will apply from 1 January 2023, when vehicle importers will be required to report on the carbon dioxide emissions of the vehicles that they import, and comply with carbon dioxide emission targets that strengthen on an annual basis.

The Clean Car Discount—as opposed to the Clean Car Standard—was launched in July of this year. This scheme offers major incentives to get drivers behind the wheel of an electric vehicle (EV) or a plug-in electric hybrid. Nearly 2,000 imported new and used EVs and plug-in hybrid EVs were purchased in July alone, so we can see that there is clear demand from the public for affordable EVs. This is the most significant action that our Government has taken to reduce emissions in our light vehicle fleet, and one that is expected to prevent more than 5 million tons of dangerous climate change - causing pollution going into our atmosphere.

The full scheme, which will launch in 2022, introduces a charge on high-polluting vehicles, as well as a broader range of rebates to encourage the uptake of electric, hybrid, and low-emission vehicles. This means whatever the new or imported used car that people choose to buy, they are all contributing to the task of cleaning up the vehicles coming into New Zealand.

Consumers who purchase high-emission vehicles will be required to pay a charge in recognition of the increased environmental and economic costs that they are imposing. The revenue from those charges will be used to reward consumers who purchase vehicles that contribute to lowering carbon dioxide emissions through a rebate issued on the first New Zealand registration of the vehicle. Charges and rebates are one-off and will only apply to light vehicles when first registered for use on New Zealand roads, and do not apply to vehicles that are already in the fleet.

Due to the disruption caused by the current Delta outbreak, the expanded Clean Car Discount rebates and fees will begin from 1 April 2022. This will give the industry more time to gear up, and the current rebates on electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles will continue until 1 April. The funding allocated in Budget 2021 will be more than enough to continue to cover the discount until the full regime comes into force.

The amendments in the bill establish the legislative framework for measures designed to influence both the supply and the demand for zero- and low-emission vehicles. The clean vehicles bill will make a huge difference to the livability of our local environment and will deliver real health benefits by significantly reducing the levels of air pollution.

Ultimately, this bill represents a positive step towards reducing carbon dioxide emissions in our light vehicle fleet and signals to New Zealanders that the vehicles that they choose can make a big difference facing the climate emergency head on.

Now, I’d like to commend the Hon Julie Anne Genter for her work in the previous term of Parliament in laying the groundwork for this bill. If I may speak not on behalf of the Hon Michael Wood for a moment but about him, I would also like to commend him for his work in completing this and in bringing this bill to the House at the earliest opportunity. Now, back again on behalf of the Hon Michael Wood, I commend the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill is a pipedream from a Minister or two that have some illusion of how a market works and some misunderstanding of how this bill will actually work in practice. Worse than that, it is a direct attack on the most vulnerable New Zealanders that will have to pay through the nose for this bill. This is politics of the elite for the elite, and it will hurt the people that very much are the ones that need to be looked after in the transition to a modern climate change economy and how we undertake transport. We all understand there will be change. We all understand that there will be people moving to more electric vehicles, and we don’t stand in the way at all. But we do not want a Government that sets rules that are impractical and can never work and will fail. More importantly, they will cost New Zealanders before they have worked out they have failed.

This bill is a disgrace for what it is going to do to hard-working Kiwis. The Motor Industry Association—if anybody hasn’t read a press release that begs a Government like that press release, read it. It says here that this “has demonstrated an appalling lack of understanding of how to effectively reduce emissions”. It says, also, “the targets were a nasty surprise.” They were unexpected. “There is no obvious rationale and it seems it is a revenue gathering exercise for New Zealand to have targets that are tougher than other jurisdictions like Europe.” This is at a time when nobody speaks up against this Government, and yet the Motor Industry Association has slammed them for what is, effectively, a tax grab on middle New Zealanders, and it will never work.

Now, when we have the Minister there, he did—it was a rapid reduction. Well, he has this vision that will change the New Zealand transport sector overnight. That will not happen. He was very careful to mention the word “charges” with the most gentle of breath and not talk about what that actually involves, because that will be a 15 to 20 percent increase on light vehicles, and that’s not larger vehicles; that’s basically everything over a Suzuki Swift that has that potential of that 15 to 20 percent increase in cost. That is what they are going to do to New Zealand consumers.

He talked about a significant change. Well, it is significant and it will hurt our people. Half the cars in New Zealand come from overseas in the sense that they are imported as a second-hand car. How are we going to get the amount of fleet of cars that they are talking about when there’s less than 200,000 electric vehicles (EVs) in Japan? Now, how are they going to achieve these goals? How are they practically going to see that the market will respond? Because when he talked about the market going out and buying 2,000 EVs last July, that’s because they knew they were getting a discount. If they bought a non-EV car, they’d have to be paying more next year, so they were getting in before. That is called “the market reaction”.

The market reaction to this will be different from what the Minister expects because this applies to cars that are new or used that are coming into New Zealand. What will that market reaction mean for the most vulnerable New Zealanders? The most vulnerable New Zealanders will hold on to the cars they have. They will repair them constantly. We will see gas-guzzling cars on our roads for the next 20 years that could have been taken off these roads. They will be the unsafe cars that people in vulnerable communities will continue to use. They will be the ones that use petrol and diesel because they won’t have the ability to take advantage of these credits or these payments that are going to be made to them. They are in the real world, where they have to buy the cheapest car they can get and they are going to repair that cheapest car they can get for as long as they can. That is what will happen. We won’t have this substantial great change that the Labour Party and the Green Party envisage in their dreams. Let’s look at the practise of reality: people will keep their old cars longer and they will do less for the economy and they will do less for our emissions as a country because we will be keeping those older cars. This will backfire on this Government.

We know that’s how the market operates. They do not understand how things change when people see structures that are put in place by Government that distort a market. This is a classic example of the Labour and Greens knowing better, and they think they can change the rules. But the distortion will be the opposite of what would actually happen if we enabled people to take up new technology, if we enable people to look at what the provision of that actually is as well. How is that going to work with the providers that actually import those cars? All the responsibility is on them under this bill. But we don’t actually know what’s in this bill yet, because all those costs are in regulation and the regulations haven’t been set. So it’s great for this Minister to say, “Oh, we can go to select committee and have a full process.” It will be meaningless because the Minister sets the regulations and the regulations will not be in select committee. So we can debate till the cows come home what we think the cost will be, but we will never know until we see those regulations. And those regulations, if they’re going to be substantial, if they’re going to be significant, if they’re going to be a rapid reduction, then they will hurt New Zealanders more than they will ever see.

At least sometimes the Labour Government and the Greens have enabled people to see what’s coming their way. This time they’re hiding it behind regulation. Be up front. Put those regulations out now so that people can submit on them if we’re such a decent, kind, and caring Government. Do that. Show people what they’re actually going to be paying, because when you’re paying 15 to 20 percent, that is a lot of money for vulnerable New Zealanders. That’s the reality of what will happen under this bill. Not only that, it’s going to force those hard-working Kiwis that can’t use public transport because they actually have to travel to a job at 5 o’clock in the morning across town in Auckland or wherever in New Zealand—they actually need to be able to carry some tools. They need to be able to have a trailer with their gear on the back of it. They need to actually have a ute for their business. They won’t have that opportunity.

The Minister says in one of his comments in the papers, “Every 75ks on average, there’s an EV charging port.” Well, that’s on average; we don’t actually know through the whole country. You can go more than 75 kilometres through most of this country and not have anything like that. They are convenient with the truth because they are trying to present an angle that is not actually the reality for most New Zealanders. Most New Zealanders have to get in a car to get to work. Most New Zealanders need to get in the car to go do the way they live their life. Most Kiwis that are working have a vehicle that actually helps them work, like a ute. Effectively, under this legislation, it’s basically going to stop people having a ute unless they have to pay a big tax to this Government. That is their intention. It is a tax grab to change people’s use of vehicle.

Now, that’s fine if you think you can all cycle and walk to work, and you can all take your tools and you can all take your concrete mixer and cycle to work with that. The reality is that’s not going to happen. It’s not going to be that way. The practicality is somewhat different. The practicality is that Kiwis live in a country which is spread out. The practicality is that Kiwis live in a country where we do have a lot of used imported vehicles. The practicality is that we are in a country that hasn’t got the EV charging stations all across the country that some might think we have. The practicality is that New Zealanders generally have reasonably low incomes, and they are exactly the people that this Government purports to represent, and they are exactly the people that will be hurt by this legislation.

The ultra left-winging sort of academic Labour voter is going to be fine. They’ll all be able to have an EV in Kelburn and drive to the university and drive home. That’s going to be fine. They’ll be fine. What about the worker that’s in East Auckland that has to go to West Auckland to work? How’s that going to happen? They’re not going to have an EV that’s going to do that. They can’t afford that. They need to actually have a practical vehicle. They’ve got a second-hand Japanese import; that’s what they’ve got now. And what are you going to do? Make them have that for the next 20 years. Hold those people back, hold our country’s ability back to actually achieve environmental gains. The Treasury even said that this bill has dubious elements of what it will achieve environmentally. They’ve even told you that, it’s the official advice. The industry have told the Government; they didn’t listen. The public have told the Government they don’t want a ute tax. But they have gone ahead, but the market will show them the folly of their ways and people will go out there and they will make this worse—

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

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): I can just imagine that member—the Hon David Bennett—standing in the Senate in the late 1890s in the United States when the horses were being phased out! The reason the horses were being phased out is that New York, like many of the other cities around the Northern Hemisphere—London, Chicago—were becoming absolutely overrun with horse excrement, not that much different perhaps than—I won’t go there, as a member of my committee over there, but I think anyone will get what I’m saying. However, also, dead horses were left lying around. So, essentially, those cities were being absolutely overcome with pollution.

Move forward 120-odd years, which obviously that member has yet to do, and we are in a similar situation worldwide. Anyone who would look at what is happening around our globe, locally here—look at any country—and look at the incredible changes in climate brought about by the large increases in carbon dioxide. Now, anyone who thinks we can’t do anything about that, that we can sit here and tsk, tsk about it but not do anything is living in the 1890s, because we simply have to do it.

Now, as the chair of the select committee, which will include that member, that will be considering this legislation, I’m looking forward to putting some science behind—and the submitters who will come and see us—the commentary which we have heard. We will look at the legislation and how it is going to be enforced if in fact it is passed, because the select committee process is one where we will look at how this will work. We will look at how it’s going to impact on different parts of New Zealand. Rather than have the rhetoric that has, unfortunately, been the mainstay of this debate so far, we’ll actually get to hear from people who understand a little bit more about how this will work—for example, those who will be, essentially, administering this will be the car importers, and the incentives for them will be to bring in lower-emitting vehicles. Well, that’s a fairly smart piece of legislation, and you make sure you do involve those who are going to be most impacted.

I actually have a lot of confidence in my fellow Kiwis, particularly entrepreneurs, because they will adapt, like we have adapted to all those things that we’ve had to change, or change will be imposed on us. I say “change imposed on us”. I recently heard a presentation around climate requirements, about changes that are being imposed particularly on farming in Europe. Now, one would say that you’ve got to be careful because some of those changes, yes, will make farming a little more expensive, some aspect of it. But what they won’t do is they will not export those problems; in other words, what they won’t do is allow the production to go offshore, or, where it is offshore, nobody who is not adhering to their requirements will be able to import food into Europe or into the UK, likely—obviously, different places now.

So if we don’t comply, if we consider to keep our heads in the sand, to keep our heads in the 1890s, then, quite frankly, those who will suffer will be our farmers, will be our primary producers who will struggle to get produce into Europe, the very place we’re currently looking for a free-trade agreement. So those who don’t understand that: doing nothing is not an option, doing nothing for the climate is not an option, and doing nothing economically for New Zealand’s ability to continue to trade with the world is not an option. I hear the previous speaker talking about how we’re going to be worse off than Europe; the UK and Norway are going to be banning petrol vehicles in a fairly short time. I’ve looked through the legislation, and I don’t think we’re quite there yet.

In fact, nobody is banning utes. If anyone still wishes to have a ute, they can; they will just actually pay for the privilege of doing it. In fact, it may well be like a farmer who I spoke to at Fieldays who was lamenting the fact that his next ute was going to cost him extra. However, I asked him what sort of vehicle his wife drove, and she actually drives a hybrid. So I did point out to him that he was actually going to be better off next time they changed both vehicles. So, classic carrot and stick, which this bill is about.

So I am looking forward to having this at select committee. In its current form, in the spirit of it, I commend it to the House.

PENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a tax. This is a redistribution of funding from middle and lower income New Zealand to wealthier New Zealand. This is those who can’t afford an $80,000 electric vehicle (EV), and it’s taking money from them to assist the wealthy to buy their expensive EV. This will hurt middle New Zealanders, it will hurt families, and it will particularly hurt rural people, who have to have cars to get around. They do not have the option of public transport. The geography of Southland is the same size as the country of Switzerland. You cannot get around Southland easily in an EV. People in Southland have to take their children to their sports practices, to their sports games, to their music after school. They have to be able to take their family around in a reliable car that they know can get them there and back, and this is going to cost them extra. This is happening at the time when cost of living is increasing, so the middle New Zealand family is going to be paying more for their housing, whether it’s more for their mortgage repayments—higher interest—or more for their rent. They’re going to be paying more for their food, they’re going to be paying more for their petrol, and they’re going to be paying more for a vehicle to get them safely around.

The Motor Industry Association, as my colleague the Hon David Bennett has said, do not support this bill. They have said that it has an appalling lack of understanding of how to effectively reduce emissions. They are saying that it ignores well-thought-out and considered advice from industry. And this would have to be what we are seeing over and over again from this Government: ignoring the advice, the considered thinking, from industry and from people on the ground. I would have said from my experience running a business that when you are trying to embark on change, you try and take people with you and you try and surround yourself with experts and people who will be living the consequences of your change, and you try and take notice of them. But this Government, which is seriously lacking in expertise and experience, has chosen to ignore the advice of their own advisers, as well as those in industry. And this is becoming a pattern, whether it’s in education, health, water, or, now, this Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill.

The Motor Industry Association has said that it will increase car prices by 15 to 20 percent. So if we look at a family car of around $40,000, that’s an extra $8,000. Each year we import around $5 billion worth of vehicles. That is about a billion-dollar tax grab with this legislation. So be very sure that we understand this legislation is about a tax that will take money from the middle and lower income New Zealand and redistribute it to the wealthy. Labour has said that the highest-emitting vehicles will be taxed to subsidise EVs and hybrids, but if you look at the Minister’s Cabinet paper, the table illustrating a pathway forward, by 2028 the humble Suzuki Swift will be taxed. A hybrid RAV4 will be taxed. In fact, any family vehicle aside from an EV will be taxed.

National is also opposed to the Clean Car Standard in this bill. It just goes too far. The target is unrealistic and it would take us ahead of Europe. This doesn’t make sense. We are not a producer of vehicles. We can’t get ahead of the producers of vehicles. It would require a 38 percent improvement in fuel efficiency in just three years. And where car importers can’t meet that target, they will be heavily fined, and they will have to pass that on to their customers.

Now, this is about trying to reduce emissions, and the bill was introduced today to the House by the Minister for the Environment, James Shaw. You would have to say, today, how did he feel about introducing what is going to be a tax on middle and lower income New Zealand to reduce emissions, when he and nine others from New Zealand are going to head over to a conference in Scotland to reduce emissions—to discuss reducing emissions—and, by the way, take up those managed isolation and quarantine places when they come back. Where ideology is driving the bill, the unintended consequences are not looked at, and my colleague the Hon David Bennett has pointed out a number of those unintended consequences. Those middle-income New Zealanders, those families who cannot afford an EV, will hold on to their vehicles longer. They will be gas-guzzling vehicles and they will be less safe vehicles. So it’s really important, when we’re looking at a bill like this, that we consider those unintended consequences and what they are going to mean to our families in New Zealand.

It is really unfortunate to be bringing this bill up in the House at this time, when so many families in our country are going through such difficult times, when people are at home trying to keep their children schooled, trying to do their own work from home, or, even worse, not working and not knowing if they will have a job to go back to or a business still there. It’s not a time when they can concentrate on something like this. It’s not a time when they can think through the consequences of legislation like this. And it’s a real concern that we’re going to have people having to try and think about putting submissions in on a bill when they are going through so many other issues in their life, when they are trying to think of the ways in which they are going to cope with the increases in the cost of living, as well as increases like this that will be coming at them.

National is opposed to this bill. We believe that it is not the time to be putting extra costs on to middle New Zealand and on to our families who can’t avoid them. We believe it is not the time to be rewarding those who can afford an EV at the cost of those who can’t. It is not a redistribution of wealth that we think is fair, and it is not something that should be foisted on to middle New Zealand, lower-income New Zealand at this time. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was a little bit nervous about the mask taking-off; I managed to pull it off, I think. It’s a real pleasure to be in this House today and to actually speak on this bill. I’m surprised to be speaking on this bill as it’s certainly not my select committee, but it is an interesting and important piece of legislation, the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill.

I’d like to acknowledge the Hon Michael Wood and also the Hon Julie Anne Genter for the work that has gone into the creation of this bill. Also, I’d like to recognise and acknowledge the work that has happened from the Climate Change Commission report in regards to climate change, climate emissions, and what the vehicle emissions are doing to our environment. It’s an omnibus bill, sir; one that will achieve rapid reduction in carbon dioxide emission from light vehicles imported into New Zealand. It’s going to do this by doing three things: by increasing the supply and the variety of vehicles, by providing for a clean vehicle discount, and also informing New Zealanders about the types of emissions of the vehicles that they buy. So it is an incredibly important piece of legislation.

I have sat on the Environment Committee helping pass legislation on ending new offshore gas and oil exploration—

Hon Member: That was a disaster, too.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: —the zero carbon Act, and the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Reform) Amendment Act—

Hon Member: How much gas have we got now? How much coal are we burning?

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: So it’s incredibly important. I understand the science that sits behind what we are trying to do; not about the rhetoric that is coming from the Opposition about the terrible, terrible thing that will happen. Climate change is happening, and this is something that we need to make a difference for.

So I want to talk a little bit about the fact that transport produces 21 percent of all of the emissions that we produce. Seventy percent of all transport emissions are from light vehicles. There is a definition in this bill that talks about what a light vehicle is—that’s 3.5 tonnes or lighter. So that will cover a whole series of vehicles out there. It is very useful to have that definition so people are able to participate and understand. We are behind the rest of the OECD. We have a shocking record, actually. I’m just looking at my records here. Two-thirds of all emissions come from light vehicles. So that’s those vehicles under 3.5 tonnes. The difficulty is, of course, that climate change is real and is happening and we can talk and talk and talk about how terrible it is, or we can act. And that is what we are doing: we are acting in order to change the way people think.

I would like to talk to and remind the Opposition to have a look at the climate change report that has come out. There is some really good science that sits behind what we are doing here. Check out page 88 of the report. These are the most eminent minds in this country and, in fact, some international minds who are looking at the science as to why we are doing this, and it is incredibly important that we actually follow through on what we say we will do.

It is about investing in infrastructure, it’s about investing in behaviour change, and it’s about investing in technology, and this is talked about in that report by using “Avoid, Shift, Improve” hierarchy. So these are things that we need to do. An electric vehicle (EV), even being created and built from scratch, will still save a person $7,000 to $9,000 worth of petrol costs in a lifetime. It is still 60 percent better. An EV is absolutely the way for us to go, and I am very proud to stand here today to talk about the science and not the rhetoric, and to commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): It gives me great pleasure to rise in support of the first reading of this legislation. Climate change is the single biggest issue facing all of us, our children, and our children’s children. I see the Hon David Bennett shaking his head—obviously a climate denier; won’t surprise anyone, but we must act urgently in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions if we want to have a chance of a habitable planet even this century. I really doubt that the Opposition is aware of how urgent and pressing the risks are. It is true that in New Zealand we have been less touched by climate catastrophes than other parts of the world, but it is still affecting New Zealand. We have floods and we have droughts on a more increased basis than what we used to because of human-caused climate change.

What most New Zealanders want is to be a constructive part of the solution. New Zealanders have always put up their hands when there is a global challenge to say, “Yes, we can be part of the solution.” Most New Zealanders do want transport options that aren’t reliant on increased fossil fuels, and yet our light fleet, which is the cars, utes, and vans that people use every day, are responsible for the majority of our greenhouse pollution from transport, and it’s been the fastest growing sector over the last decade. So if we’re serious about pulling our weight in the global fight against a climate catastrophe, we must be acting with urgency to reduce the pollution that is coming from our light fleet—that’s cars, utes, and vans that people use every day. Especially if we think agriculture needs to have a slower pathway for reduction, that means we have to do even more in transport.

Of course, it is the case that mode shift—enabling people to do things besides use a private car for every single trip they make—is part of the solution: making our towns and cities more accessible, friendly, safe for walking and cycling, convenient and affordable to use public transport. But the truth is people are still going to need cars for some trips, and that’s why it’s really important that the cars that we’re importing from now—from 2021 or 2022—are not increasing emissions and locking in 20 years of high emissions.

As it happens, New Zealanders have been really let down by previous Governments—in particular, the last National Government—because there was a plan to bring in fuel economy standards in 2008, and the Hon Steven Joyce nixed that plan, and so we lost time in this race, because the fuel economy standards, had they been brought in in 2008 and flowed through in 2009 when it was planned, we would have more efficient cars on our roads, we would have spent less money on imported petrol, and we’d have less air pollution. Unfortunately, the National Government was ideologically opposed to sensible policies that have been implemented in every OECD country bar Russia, New Zealand, and Australia. And even in Australia, the conservatives are looking at voluntary fuel economy standards.

Now, the reality is that these two policies together, the research shows, are the single most effective way to influence the makeup of the cars that are coming into the country, and we all need to be part of the solution. We need everybody buying a new to New Zealand car to make some contribution. And what this does is it incentivises the vehicle manufacturers and importers to bring in more efficient vehicles, and that helps consumers, because it means consumers have better choices available to them that will cost them less to run.

The Clean Car Discount is an important part of that. And, in fact, the car industry argued really hard to have the Clean Car Discount alongside the Clean Car Standard, because it helps them ensure that they’re able to sell these lower emissions vehicles, but also that they’re able to prioritise getting those more efficient vehicles to New Zealand, and that’s part of this debate that I haven’t heard much from the Opposition. In truth, having these policies means that car companies can prioritise lower emissions vehicles for the New Zealand market, because we’re in competition for these vehicles with countries like the UK, who actually have much higher standards than we do and they have more price incentives than we do.

So up until now, it’s been difficult. And I remember when National was in Government and the Hon Simon Bridges was showing up to every photo op with an EV charger that the Government had not funded—like a privately funded EV charger—trying to show that he was pro-EV, when the Government was doing nothing to support a transition to low emissions vehicles, that Nissan decided not to offer their most cost effective brand new EV in the New Zealand market because there wasn’t sufficient incentive or support to sell them here. So the reality is that by bringing in these policies, suddenly there is an incentive to bring in not just EVs—it’s not just about EVs; it’s about lower emissions vehicles. France has had a very similar policy for two decades now and it’s been incredibly successful.

The research shows that the benefits massively outweigh the costs, and the benefits are literally to the owners of the vehicles. So any additional cost—and, frankly, there’s no evidence there will be additional cost—is offset by massive savings throughout the economy because New Zealand businesses and households are spending less money on imported oil to make the very same trips. And so that helps our current account balance and it just saves people a lot of money. So that is why, if you were looking at one of the most cost effective or beneficial economic ways to reduce emissions, these two policies are it, because normally you look at a marginal abatement cost and you’d say, “We want a lower cost way of reducing emissions.” The marginal abatement cost for the “feebate” scheme alone is estimated at between negative $71 and negative $332 per tonne of CO2. Now, what that means is that it doesn’t cost us money to reduce carbon emissions through this policy. We get savings. So we’re reducing emissions and we’re saving money, and that money is money in people’s pockets that they can then spend in the New Zealand economy.

Now, these two policies, when we looked into it and we said, “What’s the most effective way we could start to influence the vehicles coming into New Zealand?” not to just cut off all high emissions vehicles but to offer people more choice and to provide price incentives that are fair—these two policies had the evidence behind them because they’ve been implemented in almost every developed country and successful economy. Places like California have had strict vehicle emissions standards and it actually results in benefits to the economy. And I know that’s really hard for National to get their head around, because they don’t understand the economy very well, but the truth is that if you go look at the evidence—and I’m sure we’ll hear from it; we’ll hear from the experts at the select committee—this is the single most effective way, literally the only way, we’re going to start influencing the makeup of the fleet.

I talk to New Zealanders all the time. I talk to builders—my brother’s a builder. He bought a second-hand EV van for his building business before the discount, so he was gutted that he missed out on that, but I talked to other builders who say they want those options, and these policies are ultimately necessary for them to have these options, because every other country in the world is acting on this, and if New Zealand doesn’t, we will become the dumping ground for the most polluting, inefficient vehicles, which means that New Zealand businesses and households will be spending more money to do their business and we’ll have higher emissions, which is a really bad outcome. So I really do struggle with the Opposition’s arguments on this.

I just want to briefly touch on the equity issue. Now, it might come as a huge surprise to those in the National Party but the most vulnerable New Zealanders are not buying new to New Zealand cars, and you are hugely, hugely out of touch if you think the people paying the fees on this are vulnerable New Zealanders. The most polluting vehicle that will attract the highest fee is a Land Rover or a Range Rover, which retails for over $100,000. The average double-cab ute sold in this country is sold for over $80,000. The whole point of brand new ones—I mean, obviously, the ACT Party and the National Party don’t understand this policy. They’ve brought their own misleading information they’ve put out.

David Seymour: The average double-cab ute?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Oh, the average brand new double-cab ute. Yes, we have the information.

David Seymour: Is the member going to stand by that? Yeah, the average double-cab ute is over $80,000?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Yeah, I will show you the graph—I will show you the graph of the sales that we have from Ford Rangers, which is the most common one, yes.

David Seymour: The average—the average double-cab ute—over $80,000?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: The majority—the majority of them are sold for over $80,000.

David Seymour: Oh, the majority of them. Is it the average or the majority?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Well, the majority are sold for over $80,000.

Now, I won’t bother responding to all of this. Look, I would love to get into this, but the truth is this is a fair policy. It means that those people who need high emitting vehicles can help contribute to the reduction of emissions and still get the high emissions vehicle they need, but altogether we’re working together to respond to our climate commitments.

Dr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party and in particular Simon Court, my colleague and our transport spokesperson, to speak on this bill. I know that Simon has done a tremendous amount of sector engagement and stakeholders are desperately trying to get their voices and concerns heard by the Government.

In simple terms, this bill introduces two interventionist policies. One introduces emissions standards to be imposed at the border and the other seeks to use subsidies to change consumer behaviour via a carrot-and-stick approach. There is an aim of somehow increasing supply from manufacturers offshore despite our lack of global competiveness and limited wholesale purchasing power.

This is also a great bill, as people have said, for ensuring that older vehicles stay on our roads for significantly longer due to the disincentive for purchasing new—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Order!

Dr JAMES McDOWALL: —more fuel-efficient vehicles—

SPEAKER: Sorry. The member has had her chance to have a speech. She may be being provoked, but she doesn’t have to react.

Dr JAMES McDOWALL: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I can finally hear myself! So this is also—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member was in the House earlier when I made it very clear to a senior member that one does not comment on Speakers’ rulings: don’t.

Dr JAMES McDOWALL: Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is also a great bill for ensuring that older vehicles stay on our roads for significantly longer due to the disincentive for purchasing new, more fuel-efficient cars that have lower emissions. Due to the lack of supply, importers have few, if any, options to change behaviour and avoid the costs between now and the late 2020s, so it is simply a tax grab.

So I went on the internet and I found this [Holds up picture], and I hope someone gets this reference. [Interruption] So—yeah, very nice. That’s the new Hyundai IONIQ 5 electric vehicle (EV), which I’m told arrived in my local dealership yesterday. It is good to hear that the three-month delay in getting deliveries of EVs seems to be improving for the time being, at least for the lucky few. If you go for the long-range option, which will make it about 70 percent of the way from Auckland to Wellington—which is really good, I’ll add, but you still might want to make a bit of a weekend of it—it’ll set you back just $10 shy of $90,000.

Now, we’ve got nothing against EVs; they’re forever improving and are a marvel of innovation and capitalism. After all, the automotive manufacturing industry in North Korea doesn’t produce a single EV. But given the nature of the automotive market, we’ve got to be very careful about interventions and unintended consequences on supply and wholesale pricing, not to mention the lack of fairness in making the less fortunate subsidise other people’s fancy cars. Even Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla—speaking of fancy cars—has spoken out against subsidies and their propensity for creating false prices in the market.

These policies will have little bearing on the purchasing behaviour of the wealthiest New Zealanders, but it will almost certainly drive up costs for lower-income families, tradespersons, and those in our rural communities who have few alternatives, if any. It will also have no material impact on supply, which is patchy at best. The costs of a new or used petrol diesel vehicle could increase by between $10,000 to $15,000 between now and 2027, and that’s before any allowance for manufacturer price increases.

EVs and low-emission vehicles, incentivising demand with cash rebates when they are not even available to meet demand, has already caused wholesale price increases in Japan. On Suzuki’s website, they state the following: “From July 1st, the Clean Car Discount programme will come into effect … Suzuki’s affordable range of vehicles do not qualify for a rebate”. I’ll say that again: “Suzuki’s affordable range of vehicles do not qualify for a rebate”. I think this simple statement really highlights the Government’s priorities here. If you want an affordable car, you’re going to get the stick.

There is also a risk that the overall supply of EVs to New Zealand may be reduced for the next five to eight years as we compete with Australia for a relatively small number of vehicles available in the right-hand drive configuration, as also used in Japan, the UK, and in many other countries. Manufacturers currently supply new vehicles from factories configured in the 2015 to 2020 period, and those models will continue to be produced until around 2028 to 2030. Design for new production configurations is under way by manufacturers across the world, with higher production of EVs due to enter the new vehicle market in greater volumes from the late 2020s. This means that second-hand EVs will be only available to New Zealand from those models from the mid-2030s, around five to six years after they are sold as new.

Regarding the emissions policy in this bill, New Zealand has a hard cap on carbon emissions, so these regulations will not reduce a single tonne of carbon that cannot be emitted somewhere else. Carbon emissions from petrol and diesel are already paid for at the point of production through the emissions trading scheme, where units currently cost in the range of $53 to $75 per tonne of carbon emitted. This already adds between $9 to $11 to every tank of petrol or diesel. So New Zealand is on track to meet the climate commissioner’s projection that a price of over $50 per tonne would incentivise New Zealand businesses to reach net zero carbon by 2050.

The policy interventions in this bill will require a significant amount of Government regulation in administration and will impose a compliance time and costs to businesses. Government agencies will be required to administer the large rebate scheme alongside the Clean Car Standard at the border, with powers to audit issue credits and fees for importers and requirements for record-keeping.

The winners will be those high-income earners, as I’ve said, and the losers will be everyone else looking to get some wheels, whether it’s a highly fuel-efficient and low-emissions small car or a ute being used for legitimate or illegitimate purposes. So, personally, I think my daily drive, which uses about 5 litres per 100 kilometres, easily meets long-term carbon dioxide targets in Europe and Asia, costs brand new about 30 percent of most EVs, and even has an old-fashioned manual gearbox, is still a perfectly reasonable car to purchase and drive in 2021. Innovation in the free market is wonderful, but, sadly, technological advancements in the present day are often ignored.

ACT is opposing this bill because it is a tax grab, it is grossly unfair, and is based on pie-in-the-sky thinking about the ability of manufacturers to supply the sheer quantity of EVs needed to achieve a rapid reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, not to mention at a price point that makes it a reasonable option for everyday New Zealanders. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Before I call Angela Roberts, I just want to make two comments. One is that we’ve got a couple of members who have been having a chat down the front and they—again, there’s a question of judgment about volume with masks on, and it’s been a bit noisier than would normally be reasonable, so if people do need to have a chat, then go out and be socially distanced in the lobby is something I would ask for.

The second point I’d make, and I understand that the member was working from a draft that could well have been prepared for someone else or by someone else, but I have noticed today a tendency for people to lapse back into reading speeches. While I wasn’t going to interrupt the member in that circumstance, I am going to issue a general warning: if people do it, I will take it as a sign that they have got nothing else original to say and we will move onto someone else.

ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Thank you. As we’ve heard, this bill intends to help this nation move towards a rapid reduction in our emissions. We are ambitious and we want a zero-carbon economy. Light vehicles really are the low-hanging fruit. We’ve already heard the numbers, they account for almost two-thirds of our transport emissions. So it is quite right that we aim to incentivise a shift in our behaviour in the use of these vehicles. We’ve seen a 93 percent increase in emissions in the last 30 years from this part of our economy alone. We need to really think about the significant impact it has had, and how we can change it. This bill starts to really focus our mind and our economy and incentivise some great behaviours.

What it does is it incentivises an increase in supply and an increase in the demand for low-emissions vehicles. It uses one of those—quite well proven, in fact, if you’ve done your homework—incentives: a simple reduction in cost barriers, OK? For those New Zealanders who do want to play their part in reducing emissions and they really want to find a way to take up the options, that will become increasingly available to them because of the incentives provided with this market intervention.

We do need to signal to the global economy that we are open for business. We support the import of low-emissions vehicles. We support the broader investment in research and development on biofuels and hydrogen-powered vehicles; not just electric and hybrid. We want the world to know that we are keen and we are open for business. It’s really important that those vehicles we hear about going elsewhere in the world can actually come here, because we will buy them, and we’re going to make it easier for New Zealanders to buy them.

It also adds certainty to the market, not just to those who are wanting to invest in the production but—as we’ve heard across the House—the entrepreneurship that is going on around the planet. We want to make sure that we’ve got certainty in the New Zealand market so that the economy will see investment in the charging stations and all of the other pieces of infrastructure that are required for us to shift to a low-emissions economy.

Our 2025 new vehicle average carbon dioxide emission targets are achievable. The sky is not falling. Our emissions are currently 171 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre, and we plan to reach a target of 112.6 by 2025. These targets have already been met in other jurisdictions. It is possible. We are ambitious, but it’s not pie in the sky; it’s already been done elsewhere.

Further to that, countries like the United Kingdom and Norway have already declared that they will stop the sale of petrol and diesel vehicles between 2025 and 2030. So we need to move quickly to ensure we don’t become a dumping ground for the vehicles that nobody else on the planet wants or needs.

I also want to push back against the claim that this legislation will penalise middle New Zealand—or rural New Zealand. I’m really pleased that people have observed that there are many of us who cannot do our bit for the zero-carbon economy by catching a bus to school or to work or to the doctor. So what we need is access to low-emission vehicles. Most of the farmers I know—most of my neighbours—cannot afford a new, imported vehicle. Most of us are actually replacing our second-hand vehicle with another second-hand vehicle. And so what we will be doing is we will be pleased to see the potential when we replace our second-hand vehicle in a few years’ time, that there will actually be options, and they will be affordable because somebody else has already imported them into the country. By the time I can afford to replace my current rig—my current four-wheel drive—it will be something that I will be able to afford, and my neighbours down the road, in my rural district, will be able to afford. If we don’t bring these vehicles in, they will not be accessible to middle New Zealand, to our families, and to our rural communities. We need to be ambitious, we need to set standards, and we need to make it possible for people to bring these vehicles into the market.

I’d just like to finish off—people talk about thinking about our most vulnerable New Zealanders. Well, I hear from young New Zealanders every day—even though I’m no longer in the classroom discussing economics—and they remind me every day that we need to stand up and be ambitious for them. They are the vulnerable New Zealanders. We need to create a future. I’m really looking forward to this bill going to the select committee so that those concerns that have been brought forward can be addressed; that we can move rapidly and effectively and equitably to a zero-carbon economy. We have to do it for our young people, for those who will be going on strike on Friday. We can, we should, and we will. I commend this bill to the House.

Debate interrupted.

Speaker’s Rulings

COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill—Reprinting of Bill

SPEAKER: I just want to do a quick ruling, members, before I call the next member. I want to inform the House about the reprinting of a bill introduced today. The COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill was introduced today, but a bill with that title has already been introduced into this Parliament. Therefore, I have ordered the bill be reprinted with the title “COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill (No 2)”. I apologise to the House for the errors that have occurred resulting in this having to happen.

Overseas Investment (Exempt Investment from OECD Countries) Amendment Bill

Postponement

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. After discussion with all parties on behalf of a member who is in Auckland for COVID reasons, I seek leave of the House for the Overseas Investment (Exempt Investment from OECD Countries) Amendment Bill, in the name of Damien Smith, to be held over until further notice from the Business Committee.

SPEAKER: We have dealt with a very similar matter at the Business Committee today, and members are generally very cooperative. So is there any objection to that occurring? There appears to be none, and I’m assuming that we’ll bring it back. We’ll talk to the Business Committee about the timing of bringing it back. Does that sound right? OK?

David Seymour: Just waiting. Yep—as soon as we know the alert level.

SPEAKER: There is agreement.

Bills

Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Debate resumed.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m not sure that last member, Angela Roberts, could have put it much better, actually. She put a very good case for why this bill is totally unnecessary and, actually, doesn’t help the situation at all. And I want to start by touching on the impact it has on rural New Zealand. The member said that there’s no public transport options. Well, actually, that’s exactly right. And, if you’re in rural New Zealand, there aren’t public transport options; there aren’t electric ute options, either. The member may have missed that part. In rural New Zealand, and in the construction sector as well—I’m delighted to be the spokesperson for building and construction—I’m hearing constantly from tradies who are absolutely outraged, tradies and farmers around the Waikato electorate who are totally disappointed in what this Government is proposing.

Now, you can have whatever position you like on how we might go about trying to reduce emissions, but this particular approach is totally unfair because, primarily, it reduces the ability for those people to have options. Now, regardless of your view on how you may or may not go about this, if there is simply no option, then it makes it incredibly difficult for people to comply, or they can’t comply if there’s no electric ute option or no electric vehicle (EV) that might suit the needs of whatever their particular vocation requires. And, on that basis, it becomes inherently unfair that they get penalised for something with which they have no ability to comply. So, on that basis alone, this bill is absolutely flawed and is unfair for a significant portion of New Zealanders who make a massive economic contribution, whether that be in the rural space or in the construction space, or in any other area where your vehicle of choice is one that does not have an electric alternative—or indeed, actually, for many of these low and middle income families that we’ve heard won’t be impacted by this. Ms Genter said “It saves people a lot of money.”—direct quote from Ms Genter that this bill saves people a lot of money. Well, I haven’t seen any justification for how that might actually be the case; quite the opposite when we hear that the increased costs, from the tax perspective under this bill, will require those people to be paying more for vehicles that they may look to purchase, if, indeed, they make that purchasing decision at all. And, as Mr Bennett said earlier on, that is unlikely to happen as soon as it may have without this bill.

Now, in New Zealand, we already have a vehicle fleet, by international comparisons, that is very old. The impact of this piece of legislation is that that vehicle fleet will become older still, as people retain their vehicles for longer because of the additional cost, potentially thousands of dollars, that they will have to fork out if they are going to upgrade their vehicle to a newer but still internal combustion engine—or emissions-producing—vehicle, because they don’t have the capacity often to fork out for a new, or even second-hand, electric vehicle, which are outside of the price bracket that they may be able to achieve.

Now, when we think about the significant cost implications that are being placed on New Zealanders over the last few years, this is just another cost that is going to make it incredibly difficult for them. The cost of living has gone up massively—whether that’s power or fuel or some food items; any number of areas you can look at where we have seen significant cost increases. And, if you’re a family on a low-income wage, looking to replace a vehicle, and you’ve seen a $100 per week rent increase, you’ve seen a massive spike in your electricity prices, you’re having to pay a lot more for your fuel because you’ve got a fuel tax on top of the increases that we’ve seen, this becomes incredibly difficult. And I cannot understand how Ms Genter can stand up and say that this bill will save people a lot of money and also that this is a fair policy.

As I touched on, rural New Zealand will not be able to comply with this, even if there was an EV ute option, and we heard from Ms Simmonds earlier around the geographical challenges of the Southland region. Well, that’s similar in a number of rural areas around our country, where you simply cannot travel the distances necessary between EV charging stations. Look at any number of backroads in the rural Waikato, you will not find EV charging stations in those areas.

Hon Member: What about a hybrid?

TIM VAN DE MOLEN: And hybrid vehicles are one option, and I drive one of those myself, but you don’t get the options under this piece of legislation. And so these are the significant issues that we’re touching on here that the Government just don’t seem to get. It’s another example of poor policy. And, whilst the intention might be good, the delivery is absolutely suboptimal. This Government time and time again has failed to account for the unintended consequences of their good intentions. New Zealanders are missing out, it’s costing them more money, and it’s simply not good enough. This Government needs to do better for all New Zealanders.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Kia ora, Mr Speaker, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak on the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill. Thank you to the Hon Michael Wood for his work in this space. For this side of the House, I’m just really grateful for the conversations and the opinions that we’ve had this afternoon.

Climate change, as we’ve heard, is our biggest challenge that we are facing. I want to be on the right side of history to ensure that we are doing the right thing. I want to being looking forward, not looking back. My colleague Greg O’Connor earlier talked around the challenges of horse and carts turning into vehicles around the world, as it happened, but there also were the challenges when trains first became common use around Europe. In that situation, initially, women weren’t actually allowed on trains for fear that it might actually harm or hurt them in some way, because we didn’t quite understand the challenges of new technology. Here we are, thankfully, long gone are those old gas-guzzling trains, and we are looking at our future here. I want to be someone who ensures that we have options and opportunities.

Last year, 85 percent of all vehicles sold in this country wouldn’t have been connected to this piece of legislation. So it’s a very small amount. When I bought my vehicle at the start of the year, I looked at an electric vehicle (EV) but, unfortunately, prices just didn’t work out for me; ended up with a hybrid. As I looked at this, I would’ve hoped to have the opportunity to buy an EV, but just the price was not right and it was untenable for me at that time. I hope that, maybe, if we did this earlier, there would be far more options in terms of EVs, their price, and their availability.

I’m really supportive of this piece of legislation. I’m really supportive of the way that we are transitioning and we are moving forward. Just recently, Waka Kotahi announced investment on roads around New Zealand, and to see that it wasn’t just around tarmac, it wasn’t just around making sure the road networks were going; it was ensuring that public transport, cycling, and walking was also part of that. So I support this piece of legislation and I commend it to the House.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to take a call on this bill. This is my first speech in the House for four weeks, and it seems like, since I was here, nothing’s changed, in terms of the National Party seeming to be completely out of touch with the average New Zealander. I am very surprised the National Party are not supporting this bill to the select committee. I understand that they have some issues with this bill, and they have highlighted those issues, but when I talk to people on the street, when I talk to people in my electorate about electric vehicles, about climate change, the overwhelming majority would like to purchase an electric vehicle, but there are some barriers. This bill starts to address that issue.

The previous Government signed us up to the Paris accord, and that was very good that they did that. I think everyone in this House would agree that that was the right thing to do. But the previous Government then did not follow up with any action. However, on this side of the House, we are seeing action on our climate change commitments, and this is one example of that action.

The former Prime Minister, the Rt Hon John Key, said that we will be a—

Hon Members: Sir John.

JAMIE STRANGE: —Sir John Key—that we will be a fast follower. Well, what does that mean? A fast follower on climate change? Well, that’s, obviously, in the past and that was a position the National Party took. But this Government, we don’t have the approach of being a fast follower; we want to lead the world in climate change. Yes, we are a small country compared to some of the larger countries, the likes of the US and China and India. However, we can be a leader, and we are committed to being a leader in the area of climate change. This bill that the Minister the Hon Michael Wood has brought to this House certainly fits in with that philosophy on this side of the House.

I am surprised the National Party aren’t supporting it at least to select committee, where we can have a debate about it. Maybe they want to do a quick caucus and maybe change their vote, but that’s up to them. I won’t try and tell them what to do.

So, as we’ve heard from a previous speaker, 20 percent of New Zealand’s emissions come from the transport area. This is a challenge. This is certainly a challenge for us as a country, because the reality is that transport personally affects all of us. We’ve seen some good work by councils supported by Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency around moving towards public transport and cycling. But the aspect around electric vehicles is going to play a key role in us achieving our Paris targets. It’s absolutely vital that we do achieve those Paris targets. That’s something that we have made a commitment to as a country. So, therefore, we need to act.

So what the bill does: it increases the supply and variety of zero- and low-emission vehicles available for purchase in New Zealand by applying the clean car import. The reality is there are rebates of up to $8,600—that is a significant rebate, $8,600—and $3,450 for used vehicles, to make them more affordable for New Zealanders. As I said earlier, I believe that the majority of New Zealanders, those I talk to, those conversations I’ve had with my very own family, want to purchase electric vehicles; they’ve wanted to for quite a while, but the cost has been a barrier.

You know, they understand that there are benefits to the climate around electric vehicles. They also understand that they are cheaper to run. Linking to that point, I’d like to talk about power generation in New Zealand. If there’s ever a country that is well positioned to move more into the electric vehicle fleet, in terms of the power generation, it is our country, with over 80 percent of our power coming from clean-energy sources. Now, vehicles can be charged overnight during the off-peak hours, when the water is still flowing through the turbines and that power is unable to be stored. So there’s an obvious solution here around battery storage, because—now, we do have a shortage of battery storage here in New Zealand—we can have electric vehicles in people’s garages, they can be supporting our grid to store energy, which can then be fed back to the grid at a later point.

Now, I’d just like to finish with the one point, and as we drive around as a family my children tend to really notice the electric vehicles; it’s almost like a little sort of competition to spot the electric vehicles. Our children are very engaged in this issue, and, as politicians, it’s important that we are. I would like to see support from the National Party through to select committee, but we’ll have to wait and see when the vote takes place. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, the member that just sat down, Jamie Strange, made an interesting point about electricity and power generation, because that actually goes to one of the key points that is missing from this bill, and that is, actually, that at the moment, for every extra megawatt of energy that’s used it is going to call on, probably, more coal being burnt in Huntly to keep the lights on. So the natural place that you would go first to lower emissions in New Zealand would be to sort out the coal thermal production in electricity that peaks and keeps the lights on in New Zealand. The other night, Mr Speaker, in the weekend—I’m sure you’ll be interested in this—the 840 megawatts of hydroelectricity that was going across, being generated, pushed across the strait into the North Island, and yet we were still burning coal, and we were burning coal because the wind wasn’t blowing. So we have a significant issue with our electricity sector, and that is where we should be focusing our efforts before we go off down in bringing in legislation, actually, that’s not going to have much effect at all.

In fact, I think, one of the things that’s been forgotten in this—there’s been a lot of talk about this and about cost, and I’ve asked throughout the debate, “What are the emissions that are going to be saved by this policy?” No one has told me. No one has said what it is, but I’m going to tell you, Mr Speaker. From 2022 to 2050, the emissions will be reduced by this policy by 0.9 percent. Less than 1 percent of our overall emissions will be lowered by this piece of legislation.

It really just shows the lack of work that’s gone into this. I’m surprised. Julie Anne Genter, who spoke earlier on this, she loves this policy, and she got the credit from the Minister, when he spoke earlier on behalf of the other Minister, for being the genesis of this bill, and good on her. She’s very passionate about it. However, she should know that. She should have known how little effect this would have. It’s all there. Treasury came out very strongly against this policy because it’s a very, very expensive way to lower emissions.

We have an emissions trading scheme (ETS), an emissions trading scheme that is—actually, thanks to James Shaw—capped. Good on him. That’s a fantastic thing to do. That means that we can set emissions budgets, which the Climate Change Commission have come out with the first three budgets showing us how we’re going to lower our emissions out to 2035. But we’re going to go on from there right to 2050, and we can limit our emissions by limiting the number of credit units that are available to offset, which will have to be surrendered when people omit. So we can control what our emissions are with the ETS. The commission have said that we will get to net zero by 2050 with the emissions trading scheme on its own.

Now, that, admittedly, does come with some issues around planting trees as a means of offset. I think the good Simon Upton, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, made a very good point in his report some years ago, which pointed out that, actually, the best way we could avoid that problem would be to only allow forestry sequestration for farmers to offset their methane emissions, because they have a similar life cycle to the life cycle of the pine tree, in terms of emissions.

So this bill, though, comes in and seeks to actually put a cost on cars coming in so that they’ll lower their emissions and their fuel efficiency, etc. However, it misses the biggest opportunity. The biggest opportunity to lower emissions in our light-vehicle fleet is to deal with the old clunkers that are going around—we’ve all followed them up the motorway, puffing smoke out the back. Most of that smoke’s unburnt fuel. They’re poorly tuned. We don’t do anything through our warrant of fitness system to test those vehicles; overseas they do.

I’ve talked to the motor trade industry, and it was very interesting. They told me, well before this got to this stage, that this wouldn’t work. They came out with some suggestions. The big suggestion from them was to ensure that we tested vehicles for their emissions at source every year when they go through their warrant of fitness and ensure that those vehicles meet those standards. They also mentioned cash for clunkers. I’m not sure I agree with that one. But, however, those are at the other end of the market than where the Labour Party is focused on.

I know Angela Roberts has all of a sudden had a road to Damascus experience. She’s now a fan of trickle-down economics. So she’s, effectively, advocating for trickle-down economics, because you buy the new electric vehicles (EVs) and they’ll trickle down through the economy. That’s how we’re going to deal with it.

Hon David Bennett: Trouble is there are no EV utes.

STUART SMITH: I don’t know if you’ve ever heard, Mr Bennett, the Labour Party advocating for trickle-down economics; I certainly haven’t.

Hon David Bennett: I’ve never heard of an EV ute either.

STUART SMITH: No, I don’t think I’ve heard that. But it’s fantastic. I think good on her for coming along.

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Come on, let’s get a bit of focus back on the bill.

STUART SMITH: Certainly. I’m just about there. What we have worked out: this is a $1 billion tax grab. Trickle-down economics doesn’t quite work that way usually, but, anyway, it’s a $1 billion tax grab, instead of actually assisting people in the right way.

Now, I note some months ago that the chief executive of Toyota, Neeraj Lala, came out pointing out that the vehicles, that the EVs and hybrids that the Government think we are going to be able to get massively into New Zealand and replace our fleet, simply aren’t available. In fact, the Prime Minister made a statement about a Toyota ute coming out into the market, and he had to come in and correct her and say that, actually, that’s not the case. Now, who do you think would know, the Prime Minister or the head of Toyota? I think the head of Toyota might know a bit more about that.

There are definitely issues here with shortages of supply. The fact is: car manufacturers are not falling over themselves to sell cars to New Zealand. We’re a very small market. We’re right-hand drive. We have our own needs in this country. That is why the Motor Trade Association came out against this particular bill. It was quite a surprise, actually. I would have thought the Minister would have done a lot more homework with that association to try and get them on board. To have them come out strongly against what is one of their best policies, I think, in climate change that they thought—well, they view it as one of their best policies in climate change. To have the main industry peak body come out against it quite strongly and well argued in their view, I think, was very, very telling.

I think, Mr Speaker, if you’ll indulge me for a moment, they talked also about—

SPEAKER: I’ve been doing it for the last eight minutes, so we might as well continue!

STUART SMITH: I’ll try not to leave it too long, then. They pointed out that cars were going to use the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure, WLTP, protocol, and if that’s not available, the American Environmental Protection, EPA, test. And that what they further pointed out is actually the vehicles—it was quite a mistake made by the officials in their paper saying that our vehicles come from Europe and for European standards; actually, they come from Japan, made to Australian standards. We don’t even recognise those standards that are noted in this bill. It’s unbelievable and it’s sloppy. For something that’s actually a $1 billion tax bill, I think it’s unbelievable that they’d be so slack in this. It’s really important that you get these things right.

Look, I have an EV, but I think there’s some reality here. I didn’t get a discount, either. Lou Sanson, when he was the chief executive of the Department of Conservation, he took his EV for a ride round the North Island and he had to call into two separate farmhouses to charge it up because he ran out of electricity. That’s the reality in rural New Zealand. I think that, while there are a number of charging stations around New Zealand, as EVs go up, there’ll have to be a heck of a lot more. The coverage isn’t there yet. It’s a great technology, but it is limited. It’s a car with a very small fuel tank that takes a long time to fill. It’s something that we have to all remember when we purchase them. They suit a lot of uses, but they’re limited in others. And to have a one-size-fits-all piece of legislation like this one, which, I think, is actually pretty shoddy, is not doing a good service for New Zealand and it doesn’t reflect well on those people that promote it. So I do not support this bill.

SPEAKER: Members, it’s kai time. The House stands suspended until 7 o’clock tonight.

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

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Ā, kāti rā, tēnā rā tātou katoa. The House is resumed. So, members, before the dinner break, we had just finished call 11 on the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill, and it’s now call No. 12. No? No. OK then.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 77

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

Noes 43

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is, That the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill be considered by the Transport and Infrastructure Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee.

Instruction to Transport and Infrastructure Committee

Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister of Climate Change) on behalf of the Minister of Transport: I move, That the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 2 February 2022.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 2 February 2022.

Ayes 75

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

Noes 43

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Water Services Bill

Second Reading

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Local Government): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I present a further legislative statement on the Water Services Bill.

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

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: I move, That the Water Services Bill be now read a second time.

Everybody should be able to get drinking water from the tap, knowing that it is safe, no matter where they live in Aotearoa. We should be able to swim or gather kai in our rivers, lakes, or at the beach without fear that our whānau will become sick. We should be confident that our drinking-water sources are protected and that the environmental impact of waste-water and stormwater systems is acceptable. We should be confident that drinking-water standards, which reflect the standards set by the World Health Organization, are being met by our drinking-water suppliers, particularly those which are publicly owned and operated. In many areas, sadly, this is not the case.

Aotearoa is blessed with an abundance of fresh water. It is our most precious natural resource. This Government wants to ensure this taonga is cared for and protected for generations to come. We want to ensure that services that provide us with water are looking towards that future. This is why the Government is engaged in a comprehensive programme of three waters reform. The Water Services Bill, which will provide the new regulatory regime for drinking water, along with better oversight of our three waters services, is a central part of this reform programme.

I’d like to acknowledge the contributions made in both the development of this bill and during the select committee process. Firstly, I’d like to acknowledge the constructive collaboration of local government and the wider water sector in developing this bill in the first place. I would also like to acknowledge the work of the Havelock North drinking-water inquiry, which recommended significant reform of drinking-water regulation and service delivery reform.

I’d like to thank the Health Committee for its work. I understand that the committee worked together in a highly constructive way, and the processes resulted in a number of technical changes to the bill that have significantly improved its quality, particularly for small rural suppliers. In my opening briefing to the select committee, I asked them to consider the workability of the proposals to bring suppliers of drinking water into a regulatory framework, and they have done exactly that. I especially want to thank the organisations, councils, iwi, and members of the public who took the time to make written and oral submissions on the bill. The committee received nearly a thousand written submissions; 130 individuals, groups, and organisations took the time to make an oral submission. It is clear that many submitters, particularly those from iwi, councils, and industry groups, fully engaged with the bill. The changes made as a consequence have helped to significantly strengthen the bill. I thank the submitters for their time and effort.

I want to highlight what this bill will do. It provides clear leadership for drinking-water regulation through a central regulator, Taumata Arowai; it strengthens compliance, monitoring, and enforcement of drinking-water regulation; and it ensures there is a multi-barrier protection of drinking-water supplies, which is an international best practice and is the core of the Havelock North inquiry’s recommendations. It requires all drinking-water suppliers, other than domestic self-suppliers, to be part of the regulatory system and provide safe drinking water on a consistent basis. It ensures source waters are properly protected and monitored. It provides measures that will significantly improve the transparency and public reporting around the environmental impact of waste-water and stormwater systems. It provides mechanisms that enable the regulation of drinking water to be proportionate to the scale, complexity, and risk profile of each drinking-water supply. Finally, it requires all those who have functions, duties, and powers under the bill to give effect to te mana o te wai in a way that is consistent with the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management.

As I have said, the Health Committee has made a number of technical changes to the bill. One of the significant concerns expressed in a large number of submissions, particularly those made by iwi and marae trusts, was that the bill contained a power of warrantless entry, which extended to marae. The committee recommended changes so that warrantless entry to marae requires consent, in the same way as for private homes. This will be welcomed by many submitters.

The bill requires chlorination for all reticulated supplies unless an exemption is obtained from the chief executive of Taumata Arowai. This reflects recommendations made by the inquiry into Havelock North’s drinking water. Some submissions raised safety concerns about small suppliers handling chlorine. The committee responded to these submissions by allowing Taumata Arowai to exempt classes of suppliers from residual disinfection, such as very small suppliers. This is, again, another welcome addition to the bill.

Some submitters were concerned that the bill would duplicate regulatory requirements for food businesses that use water for manufacturing purposes. The committee has amended the bill to exclude water if its use is regulated under food safety legislation. This will be welcomed by submitters.

The committee also made a range of amendments to better tailor the bill to small suppliers, such as rural and marae suppliers. I welcome and support these changes.

While there was consensus in the committee on most items, differing views were expressed in two areas. Firstly, a minority of the committee members expressed a view that small suppliers serving less than 30 consumers should be carved out from regulation. Mr Luxon MP has tabled a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) to give effect to this. This view, however, was not supported by the majority of the committee, who recognised that there must be a way forward for all our communities to have safe drinking water.

The bill provides that regulation of drinking water must be proportionate to the scale, complexity, and risk profile of the supply. This is quite a different approach to the existing regime under the Health Act, which is a one-size-fits-all approach.

Taumata Arowai has been working directly with rural suppliers on simple, cost-effective, acceptable solutions for small suppliers, such as end-point treatment devices, like UV filters. Devices like this are not recognised under the Health Act, so this represents a major step forward for rural supplies, where most of the water goes to stock or horticulture. I understand that both Federated Farmers and Irrigation New Zealand are part of a technical group on this approach, and the work has been positive and constructive. Taumata Arowai provided advice in this area directly to the committee, and I understand that this gave many members on the committee confidence about the direction they are taking. I thank those parties for their participation in this process.

Secondly, some committee members expressed the view that chlorination of reticulated supplies should not be mandatory. The majority of the committee, however, recognised that chlorination is an essential public health measure. The bill contains a number of ways for suppliers to provide chlorine-free water to consumers, as long as it is safe and meets drinking-water standards.

In addition to changes made by the Health Committee, I propose to make additional changes by a Supplementary Order Paper, which I’ve already tabled so members can consider it in advance of the committee of the whole House stage. My Supplementary Order Paper will extend the transition window for water suppliers that are not registered under the Health Act, so they have to register with Taumata Arowai by the end of the fourth year and have seven years to comply. This extension will give the system time to mature and for Taumata Arowai to work with suppliers to ensure the regime is fit for purpose. This also aligns with the Government’s reform of water service delivery arrangements, which proposes to establish a small number of national water service entities by 2024.

The Supplementary Order Paper also proposes some new powers and functions for Taumata Arowai, particularly in the area of waste water. These powers will provide much-needed national-level oversight and consistency around publicly owned waste-water networks. Amongst other things, Taumata Arowai will be able to set minimum environmental performance standards for waste-water networks, bringing Aotearoa in line with many other countries. The SOP also clarifies that Taumata Arowai’s oversight powers extend to trade waste.

The Government is committed to reforming the way three waters is regulated and delivered in this country. The bill is a significant milestone in achieving this. I thank the select committee, Department of Internal Affairs officials, and Taumata Arowai for supporting the workability of this bill, and I thank the committee for their amendments. I commend the bill to this House.

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

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and it’s a pleasure to stand here and to speak on this bill tonight. In doing so, I would like to commend my colleague Christopher Luxon, who’s done a huge amount of work on this bill. As well as sitting on the committee and going through the process, he’s been working tirelessly—and we’ve joined forces on it—during the lockdown period in terms of we were going to be speaking on this on the first Wednesday we were back after the recess, which didn’t eventuate, because, as we know, the country went into lockdown. We wish all those people that are currently with COVID and recovering from it all the best.

So Chris was unable to be here tonight, because he comes from Auckland, but I can assure you we’ve done a huge amount of work on this. We’ve done some live streaming. We’ve done lots of talking to various people, and we’ve managed, over the course of that time, to collect almost 15,000 signatures on a petition. The reason people were signing that petition is because there are over 70,000 small suppliers who will be affected by this. We all want clean water. We support Taumata Arowai, but we’re thinking about the amount of regulation that’s coming down on to our communities at the moment.

What’s been really good about this is that we’ve had a lot of discussion recently about the amount of legislation, regulation, rules—some of them work, some of them don’t—that have been coming down on our rural community. Just for an example, there are freshwater regulations, there are slope rules, there are labour workforce shortages to be dealing with with immigration, foreign exemptions for land purchases for forestry purposes—and that’s carbon forestry—failure to provide forestry consent rules to council, climate commission are wanting to cut livestock farming, high-country tenure review, ending live exports, pressuring agriculture into the emissions trading scheme, and, of course, the bill before this that we just discussed, with the ute tax.

So we’re asking ourselves: what problem are we trying to solve here? Yes, we want clean water. Yes, we support Taumata Arowai, but, actually, rather than the number eight wired country that we used to be, we’re becoming a nation that is strangling people in red tape. What we’re really concerned about is by going down to the level that this bill intends to do—and, of course, Christopher Luxon has a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) which proposes 30 end-point users. By going down to the level of every single end point where a person is supplying somebody else with water, it’s going to become a huge administrative nightmare.

What’s been really good about this bill—and I want to thank the Minister for putting up at least one SOP, which is around extending the time frames, because this is not going to be an easy thing, for Taumata Arowai to be able to get to this level of compliance and have all the administrators, all the systems, all the inspectors having the conversation. It’s not going to be an easy deal to solve. So I thank the Minister for putting the SOP up that looks to buy some extra time. However, as much as we would like to support this bill, we fairly and squarely believe that by not just keeping this above people who are supplying above 30 people, it’s going to create a huge administrative nightmare.

Why I’ve enjoyed working with Chris so much on this is many of the other issues I mentioned before, around all of the things that are coming down at farmers—is that we’ve been able to have an issue with this one. So if I supply water to myself in my house, that’s fine. If I supply it to a farm worker or there’s somebody out in rural New Zealand that I supply it to, then I get caught up in this regime. People might go, “Oh, well, you know, that’s just farmers pushing back again.” But we actually then talked about marae, where this could be an issue on some of the smaller marae.

We talked about the bach owners. So there’s people with baches in various holiday camps. I’m not talking about necessarily people with big, flash baches. There’s lots of beach baches and lots of little huts that people have bought themselves over the years that they take the family to to go on holiday in the summer. So that’s fine if they’re supplying themselves with water, but if they’re supplying the next bach or two or three baches beside it, as people in rural New Zealand often do—they find one source of water and they share it around—all of those people are actually going to have to comply with this regulation. So first of all, they have to do the administration, and then who are the people that are going to come out and check up? Especially if you think about a situation like bach owners, they’re not there all the time. Who’s going to check it up? How’s it going to work?

What I would really like to know is, you know, apart from clean water, which we all want, what is the problem that we’re setting out to solve here? Because we’re going to create a huge administrative nightmare, and if I could understand—and I wasn’t part of the select committee process. How many of these little suppliers are actually causing massive problems in the water situation in New Zealand?

So look, we’re strongly supportive, as I said, of Taumata Arowai, but we can’t overlook the massive burden that this bill is going to create. So we would actually ask the Minister—and I would strongly urge the Minister tonight, when we get to the committee stage. Christopher Luxon has produced an amendment, SOP 61, to be debated at that stage, and Mr Luxon’s SOP is suggesting we exempt from the bill small water suppliers, like rural water schemes, that supply fewer than 30 end-point users. National won’t be able to support this bill until we get to that point, but if there was a change of heart—and we could make some ground on that front if our SOP is supported and adopted—then National may revisit our stance for the bill’s third reading.

So I think the weight that comes behind this is the fact that our petition has attracted almost 15,000 signatures. There’s a strong feeling around this that it’s going to be quite difficult to achieve the administrative side of it. Nobody’s arguing that they want their water to be clean or that there aren’t special filters or there aren’t things that they could do, and it would be really great if we could look at some other way of incorporating those smaller suppliers where this administrative burden wasn’t so onerous, because if you add another 70,000—perhaps up to 100,000, I’m hearing—people into the system, it’s all got to be managed, it’s all got to be monitored, and it’s really just tying people up in red tape. It’s going to take a long time, I believe, for this Government or any Government to develop a system which is going to be able to be extremely efficient at managing right down to that level.

So I guess there’s probably not a lot to add, really, just that we would like to support it, and we really do urge and ask the Government if they really would—and particularly Minister Mahuta, if we could ask for some real consideration around SOP 61. If we can get to that point, then we would be able to support this piece of legislation. Thank you.

Dr GAURAV SHARMA (Labour—Hamilton West): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. It’s the first time I’m speaking in the House since the country went into lockdown about a month ago, and I just wanted to quickly acknowledge all the Kiwis around the country who have been diligently and patiently following all the public health advice. Thank you for keeping our communities safe.

Coming back to the bill, we live in a beautiful country, but one in five New Zealanders are supplied with drinking water that is not guaranteed to be safe from bacterial contamination. That’s why this Government and Minister Mahuta have brought in a comprehensive range of programmes to help with the three waters reform, and the Water Services Bill is an important part of that substantial reform. At the moment, we’ve got 67 different councils around the country which are dealing with waste water, stormwater, and drinking water in different ways. There has to be a way of making the system consistent so that we are complying with all of the safety issues. What happened with Havelock North—where four people died and 5,500 people became ill—should not be repeated again, and here is an opportunity to prevent another one of these incidents from happening.

As a member of the Health Committee, where this bill came through, I just want to acknowledge all the organisations, the iwis, and the individuals who contributed towards the changes. As the Minister has mentioned, quite a few things were constructively changed around the initial bill that was proposed, and we had over 130 people actually make oral submissions as well—so I just want to thank everybody for doing that. But I strongly recommend this bill to the House as a medical professional as well, because this is about making sure our communities are safe. Thank you.

PENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, I had the privilege of being on the Health Committee and working through the Water Services Bill, and also the privilege of listening to numerous submissions on it—heartfelt submissions, in many cases. It is always a privilege to listen to people who have taken the time to submit on a bill. This bill, of course, is wanting to ensure that there is safe drinking water for consumers, and we would all want to see that. It has a number of obligations and duties for those that supply water, including registering the supply, preparing a safety plan, preparing a risk management plan, and establishing a complaints process. As we worked through the bill and listened to the submissions, I think we worked very collaboratively and very positively in getting a number of changes. We were certainly hampered at the point around the smaller rural water schemes.

We can’t support the bill because of the onerous and overly onerous obligations on some of those smaller rural water supply schemes, but, also, a number of the marae came with the same issues, and so we feel there’s some synergies between those. So the things that we were most concerned about was the disproportionate and burdensome bureaucracy and compliance on these rural water supplies. At one stage, I asked if the select committee members would come out and have a look at some of these supply schemes and talk to some of the people involved in them because—

Hon Member: What? Come out of Wellington? I don’t know!

PENNY SIMMONDS: Well, to me, that’s what you do. You get your feet on the ground and you talk to the people and you find out what the issues are. So I couldn’t convince the select committee to do that, but instead I took my 2020 colleagues from our National caucus and we went to Alexandra, because I knew that there are a lot of these water schemes in Alexandra. I’d had a look at them and I knew that we would get a really good feel for them. We went and listened to a gentleman there, an incredibly capable gentleman, who talked to us about the examples—took us up and showed us some of the examples. He is a fourth-generation farmer in that area. He’s also a qualified engineer and had put in water schemes in Ireland and also in New Zealand and was responsible for two schemes in that Alexandra area.

Now, I’d have to say that gentleman probably knew more about water schemes than the whole of our Health Committee would ever know about water schemes, so why we refused to go and listen to someone like that is beyond me, because it was the best possible education we could have got on this. He was able to tell us that there was somewhere between 70,000 and 75,000 of these small rural water schemes across the country, and, you know, they range. They range from a farm that has a scheme that supplies the main farm house and a worker’s cottage or the shearers’ quarters through to schemes that might have a number of small lifestyle blocks attached to them and a main farm. Some of the schemes provide water for irrigation and for stock feed, as well as drinking water. And in those instances, the end users take the responsibility of putting in place an end-point user filter, such as the UV light filters that you can get. A lot of these schemes are collectives, are unincorporated societies. They’re groups of farmers that have got together and they pay a small amount and they look after them together. They are practical, sensible people who find solutions for drinking water, for livestock water, for irrigation water on a small scale right across the country. They’ve been doing it for decades and they continue to do it in a safe and sensible and pragmatic way.

I found it incredibly insulting to this intelligent, capable, practical person who was running these schemes and who said the only consequence of this legislation on those schemes in Alexandra will be more administration, more bureaucracy, more monitoring, and no better water supply. In fact, the unintended consequences of it may well be a worse water supply, because there will be some suppliers who will say, “This is all too much. I’m not going to allow the water from my bore on my farm to be used by neighbours or by the farm worker’s cottage. They can go back and rely on rainwater, roof water, and, in fact, end up with a worse water supply than they were getting at the moment.” And I’d have to tell you that in Alexandra, some of the water coming into those supplies was the purest water you will find anywhere in New Zealand. So if you went on to a rainwater supply in Alex—well, you probably wouldn’t be able to, because it’s one of the driest places in New Zealand—you would end up collecting dust and grime and dirt off the roof rather than this pristine water supply.

So those unintended consequences have not been thought through and the burden of—

Hon Member: Yes, they have. They have been talked through.

PENNY SIMMONDS: —having to put together—well, if they have been thought of, then they haven’t been taken any notice of. They are putting in place things like auditing and reporting that just don’t need to be there. At the very least, they are going to add considerable cost to these small water suppliers. At worst, they are going to make people throw in the towel and decide not to be part of it. What hasn’t been mentioned here is that if people do walk away from these schemes, then under the last man or the last person standing requirement within this bill, the local authority will have to pick up the responsibility for that water supply.

Now, people might wonder why a movement like Groundswell came about. It came about because time after time after time, these sorts of pieces of legislation and regulations are being thrown at our rural sector. Our rural sector aren’t against change, but they want it to be sensible and practical and to make a real difference, not have perverse outcomes. So Groundswell is a movement that’s come about because our rural people have been having to deal with bills like this: freshwater regulations, slope rules, pugging rules, sowing winter crop rules—all of these things thrown at them when they are trying to deal with a labour shortage, forestry being planted from overseas owners on to beautiful farmland that should be growing food. They are sick of these regulations and bills that don’t make sense. They want to work with things that are going to make a difference, that are going to really make things better; they do not want to be working with bills that only add bureaucracy and cost and administration and make nothing better.

I’m also really interested to know how 75,000 suppliers are going to be able to be registered, even if it is an extended time frame. How are Taumata Arowai going to cope with that avalanche of suppliers being registered? How are they going to cope with that avalanche of plans to be looked at, of audits to be undertaken, of reports on those audits to be looked at? It simply isn’t administratively possible to do that, unless, of course, Labour are thinking of putting in another 10,000 bureaucrats at another billion dollars’ cost a year, which possibly you are thinking of that. So you’re going to have to have something in place to be able to cope with the administration of it.

So I would just say to the Minister: please, don’t put something in place that won’t work for the rural schemes, small rural schemes, but neither will it work for those that are trying to administer it. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I’m happy to take a brief call on this particular bill because, following my maiden statement, this was the first proposed piece of legislation that I had the opportunity to make a contribution on in the House at first reading. So while my memory of that serves myself quite well, actually, I none the less had a look back at Hansard to see, actually, what comments I had made at the time. For me it was around the importance of water supply and safe water supply to communities up and down New Zealand, but also that we were brought into line with international practice and also that this would also provide some certainty and confidence for the community. Having reviewed the Health Committee’s report on this particular bill, I can see that they have taken a sensible approach to the consideration of it, that they have come back with some sensible recommendations as a result that the Minister has touched on, and on that basis I am delighted to be able to commend this bill to the House.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. Clean, safe drinking water is a basic human right, but it’s one which many people across the world and a significant number in Aotearoa New Zealand don’t have access to. What this bill aims to do is to provide the regulatory framework to help correct that. There are approximately 1,400 community water suppliers in Aotearoa, and they vary from those neighbourhood suppliers servicing 25 to 100 people to municipal suppliers servicing more than 10,000 people. Fifty-three percent of drinking-water supplies rely on groundwater, 26 percent on surface water, and 21 percent on rainwater collection systems.

I was privileged to join the Health Committee to consider this bill. There were 977 submissions, and we heard oral evidence from 130 submitters. I really acknowledge the other members of the Health Committee, ably chaired by Dr Liz Craig, the secretariat, the departmental staff in Department of Internal Affairs and some in Taumata Arowai, the new water services regulator, and Parliamentary Counsel, who have done a huge amount of work on this bill, but also I really acknowledge the hundreds of people who made submissions, from iwi and marae trusts, individuals, councils, rural water suppliers, and the detail and practical information that they provided to the committee to enable us to get a really good context. So the 24-page committee commentary, which the select committee has provided, summarises the changes that we’ve made in response to submissions, and, as the Minister noted, our recommendations, I think, have substantially improved the bill.

The Green Party hopes that this bill delivers on its purpose of ensuring that drinking-water suppliers provide people and communities with safe drinking water and that they protect the sources of drinking water. Taumata Arowai was established as the water services regulator through new legislation last year, which set out the objectives, functions, operating principles, and its governance arrangements. It’s got an external board. It’s got a Māori advisory group to give advice on how to best enable mātauranga Māori, tikanga Māori, and kaitiakitanga to be exercised, and this bill sets out the regulatory regime that Taumata Arowai will administer, its specific responsibilities and powers, and the duties of drinking-water suppliers and local authorities.

It also sets out some quite comprehensive regulation-making powers to help implement the new regime and provides for operational oversight at that national level of both the stormwater and the infrastructure network. I note that Supplementary Order Paper 602 that the Minister has tabled, which significantly expands the oversight of waste-water services, and when 25 percent of waste-water services are on expired consents, I think that is really useful.

This bill is a major step forward, because there has never been a national regulator with such significant powers, particularly in the compliance monitoring and enforcement area before. The Ministry of Health has had some powers, but not these really strong compliance, monitoring, and enforcement powers. And I think one thing is that the three waters changes that the Government is proposing—some have suggested, particularly Canterbury mayors, that we hit the pause button on those. I can see some merit in that and letting Taumata Arowai get established, particularly with its expanded oversight now of waste water and stormwater, and seeing how the system improves and have a substantial conversation about funding, because the billions of dollars of investment that is needed in three waters requires Government to ensure that there is more funding made available to councils.

But this water services bill will be implemented alongside new national environmental standards for sources of human drinking water. It requires that drinking-water suppliers must provide safe drinking water, they must meet drinking-water standards, and they must take action when water is unsafe. They must also ensure that there’s a sufficient quantity of water to meet the ordinary needs of consumers, they must have a drinking-water safety plan and a source water risk management plan, and they must register with Taumata Arowai when there are risks to public health.

On this issue of the registration, the National Party has not been listening. There is a substantial Supplementary Order Paper, where the Minister has taken on board the concerns of a lot of the community and rural water suppliers and has pushed out the deadlines for when these small suppliers must register to four years and when they must provide a plan to seven years. They should be able to get themselves organised in that time. I acknowledge that the National Party is saying we should have gone on field visits, but a lot of the submitters from the rural sector provided very detailed information about how their community schemes operated.

The Green Party supports those small suppliers being part of the bill, because we know that they rely a lot on voluntary hours, we know that they rely a lot on community input, and there is a concern about the cost of registration. But as the Havelock North inquiry found, many small communities have drinking water which does not comply with the national drinking-water standards, because there is no regulatory oversight of them and the Ministry of Health does no compliance reporting on suppliers which serve less than 100 people. Why should we consign a lot of rural people to having water that cannot be assuredly safe? So that’s why we think those suppliers should be under the scheme and that the Minister has recognised the concerns about the regulatory costs by pushing out the deadlines.

One of the other areas that we’re really pleased about is the source-water risk management plans, and that’s in clauses 41 to 45 of the bill. We think these are some of the most important provisions in the bill, because if we control land uses, if we prevent nitrate and sediment contamination of waterways, if we protect the services that Papatūānuku provides us as humans for free, we secure our future and honour the natural world that sustains us.

So the bill aims to ensure that the risks and hazards to source water are identified, assessed, managed, and monitored by drinking-water suppliers and local authorities, and that regional councils regularly publish this information and measure those risks and hazards. We hope that will mean there’ll be much more scrutiny of land-use activities such as dairy intensification, which contribute to a major cause of nitrate contamination of waters.

The select committee also really engaged with the submissions from Māori, from marae and iwi trusts, and their concerns about warrantless entry for Taumata Arowai compliance officers. The recommended change is that these powers of warrantless entry be removed so that marae effectively have the same status as private homes and dwellings. I think there were over 33 submissions on this alone.

The other issue in terms of responding to community water suppliers, those smaller suppliers, is that our amendments suggest that Taumata Arowai have a greater power to exempt classes of suppliers and that also Taumata Arowai have much more flexibility around its review of drinking-water safety plans and compliance monitoring, so that, as the Minister noted, these are proportionate to the scale, complexity, and risk profile of the drinking-water supplier. So this flexibility, the work that Taumata Arowai is doing alongside people in the sector, alongside Irrigation New Zealand and others, to develop flexible solutions, to develop off-the-shelf solutions, we think, will provide the flexibility to enable community suppliers to continue to operate. And I think it is irresponsible of the National Party to threaten to block this bill and oppose it—well, not block it, to oppose it, when they set up the Havelock North inquiry, when they have made many statements about wanting to ensure that drinking water is safe, and now they are potentially opposing it when there have been some significant changes to the bill as introduced to respond to the submissions from smaller rural suppliers and community water suppliers.

So the one other final matter is residual disinfection. Most of the 229 submitters on this issue opposed chlorine being added to their drinking water. The Christchurch City Council presented evidence that there were fewer breaches of drinking-water guidelines in Europe and the UK where residual disinfection wasn’t required, compared to the US where it is, and the city council in Christchurch wanted a greater focus on risk management because of the complacency which can result by relying on chlorine.

The bill does provide that suppliers can apply to the chief executive officer of Taumata Arowai for an exemption on a case–by-case basis, and the committee has recommended a further change that there be an ability to exempt classes.

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

MARK CAMERON (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of Mr Court, actually, to speak on the Water Services Bill. I think the members in the National Party duly noted—and I think it has to be noted—that some 70,000-odd rural small water schemes are up and down rural New Zealand, and they’re going to be encapsulated by this.

I just want to make one note, if I may. Eugenie Sage, the Green member who’s just resumed her seat, referenced Havelock North. Now, what happened in Havelock North was a travesty: four people lost their lives; there were several thousand that got ill. Havelock North has got 14,500 people in it, and it falls under the Hastings District Council, which encapsulates some 80,000 people, and I think we’re not having the honest conversation. We’re confusing the issue here between rural small water schemes, that the National member made reference to, and the issue that the Green member raised with Havelock North. They’re diametrically opposite in the way they’re run.

I live in a rural small town of 400 or 500 people. Yes, it has its own water scheme and, I imagine, chlorination, fluorination, would potentially not be an issue for them. However, in the larger Kaipara area catchment, there’s 75 percent that are self-serving water schemes: farms that have one or two buildings on them like dwellings, marae, the Scout hall, etc. These would all be encapsulated in this piece of legislation.

I think what is even further concerning to a lot of people in rural New Zealand is, you talk about—sorry; I beg your pardon, Mr Speaker. We, collectively, have been talking in this parliamentary debate about chlorination. Well, if the methodology that’s pursuant to that is wrong at a very small, localised level, who is it incumbent upon to get it right, and where would any potential legal framework for prosecution go, should someone be poisoned or get ill because of chlorination? So we don’t think this bill has been well-thought-out at all.

We do, however, think the premise—the desire to get safe drinking water across New Zealand—is important. It’s deeply important. We’ve seen what’s happened, as I reiterate, in Havelock North and Dunedin.

The ACT Party supports the premise of the bill, and I think that’s important. We all want safe drinking water, but there has to be a carve-out for the 70,000 small rural supplies and water schemes. That encapsulates all sorts of small communities. We are saying, as the ACT Party, that there has to be a carve-out for those, and we support the amendment that we believe the National Party is going to table for a minimum of 30 dwellings or less than that, because there’s marae up and down the country. Papa kāinga will be affected by all of this: the aspects of what it would mean to register, to be compliant, and to have any authority in auditing.

I noted as I was reading this piece of legislation on behalf of my colleague clause 110, I believe, about warrantless access to marae. That was, obviously, noted by the Minister and it raised a lot of eyebrows and concerns. Yet again, I think this legislation needs further dialogue.

I won’t go on, Mr Speaker, because, as you’re acutely aware, I’m speaking on behalf of my colleague Mr Court, who would normally be speaking to this piece of legislation. But we, as the ACT Party, support this second reading. However, we are asking for the amendment to be noted, that there should be an exemption status given for those dwellings with 30 or less supplies, which, basically, gives effect and pause and recognition to all the rural irrigation schemes, farm schemes, and those that have stock water schemes, etc., which filter into the various farm households.

So we support this second reading. We desperately would like to see that amendment agreed to because, again—I reiterate the point—speaking as a farmer that supports rural communities, we want some clarity that these small communities will be exempt from this. Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

ANNA LORCK (Labour—Tukituki): As a private bore owner myself that supplies two households, I have been watching this legislation with interest. I also lived through the Havelock North water crisis, and my daughter was one of the first to get sick. In fact, the only thing that saved her was drinking from my bore and not from the poisoned water in Havelock North. No one knows more than the people of Hawke’s Bay the consequences of not looking after water infrastructure assets. This is why I see a real need to make sure how we do this for the hundreds, if not thousands, of private bores to meet these new drinking-water standards must be realistic, affordable, and practical. Already, we have Taumata Arowai working alongside small water-holders to make sure we develop these solutions—acceptable solutions—which could just be putting a simple UV filter at the point of entry to your house. This is a practical solution. I won’t need to do anything more than that—safe drinking water is a right for everyone to ensure people do not get sick.

I commend this bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call. I call Matt Doocey.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Oh, thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Well, I want to thank that last Labour speaker who just resumed her seat, Anna Lorck, for absolutely backing up the National and ACT parties’ argument of why they are not supporting this bill, because, of course, the public health incidents have not been caused by small rural suppliers, as that last Labour member quite well articulated. It is the council suppliers that have caused public health incidents like Havelock North, and that is why National is not supporting this bill today. But the power is in the Government’s hand, because, of course, if they do accept my learned colleague Christopher Luxon’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 61 that will remove small rural suppliers that have less than 30 end point users from this bill, National, and I’m sure probably ACT, will support this bill.

One of the best things of being an electorate MP is to bring the voice of the local people you represent. In my electorate of Waimakariri, the submission from the Waimakariri District Council, we have around 4,700 properties that will be caught up in this bill but will be exempt under the National Party SOP, because what we do on this side of the House is we back people, and we know they know what’s best for them. We don’t need over-compliance and regulation. This bill is quite rightly aimed at council water suppliers, but, in my view, wrongly aimed at small water suppliers. They’re not the ones that have problems with their water quality. What I would say is that this Government needs to get out of Wellington, get into provincial New Zealand, and hear from them, because at the moment, under this trilogy of water reforms—the three bills that either have been through Parliament or are currently going through Parliament and soon will be coming back to the House—they are terribly concerned about their loss of a local voice.

What I find ironic is that the Government announced recently they advertised for a misinformation analyst. Well, if you look at the advertising campaign that this Government is funding with taxpayer funding, look at the misinformation that’s been put out in that advertising campaign. People turning on taps with green sludge falling out of them—that is misinformation. What provincial and rural New Zealanders worried about right from the start—and I’ll use the metaphor where you are building the plane while you’re flying it. That’s exactly what this Government is doing to provincial New Zealand around water reforms. Not only will people not know what the system will look like—they’re only putting it together like a jigsaw—but we don’t know where it’s ending up. But we’re getting a hint, aren’t we, because Taumata Arowai—the Water Services Regulator Act—all parties approved of that. The Water Services Bill is starting to shed a bit more light on it, and it’s going to be around over-compliance and over-regulation of small water suppliers. And, of course, the big one: the three waters bill, which is going to be a local water asset grab. I’m proud of my local council, which is opting out of three waters, and good on Waimakariri for standing up for the people that they represent.

No one in this House disagrees that we need the best water quality and the best water systems in New Zealand. But, unfortunately, for this Government it’s one size fits all. It’s a cookie cutter, and they’re taking “local” out of local people’s views. I think this Government is increasingly, this one-party State is increasingly, getting out of touch with real New Zealanders in areas that I represent like Waimakariri, and that’s why we don’t support this bill.

RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): Tēnā koe e te Pīka, tēnā tātou e te Whare. Ka tū ahau ki te kōrero mō tēnei take, ā, Pire mō te Wai.

[Greetings Mr Speaker and greetings to all in the House. I stand to speak on the matter of the Water Services Bill.]

When this bill was introduced and our people became aware of the provisions, there was a large outcry from tangata whenua. This is for a number of reasons, but in particular because, just like the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020, the bill would have enabled State officers to enter marae without consent or warrant. We are glad that the select committee has listened to our people’s submissions and removed the warrantless search provisions for marae. The bill now requires owners’ consent on par with private homes. The new wording is “A compliance officer must not enter a home or a marae under this section, except with the consent of an occupier.” This is a good change, and we acknowledge that the select committee in this instance were actually listening to the many hapū and iwi Māori organisations who submitted. However, the Crown should not have proposed this in the first place, and wasted the time and resources of our people, who were then forced to submit and lobby to protect their rights as tangata whenua.

Despite this much-needed change, Te Paati Māori will still be opposing this bill. There remain broader concerns for tangata whenua in relation to this bill. To upgrade marae drinking water to the new Government standard would be too costly for many marae to afford. Many can’t even pay insurance fees. It also undermines Māori rangatira and kaitiaki fresh-water rights, interests, and responsibilities in a number of ways, including relegating Māori to an advisory group for the regulator, Taumata Arowai. Although it has a Māori name, it does not guarantee Māori representation. We are not advisers. We are not stakeholders. We are tangata whenua. We are Tiriti partners. We challenge this Government to adopt Te Paati Māori fresh-water policy, which is to honour the rangatiratanga and kaitiakitanga rights and interests of mana whenua over fresh water. In a Western rights framework, this can be expressed as proprietary rights, customary rights, decision-making rights, or, put more simply, ownership.

The whakapapa connection between tangata whenua and wai Māori is intrinsic. This position is supported by the Crown obligation to He Whakaputanga, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and by our tino rangatiratanga as tangata whenua. Negotiations of fresh-water rights and interests need to be completed before any significant reform of water regulations and management is undertaken. The Waitangi Tribunal said that the Crown should be working directly with hapū and iwi to create a standard process for addressing Māori rights and interests. Instead, this current Government decided to stop negotiating with iwi leaders, and instead has established its own Māori advisory group, which was Te Kāhui Wai Māori. A water service regime that does not give effect to Te Tiriti isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Our people have seen time and time again what happens when legislation is put forward that goes against our rights while they are still being considered and negotiated for in the courts and in Government. This must be opposed, as it does not have the active consent or support of whānau, hapū, and iwi Māori. The Crown needs to go back to the drawing board and not rush this legislation through until it recognises and implements Māori rights and interests to fresh water.

Our pepeha tells us the intrinsic connection that we have with our wai. He taonga tuku iho nā Ranginui kia horapa nei i runga i te whenua hei oranga mō te Iwi Māori mō te tira, hunga tangata katoa puta noa i te motu. Engari, kei a te Iwi Māori tōna mana motuhake. Ko te Iwi Māori te kaitiaki o te wai.

[It is a treasure, handed down from the Sky Father, to be spread across the land as sustenance for Māori and all other groups throughout the country. But, Māori hold authority over it. Māori are the custodians of water.]

As King Tūheitia said in 2012, when he called a national hui on fresh water, it negated the National position that no one owns the water. It also negates the Labour notion that everybody owns the water. King Tūheitia said we Māori own the water. And so I end with that quote and continue to advocate for te iwi Māori in this space in terms of our rights to our wai Māori. Kia ora tātou.

ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): I’m really pleased to take a short call. It’s great to hear all of those around the House acknowledging the many around the country who provide, in good faith, to their neighbours and their communities with small water supplies. I want to thank and acknowledge the select committee for acknowledging their concerns and ensuring that the support is there to ensure that they are able to continue to improve the supply of water to their neighbours and their communities.

We were asked what the problem is that we’re trying to solve: 37,000 people who get sick from drinking water—completely unacceptable. We’re told to back the people by leaving them to it. We’re not going to do that. We’re going to back our rural communities and our small suppliers by ensuring that Taumata Arowai and the local councils help them to do what they need to do to make sure that those of us who live in small communities are able to access safe drinking water. I commend the bill to the House.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Hang on, Mr Speaker, I’ve got to get my fashion gear [face mask] off, find my hearing aids, and clean my glasses before I can start. Now, having said that, I’ll get on with the job!

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I can sympathise with the member.

IAN McKELVIE: I want to take us back in history a bit, because I’ve had quite a bit of experience with water in my time, and I want to go back to when I was fairly small. I remember going with my father to fix the old MacEwans H2 water pump, and in those days you had a cylinder and a water pump—for those who don’t know—and they had bucket washers in them. It took a fair while to bend those bucket washers round and get them back in the hole to make the water—and they had to be watertight, you see, so it took a while to get that sorted. So that was my first experience of water. The second one was when I had to do it myself, but luckily things have improved significantly since then. We now have Grundfos water pumps with all sorts of stages in them, and they work really well.

So this bill: I then, I guess, after all those experiences with a water pump, became a mayor, and I had experience of the Ministry of Health trying to inform councils how they should run water supplies and the standards they should adhere to, and, frankly, the Ministry of Health had no idea how to do that and they were—in my view—very poor at it. So I think that, from my perspective, the Minister has made a very good attempt, through this bill, to rectify some of the problems that we’ve had in the past with the way we’ve regulated water supplies. So I commend the Minister for doing that, and I think that, for the large part of New Zealand’s community, I have no fear. But what I do have a fear for is the fact we are looking at, in the course of—and we don’t know the answer, and there are so many things we don’t know the answer to in this House when we put legislation through here. One only has to go back to the anti-money laundering legislation and the cost of that, or back to the food safety legislation and the cost of that to small operators, to see what happens when we impose legislation across the board without considering, or without being able to consider, actually, in the course of the select committee process the potential cost to those organisations that are below the average in scale. So we end up with a disproportionate level of cost being imposed on small users—and I want to get to the small users in a minute—but that, for me, is a great concern.

I notice that Taumata Arowai is developing what we term three acceptable solutions relating to rural agricultural suppliers, roof water suppliers—and there are many, many thousands of roof water suppliers in New Zealand—and spring bore suppliers to create a pathway to compliance for small suppliers. I think that’s a great challenge, and I’d be worried about the impact that might have on those small water suppliers, whether they be rural or urban, because there are many properties where they supply their own water as well. For those of you who have been fortunate enough to have a tank water supply, there comes a time when they smell quite bad and you’ve got to get out and clean the tank out. That’s the signal that I’ve always used to keep my water supply clean. Done me no harm to date, but none the less that’s the challenge we face, and that’s the challenge that this organisation is going to face as it tries to implement the recommendations that have come from the select committee and as it tries to implement the recommendations contained in this bill.

I just want to get on to the rural schemes for a bit, because I have this—and it’s been well expressed within the House tonight, the concerns around the smaller rural schemes. And the reason I used that example about fixing the water pump earlier was that those water pumps—modern ones now—actually supply a large number of properties. The question I’ve got, and I guess it’s a question for the committee stage, but the question I’ve got around this is: what happens when the Minister, through her Supplementary Order Paper (SOP), gives communities, I think, up to seven years to rectify these issues? All that will do, in my view, is give them seven years to get rid of the connections, and they’ll end up not having to comply with this legislation, because, frankly, that’s what’s going to happen.

So the other question I’ve got around this is: what happens when you have a connection to a house, you disconnect the connection to the house and shove a hose on the garden tap and stick it in the tank? Does that have the same impact, and how on earth are they ever going to trace that sort of behaviour? So I would be very concerned about how we might ever police the issues that arise both out of the issue that Christopher Luxon and Penny Simmonds have raised in the course of the select committee process—and, I understand, ACT as well—and that is around these small rural water suppliers, and not only rural but they also supply some urban communities as well, the small suppliers of under 30 connections that we are talking about through the SOP introduced by Mr Luxon, excluding from the main part of the bill.

Now, it’s quite possible, I guess, that if they were excluded from the main part of the bill, they could then be part of the consideration for the development of the acceptable solutions relating to those suppliers at a later date, and that might be a much more sensible way of dealing with it. But I do have great concerns about, as I said earlier, the compliance costs that we’re going to impose on small rural water suppliers and small water suppliers supplying everything from marae to the example used by the member for Havelock North a little earlier—with the two houses hooked up to the tank that actually performed better than the Havelock North water supply, which was quite interesting. I was surprised, actually, but not really, because I actually have two grandsons who lived in Havelock North too and spent their life drinking my water, and they had no problem with the Havelock North water either. They were immune to anything that Havelock North could have done to them, and that was probably caused by the same thing! But it is kind of interesting where we might get to with this stuff.

So I do think that the water regulator part of this bill is logical, and I think it’s a very good initiative because it will give some stability around New Zealand. But I’ve got great concerns around how we connect or how we integrate those small water suppliers into it, and how we then integrate, as it says it’s going to do at a later date, those people with roof supplies and other forms of water supply—which I think will be extraordinarily difficult to get control of, and I don’t know why you’d want to, actually, because I think it’s been said in the House a number of times already tonight: those suppliers are actually very safe and very secure and we’ve had very little problem with them, despite the imagination of some in the House. So the bill does very little to influence the quality of water that many, many people collect and then drink. And, as has also been said in the House, you can quite easily provide a filter for the cleaning of that.

The other thing that amuses me a little bit, and I shouldn’t really raise it here, but the interesting thing for me is that if you start to fluoridate and fluorinate these water supplies, just imagine how long the old ewe will last! You know, if you’ve got a fluoridated water supply pumping around the farm, imagine what will happen to the age of old ewes and cows in New Zealand—they’ll live for ever! Anyway, we can’t support the bill for the reasons outlined, and I only hope that when the time comes, the SOPs that are introduced by Mr Luxon do get accepted by the Government. Thank you.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to stand and take a very short call. I want to mihi to the Hon Nanaia Mahuta for this very sound piece of legislation, and also to the select committee, who heard from a lot of people in regards to this matter, and rightly so. Water is incredibly precious. I recall back in the day, when we could travel, travelling to Ethiopia on a Speaker’s delegation, and all water needed to be drunk out of a plastic water bottle. It was a nightmare for me. I ended up on a plane. It was not pleasant, I can tell you. Luckily, there was medical assistance available, and I could take a whole pile of drugs to keep me alive. What we know with the Havelock North situation is that was not the case for some of our older people. Therefore, I’m really, really pleased that we’ve actually got a regulatory system that is going to support and help our people to drink healthy water in this country. I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Water Services Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 85

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

Noes 35

New Zealand National 33; Te Paati Māori 2.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Social Security (Subsequent Child Policy Removal) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

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

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

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: I move, That the Social Security (Subsequent Child Policy Removal) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

First of all, I’d like to acknowledge Minister Carmel Sepuloni, who, because of alert level 4, couldn’t be here to read this herself. The Government has committed to overhauling the welfare system, following years of neglect by the previous National Government. Our vision for the welfare system is that it ensures that people have an adequate income and standard of living, are treated with and can live in dignity, and are able to participate meaningfully in their communities.

In November 2019, Cabinet endorsed the long-term welfare overhaul work programme to build towards that vision. As part of the welfare overhaul work programme, we committed to continue to explore the removal of ineffective obligations and sanctions that were recommended by the Welfare Expert Advisory Group. The short-term focus of that work is on the sanctions that impact children and their families and whānau. Initial progress on this review of obligations and sanctions has included the repeal of section 192 of the Social Security Act 2018 in April of 2020, which previously sanctioned sole parent beneficiaries who did not identify the other parent of their child.

The subsequent child policy was also identified by the Welfare Expert Advisory Group as an ineffective sanction and one of many aspects of a system that does not support women’s role as carers. The previous National Government introduced the policy because they were focused on requiring parents to return to work as early as possible after having a subsequent child. However, there is no evidence to suggest that the policy has reduced time on benefits or improved financial or social outcomes. In fact, it disproportionately impacts Māori and women, and it has contributed to increased complexity in the welfare system and reduced flexibility for parents to spend time with their child or children.

This bill will achieve the removal of the subsequent child policy, which was recommended for removal alongside other obligations and sanctions in the welfare system. The removal of the subsequent child policy through this bill builds on the Government’s work to make the welfare system fairer. By 1 April 2022, 109,000 families and whānau with children will also be, on average, $175 a week better off as a result of all the Government’s changes to income support since 2017. Homai te pakipaki. This includes the benefit increases through Budget 2021, the Families Package, the $25 lift to benefit rates as part of the initial COVID-19 response, and the indexation of main benefits to average wage increases in the last two years.

So what does this bill do? If a caregiver has a dependent child and becomes the caregiver of an additional dependent child whilst receiving a relevant main benefit, the additional child is deemed to be a subsequent child under the current policy. A client’s eligibility for sole parent support and work or work preparation obligations are generally based on the age of their youngest dependent child. Under the current policy, when a client has a subsequent child while receiving a main benefit, that child’s age is only considered for the purposes of benefit entitlements and work or work preparation obligations until they reach the age of one. Work or work preparation obligations and eligibility for sole parent support are then generally based upon the age of a parent’s youngest non-subsequent child. This means that subsequent children are treated differently compared to non-subsequent children in the welfare system. In some instances, it means part-time or full-time work obligations are applied to parents from their subsequent child’s first birthday.

Part 1 of the bill will remove the subsequent child policy from the Social Security Act 2018 and Social Security Regulations 2018 on 8 November 2021. This change is intended to have a positive impact on the cohort affected by the policy, including increased flexibility to spend time at home with children if that is the best option for the family, increased equity and simplicity in the welfare system, and a likely reduction in stress for clients, which may positively impact mental health and wellbeing, through the setting of work obligations that recognise the age of all dependent children in the family.

Part 2 of the bill sets out transitional provisions to improve the client experience and comes into force on 11 October 2021. This allows for a 28-day transition period prior to the policy’s removal, which will improve the client experience of clients with a benefit application or a change in circumstances around the time of the policy’s removal by preventing multiple changes to their benefit type and/or work or work preparation obligations within a short period of time. The transition period also extends 28 days after the policy’s removal. The dates of application, decision by the Ministry of Social Development, and benefit commencement can be spread across several weeks. A broad window is therefore required to ensure equitable treatment across a range of situations within the transition period and to ensure a streamlined process for clients.

I note that the bill is narrow in scope, focusing only on the subsequent child policy itself. This will return clients with a subsequent child to the status quo of the usual work and work preparation obligations framework, rather than treating them differently based on their child being considered to be a subsequent child. As of 30 April 2021, approximately 11,400 clients are impacted by the policy. We are continuing our work to review wider obligations and sanctions in the welfare system, including the usual work and work preparation obligations framework, as part of the medium-term welfare overhaul work programme.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the Social Services and Community Committee for its consideration of the bill and to thank Angie Warren-Clark, the chair of it. The committee has recommended by majority that the bill be passed with four minor and technical amendments. I welcome the committee’s recommended minor and technical amendments, which are in line with the policy intent of the removal of the subsequent child policy, and improve the workability of the bill. I’ve provided further details on these amendments in the legislative statement that I presented to the House in advance of this second reading.

I’d also like to acknowledge the individual organisations and the independent Crown entity who took time to consider and to submit on the bill. The select committee received 31 submissions on the bill, and, of those who provided written submissions, 13 submitters gave oral presentations to the committee. It was encouraging to see that the majority of submitters were in support of the bill. Of the 31 submissions received, 25 supported the bill, four opposed the bill, and the remaining two submissions did not explicitly indicate their position on the bill. Many submitters drew from personal or anecdotal experiences within the welfare system and made it clear that the current subsequent child policy has a negative impact on the parents or caregivers and the children that it affects. I’m proud to progress this bill—I should say: on behalf of Minister Sepuloni. She’s proud to progress this bill with their support to remove this policy.

A few themes of support for the bill raised by submitters. They align and support our intent for this bill, which is ultimately to improve equity. Removing the policy will align the treatment of a subsequent child with that of a non-subsequent child in the setting of work or work preparation obligations in determining eligibility for sole parent support. Submitters in support of the bill highlighted specific concerns that the current subsequent child policy impacts child development, does not reflect parents’ caring responsibilities, has caused stress and impacts mental health, disproportionately impacts Māori and women, has created inequities in the welfare system, has not achieved its intended purpose, puts pressure on low-income families to have fewer children, and contributes to hardship and poverty. This bill aims to address many of these issues raised by submitters in the simplest possible way: by removing the subsequent child policy.

In conclusion, Madam Chair—Madam Speaker, sorry—this Government’s vision for the welfare system is to ensure that people—oh, sorry, Mr Speaker!—have an adequate income and standard of living, are treated—

Greg O’Connor: Blimmin masks!

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: —with and can live in dignity—yeah, ha, ha!—and are able to participate meaningfully in their communities. This bill is a key part of the welfare overhaul work programme to build towards this vision. I commend this bill to the House.

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

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I stand in opposition tonight to the Social Security (Subsequent Child Policy Removal) Amendment Bill. The National Party has made no secret that it was not going to support the bill, and simply because it was one that was introduced by the fifth National Government, under the Hon Paula Bennett, as part of the significant amount of welfare reforms that went on there. I take note of one of the comments that the previous speaker, the Hon Kelvin Davis, has just made regarding the effect of some of the National Party’s policies in the previous National-led Government. They were world-renowned welfare reforms, and I pay great tribute to the Hon Bill English for his visionary stand in terms of the social investment approach that a lot of those policies were guided by. It’s a shame to see legislation now unwinding some of that work. The reason that we are opposing this bill is because it simply makes it easier for people who have multiple children, on benefit, to stay on benefit, and that ultimately punishes those children—and I’ll get into that in a little bit more time.

Basically, what this bill does is it reverses the subsequent child policy that was introduced in 2012, and what it does is it, basically, takes away any obligation and any commitment and the sanctions that were imposed under that previous amount of legislation. The Government says that the purpose of removing it is to reduce the stress on parents and increase the time that parents have to interact with their children and support their early development. That is great if you have that ability to do that when you are paid by the State, but the reason it was brought in to align with the one-year age bracket was because that is what people in paid employment get in terms of parental leave. So if people who are at work get 12 months parental leave so that they can spend time with their children, then it was seen as a perfect alignment that people on benefit would have that same time frame.

Why we brought in that policy in the beginning, the subsequent child policy, was because we always felt, and still do, that the welfare system—and one thing that New Zealand can be very proud of adopting back in the early days—provided a safety net. It is a safety net for those people who really needed it, but it was never designed as a lifestyle choice. We know that the subsequent child policy, when we introduced it, went alongside a whole lot of other support, and that went along with employment support, preparation for employment, extra education, and some sort of workforce training, so that people could become ready to re-enter the workforce. So that subsequent child policy did not stand alone; it stood as part of a suite of initiatives that wrapped around those and provided support to those most at risk. The point of it was that it did not, then, risk that long-term benefit dependency, because you are reducing that risk and engaging people in the workforce earlier. The best way—we know this and I know the Minister that has just spoken said that it has not worked, but the reality is that the research is clear that in order to escape hardship and poverty, the best avenue out is to be in paid employment. It’s not only about being paid for that employment; it is about the increase in confidence that it gives people, it is about the support networks that they get from being in a workplace, increased social mobility, but it also interrupts that intergenerational transmission of disadvantage. They are great reasons to have that subsequent child policy in place.

We also have evidence about why that policy did work. I go back to the 2010 and 2011 Welfare Working Group’s work and have a couple of comments out of their report: “ – the level of support and general expectation to be looking for work in the benefit system – makes an important difference in how long someone stays on a benefit.” That’s a very good incentive. There is also quoted in the report: “There is growing consensus that joblessness is particularly harmful to mental and physical health. There is increasing evidence that long-term benefit receipt has harmful effects on confidence, skills and future employability.” But, most of all, it says that “Children raised in long-term benefit dependent families are likely to suffer adverse health effects, poorer educational achievement and reduced aspiration.” We are starting to see that with the truancy levels in this country going up, the slide in our educational achievement, especially in our high schools. If we can do anything to reverse those trends, we should be.

I move on to the submissions—and the Minister has mentioned some of those submissions. There were only 31, which is probably not surprising, but we did have some top-quality submitters to the select committee, and some that we would expect and hope to hear from in that process, like Barnardos New Zealand; the Child Poverty Action Group; the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, of course—Judge Andrew Becroft was a passionate submitter—and the Salvation Army, of course. But one of them was a young person called Ali Haidari—I hope I’ve said that right—and part of that submission I will read. It was quite inspiring coming from a young person: “it will stop parents or a sole parent to get into the workforce as they now have an extra child that they need to look after. Especially for families who rely on the government benefit which is simply not enough for them to raise more kids and if they do have another kid, then they do not have enough financial support or they are sitting on a government benefit which just isn’t enough for them to raise more kids. That’s where the child ends up in poverty because the parents cannot financially support them and they are facing hardship.” And that, I think, out of the mouth of babes. The Prime Minister herself put herself in charge of child poverty, and that has been an appalling failure up until now.

We look at the cost of implementing this policy, this piece of legislation, and it is very minimal. In fact, the cost estimate in the August 2020 departmental report put it at about $4.01 million, and, of that, $3.966 million was for the Ministry of Social Development and Work and Income IT support and changes for training and for comms. So, basically, not very much of it—some small change, in fact—is actually the financial advantage to any of the people that it is targeted at.

So there is very little to support in removing this benefit. I think it does a disservice to the people who it is ultimately targeted at. In fact, if we look at the benefit assistance numbers now sitting at 365,937, you can see that this Government has taken us in the wrong direction.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to stand and talk about the Social Security (Subsequent Child Policy Removal) Amendment Bill. I’m really delighted to do that because this is a bill that, essentially, was predicated on an assumption that I feel is wrong. That assumption is that people who are on benefits have children to stay on benefits. That is not the case. We know that people have more wishes, hopes, and dreams for their families than living on benefits.

We heard from 31 submitters: 17 individuals, 13 organisations, and one Crown entity—81 percent of those submitters were in support of the removal of this policy. I want to read very quickly from the Child Poverty Action Group, “We must acknowledge and support women in their unpaid labour as child carers. Raising children has long been undervalued despite its crucial contribution to society. Children’s experiences in their early years are a strong determinant of their social and health outcomes later in life, highlighting the importance of parenting both for the children themselves and for society at large.” This piece of legislation gives the opportunity and the choice for those beneficiaries, those people on benefits, to stay at home with their children when they need to, but it also gives them the choice to go out to work just like everyone else in this country. I commend this bill to the House.

HARETE HIPANGO (National): I rise to take a call on this at rather short notice, but it just happens to be coincidental that on the weekend—little did I know that I’d be speaking on such an issue—I was reflecting with whanaunga Dame Tari back home. We were sitting on the porch in the sun like two old kuia, reflecting on how our old people used to deal with these issues. We were talking about how our people—New Zealanders and Māori also—have become locked in to this mentality of welfarism and State dependency and the loss of mana motuhake. Literally, the mana is the dignity that our people have and had, and the motuhake; the ability to stand upright and independent in the most trying and hardship of times. Here I am before the House, addressing, those who are listening in, the second reading of the Social Security (Subsequent Child Policy Removal) Amendment Bill.

There are members in the House who sat on the select committee, and the process was that this amendment bill was referred to the committee on 6 April 2021. The Minister, the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, was invited to give an initial briefing, which she did on 2 June 2021. The closing date for submissions was 19 May. Thirty-one submissions were made and oral evidence heard from 11 submitters. And here I am standing before the House, just reflecting on the kōrero that I had with one of our old people, our kuia, and we were reflecting on the advice and kōrero and the mātauranga, the knowledge base of our old people. Our old people were not welfare dependent, were not locked in to the mentality that in order to get by, we needed the State to provide and support.

It’s accepted that there is a time and there is a place for the State to provide. But, really, the question that we should answer is: do we continue to perpetuate that welfare dependency? In my submission: regrettably, this does. And I say “regrettably” because this is an area that I’ve given service, working in areas of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in my community, in our community. I have seen the intergenerational dysfunction of welfare dependency and the perpetuation of the State saying our people can’t do and can’t get by, cannot stand upright without the State telling us: “This is what you need. You need the State to keep giving you the pūtea.”, to keep giving you the poverty of a sense of loss of spirit and dignity.

I do not go into the detail of this bill other than to say that it proposes to move a policy that had been introduced in 2012 by the National Government, recognising the importance of uplifting and elevating and helping our people out of that sense of a poverty of existence, but, importantly, the kōrero that I had back home on the weekend—the greatest poverty that we have as a nation is that of spirit. We have a State welfare system that perpetuates that poverty by telling our people: “You can’t get out of this locked-in level of dependency.” That is the greatest depression that we have in the country: the reliance on a welfare system that our people become so locked in in mentality and spirit that it is oppressive. That the level of dependency in this country is keeping our people suppressed from being elevated up into what we once knew as a proud nation of mana motuhake. I do not support this bill, along with the National Party.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. I rise in support of this piece of legislation, and I want to thank the Hon Carmel Sepuloni for her work in ensuring that our welfare system, our people, are well cared for.

Now, a previous speaker—thank you for reminiscing about the weekend with your kuia friend on the porch. This piece of legislation as it stands disproportionately impacts Māori, by around 56 percent. This piece of legislation disproportionately impacts on women, by around 86 percent. So I hope that that conversation on that porch over the weekend was around that disparity.

As a member of the Social Services and Community Committee, and listening, the Ministry of Social Development did modelling on this legislation, which was brought in in 2012, and they found no strong evidence to suggest that this policy has been effective in reducing time on the benefit. Therefore, I support this piece of legislation and I commend it to the House.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to rise on behalf of the Green Party to offer our support for the Social Security (Subsequent Child Policy Removal) Amendment Bill at this, the second reading. I do, first up, in contrast to some of the previous speakers, want to start my speech by acknowledging the amazing parents we have in our country who leave everything they’ve got on the floor for the wellbeing of their kids and for us as a society.

I really want to acknowledge just how unique every child is and how the process of family building after the birth of the child for parents, as well as children, is different after every single birth. Actually, the mental wellbeing, the physical wellbeing of the birthing parent may be quite different. It’s not always the same. We need, as a society, to be looking after our birthing parents, our mums, and our kids as best we can, because it is the most important—and some have said the most difficult—job in the world. There is no guidebook on how to do it right.

I think part of what I’ve found so offensive with this piece of legislation that we’re overturning today is the sense of you can create one rule for all, and just the disconnect between that and how different all of our kids are and how different their needs are and how different circumstances are after the birth of every child and there’s a difference that we’re setting up for the treatment between different kids, like the State is picking favourites. I was always taught that parents should lie and say they don’t have a favourite. I think it’s really wrong that our legislation has been picking favourites for kids. I’m saying that the older ones get more time with their parents than the younger ones if they happen to be born into a family where a parent is receiving a benefit.

It was fantastic to see how much support there was for this legislation. As I think it’s been mentioned, like 81 percent of the submissions were in support. The reasons that they gave—there were six kind of core reasons that reflected the Green Party reasons for supporting this. I’d like to go through some of those. So (1) that the policy is forcing parents back into looking for work, usually, often, in this case, when their kid’s only like a year old, is harmful to children’s development, and it fails to prioritise the first 1,000 years—first 1,000 days. Ha, ha! That would be interesting, wouldn’t it? Which we all know, and I think I remember hearing from the National Party heading into the last election, the importance of the first 1,000 days a few times. Yet they can’t seem to bring that thinking to this piece of legislation. But surprise, it’s not unfamiliar for the inconsistency on that side. That first 1,000 days is absolutely vital for the emotional and physical wellbeing of children and their attachment to parents and caregivers, and we should not be forcing that detachment at that time, because that has lifelong consequences for those children.

The second reason that submitters were supporting overturning this horrible rule was that it doesn’t reflect parents’ caring responsibility, and it makes it harder for parents to stay home with a subsequent child, and devalues parenting as unpaid work. Like, it’s peak capitalism at its worst, I think, to just say, “It doesn’t matter what job you’re doing, as long as you’re being paid. We don’t care about your kids, because that’s going to matter more.”, and the sense that the poverty that we are fighting can only be solved through paid work, rather than us coming together as a community and ensuring people have enough to be able to look after themselves. Ultimately—

Hon Member: Where does the money come from?

JAN LOGIE: —it doesn’t serve anyone. It comes from all of us. Ideally, it would come from a wealth tax. You know, actually, there’s some people who are doing pretty well these days and they wouldn’t hurt to be sharing a little bit to ensure that everybody and all of our children are able to thrive.

The third reason that people said they supported it was that this subsequent child policy, as it has existed, has a really negative effect on the mental health and wellbeing of parents and caregivers, as well as their kids. It’s that sense of stress and being under surveillance and losing that dignity that we heard about from the last speaker. It’s not the having been supported by your society to look after your kids and the acknowledgment of the importance of your role of caregiver that is stigmatising and takes dignity from people; it’s the surveillance and the sense of the message that that policy conveyed that you have no ability to make choices for yourself that are good, that the State has to force parents to make those decisions for themselves. That does not reflect reality. That is just purely stigmatising.

So the fourth reason that submitters supported the overturning of this was that it’s actually racist and discriminatory, and the Greens, we would say misogynist, quite clearly, in terms of the other forms of discrimination. That this policy has impacted—56 percent of the people affected by it have been Māori and 86 percent have been women. That is embedding and reinforcing existing discrimination in our society, and really outdated views that are in contrast to the human right to be able to choose if and when to have children, and the spacing of those children—fundamental human rights acknowledged through a lot of the United Nations human rights instruments. That was in contrast to this piece of legislation, I would say.

The fifth reason was that it creates inequities and suggests subsequent children need less parenting time and care than their older siblings, which there is no grounds, there is no research to say that children that come along later have less need to be parented. That is just not based in facts.

And the sixth point was that it adds complexity to the welfare system, and that’s expensive to administer and that takes up people’s time that could otherwise be put to caring for their kids, or, if they were getting to the point where the best for their family was that the parent be in paid work, actually looking for that work, rather than having to go to appointments or being able to prove their case to this institution that does not seem to understand or care about them.

Now, we’ve heard from the Opposition that this policy addresses poverty and reduces independence. Let me say very clearly that the evidence does not support that hot take at all. International research has shown that sanctions don’t lead to positive long-term results. Close to home, the Australian Journal of Social Issues found work obligations do not support people into paid work. And the Ministry of Social Development’s own modelling hasn’t shown that the policy supports people into paid work. So even if you do privilege paid work over the more important, I would say, work of parenting, then, actually, the policy is a failure on that ground alone.

But if you want to actually have a society where you value caring, you put the wellbeing of our children and our families first, then, actually, you wouldn’t be asking that question; you’d be saying, “How can we support people in terms of being able to do the best for their kids in those first few years of life?” The analogy that’s made about, well, this is just lining it up with paid parental leave, which is often a situation where people are in relationships, I think the Opposition fails to recognise the distinction and the challenge of sole parenting several children, and that, actually, sometimes paid work is just not an option. It is just not what is going to work for your children, for you to be able to get your kids to school; to health appointments, if they have those needs; or if they’ve got attachment issues; or if they’re healing from trauma—any number of things, it will not work for them. We need to ensure that, as a society, we honour the choices for good parenting, based on the judgment of those parents.

TONI SEVERIN (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I stand on behalf of the ACT Party to oppose the second reading of the Social Security (Subsequent Child Policy Removal) Amendment Bill. I’d like to thank Karen Chhour, our social development spokesperson, for her help, and wish her well in her Auckland lockdown.

In a time when child poverty and hardship has been in the spotlight as a major issue in this country, removing policies that were put in place to help tackle this seems to go against what this Parliament is trying to achieve. ACT believes we are sending the wrong message. We have a Government talking about wanting to solve child poverty, and one of the biggest causes of child poverty is being born into it. Why are we focusing on making it a priority to create ways to keep people dependent on the State, instead of helping them gain their self-esteem, gain their sense of independence, gain some skills to get out into the workforce, and help them drive our economy?

Working parents get 12 months’ leave and have to go back to work, but Government want to pay beneficiaries three years looking for work. This seems to me unfair. Many who choose to have these children in families don’t necessarily have the choice to stay at home, either. Many couples wanting to start these families, in order to ensure they can afford to feed, clothe, house, and support these children—nope. That’s a lot of sacrifice that a lot of the lower-paid income people are doing, and this Government wants, now, to give beneficiaries more of an opportunity and a hand up than what hard-working people are. For many couples, they have chosen when they have another child, as well, because of the affordability, where this, by taking this substantive piece out of this bill, gives women, mostly—that, of course, have babies—the opportunity to have another one, quite quickly, in some cases, where a lot of families cannot do that. They cannot afford it because of their wages.

There should always be a safety net, but welfare dependency should never become a lifestyle choice. This bill argues that these parents should be chosen to stay home for, like, the first three years, which is what the rules currently are, but if you have another child—you are on the benefit—the subsequent child defaults to the time of one year. Well, it’s a bit confusing here, because, as you can guess, it’s not my area, but—

Hon Member: It hasn’t worked, so it’s not confusing.

TONI SEVERIN: It is very confusing, because many, as I know, employed women and husbands, or some solo mums that were under circumstances, weren’t necessarily able to have that choice of whether or not they could stay at home and look after their child. They did not want to go on benefits; they wanted to work. They wanted to prove to their children that working hard is a way forward for anyone that is in financial difficulty.

One out of every 10 children is born on to an existing benefit. One in five babies is living in benefit-led households by their first babies. This is not helping our poverty problem if we are continuing to have children being born in these houses. These children face a bleaker future than children born to parents in work. They face worse outcomes on nearly every social indicator. We think that those who select to continue to rear children while receiving a benefit should be considering the welfare of their children first and foremost. ACT has a policy that puts the welfare of the child at the front and centre, introducing the electronic income management card, which would help to ensure Government benefits are supporting the family in the right places at the right times. We can’t afford to keep going down having more children stuck in this poverty gap, not being able to afford the basic needs, if people are continuing to have children while they’re on this benefit.

We have made very good progress. The other side of the House would say that it has not made great progress, but we have reduced the number of children being brought into dependent households. However, that seems to be, now, rising again, which is very sad. We should not be encouraging more. It is very sad that there are many people that this occurs to. However, we shouldn’t be rewarding one side of the coin without the other, where many families who struggle to have children, and put them off for many years, cannot afford to have multiple children. Why should we then take this subsequent policy away and allow beneficiaries to do it? I oppose this bill.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. I have never heard such a lot of pernicious, vile, utterly foundless tripe. That comes straight out of 1970s neocon. The idea that people go out there baby farming so that they can live off the back of the State is not only false; it’s possibly been disproved, and I cannot believe that in New Zealand today there’s a political party, even that far-right political party, that would repeat that absolute nonsense. It’s vile, it’s false, and it’s misogynistic—

Hon David Parker: It’s Victorian.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —because all it does is punish women. Absolutely, Mr Parker. It’s Victorian. So to suggest that to reduce child poverty, we deprive children of support absolutely defies logic.

This bill is getting rid of a punishment for having children—an effective financial sterilisation of a woman, and I’ll have no part of that. I’m proud to be part of a Government that’s getting rid of it and part of a Government that is making meaningful steps to address child poverty. I absolutely commend this bill to the House.

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

NICOLA GRIGG (National—Selwyn): I’m not sure where to start, but that was quite an extraordinary delivery from the good doctor on the other side of the House. I think, in my view, this is a classic example of good intentions having unintended consequences, and, in this case, long-lasting, damaging consequences.

Now, we’ve heard some very, very different ideological arguments from either side of the House this evening, and the word “dignity” has been mentioned several times. But we on this side of the House will argue that the intrinsic value of work and the dignity that that brings, you cannot put a value on.

On this side of the House, we are the first to agree that the safety net of social support is vital to the wellbeing of any society, and we are proudly the party that was the first in decades to raise the main benefit when we were last in Government. But this Government is unwinding what was an important change that was made to the welfare system in 2012. It’s disappointing to have heard comments from that side of the House which I thought were quite disparaging regarding the submission that my colleague Harete Hipango made in relaying a conversation that she had had with none other than Dame Tariana Turia on this very subject. Now, I would suggest to that side of the House that when Dame Tariana speaks up, boy, you should listen.

Despite what the Labour Party will have the public believe, the subsequent child policy in 2012 was about reducing long-term welfare dependency. The impacts of long-term welfare dependency, particularly on children, are deeply harmful—not even Dr Webb can argue that away. Of the thousands of children in New Zealand who live in material hardship, 60 percent of them are in benefit-dependent households, so to put measures in place to keep their parents dependent on benefits is a retrograde step.

The social problems that we have seen emerge under this Government are enormous, and the consequences of them are going to be long-lasting and deeply impactful. This Government has created a culture of dependency. There are almost 200,000 more New Zealanders on a benefit than in 2017. That is one in nine working-age Kiwis—one in nine—and before that side of the House runs and hides behind COVID, those numbers were ratcheting up long before we’d even heard of the word.

But the ripple effect of those numbers of people who are sole parents on their children is deeply concerning. Already, more children than ever are living in material deprivation. The safety net is in place for those who need it. We on this side of the House will never disagree that juggling parenting and work is incredibly difficult. Transitioning from being a sole parent on a benefit into work is incredibly difficult, but the core of this issue is about the wellbeing of children in the long term.

We know that if you go on to a benefit under the age of 20, you are likely to be on it for about 14 years. Repealing this provision will impact on about 11,000 people, but I couldn’t quite find the data to illustrate just how many kids that it will impact on. But what a worry that so many of them would be destined to a life of dependence from a Government that proclaims to be kind.

The Labour Party, in repealing this provision of subsequent children, is destining more Kiwi kids to a life of poverty and a life of hardship, poorer health, and social outcomes, and, because of that, we oppose it in its entirety.

Dr GAURAV SHARMA (Labour—Hamilton West): I rise in the House, second time today, to speak on another fantastic bill by another fantastic Minister from the Labour Party. I just want to thank, first of all, Minister Carmel Sepuloni as well as the Social Services and Community Committee for considering this bill recently. It is my understanding that of all the submissions that came through the select committee, the majority were in favour of this bill, which helps reset a lot of the issues that came about when the National Party made a few amendments a few years ago.

The bill specifically addresses concerns around the current subsequent child policy, which affects child development. As my colleague Glen Bennett mentioned, it disproportionately affects Māori and our wāhine. What a great bill it is to help our wāhine to be able to look after their subsequent child the same way they can do with their primary or first child. So I would like to support this bill to move further in the House. Thank you.

PENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak in opposition to the Social Security (Subsequent Child Policy Removal) Amendment Bill. The bill proposes to remove the subsequent child policy, also known as the additional dependent child policy, from the Social Security Act. The reason I speak in opposition of this is very similar to my colleague Nicola Grigg, who talks about how it’s misplaced kindness. National, of course, believes that the welfare system must be a safety net. We believe that those without a job should get support and incentives to re-enter the workforce, and, of course, we believe that it’s absolutely important for parents to have time to develop strong bonds and connection with their children. It would be foolish of any of us to deny that.

The OECD makes a really important comment about employment and poverty. The OECD says paid work is the most effective way of reducing the risk of family poverty, enhancing child development, and generally giving children the best start in life—not “a” way, not possibly something that could be done, but the most effective way of reducing the risk of family poverty, enhancing child development, and generally giving children the best start in life. And if we believe that to be true, then we should all be moving heaven and earth to ensure that we assist parents to get into employment, because if we don’t, we are, in effect, saying we don’t care about family poverty, we don’t care about children’s development, and we don’t care about giving them the best start in life.

I spent a lot of my time, as you know, as the chief executive of the Southern Institute of Technology. The polytech sector is an absolutely amazing place for second-chance education—I have seen tens of thousands of, particularly, women wanting to return to the workforce after starting their family. And I have lost count of how many women would contact me at the end of their studies and say what a change it has made in their life. I watched many of those women come in tentatively, unsure of themselves, lacking confidence, and by the time they had got themselves on to a pathway for employment, they were completely different women. They knew that they were being role models for their family and how incredibly important that was for them and their family. But under Labour, what we are seeing is dependency.

Now, I listened carefully to Jan Logie of the Green Party talk about the kindness and what needs to be done for our parents and our young people. I think that she is saying those things with an absolute best of intent. This Labour Government has that sort of intent in so many different areas, that appearance of being kind. But, in fact, it is not kind to take away the dignity of a person. It is not kind to take away their self-determination. It is extremely unkind to ensure that that dependency and that lack of thinking of self-worth is there because of the policies and the structures that you put around our parents, particularly our sole parents.

I listened to my colleague talk earlier about elevating parents, of elevating mothers so that they are role models. And I would urge the other side of the House to think about that, to think about ensuring that our parents can have dignity and self-determination and be elevated—not oppressed, not to ensure that they are dependent, because that does not serve them well and certainly does not serve their children well.

I heard that there was a lot of talk about the National Party’s 2020 policy on the first thousand days. There is nothing inconsistent with our stance on this amendment and the first thousand days, wanting to see the first thousand days of a child’s life be a really important and supported part of their life. Of course, we want to see the wraparound support to ensure that a mother or the caregiver can get out and retrain and put themselves on a pathway to employment, as well as supporting them to be able to look after their child, as well as ensuring that good early childhood centres are available for them to put their child into, and as well as promoting the self-determination of that family to do good for themselves; not to be constantly looking at the State to look after them.

Now, this seems to be a theme that goes on through this Labour Government, of ensuring people are dependent and looking to the Government and looking to the State and thinking that the State will look after them. In the long term, that is not going to serve those people well. It is not going to serve those families well. It is not going to show them that they can be elevated. As my colleague said, it is not going to bring about the sort of things that this appearance of kindness says it’s going to. So the National Party certainly does not want to have a bar of this encouraging dependency and this crisis of dependency that we are starting to see and that is so favoured by this Government. National will always stand for people being able to get ahead themselves. Of course, we will always want to be there and give the assistance and give the support, but we want that self-determination and that movement up to come about by the people being able to take their own responsibility.

So, in conclusion, we cannot support this bill in that it removes one of—just one of—those policies and those steps and those structures that helps encourage people along their pathway. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise as the final speaker on the second reading of this bill. This bill is not about encouraging dependency; it’s about supporting children and whānau and families. It’s important that we take a long-term view of the full effects on a person’s life of those first 1,000 days. My wife and I had four children under five years, which I probably would not recommend to anyone in this House, but there you go. I see that Nicola Willis fits in that club as well. Look, we were fortunate in our case that my wife was able to stay home for around six or seven years. It was very tight on the income, but being able to do that had a significant impact on the start of our children’s lives. Now, I know that’s not possible for everyone, but I’d just like to share a personal story in terms of the importance of that first 1,000 days, and this bill supports that. I commend it to the House.

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

Ayes 77

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

Noes 43

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Taxation (Annual Rates for 2021-22, GST, and Remedial Matters) Bill

First Reading

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Revenue): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I present a legislative statement on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2021-22, GST, and Remedial Matters) Bill.

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

Hon DAVID PARKER: Thank you again, Madam Speaker. I move, That the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2021-22, GST, and Remedial Matters) Bill be read a first time.

As we continue to deal with the unfolding COVID situation, the Government is doing all it can to protect the lives and livelihoods of New Zealanders. This bill is about ensuring the Government’s support for the community can continue. Managing the tax system is an important function of any Government at any time. But at a critical time for the health of our people and our economy, this is absolutely vital. Although New Zealand has relatively strong tax settings, it’s important to maintain the tax system and ensure that it continues to be fit for purpose. Maintaining the tax system helps maintain the revenue base, which helps fund the services and functions many New Zealanders depend upon. It also provides clarity and certainty. Changes in the interpretation of the law can introduce unfairnesses, inefficiencies, complexities, and uncertainty, which the tax system should respond to. Proposed changes in this bill will uphold the integrity of the system.

Changes can also arise as circumstances change. The tax system must, for example, adapt to changing technology. Business practices change too; so must the tax system if we want to minimise compliance costs for businesses. So some proposals in this bill relating to this generally aim to make life a little easier for businesses. A good example is that of cryptoassets. The designers of our tax system never contemplated cryptocurrencies and other types of cryptoassets. We want to ensure fairness in the tax system. We recognise that cryptoassets have a growing role in the economy, so we want to ensure that people using cryptoassets to invest, develop new products, or raise capital are not obstructed from doing so because of our GST rules.

We also strive to remove distortions in the tax system, and the bill, therefore, proposes that cryptoassets be excluded from GST imposed by the GST Act and from the financial arrangement rules within the Income Tax Act. Cryptoassets may, of course, still be subject to income tax on disposal. The bill also proposes allowing GST-registered businesses who raise their funds through issuing cryptoassets with similar features to debt or securities to claim input credits for their capital raising costs.

A further measure aimed at removing a distortion is a proposal to zero rate the domestic leg of cross-border transportation of goods. Currently, the transportation of goods to and from New Zealand is zero rated, as is the transport of goods within New Zealand, provided this is part of the international transport of goods and done by the same supplier. The bill expands the zero rating to accommodate subcontracting arrangements for transport within New Zealand. This levels the playing field and removes incentives to pick one transport carrier over another. This change will broadly align New Zealand rules with those of Australia.

The bill also proposes improvements to the GST apportionment rules. These rules are used to determine GST input tax deductions, where an asset is used partly to conduct a GST-registered business and partly for a private or exempt use. The current rules prescribe a formula for apportionment. One proposed change would reduce compliance costs for smaller GST-registered suppliers by allowing them to apply to the Inland Revenue to use an alternative apportionment method.

Another proposal is aimed at avoiding overtaxing the sale of appreciating assets that are used for both business and private purposes. This would be achieved by allowing a deduction that more correctly reflects the non-taxable use of that asset.

In striving to maintain the tax system and ensure it imposes minimal compliance costs, it’s necessary to keep up with current business practice. Current GST rules stipulate that invoices must be a document, and they prescribe a format for that document. The rules also require registered persons to create and retain tax invoices for taxable supplies and also credit notes and debit notes for adjustments to taxable supplies. We’re proposing to replace the requirement for the issue of documents with the requirement for the provision of information with no prescribed formats. This better aligns with the electronic invoice and record systems that modern businesses use.

The bill proposes amendments to the rules relating to groups of companies. An amendment introduces the term “GST group” for a group of companies that choose to register as a group under the GST Act. Other amendments clarify that the application of GST rules for the representative member is the maker and receiver of supplies for a GST group.

Also on the theme of clarification, the bill proposes a series of technical amendments to the fair dividend rate foreign currency hedge rules to improve their functionality from a practical perspective and reduce compliance costs for eligible taxpayers with a large number of hedges.

Circumstances change, as I said earlier, and the tax system must move to reflect that. An obvious example is that, of course, of COVID-19 and now the Delta variant. The bill consequently proposes removing the time limit from the COVID-19 information-sharing provisions that apply between the Inland Revenue Department and other agencies. This is designed to ensure that agencies are able to continue sharing necessary information throughout the pandemic. This, of course, enables initiatives that support New Zealand’s recovery. An important part of the tax system is to uphold the integrity of the tax system. The bill proposes a series of measures to improve the integrity and fairness of local government taxation. It will prevent local authorities effectively transferring the benefit of their tax exempt status to their, sometimes trading, taxable council-controlled organisation. If you don’t remove that, you create a competitive disadvantage for companies that are competing with those council-controlled organisations.

The bill proposes allowing the use of tax pooling to satisfy a tax obligation where there is no existing tax assessment or the tax obligation has not been quantified. The proposal includes safeguards to avoid incentivising the non-filing of tax returns by taxpayers.

The bill also introduces penalties on the sale and acquisition of sales suppression software. I didn’t, until recently, even know that this existed. But sales suppression software changes the point of sale data collected by a business to understate or hide sales revenue. This enables businesses to avoid paying the correct amount of GST and income tax. Such software poses a serious risk to the integrity of the tax base and is unfair to other taxpayers.

Moving on to other matters, the bill proposes 11 New Zealand charities with overseas charitable purposes be granted overseas donee status and be listed in schedule 32 of the Income Tax Act 2007 with effect from 1 April 2021. It also extends the donee status of an existing trust until 31 March 2025. The bill also removes eight charities whose activities have ceased.

The annual task of setting the income tax rates for each year is perhaps the most fundamental aspect of managing the tax system. It’s necessary to provide clarity and certainty to taxpayers, employers, and payroll developers. We’re not proposing any change to the annual rates of tax for the 2021-22 tax year, as currently specified in the Income Tax Act 2007.

In conclusion, the bill we are considering today makes crucial improvements, which will ensure that the machinery of the tax system continues to run efficiently. It is a bill about the prudent management of the tax system. I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider the bill, and I look forward to the House considering the bill and examining it, and I commend it to the House.

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

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Well, thank you, Madam Speaker. It was nice to see the Minister of Revenue finish where he perhaps could have started. It’s not often people say these words, but all I can say about this bill is thank goodness for tax accountants and for the benefit of Barbara Edmonds’ tax lawyers, because there’s about a hundred pages in this bill and it is a notoriously complex piece of policy work. I know that my colleagues who are on the Finance and Expenditure Committee will do an excellent job in analysing this bill and scrutinising it, and I’m sure they will come back to this House in due course recommending sensible improvements. But the real heroes of that work will be the advisers, the Inland Revenue policy staff, and our tax accountants and lawyers.

Hon David Parker: And the committee members who sit through it!

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: That’s right. I must say, I was quite staggered at the fact that the Minister of Revenue spent nearly 10 minutes talking about this but did not mention the policy elephant in the room which this bill is giving effect to. He talked about the health of our economy and how this bill will support it and maintaining the tax base, but what he didn’t say was what the Government is doing with this bill, and that is increasing the top rate of tax for those who earn over $180,000. So we’re taxing the rich.

My friends on the left will say, “Well, isn’t that a good thing?” Well, I think it’s worth pointing out once again, as we have done in this House many times, where the income tax burden actually falls: on earners. The latest information that Treasury has on its website suggests that the bottom 48 percent of income earners in this country pay—that’s 48 percent—just 8 percent of income tax.

Hon David Parker: What about GST?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Oh, I’ll come to GST and wealth transfers in a minute, Mr Parker; I appreciate your enthusiasm for the subject, and I do appreciate there is an intellectual and philosophical difference about the merits of the amount of tax that’s taken out of taxpayers’ pockets. So 48 percent of income tax earners pay 8 percent of income tax, and the top 12 percent of income tax earners pay nearly 50 percent of the income tax base. I think that’s fair. I’m not saying that’s wrong.

Those data actually exclude the sort of wealth transfers that we have through things like Working for Families and independent earner tax credits. And it is true that depending on how one measures the GST, whether it’s a flat tax, a regressive tax, or a progressive tax—we can argue that till doomsday—the higher-income earners on a dollar for dollar basis will also pay more in GST. So I think that’s fair.

I don’t think it is fair to continue to fleece upper-income earners out of envy. And what we have seen in these very straitened times, particularly through COVID, where the Government is spending an eye-watering amount of money priming the economy—that’s the term that’s used—is that stimulus usually involves two things. One is Government stimulating the economy through extra spending and the other way is to offer tax cuts. So we’re not having a tax cut here. We’re not even having a tax threshold change, a question that was debated by this House only a month or so ago through Simon Bridges’ member’s bill to adjust tax threshold changes, and in the debate I pointed out that a nurse on the average salary at Auckland Hospital is now paying nearly $2,000 a year in tax, not because they are earning more—they’re paying more for that in any event—but nearly $2,000 in tax because they are now in the top tax bracket. Ten years ago, they were 10 percent below the top tax bracket. Now they’re 10 percent above it because the tax bracket hasn’t moved but their incomes have.

So there’s an enormous amount of money already being taken out of the pockets of hard-working taxpayers, and this bill will take more. How much more? We don’t know, because the Minister didn’t even mention that fiscal elephant in this bill. I think when it was first announced, we were talking somewhere in the region of hundreds of millions of dollars. Well, that makes that, this change—what?—three or four days’ worth of lockdown costs that the Crown is paying.

What we know about tax is that it usually disincentivises things. It disincentivises things like, I don’t know—taxes on cigarettes and alcohol are there so people smoke and drink less. Well, taxes on—we had a debate this afternoon on rebates for electric vehicles and taxes on internal combustion engine vehicles. Why? Because the Government wants people to buy fewer of them. We have taxes on—well, they may call it something else, but capital gains on houses. Why? Because the Government doesn’t want well-off people to buy lots of houses; they want to equally distribute that through. So if we know that taxes disincentivise certain behaviours, why are they then neutral on the fact that increasing income taxes disincentivises the earning of income? Because it does. Now, the Government may well say, “Oh well, it’s only 33 percent to 39 percent and it’s only on income over $180,000.”, but it will have a number of negative effects, not the least of which is tax planning will come back into this country—tax planning that was eliminated by the previous Government, the National Government, that lined up the top rates of trust income and personal income tax, effectively making redundant all of the trust arrangements that Mr Parker’s legal colleagues in Dunedin were setting up under a previous Labour Government. They will come back when this is given effect to.

What are the other things we haven’t heard about in this bill? Well, the Government has announced that they’re going to remove interest deductibility on residential property rentals, and that’s going to come in in two weeks.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Less than that.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: In two weeks, and we have seen nothing of the structure—yes, that’s right, Mr Brownlee, it’ll be nine days that that becomes effective and we’ve seen nothing of those details. I don’t know if the Minister is intending to introduce a Supplementary Order Paper on this bill in order to give effect to that, but by the time we see it, whether it’s that or a new piece of legislation, it will effectively be retrospective taxation, and that is wrong. We’re hearing about what the Minister described as the “removal of an exemption”, some kind of loophole where councils are putting tax exempt strategies in place for council-owned companies. Well, all that will do is increase the ratepayer burden because they need to get their income from somewhere, and if their after-tax rate of return on the council-controlled organisations goes down, they will have to increase the general rate in order to compensate. So this change is going to take more money out, not only of the pockets of hard-working taxpayers but of hard-working ratepayers, often the same people. Very little detail about the brightline test anomalies. We’ve got one fix in here, but there’s about 10 others that haven’t been addressed.

Look, there are some good things in here. I think the cryptocurrency clarification on GST is a positive move, albeit that I note—I think I heard the Minister say that there would still be tax on the profit of disposal of cryptoassets, which is interesting. If it is a form of currency and a measure of value, why would one then be taxing any perceived profit on that?

I’ll finish by commending one part of the changes to the donee status, and that is for the Le Quesnoy trust, a fantastic trust that is raising money for a museum in Le Quesnoy, a place that is actually on the wall here, one of the great battles New Zealand participated in in the Great War. I must say, though, I’m still not sure why donee status is an issue for primary legislation. I know the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee talked about that; in fact, it may have done so at my request as Minister of Revenue because I didn’t believe that those sorts of minor changes should be in primary legislation. They maintained that it should. But, actually, it’s a good thing that the Le Quesnoy donee status is extended till 2025. But, overall, we cannot support this bill.

Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister of Climate Change): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of the Green Party on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2021-22, GST, and Remedial Matters) Bill. I just want to pick up on a couple of points that were raised by the Hon Michael Woodhouse in his remarks then in opposition. One of the things that he said was that this bill increases the top tax rate on people who are earning over $180,000, and, of course, it does do that. And then he said we’re taxing the rich, to which my response has to be: if only. If only we were actually taxing the rich, because we do not tax wealth in this country at the same rate at which we tax work. So we are taxing high-income earners; that is an entirely different proposition from taxing the rich, because that is a distinction between wealth and work that we still have not gotten to grips with in this country. This bill does a lot of things, but that is something that it does not do.

One of the things that he mentioned was that the bill is over 100 pages long—it’s 177 pages. It has 204 clauses. It does many, many things. My issue with this bill actually is that it doesn’t fundamentally—in all of that kind of worthy stuff that it does do, it doesn’t actually do the thing that is probably most important right now, which is to ensure that, given what has happened in our economy, not just over the last 20 years but in particular over the last 18 months of the COVID crisis, it addresses the fundamental inequalities that remain in our tax system between people who work and people who own, between wealth and income. It fundamentally does not address that challenge.

And when you consider what has happened over the course of the last 18 months in response to the COVID crisis, there has been a massive expansion of capital in our economy, and I’ve supported that and I think that that has done wonders, given the incredible pressures on our economy and the global economy as a result of the pandemic crisis, but that monetary expansion has led to a huge inflation in asset prices, in particular in property, and that is because of the preferential rate at which those assets are taxed, as opposed to the productive side of the economy. And so an existing—which has been around for many decades—fundamental design flaw in our economy has been exacerbated as a result of the COVID-19 economic crisis, and we are not yet addressing that exacerbation or the underlying causes of it.

People who own property in this country saw the value of their property increase by an average of $200,000 during the last 12 to 24 months—an average of a $200,000 increase in the value of that property, right? During a global pandemic, during an extraordinary kind of economic upheaval and turbulence, we have seen those asset prices expand. I mean, the old joke has been around for a while now: if I really wanted to earn money, I’d be a house. I’d stop working and I’d become a house because I could earn way more through just unearned capital gains than I ever could just working for a living. And we’ve actually seen that get much worse.

The other thing that Michael Woodhouse said in his comments then was he said that tax planning will return to this country. If he thinks that tax planning ever went away then he’s sadly mistaken. And he referred to how trusts were diminished as a result of tax changes. Actually, trusts were diminished in this country as a result of changes that were introduced because of the Panama Papers scandals and the fact that people were hiding their wealth inside trusts and those trusts had no look-through provisions and you couldn’t see what was going on inside those. And credit to the previous National Government, because they changed the law on this one, and the vast majority of those trusts vanished in under a week because people who had that wealth and who were hiding that wealth—the moment there was some transparency, those particular tools lost their flavour and they disappeared. Now, that was a good thing. That wasn’t a change of tax law; that was a change in transparency law so that people could actually see what was going on there.

I have to say that, right now, we know that there are people in this country who are doing it incredibly tough—incredibly tough. So whilst the lockdown—there are people who, like myself, can have an easy time of it because we’re well supported, we’ve got the resources to be able to get through it. There are families who are still confined, many, many people to a house, multiple people to each room; people unable to get secure incomes still, despite the support mechanisms that are available to them. It is, I think, deeply unfair that we allow a situation to perpetuate where people who are well off, and getting better off as a result of the economic stimulus that we are putting into the economy, are not contributing back in order to enable those people who are really doing it tough to be fully supported to get through the situation. So when we reflect on the team of 5 million—and the health response has been phenomenal—we are not acting as a team of 5 million when it comes to the equality of the contribution that each person is making according to their means to be able to get us all through this in one piece.

So the bill—I have to say the Green Party will be abstaining on this bill, because it is a confidence and supply matter—it’s a taxation bill—and it does do many good things. It doesn’t, I have to say, deal with the fundamental challenge that is currently present in our economy. So whilst we’re not opposed to most of the measures that are contained within it, we also can’t support it because there are so few opportunities in any parliamentary term to fundamentally address some of the major issues to do with our tax system, that—in this case—we also cannot support it; not because of what it does but because of what it does not do.

Fundamentally, we think that the people who are really doing it tough as a result of the pandemic and the current lockdowns need to supported, and that actually all of us have the opportunity to do so, and this bill—I’m afraid—doesn’t measure up to that standard.

So I do commend the Minister and the agencies who have done a huge amount of work. Like the previous speaker, I commend the select committee who are going to have to work through what is a very weighty bill. I think, actually, maybe one thing that the select committee may want to consider is the idea that we actually do tax the rich, rather than continue not to and continue to tax only people who earn as opposed to people who own. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): Well, that was a very interesting speech from the co-leader of the Green Party, where he was mounting a fairly stinging attack on the absence of wealth tax in this particular bill, and then reached the extraordinary conclusion that the best thing he could do was simply abstain from taking a position on it. Now, that is the sort of leadership that the country doesn’t need. Let me also say, on the issue of a wealth tax, wealth is one of those things that is not tangible until it is realised, and so the idea that you would tax something that’s intangible is pretty abhorrent. It essentially means that you would have a standstill situation for a great deal of the economy.

When we saw the start of this debate, the Minister began with a quiet sort of rendition of how hard it is for the Government dealing with the COVID-19 situation. Well, no one is going to disagree with that, but this bill is about the mechanics of how we get our way out of that, at the same time making sure that life is not too difficult, too pernicious, and too discouraging for New Zealanders.

There are a couple of things I want to speak about here that stand out for me in this bill. The first one is the issue of the minor changes, effectively, to the brightline test. The current Government expanded it to five years, and now they’ve got it out for a longer period of time. It is, at that length of time, a splendid failure. James Shaw just stood in the House and said that in the last 12 months, the average house price in New Zealand has risen by over $200,000. That’s his figures. Now, if someone was a speculator and they decided to buy a house 12 months ago, and then they sell it now and they take their $200,000 profit and then pay their tax on it, they walk away with about $140,000. So where has the brightline test been shown to work? It doesn’t. All it does is confirm that if you’ve got a scarcity of supply, you’ll have an elevation in price, and if there’s a tax component inside that price, it will go up even higher.

I am disappointed that the Government hasn’t quite worked that out, hasn’t recognised that around the whole issue of housing, tax is a problem. Just take the price of a brand new home. Let’s say it’s on average $700,000. It’s cheaper than that in some parts of New Zealand. In some parts of New Zealand, it’s cheaper, but on average. It certainly is for our fellow New Zealanders who are locked down in Auckland for the fifth week running. That’s the sort of price they’d pay for an average house up there, possibly a little more—possibly more.

David Seymour: Seven hundred? You’ve got to be kidding.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: What was that? You’d love to buy a house up there for $700,000? Just hear me out on this, because it makes the example easy. In that $700,000, how much is taken by the Government in GST? Over $100,000.

David Seymour: A hundred and five.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: A hundred and five. So let’s assume that everybody who puts an input into that building, that house, pays tax on their earnings. How would you calculate that? And then assume that the contractors who are building these houses also want to run profitable businesses that pay tax.

David Seymour: No, no, surely not!

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Well, you’re probably right. My colleague from the ACT Party is probably right. If you follow the James Shaw prescription, they should all be doing it for nothing, and then the Government would do it for free. We saw what a huge, massive, totally capable developer they’ve been with the KiwiBuild debacle. So if you look at that, I think it’s not hard to see that tax is a very important thing in the way in which our society works. The idea that it can be used in a pernicious way to create fairness is totally wrong—totally wrong.

My colleague Mr Woodhouse raised the issue of there being no mention in here of the abolition of the interest deduction on rental properties, which is going to come into effect in nine days’ time. So no one at the moment knows what the new rules are, but here’s how it works. If someone buys that property—and they know now they’re up for the brightline test. They know too that anything they earn off that property they’re going to pay some tax on. That’s all fine. But why would you take away a legitimate business expense: the interest that’s paid on the capital?

We’ve got a housing crisis in this country. We’ve got a rental crisis in this country: $120 on average increase in rents in the last four years. Maybe that’s because it reflects a percentage of the $200,000 price increase that Mr Shaw just spoke of. What it tells us, though, is that even with that rental increase, anybody with a house now that has the average value currently in New Zealand is making a loss constantly. So what the Government’s come along to do is say, “Well, some of the input that once could be written off no longer can.” Well, where does that leave someone? All it leaves is pressure upward on rents, and that’s exactly what we are going to see in the next 12 months. It is a dreadful situation and it is, again, this crazy idea that somehow a tax system used in a pernicious fashion can advantage people; it can’t. The people who are going to pay for this will be the people who are least capable of paying for it—some of the people who Mr Shaw talks about who do not have the opportunity to gain the advantages of a wealth base in this country. So this is not a clever piece of work in those two aspects.

As we have heard, there are many, many aspects in it, and some of them are good. I think the changes around cryptocurrency is going to be an interesting discussion for the select committee, because I don’t think all of the implications for any of the decisions currently around cryptocurrency have been fully thought through, and I think we’ll see a lot of change in that regard in years to come. Like my colleague, I think it is a good thing to see that the Le Quesnoy charitable trust is able to receive the deductions from here in New Zealand; that’s a positive thing—it’s a good thing. And there are other changes throughout here that I think will be useful because they come under the category of: there are minor changes that need to be made at any time.

As I’ve said before, this piece of legislation is the engine for how the Government gets its revenue in the future. But it is not a horse that can be flogged to death, and so it must be measured against the quality of expenditure that the Government is undertaking at any particular time. Simply saying that we’ve been burdened by the spectre of COVID-19 and that lets us do all sorts of things without a great deal of scrutiny or accountability is completely unacceptable. And I will finish a little early on those remarks.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Madam Speaker. The other side of the House seems to be having a field day on outdated economic theories. The idea that tax doesn’t have an effect on behaviour is pretty much debunked.

Look, I’m really looking forward to being part of a select committee that will dive deep into these various tax policies, including the cryptocurrency. It is an indication of the fact that the tax law has to keep up with new technologies, and dealing with cryptocurrency as quasi-money will be interesting. Of course, if you’re trading in it, like any dealer, you’ll pay income tax on profits.

But, look, it’s a substantive bill making some useful updates. I commend the bill to the House.

BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s good to have an omnibus tax bill before the House, because what I appreciate about omnibus tax bills are the remedial matters that are in the bill. At this point, I’d just like to bid a happy birthday to the member across the House. It is these small tweaks and fixes that help to keep the lights on in our tax world and help keep the tax system working efficiently. Remedial matters are sometimes brought to the attention of IRD officials by the private sector. They are generally niggly matters that don’t meet the policy intent and sometimes have adverse impacts on taxpayers. For example, I can see, in clause 155 of the bill, it provides that a commissioner’s decision to reopen a time-barred GST return is treated as a disputable decision. At face value, this is a good amendment, as it allows a taxpayer the ability to challenge the commissioner through the disputes process rather than through a judicial review.

Quickly, I just want to touch on one other policy matter, and that is the inclusion of 11 charities to Schedule 32 of the Income Tax Act. These charities have probably been waiting a long time and have been looking forward to this day. They would have been subject to some vigorous scrutiny by IRD officials, and tonight they are one step closer to obtaining donee status for their donors. I look forward to scrutinising this bill at the select committee, and I commend this bill to the House.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in opposition to this tax bill. The number one reason is not for the many minor tweaks, the spring cleaning that needs to be done to a taxation system each year by a bill such as this—a lot of that is well-supported, sensible stuff: making sure that GST continues to function, making sure that the emerging technology of cryptocurrencies is fitted into New Zealand’s taxation system. That’s good stuff. But what is unforgiveable and unsupportable by ACT is the increase in the top tax rate to 39 percent.

Let’s just put this in a little bit of perspective. Now, James Shaw, he got up and he huffed and he puffed and he told us this, then he told us that, and then he said the Green Party was going to—wait for it—abstain! Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder for Green Party co-leaders, it seems! They can’t decide if they’re coming or going. The ACT Party says it is crystal clear. When James Shaw says it’s time to tax the rich, he doesn’t even know what bill he’s speaking on, because this income tax bill does not tax wealth; it is all about taxing income. And what this bill will do—introducing a 39 percent tax rate—is simply punish people who work hard, save, invest, and try to make tomorrow better than today. If James Shaw wants to tax the rich, if the Labour Party wants to tax high-income earners, they are not going to do it by adding this new tax rate. And one reason for that is very simple: they already are.

People might be surprised to know how much tax is paid by the top 9 percent of income earners in this country. I wonder if anyone in the Labour Party wants to give it a guess. How much of the income tax in this country is paid by the top 9 percent? Does Duncan Webb know? He’s slouching down in his chair. Can Duncan Webb tell us how much of the income tax is paid by the top 9 percent of income taxpayers? No, Duncan Webb doesn’t know. Anyone else on the Labour Party benches? Angie Warren-Clark? What about the Minister of Revenue? Does David Parker know how much of the income tax is paid by just 9 percent of taxpayers? Is he going to tell us?

Hon David Parker: I listened to Michael Woodhouse just before.

DAVID SEYMOUR: He listened to Michael Woodhouse. So he knows. Can he tell us how much it is? He can’t remember. He’s getting forgetful. Well, let me remind him: 42 percent of all income tax in this country is paid by just 9 percent of taxpayers—or it was. And how much of the income tax is paid by the bottom 48 percent of taxpayers?

Dr Duncan Webb: Too much.

DAVID SEYMOUR: The bottom half of taxpayers pay only 8 percent of all of the income tax. And Duncan Webb says it’s too much. Duncan Webb wants the bottom half of taxpayers—he wants half of New Zealanders—to pay less than 8 percent tax. Is that what Duncan Webb is saying? Yeah, it is.

Hon David Parker: Tell us about GST!

DAVID SEYMOUR: Oh, and he says, “Tell us about GST!” Well, let’s think about this. How much GST is going to be paid by the top half of income earners? The revenue Minister will tell us they’re earning more, they’re spending more; so I would guess they’re also paying more GST. But nice try from the revenue Minister.

We don’t need to raise the top rate of income tax, because the top 9 percent of taxpayers are paying nearly half the income tax in New Zealand, and the bottom half of taxpayers are paying only 8 percent of the income tax. Or they were; that was last year. This year, this Labour Government has decided that it is not punishing people who work hard, save, invest, study, and get ahead—that they’re not being punished enough. So now they want to introduce a new top tax rate just to really send the message that if you do the things we ask kids in New Zealand to do: if you go to school, if you listen to your teacher, if you do your homework, you get good grades, you turn them into qualifications, and if you start a job, and if you work hard and if you put some money away and if you save it and invest it carefully—if you do all of those things, the Labour Party’s message is “We’re here to take more money off you with a top tax rate.”, and is it there to raise more money?

Maybe they’re putting this new tax rate there because they want to raise more money. Can we ask the Minister of Revenue? Now, let’s put this in context: the Government spent $120 billion—$120,000 million—last year. Can we ask the Minister of Revenue: how much extra money does he think he’s going to raise by putting in this new tax rate?

Hon David Parker: It’s in the Budget.

DAVID SEYMOUR: It’s in the Budget. Well, what it said in the Budget was, optimistically, $300 million or $400 million plays $120,000 million. You note that the Minister of Revenue, he didn’t want to say because it’s so embarrassing for the Labour Party. They’re putting in place this new tax, not to raise more revenue, because it’s barely going to do that. They’re putting in place this new tax just because they want to put a little bit more tall poppy syndrome in the tax code. That’s what it’s all about.

Well, there is another way. Instead of a Government that constantly seeks to divide people, commodifying us into identities, and divide wealth with new taxes and new regulations, what if we had a Government that said, “We are going to unite New Zealanders behind good ideas. When people do well, when people make tomorrow better than yesterday by applying new ideas and new investments and provide people with better goods and better services more efficiently, we’re not going to put an extra tax on them. We’re not going to punish them; actually, we’re going to say, ‘That’s pretty cool. How do we get more of that activity so that all New Zealanders can live in an environment where we get wealthier?’ ” That would be a better way.

That’s what a Government that truly wanted to unite New Zealanders behind good ideas and make this country more prosperous would do. We would have lower, flatter taxes, and do you know what else we’d do? We’d open up opportunity so the next generation have a pathway to be in a property-owning democracy, and would we do that by introducing new taxes? Not like this Government. This Government have just decided to remove interest deductibility from landlords’ mortgages, and what are they going to achieve by that? Well, the Prime Minister says that they’re going to tilt the balance towards first-home buyers.

Now, let’s just think through the logic of this. They are increasing the tax bill for landlords in a tight rental market. I wonder who landlords are going to pass those extra taxes on to. Could it be tenants? Now, let’s just think about this: who are tenants and what are tenants often doing? Trying to save for a first home deposit. The Labour Party is so madly manic with taxing people that they have just scored yet another own goal. They’ve actually decided that the solution to the housing market is to tax it more. Well, if you could tax your way to prosperity, the Soviet Union—Duncan Webb’s buddies; comrades—would have won the Cold War. But, unfortunately, nobody has ever managed to tax their way to prosperity.

The only thing that they’re achieving by putting more taxes on landlords is that they are going to increase the costs paid by tenants and decrease the savings that tenants have to put a deposit on their first home, and that’s what happens when you have a tax-mad Government—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order!

DAVID SEYMOUR: —on the loose.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order!

DAVID SEYMOUR: Madam Speaker—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order!

DAVID SEYMOUR: I know you’re enjoying this speech—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! The member will resume his seat. [Interruption] The member will resume his seat. [Interruption] The member will resume his seat. Thank you so much, I appreciate that.

The debate is interrupted, mostly by me, and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow. Good evening.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10.05 p.m.