Tuesday, 15 February 2022

TUESDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2022

TUESDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2022

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

karakia/Prayers

karakia/Prayers

Hon JACQUI DEAN (Assistant Speaker): Almighty God, we give thanks for the blessings which have been bestowed on us. Laying aside all personal interests, we acknowledge the Queen and pray for guidance in our deliberations, that we may conduct the affairs of this House with wisdom, justice, mercy, and humility for the welfare and peace of New Zealand. Amen.

Obituaries

Hon Peter Neilson

SPEAKER: I regret to inform the House of the death on 9 February 2022 of the Hon Peter Neilson, who represented the electorate of Miramar between 1981 and 1990. During his membership of this House, he held a number of ministerial positions including Minister of Works and Development, Minister of Customs, Minister of Revenue, and Associate Minister of State-owned Enterprises. I desire, on the House, to express our sense of the loss that we have sustained and our sympathy with the relatives of the late former member. I now ask members to stand with me and observe a period of silence as a mark of respect to his memory.

Members stood as a mark of respect.

petitions, papers, select committee reports, and introduction of bills

petitions, papers, select committee reports, and introduction of bills

SPEAKER: No bills have been introduced. Petitions have been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

CLERK:

Petition of Matty Angel requesting that the House initiate an urgent inquiry into whether the provision of in-home care by for-profit organisations is fit for purpose

petition of Catherine Bindon requesting that the House ban the sale of fireworks to the New Zealand public

petition of the New Zealand Human Rights Commission, Te Kāhui Tika, requesting that the House urge the Government to establish an independent pay transparency agency and include pay transparency in legislation.

SPEAKER: Those petitions stand referred to the Petitions Committee. Ministers have delivered papers.

CLERK:

Annual reports for 2021 of the:

Commerce Commission

Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority

Health and Disability Commission

Health Research Council

Health Quality and Safety Commission

Health Research Council Statement of Performance Expectations 2021-22

report on the Government Superannuation Fund Actuarial Variation as at 30 June 2021

Social Development and Employment portfolio, Vote Labour Market, Report in relation to selected non-departmental appropriations for the year ended 30 June 2021.

SPEAKER: Those papers are published under the authority of the House. Select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.

CLERK:

Report of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee on the international treaty examination of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a Communications Procedure

reports of the Petitions Committee on the petitions of Jessica Keltie, Lydia Tait, Nicholas Chapman, Ritwik Sharma, and Trade Aid and World Vision New Zealand.

SPEAKER: The treaty examination is set down for consideration.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Prime Minister

1. CHRISTOPHER LUXON (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. In particular, I stand by our decision to increase the minimum wage to $21.20. We remain committed to supporting New Zealanders by raising their wages, and I was glad to hear that the deputy leader of the National Party is not opposed to this either. Raising the minimum wage will directly benefit approximately 300,000 workers, many of whom have gone above and beyond during the pandemic.

Christopher Luxon: Does she accept that with prices growing twice as fast as wages, the average earner is worse off than a year ago, and Kiwis are facing a cost of living crisis under Labour?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: In answer to the first part of the member’s question, yes, I accept that, currently, we are in an international environment where many economies are experiencing inflation rates not too dissimilar to ours. I’ve already spoken in this House about the UK, about Germany, about the US, about Canada. But in relation to the member’s latter assertion, I don’t agree with that. We need only look at since the first quarter of 2018 and the average annual rate increase in wages, which sits at around 3.5 percent, relative to inflation, which has been 2.2 per cent. We’ve been a Government focused on doing what we can to ensure that Kiwis’ wages are increasing, including relative to the cost of living.

Christopher Luxon: Does she think it’s a coincidence that under her Government, annual rents rose $7,280, during which time she ignored officials’ advice that removing tax deductibility of interest costs could push up rents, making the cost of living crisis for renters even worse?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I would refer the member to, of course, the context of that advice, which didn’t include, in some cases, the final decisions by Cabinet, which was to take into account ways that we could incentivise new builds in order to ensure that we continue to have an increase in supply for our rental market. And so you can see in the final policy development, we’ve done that with the exclusions that exist for new builds in the rental market and the way that we phased in interest deductibility. The alternative, of course, is that nothing is done in the housing market, which was, of course, the approach of the last National Government. It meant we inherited a housing crisis and we’re doing everything we can to turn that around.

Brooke van Velden: Has the Government modelled how many people will have to self-isolate at the peak of the Omicron outbreak; and, if it hasn’t, how does she know that the benefits of the Government’s self-isolation policy will outweigh the costs?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Well, I’m happy to speak to some of the variables. We have done some estimates, but the variables are so significant that it makes it difficult. We’ve done those estimates in order to establish how much resource would be required for our care in the community model. But just to give the member some context on a low assumption—where we would be if we were something like South Australia. In terms of their peak, you could reach something like 5,000 cases a day. On the high, it would be closer to, for instance, the state of New York, at over 30,000 cases. Keep in mind, of course, you’d expect at those levels a narrowing of your definition of close contacts. We have been very pragmatic and evidence based. In phase 3, if we reach high rates, the definition of close contact narrows to a household definition because that is the most common place that you’re likely to see transmission. Those are the groups that you don’t want then circulating because you’re very likely to pass on COVID to others.

Brooke van Velden: Does she agree that a sensible policy would allow all people to leave self-isolation if they test negative?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Well, firstly, I would say to the member that for the most part, those policies where they’re being implemented, of course, tend to use rapid antigen testing. We have already taken the approach that where you are a critical worker, yes, we will use rapid antigen testing as a way to ensure that critical workforce supply chains and healthcare are maintained. But that is not a fail-safe approach. We only need to look at this House just yesterday with a false positive. Equally, you can have false negatives at a rate as high as 20 percent of tests.

Hon Simon Bridges: This sounds like Donald Rumsfeld.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: So that’s why we’re trying to balance our approach to make sure, yes, we use that approach to keep supply chain moving, but not in places where it’s not necessary to take the risk and pass on COVID to others.

SPEAKER: No. Order! Order! That’s an odious comparison the member has made to me, and he won’t do it again.

Christopher Luxon: Is it easier or harder for a first-home buyer to save for a deposit when, on her watch, rents are up $7,280, house prices are up almost $400,000, and incomes are growing half as fast as the cost of living?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Of course I refer back to the stats I provided in the answer to my first question, that, yes, whilst we are seeing inflation pressures at this period, of course we see many projecting that that will ease over the course of 2022. And when you come back to our track record as a Government, wage growth has been outstripping growth in the cost of living. When we come to the issue of house prices generally, that is the exact reason why we as a Government have built or created over 8,000 public housing places; why we have made changes to the way that we are fast-tracking projects through our resource consent process—that has meant that we have additional houses being built. It’s why we’ve gone and embarked on the reform of the Resource Management Act, why we’ve developed a progressive home ownership scheme, why we worked on interest deductibility, and changed the brightline test. All of these things, as far as I’m aware, are things that the National Party have opposed. So I question the member as to what his proposals are to ensure that first-home buyers can get into the housing market?

Christopher Luxon: How many people have been assisted by the progressive home ownership scheme?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: It would depend on whether we’re talking about the assistance that we’ve provided for the community-based progressive home ownership scheme or the newly established programme that we are administering. For the exact numbers, I’d ask the member to ask directly the Minister of Housing. But I would say, every family that is helped into that is one more than would have been under the National Party.

Christopher Luxon: Why is she proposing a brand new jobs tax under the guise of income insurance that will see costs for businesses increase and income for workers decrease at a time of rising inflation and falling real incomes?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’m fascinated to hear—and I have to say, disappointed to hear—the member characterise a scheme that is ultimately designed to support New Zealand workers in a time of economic shock when Business New Zealand and the Council of Trade Unions (CTU), in an extraordinary tripartite agreement, have come together to make this proposal. We have now experienced the Christchurch earthquakes, the global financial crisis, and a pandemic, which has demonstrated the need for us, New Zealand, no longer to be on the outside with Australia as the only OECD countries that do not have an in form of job protection insurance. I welcome the fact that we have agreement amongst Business New Zealand and the CTU. It’s a shame the Opposition won’t join them.

Christopher Luxon: What is her response to former BNZ chief economist Tony Alexander, who said her jobs tax would “worsen average after-tax incomes for Kiwi households” while pushing inflation even higher as costs are passed on to consumers?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Firstly, the member is totally ignoring the fact that the period of which we are developing this policy will take us beyond the period that we were expecting to experience this increase in inflation; 2023 is the timeline that we are working to. Secondly, it is incredibly short-sighted to have the member criticise spending, which has kept people in their jobs through the wage subsidy, and then criticise a solution designed to support New Zealanders should they in the future experience a jarring shock to our economy. It demonstrates again how short-sighted and lacking of ideas to protect New Zealand in the future the Opposition are.

Christopher Luxon: How is taxing workers and businesses more going to help address the cost of living crisis?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Interesting, does the member call ACC that same thing? Because this is what we are mirroring this programme and policy around. And again, 100,000 New Zealanders lose their job every year, and if you think about the number who experience a diagnosis like cancer, that means that they are for a time unable to work. This is not something that only affects a small number of New Zealanders. Almost every country we compare ourselves to has something similar and it is, as I’ve said, disappointing that the member cannot see the benefits to New Zealand of such a scheme.

Hon Chris Hipkins: Does the Prime Minister support increasing GST and significantly increasing ACC levies as happened last time there was a significant cost of living increase in New Zealand?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I would absolutely acknowledge what the member has raised, which is the last time New Zealanders saw a significant increase in the cost of living in that manner, it was actually imposed by the National Government.

Question No. 2—Finance

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

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): The exports sector continues to drive economic growth in New Zealand. Statistics New Zealand reported in early February the export of goods in December rose by 13 percent to a new monthly high of $6.1 billion, compared with the same period a year ago. Dairy products—milk powder, butter, and cheese—again lead the way, and I acknowledge the important role—

Hon Member: Thank the farmers.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: —there you are!—that that industry plays in New Zealand. The meat sector also saw sales rise 19 percent to $879 million. On an annual basis, exports are up 5.6 percent from the previous year to $63.2 billion. I’d like to thank our exporters for contributing strongly to the economy during what is a volatile environment.

Barbara Edmonds: What else did the report show on trade and its impact on confidence in the economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The overseas merchandise trade figures show that businesses do appear confident to be investing more in the economy and in New Zealand’s recovery. Imports of machinery and plant rose 18 percent to $905 million in December, compared with the same month a year earlier. For the December quarter, imports of machinery and plant rose 31 percent to $2.8 billion for the year. The same imports rose 20 percent to $9.8 billion. Despite the uncertainty around the pandemic, the New Zealand economy does remain resilient.

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

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Statistics New Zealand did release their food price index yesterday. It did show that prices rose 2.7 percent in January, the largest monthly rise in five years. On a seasonally adjusted basis, overall food prices rose 1.1 percent. This annual increase that we’ve seen is the largest since August 2011, when prices rose by 6.6 percent. The environment does remain volatile with COVID-19 disruptions pushing up prices globally for food and other products, such as fuel. We do acknowledge the rise of cost of living is challenging for New Zealanders, and that is why we have supported people through the pandemic to protect their jobs and livelihoods, and taken actions to lift the incomes of the lowest-income New Zealanders, including benefit increases and minimum wage increases—both of which were opposed by the Opposition.

Question No. 3—Social Development and Employment

3. RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: What further support, if any, will be made available to low-income families and whānau living in poverty as COVID-19 spreads in communities?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): On 1 April this year, the Government will lift both main benefit rates and the minimum wage. These changes continue our Government’s track record of lifting the incomes for New Zealand’s most vulnerable. In response to COVD-19, we have temporarily increased income limits for people who need hardship assistance. A couple who earns up to $1,600 per week can now be eligible for support from Work and Income. In addition, we have invested $204.1 million in the welfare response for care in the community. This is particularly aimed at low-income people who are directed to self-isolate. This support is being delivered through 150 community organisations, of which 70 are Māori and Pacific providers, and 225 community food providers which are ensuring vulnerable whānau can access kai while they self-isolate. As a Government, we are keeping a close eye on the situation, and responding when the need arises.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Does she agree that cash-in-hand payments, rather than relying on food banks, would alleviate pressure on front-line workers when there are large community outbreaks?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I don’t think it’s a matter of one or the other. I think it is both, and that’s why I think there are many people out there who will be relieved to see that they have a Government who is increasing benefits on 1 April, and also increasing the minimum wage on 1 April as well. We recognise, still, there are a number of families who experience food insecurity—particularly when faced with the challenges that come with the pandemic. We want to keep them safe if they do need to self-isolate, hence why we are investing a significant amount of money towards our providers to support with care in the community.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Will the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) provide N95 masks and COVID-19 preparedness kits to low-income families living in poverty, including medication and food to get through isolation?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: With respect to masks and MSD’s response, over the course of the time that we’ve been responding to the pandemic, that has been part of what they have funded. With regards to the specifics that the member is asking about, if he puts that in writing, I can certainly follow up for him.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Is there a plan in place to scale up current support for people self-isolating as cases in the community increase, and, if so, what is it?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Yes, and we have listened to our community providers. We have listened to the Māori and Pacific communities with regards to what they see is needed on the ground; we’ve worked closely with them. We announced the care in community model in November last year and have been working closely with Health since then to ensure that we are able to respond to the need that arises. To date, we haven’t had the demand come through the system because we haven’t seen the number of cases that we anticipated, however—and we are preparing ourselves because we do know that they will go up. So we do feel that we have been working to scale up and are prepared for the cases that may be on the horizon.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Will she consider reintroducing any of the support she provided in 2020 that has now been discontinued—for example, doubling the eligibility of food grants and the winter energy payment—to ensure that people are able to stay safe during a large community outbreak; if not, why not?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: We continue to assess the situation and work with people on the ground to determine what is required at any given point in time. In 2020, one of the first actions we took when the pandemic struck was actually to increase benefits. Then we saw those increased again last year and we will see them increased again on 1 April. As I said earlier in my response, we’ve also lifted the thresholds so that more low-income families can access hardship support through MSD. We just continue to monitor the situation and pivot where necessary so we can support the families that need it during this time.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Will she further increase benefits and urgently review Working for Families, given the cost of living for low-income families is rapidly rising at a time when they also need time to self-isolate at home?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I think there’ll be a lot of families out there that are relieved that they have had a Government who have demonstrated that we do care about those that are most vulnerable. We have seen year-on-year increases—2020, 2021, and 2022—and, as has been said a number of times, these are the most significant benefit increases that we have seen in decades. I stand by our Government’s record with regards to prioritising some of the most vulnerable New Zealanders, low-income New Zealanders, and we will continue to respond where we can, when we see that a need needs to be addressed.

Ricardo Menéndez March: How will Work and Income support people who live in overcrowded housing or whose housing situation does not allow them to isolate safely?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: With respect to housing, that is the area that is being led by the Ministry of Health with regards to when families are not able to self-isolate safely. So that’s a determination that will not be made by MSD but instead led by the Ministry of Health.

Question No. 4—Finance

4. Hon SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by all of his statements and actions on inflation?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Yes, in the context in which they were given and undertaken.

Hon Simon Bridges: How could he tell me last week that “the causes of inflation are driven largely by global issues”, when last year domestic inflation grew at a rate of 5.3 percent—not far off the overall inflation rate—and by the end of the year the domestic components were growing faster and higher than the international parts?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Because, for example, the cost of building supplies—that has added to one of the issues that is regarded as non-tradables—is driven significantly by global factors in the supply chain. While the member might want to make those distinctions on an annual or quarterly basis, if he wants to do quarterly, then actually the rate overall is going down, quarter by quarter.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does he accept that a significant and growing chunk of inflation is domestic, and, if not, is the ANZ wrong when it said recently, “The domestic economy is … highly inflationary.”?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What I accept is that there is a global supply chain issue that is driving some issues in the domestic economy. But if the member wants to provide other evidence of that viewpoint, I could quote Westpac, who said today, talking about annual inflation, “Much of this is a result of offshore factors, including disruptions to global manufacturing chains and increases in international transport costs.”

Hon Simon Bridges: If it’s so international, how does he explain that just across the ditch, Australia’s inflation is 3.5 percent, over 40 percent lower than ours right now?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: If the member wants to get into the most recent statistics there, he should look at the quarterly numbers, which are 1.4 percent and 1.3 percent in the two countries concerned. Inflation is a global issue. I invite the member, if he thinks that the Government is causing specifically inflation by specific spending decisions, to tell us what they are, because so far all we’ve had is cameras on boats.

Hon Simon Bridges: Why last week wouldn’t he accept some Government responsibility for the domestic component of inflation, given that it’s commonly accepted economics that higher public spending at a time when the economy is overheating is inflationary?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As I just said in my last answer, if the member is saying that our spending on the health sector and in supporting New Zealanders through COVID19 is the cause of petrol prices going up, then he’s well outside of the mainstream of economics.

Hon Simon Bridges: Given the growth in domestic inflation and warnings from the like of the OECD—reasonably conservative, I would have thought—and many New Zealand economists, why doesn’t he listen to the likes of Cameron Bagrie, who says, “Now is not the time for a big spending 2022 Budget. It will only add to the excess demand and inflation.”?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The Government will continue to invest in the long-term future of New Zealand, because the reason we’ve ended up with an infrastructure deficit, the reason we’ve ended up with a housing crisis, is because that Government takes short-sighted approaches or do-nothing approaches. On this side of the House, we want a functioning health system. I repeat for the member: if he wants to address these issues, tell the New Zealand public what they’re going to get cut. Will it be health, will it be education, will it be housing? We will continue to budget carefully, but we’re not taking the short-sighted approach of the Opposition.

Question No. 5—COVID-19 Response

5. SARAH PALLETT (Labour—Ilam) to the Minister for COVID-19 Response: What recent announcements has the Government made in response to the Omicron outbreak?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Yesterday, Cabinet decided that New Zealand will move to phase 2 of our Omicron plan from 11.59 p.m. tonight. We’ve seen Omicron cases grow sharply across the globe, and while its trajectory has been slowed by our border measures and our strong public health measures here in New Zealand—including the traffic light protections and the roll-out of boosters—we are now seeing the increase in numbers that we were ultimately expecting. It’s important to remember that this is what we have planned for. It means that we can move to a phase where we are focusing on greater self-management of most New Zealanders who contract COVID-19 and we’re shifting our systems to focus on those who are likely to get seriously unwell, those who may need more help, and to preserve our hospitals for those who need them.

Sarah Pallett: What are the key changes in phase 2?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The first change is that the period of self-isolation for people who test positive for COVID-19 will reduce from 14 days to 10 days. The period of self-isolation also reduces for their household contacts, meaning 10 days for them as well. That’s a significant change and it helps to ensure that household members only isolate for the period of time of their family member’s 10 days of recovery, unless, of course, they contract COVID-19 themselves. The period of self-isolation for close contacts outside of the household reduces from 10 days to seven days. The other thing that people will notice at phase 2 is the greater use of digitisation and automation to speed up interactions for people with COVID-19. For example, at the start of self-isolation, a case will fill in an online form for themselves and for their household contacts that will help the health service to work out what support they need. This will also require cases to provide their likely close contacts. Close contacts will receive a text message notification and they will then need to isolate for seven days and have a test on day five. This system will be much more automated and digitised than it has been previously, but we will have alternatives in place for those who aren’t able to connect digitally.

Sarah Pallett: How will phase 2 make it easier for businesses and services to continue operating in the face of increased cases and exposures?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: At phase 2, the Close Contact Exemption Scheme will begin. Overseas we’ve seen that large-scale spread of Omicron disrupts supply chains and the ability of critical services to keep functioning at 100 percent. Businesses have already been getting themselves ready by assessing themselves against the criteria needed to join the scheme. We’ve had a total of 5,620 register for it so far. Once a business is signed up to the scheme, an employee who is a close contact without symptoms will be able to go to a provider, such as their local community vaccination clinic, to secure a pack of 10 rapid antigen tests. In some cases, rapid antigen tests are being supplied directly to some of the larger scale critical workforces. We’ve secured enough rapid antigen tests to deal with our immediate needs, with 7.2 million currently in the country and more arriving every week.

Chris Bishop: In relation to what he’s just said around the development of a digitised and automated framework for the recording of rapid antigen test results, has Cabinet authorised the development of that system, and, if so, when did it do so?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No, Cabinet hasn’t specifically authorised that; that’s something the Ministry of Health have been doing as part of their preparations.

Sarah Pallett: What else can people do to prepare themselves and their households against the spread of Omicron?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Knowing where the virus is remains critically important as we continue in phase 2 to minimise the spread and the disruption to our workforce and to our economy. So, as always, if people have COVID-19 symptoms or they’ve been in touch with someone who has tested positive, we ask them to isolate immediately and get a test. I’d also encourage everyone to be developing a self-isolation plan: identify someone, for example, who can drop off essential items to them if they are at home and required to isolate. Finally, I’d reiterate, again, to everybody, that getting their booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccine should be the first thing they do to protect themselves and the vulnerable people who they know from getting the virus. The third dose does clearly make a difference when it comes to dealing with Omicron.

Question No. 6—COVID-19 Response

6. CHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Minister for COVID-19 Response: Is he satisfied with the supply of and administration of rapid antigen tests in New Zealand as part of New Zealand’s response to Omicron; if not, why not?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): In answer to the question of supply, the short answer to that is no. We are dealing with a significant shortage of rapid antigen tests globally, and whilst New Zealand has been able to secure a supply of rapid antigen tests to meet our immediate needs, of course we would like more. In answer to the second part of the question around the administration of rapid antigen tests in New Zealand, the answer to that question is yes. As I’ve just noted, we have at least 7.2 million rapid antigen tests currently in the country. Millions more are arriving each week. Twenty-three million rapid antigen tests have been confirmed for delivery by the end of this month. More than 50 million tests have been confirmed for delivery in March. Over 100 million more are on order to the end of June. A national distribution model for rapid tests has also been developed, meaning an estimated 3.1 million tests have been distributed across the country already, in preparation for phase 2. As we move into this new phase, we know that rapid antigen tests will be used more widely, and they’ll be a very important tool in our response to Omicron. However, it is important to note that they are not a silver bullet, and we will continue to take a considered and science-based approach towards our use of these tests to ensure that our response is fit for purpose.

Chris Bishop: Why are only businesses and their workers deemed critical allowed to use rapid antigen testing as part of the Close Contact Exemption Scheme, and why can’t all businesses use the scheme to get their workers back to work?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: In an environment where the international supply of rapid antigen tests is constrained, the Government wants to make sure that our most critical businesses—the ones we rely on for our food, and in order to keep our essential utilities operating—are able to access them. Businesses who can source rapid antigen tests themselves are, of course, able to use them. But like the Government, they are also finding that the international supply of those is quite constrained.

Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern: Can the Minister confirm that the Close Contact Exemption Scheme allows a worker to continue working despite having a household member who has COVID-19, and the likelihood of contracting COVID in that situation is over 30 percent, therefore deeming it to be an exemption regime rather than one that is used as commonplace?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes—absolutely. We want people who have been close contacts with people who have COVID-19 to be isolating unless there is a very, very good reason for them not to. In fact, in the conversations that I’ve had with many businesses, what they wanted from the Government was a supply of rapid antigen tests to do surveillance testing of their workforce—not to test people so that they could go back to work if they are a close contact—and when it is made clear to them that the testing that we are supplying is for close contacts to go back to work, in fact, many of them have indicated they don’t want to participate in that scheme unless they absolutely have to, because they want to protect their other workers in the workforce and reduce the risk of them also having to stay home because they end up getting COVID-19.

Brooke van Velden: Does he believe that wider availability of rapid antigen tests could avoid situations like a single case in Queenstown forcing 51 staff across nine businesses to isolate?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Without knowing the details of exactly what the requirement for isolation is and what the risk profile of that is, it would be unwise to venture an opinion on that. In terms of the use of rapid antigen tests, yes, I think we will see a much wider use of rapid antigen tests, particularly for surveillance testing, and where businesses are able to—

Chris Bishop: If they can get them.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: —access those—if they can get them, of course. But at the moment, there is a very limited supply available to anybody in New Zealand.

Brooke van Velden: Does he agree that a sensible policy would allow all people to leave self-isolation if they test negative?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Not necessarily. It’s important to remember that some of the rapid antigen tests that we have—the lowest level of efficacy that we’ve approved in New Zealand is an 80 percent efficacy rate for rapid antigen tests. That means that some of those tests still have a one in five chance of missing somebody who has COVID-19. Therefore, the reason that we are saying at the moment that to leave self-isolation, it should only be in the case of people who are absolutely critical to keep those supply lines open, to keep those utilities functioning, and so on—it is because we want to reduce the risk of them passing on COVID-19 to others.

Chris Bishop: In relation to his first supplementary answer, is he saying that if more rapid antigen tests were available—in other words, supply was not constrained—the Government would open up the Close Contact Exemption Scheme to all businesses who are not just critical?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No, that’s not what I’ve said. To be clear here: the Close Contact Exemption Scheme is about allowing people who could have COVID-19 and who could have contracted COVID-19 from a close contact to still be able to go back to work in order to keep supply lines open and in order to keep the lights on. In terms of surveillance testing, that is a matter for businesses. If they can secure supplies of rapid antigen tests to provide some additional assurance, then of course they would be able to do that.

Chris Bishop: Does he agree with the comments of the Prime Minister yesterday that “wait times increase or processing increase for PCR, we are all ready to go with rapid antigen tests to supplement that”—

Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern: Yes.

Chris Bishop: —oh, that’s good know; thanks for that—and when will rapid tests be available for ordinary members of the public to access who are currently lining up in testing queues for hours?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: We are intending to supplement PCR tests with rapid antigen testing. That’ll of course depend on the overall level of demand and the need to get timely test results. Of course, PCR tests are more accurate and, therefore, we will be still making extensive use of PCR tests, but they will be supplemented with rapid antigen tests.

Chris Bishop: Why does a critical worker who wants a rapid test have to provide an order number, two separate letters, two forms of ID, their vaccine pass, and a text message before they can go and get a rapid test, and can this bureaucracy really be—

Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern: That is not true.

Chris Bishop: —it is true—and can this—[Interruption] What, Mr Speaker?

SPEAKER: Well, does the member want to talk to his colleague who also interjected? Well, it might have been a laugh, but it was a very loud noise while the member was talking.

Chris Bishop: I’ll start again—

SPEAKER: Prime Minister, no matter how provoked, I’d prefer that you didn’t interject. Thank you.

Chris Bishop: Why does a critical worker who wants a rapid test have to provide an order number, two separate letters, two forms of ID, their vaccine pass, and a text message before they can go and get a rapid test, and can this bureaucracy really be justified?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I reject the premise of the member’s question. As I indicated in my answer earlier: in fact, some of those businesses have been given rapid antigen tests in advance so that they are available to their workers when they need them.

Question No. 7—Health

7. TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North) to the Minister of Health: What recent announcements has he made about influenza vaccines?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): Last week, I announced that the Government will fund a quarter of a million more free flu vaccines for this year’s winter campaign to protect our most vulnerable communities and the health system. The efforts of all of us so far have helped prevent our hospitals from being overwhelmed with COVID-19 but we know as we prepare to reconnect to the world that we can expect to see more seasonal flu in New Zealand. As a result of funding these additional flu doses, up to 2 million New Zealanders will be eligible for a free flu vaccination in 2022. Vaccinating more people from the flu will save lives, preserve capacity in our hospitals, and is part of our plan to get through the COVID-19 pandemic. The good news is the flu vaccine can be safely administered at the same time as the COVID-19 vaccine, whether that be a booster shot or a paediatric vaccine, so we’ll run this campaign alongside the wider COVID-19 vaccine campaign, such as the paediatric and booster vaccinations, to better protect our vulnerable communities from preventable disease.

Tangi Utikere: What are the priorities in delivering this increased funding?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: We know that the 2022 influenza season will likely have a greater health impact than the previous two years and by increasing influenza vaccination rates alongside our wider COVID-19 vaccination programme, we will protect our most vulnerable communities from vaccine-preventable diseases. This is particularly important for Māori and Pacific populations who have greater need because of statistically higher rates of pre-existing conditions and routinely lower rates of influenza vaccinations across those groups.

Tangi Utikere: When will vaccinations using this funding begin?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The influenza vaccination programme will begin on 1 April this year. Ahead of this, officials at the Ministry of Health and Pharmac are confirming the enhanced eligibility criteria for a free flu vaccination with a focus on increasing uptake for those already eligible for the influenza vaccination as well as those at risk. We wanted to maximise uptake by those who are already eligible for a free dose, which means that they will be available for pregnant women, people over the age of 65, and people who have certain medical conditions, including those with cancer and diabetes. I want to remind everyone that while they can get their COVID-19 vaccinations at the same time as their influenza vaccine, the best thing they can do to keep themselves and their family and their community safe is to get vaccinated or boosted against COVID19 as soon as possible.

Question No. 8—Immigration

8. ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays) to the Minister of Immigration: Does he stand by all his statements and actions on immigration?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Immigration): Yes, in the context they were made and undertaken. In particular I stand by the Government’s reconnecting plan, which will drive our economic recovery, address worker shortages, and give businesses and migrants certainty. As we move into our plan to reconnect, we are safely opening the border and it will allow Kiwis, migrants, and businesses to travel to New Zealand in a way that manages public health, economic, and community needs. We have also provided certainty to thousands of migrants who are in New Zealand through the creation of the 2021 resident visa. We estimate that 165,000 people will be eligible, who have lived in New Zealand for the last three years, who work in skilled or scarce jobs. I am pleased to report that phase one of the roll-out of this visa is tracking on schedule, with over 13,000 applications of the forecast 15,000 applications having been received, and nearly 6,000 applications approved, meaning there are a little over 11,000 new New Zealand residents. Phase two begins on 1 March, when the balance of the 85,000 applications will be able to apply.

Erica Stanford: Can he explain why it took him nearly six weeks to amend immigration instructions to add the 200 agricultural machinery operators that the Hon Minister O’Connor announced on 12 December last year?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I would challenge the timing that that member suggests around those instructions to ensure that those farm workers and rural contractors could come into the country.

Erica Stanford: Is the Minister of Immigration saying to this House that he didn’t amend the instructions on 21 January this year?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I believe that that date is wrong.

Erica Stanford: Can the Minister explain why when he announced a similar border exception for horticultural machinery operators in September 2020, immigration instructions were amended six days later, when it took him six weeks to amend the immigration instructions this time around?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: The ability of the Government and Immigration to change instructions depends on the nature and capacity or the number of changes we are making. I’d also note that we met with the rural contractors last year asking when those instructions needed to be in place by. They said by February, and they were done by February, in order to allow those workers to come into the country.

Erica Stanford: Does he think there might be a connection between him taking six weeks to sign off the instructions and 150 of the 190 interested contractors pulling out of the process because they couldn’t get a visa in time for the harvest?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: No.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Does he agree the border reopening plan should be equitable, and, if so, will we see tourists from places like the UK being able to arrive before families from places like India are reunited?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: When the Government announced its reconnecting plan, we said we’d take a managed process to opening the border. As you will see from step one through to step five, we are managing the capacity of the border in order to make sure that we can manage public health risk, and also to let the likes of working holiday visas into the country via step two, in order for businesses who would like for wider travellers to come to New Zealand to be able to be ready for that.

Erica Stanford: Did the Hon Damien O’Connor or his office make any contact with him or his office requesting that the immigration instructions be expedited due to the urgent need for these rural contractors to harvest grains for food production?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I have a number of regular conversations with my colleague the Hon Damien O’Connor, where he uses some very frank language about the time frames in which he would like things to happen.

Erica Stanford: Why did he amend the immigration instructions on 21 January, or thereabouts, the very same time that was the cut-off for applying for time-critical managed and isolation quarantine (MIQ) spots, meaning none of the contractors applying for visas were able to apply for time-critical MIQ spaces to get them here in time for the harvest?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I will reiterate: I signed those instructions off soon after they were forwarded to me and they were done in a time frame which we understood would be suitable for the rural contractors, after we met with them late last year.

Erica Stanford: Supplementary.

SPEAKER: No, no, the party has used its allocation.

Question No. 9—Prime Minister

9. BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all of her Government’s statements and policies?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes. In particular, I stand by our ongoing management of this pandemic. Our focus on public health measures and a strong vaccination campaign has meant less disruption to the economy and less disruption for New Zealanders. For the past two years, our strategy has worked but we’ve always been clear that the restrictions sat in place aren’t for ever. Like we did with lockdowns and like we are doing with border when the time is right and we’re able, we’ll adjust the settings accordingly—but obviously that time isn’t right now. All the evidence over the past two years has unequivocally demonstrated that our public health measures are the best way to ensure that we have a strong economic response as well.

Brooke van Velden: Does she accept the Government’s policy of vaccine mandates is causing significant division and disruption, and, if so, is she open to alternatives?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I think it’s worth canvassing briefly where we have applied mandates, because we have been judicious in their use. Obviously, as Delta hit us, we wanted to make sure that anyone who was vulnerable who was accessing health services could be assured that, for instance, they wouldn’t risk being exposed to an unvaccinated worker. In education, parents were rightly raising concerns that at that time their children were unable to be vaccinated and their desire for that education workforce to be vaccinated. Likewise, the police expressly asked we consider a mandate that applied to them and the Defence Force, of course, to ensure that when they are in the likes of Tonga that they don’t represent an added danger. Otherwise, many of the mandates that I’ve heard raised by those externally who take issue with them are often referencing a decision made by an employer—a private employer—rather than a Government mandate. But, to finally round out, every time we’ve made that decision, it has been very carefully considered and we’ve done it to protect New Zealanders. I imagine, that had we not taken steps to look after New Zealanders’ health, we would not only have those raising those concerns possibly in a public way, but we would have a death count that mirrored it as well.

Brooke van Velden: Would she consider a vaccinate-or-test rule, as applies to people flying domestically on Air New Zealand, to replace the vaccine-only requirement, or allowing businesses to set their own rules on their own property, as suggested by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’m not quite clear on whether or not the member is referring to it in situations where employees are covered by a mandate, which is put in place by their employer, or whether the member is speaking to vaccine passes. I’ll defer to the former; there I would, again, reiterate that where many workplaces have put in place mandates, it has been at their discretion and their decision. I’d be surprised if the member was advocating that we expressly remove the right of a private enterprise to undertake a policy that essentially would be their own decision, not one for Government.

Brooke van Velden: If a test-to-work rule is OK for workers in critical industries, why can it not be used by other workers?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I would point out that the test-to-work regime that allows you to not be the subject of our usual isolation requirements only apply to vaccinated workers. The other point that I’d really like to take the opportunity to make: firstly, there have been a number of countries—I’ll make an assumption that member might be talking now about vaccine passes, but excuse me if I’ve misinterpreted the question. There were countries that originally did use either a vaccine pass or someone showing that they had been tested within the previous 72 hours. Most of the countries that did that dropped the testing element, demonstrating that it wasn’t working from a policy perspective, and we had that insight when we made our own decisions. Instead, we created a COVID-19 Protection Framework that—for the most part, the most part—does give businesses the opportunity to operate differently, should they not wish to use vaccine passes.

Brooke van Velden: Does she stand by her statement from yesterday that “I’m not here to pass judgement” in relation to the way that the Speaker turned sprinklers and loud music on the protestors outside Parliament?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That was a reference to the fact that obviously the Speaker has jurisdiction over this place and these grounds on behalf of all parliamentarians, so it’s therefore not for me to speak on those matters.

Brooke van Velden: What communications, if any, did she or her office have with the Speaker on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday about his actions in response to the protests?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As the member will be aware, there have been communications with other leaders in this House to ensure we are kept briefed on the situation that exists on our forecourt. So I imagine that I’ve had contact in the same way that other leaders have been briefed on what’s going on.

Brooke van Velden: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I’m not sure the Prime Minister addressed that question. It was specific about the Prime Minister’s communication with the Speaker, not—

SPEAKER: Well I think the Prime Minister indicated that she had.

Brooke van Velden: Did the Speaker inform her of the way he was planning to turn the sprinklers on or play loud music to drive protestors away; if so, did she raise any concerns with him about that.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Firstly, I would acknowledge that my communication with the Speaker is as leader of the Labour Party, in the same way that the Speaker’s communication with Mr Luxon would be as leader of the National Party and with Mr Seymour as leader of ACT. The actions that the Speaker takes is entirely at his discretion and his decision. What I am aware of is that the Speaker has ensured that he’s been in close contact with the police throughout this period, as you’d expect. That is a much more important set of dialogue, between the Speaker and police, than it would be between the Speaker and myself as leader of the Labour Party.

Question No. 10—Workplace Relations and Safety

10. CAMILLA BELICH (Labour) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: What recent announcements has he made about increasing wages for New Zealand’s lowest-paid workers?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Our Government is raising the minimum wage to $21.20 per hour from 1 April. We recognise that many New Zealanders who earn the minimum wage have been vital to our successful COVID-19 response and we’re committed to supporting them by raising their wages as we continue to recover and rebuild from the pandemic. We’ve settled on a minimum wage rate that strikes a fair balance to ensure that working people’s pay increases in a sustainable way, knowing that our low-income earners will spend their wages back in their local communities with local businesses.

Camilla Belich: How many people will the minimum wage increase benefit?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Raising the minimum wage this year will lift the incomes of approximately 300,000 New Zealanders, particularly helping many households that have been the most impacted by the ongoing impacts of COVID-19. For someone working a 40-hour week on the minimum wage, the increase will see them earning an extra $48 a week gross, approximately $2,500 per year. We also know that increasing the minimum wage stimulates local economic activity as people will spend the extra money on goods and services which, in turn, helps to support businesses. This will further help to accelerate our economic recovery.

Camilla Belich: What response has he seen to this announcement?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: This announcement was welcomed by the Council of Trade Unions’ president Richard Wagstaff, who said, “There’s never been a better time to increase the minimum wage. Despite suggestions to the contrary, international and New Zealand evidence suggests that increasing the minimum wage does not increase unemployment.” I’m also very pleased to see support from the Opposition, with Nicola Willis confirming that National supports the Government’s minimum wage increase, saying “It is wrong to characterise National as opposing the minimum wage increase.” It’s good to see strong bipartisan support for increasing the wages for working people, who have been absolutely essential to our COVID-19 response.

Hon Simon Bridges: Supplementary?

SPEAKER: No, the member’s party has used all its supplementaries.

Hon Simon Bridges: Oh, a point of order. I seek leave of the House, for a supplementary.

SPEAKER: What, to ask a supplementary?

Hon Simon Bridges: Yeah.

SPEAKER: Is there any objection to the Hon Mr Bridges asking a supplementary? There appears to be none.

Hon Simon Bridges: What was the reaction of Business New Zealand and the Employers and Manufacturers Association to the minimum wage announcement?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: As there always is with minimum wage announcements, there were a range of responses, and I can confirm that the responses from those organisations were consistent with their responses in 2020 when they stated that it would likely lead to a loss of jobs, when in fact we got unemployment down to a record low 3.2 percent, and I’m confident we’ll continue that strong record this year.

Hon Grant Robertson: Supplementary question?

SPEAKER: The member can’t seek leave for the member to have—

Hon Grant Robertson: For me, yeah.

SPEAKER: Oh, for yourself. Right, OK.

Hon Grant Robertson: He’s dug his own grave. I’m ready to go. On the subject of consistency of responses, can the Minister confirm that Nicola Willis’ support for the minimum wage increase was not matched by Simon Bridges, who seems to oppose it?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Mr Speaker—

SPEAKER: No, no. No, no. I think there’s a matter of responsibility in that and that’s not an area that this Minister is responsible for. And I’ll just say to the Deputy Prime Minister, I think he knew that—I think he knew that. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt this time but next time he’ll be apologising.

Question No. 11—Health

11. TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour) to the Associate Minister of Health: What progress has been made on the booster roll-out in aged residential care facilities?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Associate Minister of Health): The most important thing anyone, including seniors, can do to protect themselves and their loved ones is get boosted. We know that older people living in aged residential care are among our most vulnerable, and we’ve seen overseas what can happen when COVID-19 gets established in facilities with low vaccination coverage. That’s why it’s been so important to use the time that our border protections and contact tracing has brought us to complete the booster roll-out in all aged-care facilities around New Zealand. I want to thank the vaccinators, aged-care providers, and the staff that have worked so hard to ensure the smooth delivery of the booster programme.

Tāmati Coffey: What other measures are in place in aged residential care to help protect residents and staff?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: Everyone in the aged-care sector is committed to protecting residents and staff. The Ministry of Health is working with providers to ensure infection prevention and control is of the highest standard. In addition to boosters and the supply and use of appropriate personal protective equipment, we are also strengthening testing of staff in aged residential care. As part two of our Omicron health response, anyone working or living in these facilities with symptoms will be prioritised for a PCR test to protect these residents at the highest risk. On top of that, aged residential care facilities will be able to test asymptomatic visitors using rapid antigen tests.

Tāmati Coffey: What progress has been made delivering booster shots to the wider over-65 population?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: Vaccination rates for older New Zealanders have been one of the success stories of our COVID response: 99 percent of people over the age of 65 are fully vaccinated, and more than 85 percent have now been boosted. We know that getting a booster shot is the best defence against Omicron, so I urge anyone who is eligible for a booster but hasn’t got around to it yet to take the time to head out to one of the hundreds of vaccination sites up and down the country and get boosted.

Urgent Debates Declined

COVID-19 Mandate Protest, Wellington—Speaker’s Response

SPEAKER: I have received a letter from Brooke van Velden seeking to debate under Standing Order 399 my response to the protests at Parliament. An urgent debate may only be held if the matter involves the ministerial or administrative responsibility of the Government—Standing Order 399(2)(b). The Speaker is not a member of the Government, and the actions of the Speaker cannot be the subject of an urgent debate. For members who want to look closely at this matter, Speaker Carter gave an extensive ruling on the point, on 6 December 2016. I refer the member to that ruling and to Speakers’ ruling 201/6, which states that an urgent debate “is not [the] vehicle for addressing matters that are the responsibility of the Speaker”. The application is declined.

Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

Debate resumed from 10 February.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Together we have risen to the challenge of COVID-19. It is together that we will get through this next challenging stage that we are about to embark on. As we watch case numbers grow, it is important that we stay together. That unity has got us to the unique position that New Zealand is in today, and it is continuing to look after each other that will get us through this next stage. I want to thank New Zealanders for looking out for each other and continuing to look out for each other as we see the Omicron numbers rising. And while the current protesters outside are attracting much of the conversation and much of the coverage that we’re seeing in the media, I would like to point out: in the time those protesters have been here, literally hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders have gone and got their booster shot to continue to look out for each other, for their families, for their communities, and for their work colleagues. And I want to offer my heartfelt thanks to those people for doing that.

I would like to start in this contribution by acknowledging the leadership of our PM and the leadership that was delivered in the Prime Minister’s statement. There is a clear plan to continue to get us through this next phase. She is a leader who has listened to the evidence, she’s made the hard decisions, but, importantly, she has provided leadership to all of us as we have gone through this. All of us enter this House, right around this Chamber, with a desire to make a difference to the lives of the people that we represent—the people that we are privileged to represent in this Chamber.

Over the last two years, the PM has led us as a Government, where decisions have been made each day which were literally about life and death. And I want to acknowledge the PM for continuing the leadership that she laid out, because when you are in Government, these daily decisions that you make are for keeps. There is not the luxury of Opposition of doing a redo if you make a bad decision, if you make the wrong call. When you’re in Government, leading a nation through a global pandemic, these are decisions that literally are decisions of life and death for New Zealand. These are the decisions that have led to the measures that have literally saved jobs but also protected jobs and saved businesses. We see that, in the case of New Zealand, confirmed cases, hospitalisations, and deaths have been the lowest in the OECD for each of the past two years—and that is a record I want to see New Zealand continue. Unemployment is at a record low. Record numbers of New Zealanders have moved off the main benefit and into work.

But, as the Prime Minister’s statement made clear, as well as continuing to deal with COVID, we as a Government must also continue to make progress on the long-term challenges that New Zealand as a nation faces. We must continue to address housing. We must continue to address child poverty, mental health, and climate change. We are continuing to make pragmatic progress on the transition to a low-carbon and low-emissions economy. To reduce waste, to take mental health seriously, and to improve New Zealand’s biodiversity, we have a plan to keep us as a country moving forward, and central to that plan is securing our economic future. We have a plan to build a high-wage, low-carbon economy that provides security in the good times and in the bad times. It’s focused on increasing the value of our exports, developing new and interesting skills within our workforce, new technology, modern infrastructure, and research and innovation to drive productivity, reduce emissions, and increase wages.

And one of the key focuses of our Government will continue to be housing. We are under no illusions; there is no one, quick fix for a housing crisis. We are the first to acknowledge that. This is a crisis that is decades in the making. This is a crisis that requires a Government to have a programme of work that addresses each and every one of the issues that has led us to where we are today. And that is the Government that we are.

In the Prime Minister’s statement, she spelt out our plan for housing. The same cannot be said for the Leader of the Opposition’s statement in response. It is time for the Opposition to tell us what they are going to do in housing—not what they think the Government is doing wrong, not criticising and sniping over the small things from the sideline, but to tell us what they are going to do in housing. Is it to once again flog off public housing, as we saw when the National Party were last in Government? Or is it continuation of standing idly on the sidelines, doing nothing and letting a housing crisis grow around them as they did for the nine years they were in Government—and wouldn’t even concede that there was a housing crisis? We need to start seeing exactly what it is that the Opposition would do in Government.

What is their alternative? “Build more houses” is not a plan. We want to start hearing how you’re going to build more houses. What is the way in which you’re going to do that? Because I am constantly reminded that last time the Opposition were in Government, they ended nine years of Government with 1,500 fewer public houses than they started with. They didn’t build any. They did not add to the stock; they reduced the number of public houses in this country, and we are paying the price for that now, with a waiting list for public housing. We would have nearly 16,000 more public houses if the previous National Government had not sold houses and they had built at least at a rate of 1,600 houses a year.

What is needed to solve a housing crisis is a comprehensive plan, and that’s what we have. It is multifaceted, and it addresses the problem from both a demand and a supply perspective. We are starting to see the green shoots of Government action in housing; we are starting to see positive signs that we are turning around this multi-decade crisis. Forty-eight thousand new homes were consented in the year to December 2021. This is the most number of consents since records were kept. This is up 24 percent on the December year-end figure the year before. We are starting to not only see consents but that supply come through. And we are seeing that, where supply is coming through, we are having lower house-price growth and lower rent growth—evidence of Auckland.

We are seeing the green shoots from our initiatives, and these are the initiatives and comprehensive plan that we have taken. We banned offshore speculators. We protected renters’ rights through initiatives like stopping renting fees and reducing rent increases to once a year. We extended the brightline test. We tilted the playing field towards homeownership by closing tax loopholes for speculators. We incentivised investors to help us solve the housing crisis by building new supply and not competing in the suburbs with their kids. We’ve turned around the previous flog-off of public housing and, instead, are building new public houses at a rate not seen in a generation—close to 9,000 houses and counting. Over 7,000 of these are brand new builds—warm, dry homes for Kiwi families.

We’ve nearly more than doubled the operational funding for our community housing sector. We’re working with Māori and iwi housing providers to deliver by Māori, for Māori housing solutions. We’re addressing decades of under-investment in infrastructure with the $3.8 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund, through the Housing Acceleration Fund. Pipes and roads are critical to building more houses. Look to eastern Porirua: $136 million investment from this fund is yielding 2,000 extra houses. We’re investing in transitional houses; 1,123 places when we came into Government; now we have 5,102, and our job is not done. We will continue to get going. We have a programme of initiatives. We will keep going because housing is important.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. We’re speaking here in the response to the Prime Minister’s statement, and I have to say, what I’d hoped to hear in the Prime Minister’s statement was a plan for sustainable economic growth in this country that involves more than just spending a lot of debt-fuelled Government spending and cheap money from the Reserve Bank.

Secondly, I was hoping that we might hear about a Government actually delivering on its promises and better public services—as they manifestly haven’t done so far on housing, on transport, and in myriad areas of COVID.

The third thing I wanted to hear was an understanding that we need to stop the division in this country. I have never known this country to have been so divided, so much division. Pitting one group against another is what this Government’s all about.

So let’s just go through these things. So a plan for sustainable economic growth—now, sustainable economic growth is growth that’s not just based on Grant Robertson borrowing ever more money and spreading it all around the country and saying, “Aren’t things doing well?” Eventually, it has to be repaid. He plans to borrow an extra $6 billion this year for new spending in the Budget, on top of the many billions that they’ve spent already. Now, people might say, “Oh well, that’s all very well.”, but hang on a moment, how are we actually going to pay this back eventually? And how is it actually going to make the economy go faster in order to provide higher incomes and more jobs for New Zealanders? Well, given the scale of the challenge that we face—and I’ve heard the Prime Minister many times say, “Oh well, we’re not having lockdowns anymore; we’re not going to move lockdowns; we’re going to be in red, but you can do most of everything, and isn’t that good? And we’re better off than many other countries.” I don’t think she seems to understand that we now are entering our third year of very substantial restrictions on the New Zealand economy—very substantial.

Our largest export earner, tourism, has been shut down for two years and is still shut down. What was our fourth-largest export earner, international education, has been shut down for two years and no end in sight. When you look at the hospitality sector, the most depressing thing that many of us encounter on a regular basis is heading off and seeing the look of fear and sadness in the eyes of owners of cafes and restaurants and business outlets around town. I see Chlöe Swarbrick there—Auckland Central is a terrible place at the moment in terms of people just not being there and businesses falling over and struggling—desperate—and we’re in this condition, in the red condition, for no end in sight, from this Government. They keep on restricting our lives, and what we need to see is a sense of urgency about reopening our economy and getting ourselves back on deck.

Now, what can the Government do about it? Yes, we’re dealing with Omicron. Well, they could have been so much faster in so many ways. 2021 was the year where they mucked around for six months on the vaccine roll-out because other countries were needing it more than us, and that led to the second lockdown in Auckland, which has been devastating for the economy and added real pressure on so many people in Auckland, in particular; an unnecessary delay that, thankfully, has been rectified, but six months too late.

Then, we talk about what the basic sort of strategy for COVID-19 under this Government has been: to buy time in order to prepare the health system to cope with the surge. Well, they bought the time, at colossal expense. New Zealand has been, of all the countries in the OECD—the wealthy countries—the one that has spent the second-highest on COVID response after the United States. It’s us, little old New Zealand, the most isolated, naturally protected country in the world—being a small population far from anywhere—and we managed to spend the second-highest amount defending ourselves against COVID-19, of all the rich countries.

And yet, having bought that time so expensively, we did nothing with it, and so the ICU capacity wasn’t increased at all, and so we’ve still got the problem, late last year, when we were unvaccinated, that we had to lock the whole place down because we were worried that the health system wouldn’t cope. We hadn’t done anything about it, hadn’t gone out internationally and got the nurses, and hadn’t got the ICU things organised. Now, when Omicron comes along, we’ve still got the same old problem. We’ve got to wait, we’ve got to be very restrictive—

Hon Andrew Little: How many people in ICU?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —because this guy—that fellow—never got around to getting on to doing anything. All he does is talk. He ranted and raved like he always does and made no progress on preparing his health system to get results. And so time will tell—well, they’ve got plenty of time. We’ll look back and reflect upon it, and we’ll see the manifest failures in this Government to prepare.

So, when we look at the economy, we’ve got this great burden of debt that’s being built on us, the strangulation of our economy for such a long time, and when I look forward to see the plan for growth, there is nothing there. The only plan that this Government has on the economy is to increase minimum wages, and somehow that’s going to solve all the problems of the world. Well, that’s very nice. A 6 percent increase in the minimum wage is good for those who get it, but the rest of the workers will be wondering, “Well, do I need a 6 percent increase?” And how is that going to impact on inflation? When we see the real pressure—and we’ve heard so many business owners saying that it’s a kick in the guts for those people who are struggling to stay afloat at the moment. On top of many increases over the last two years, plus an extension of sick leave and a whole host of other costs being added on to business, it does make it very difficult for them to survive.

My second point is around a Government that actually delivers on its promises. We’ve heard so much about housing. We heard the housing Minister, Megan Woods, talking about the Opposition’s sniping about small things: small things such as promising to deliver 100,000 houses and delivering 1,000 houses—a very small, minor matter, the almost comedy, the complete failure of this Government’s housing policy. They stood and Phil Twyford declared that they were going to solve the problem in 2017. Jacinda Ardern said she was going to solve the problem, and they have made it colossally worse. The affordability of housing in this country is now an embarrassment, and they keep on failing because they misunderstand the basics. On renting, they seem to think that by making it more difficult for landlords, and more expensive, that somehow that’s going to lead to cheaper rents. Well, obviously, we’ve seen rents go up by $50 a week this year and over $130 or $140 since they took office. That has put real pressure on houses and made the broader issues around poverty so much worse.

We see the crazy approach they have to motels and short accommodation across the country. It was a disgrace, apparently, when National was in Government to have a few people in a hotel in an emergency situation. Now, we are spending $1.2 million a day on motels. Half of Rotorua’s motels are full of emergency housing. We’ve got more than 4,000 children being raised in motels alongside gangsters and other people that are not appropriate neighbours for young kids. No wonder we’ve made no progress on improving the truancy rates in our schools, which is a long-term crisis for this country.

So the third point I wanted to hear about was some sense that we need to stop the division in this country. We see outside of Parliament, I suppose, the sharp end of the sword of a wider rage growing in this country over the divisions that we see. This Government talks about being a caring and kind Government, but it has actually been one of the most divisive Governments in the history of this country. Jacinda Ardern pits one group of New Zealanders against another group of New Zealanders on a regular basis. If you think about it, they pit landlords against renters. They talk about speculators. We heard Megan Woods going on about speculators versus people who are trying to rent houses. We hear them pitting farmers against city folk. They’ve been attacking the farmers, and our mate David Parker is the excellent transporter of that, always talking about dirty dairying and all the nasty things that the dairy people have done. They’ve gone a bit quiet on that recently because they realise that it’s the only thing that’s keeping the country afloat at the moment, but that’s by the by.

So they pit the farmers against the city folk and then, of course, the vaccinated against the unvaccinated. And we all understand, and we early on supported mandates for critical people and we continue to, but, as Chris Luxon has said, we need to have a clear timetable to move on from that. Once we have very high vaccination rates, we shouldn’t be dividing ourselves and forcing people to be regarded almost as lepers, as some Ministers imply.

Then, of course, there’s the division on ethnic lines that continues in this country as well, by pushing too hard on a co-governance agenda and arrangements across government, which is an area where many New Zealanders struggle to understand how that fits with the age-old principle that most people expect that everybody should have the same access and influence on laws and their implementation in this country as citizens, regardless of what ethnic group they come from. So that is also divisive if it is pushed too far.

So my message to the Government is: first, come up with a sustainable economic plan that is more than just borrowing and spending; secondly, actually focus on delivering better public services rather than just announcing it; and third, stop dividing us as a country. We are stronger together as New Zealanders, and that should be the focus of this Government: bringing us together rather than dividing us at every opportunity. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): Point of order, Madam Speaker. I take extreme offence at that member’s assertion that Auckland Central is “a terrible place to be”. I would just like to put it on the record that Auckland Central is in fact a wonderful place to be—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you—thank you very much. The member has taken offence. I’d ask the Hon Paul Goldsmith to stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Sorry, Madam Speaker. I’m struggling to—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you. The member has taken offence at comments made by Paul Goldsmith. I’ll ask Paul Goldsmith to stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Well, I don’t want to apologise for giving an opinion. Sorry—do you want to throw me out or something?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): No, I don’t, in fact, want to throw the member out. However, a member across the House has taken offence at something the member has said. Now, it could be argued that when the member took offence, she should have taken a point of order immediately. However, I invite the Hon Paul Goldsmith to stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Well, I withdraw and apologise.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): Madam Speaker, thank you. It’s a great pleasure to make an address in response to the Prime Minister’s statement.

I’m just reflecting on Paul Goldsmith, the member who just resumed his seat, and his speech. It’s not just classic conservative politics; it’s classic New Zealand National Party politics where, in their closing days in Government in 2017, they looked all around them and didn’t see a single problem. It doesn’t matter that there were thousands of people living in cars, and homeless and with nowhere to go—there was no problem! It doesn’t matter that we had huge inequities in our public systems, particularly our public health system, they looked around and saw no problem. They saw no problem with the housing crisis. They saw no problem with unemployment. They saw no problem with the infrastructure deficit that we had. They said, “No problem.” That’s, of course, why they were booted out of Government, and still they do not get that there were major problems and challenges that this Government has had to step up to and deal with.

I want to say that the health system in Aotearoa New Zealand has never been tested to the extent that it has in the last two years, because it’s not just been dealing with the COVID pandemic but it’s been dealing with years of neglect and chronic underfunding under the previous Government. We know that when we make health policy decisions and health investment decisions, there is a reasonably long lead time. From the time that you make the decision and make the investment, it can be two, three, four, or sometimes a few years longer before you see the thing that you’ve invested in, the policy that you’ve made, and the impact that it has on people. But the converse is also true that if you fail to fund the system properly and if you fail to invest in facilities, then it takes a wee while for that to start to show and for that to have an impact, and that’s what we’re dealing with right now.

This Government inherited a health system that under the previous National Government saw funding not even keeping pace with a massive growth in population: 600,000 people were added to the New Zealand population under the previous Government, and not a single dollar per capita more was added to health. There were some cost pressures and there was some inflation adjustment, but not to cope with the massive additional population that was drawing on our health services.

There was chronic under-investment in buildings and IT systems. Buildings were literally falling down and with sewage running down their internal walls because the previous Government did not invest. Two years where no money was allocated in successive Budgets to capital spending for health, and an IT system across the health system, generally—I think I was told there were 120 different platforms across 20 DHBs and no DHB system was able to talk to the next one. Just crazy—just crazy. If you compare the investment from that Government to this Government in capital spending in health, it was, roughly, $1 billion over nine years under the previous Government, and, so far, in four years, it’s nearly $6.5 billion by this Government, because that’s what’s needed to start get things back up to spec.

There were mental health facilities and services that were just neglected—that were just neglected—and an emerging mental health crisis that was just completely ignored. That was what we’ve had to deal with. That’s what we have had to step up and deal with in the health system.

One thing that has become patently clear, and will become more clear, is that when it comes to the two major parties in this House, the National Party does not care about public health. This party—the Labour Party—cares for a quality public health system and will invest in it every time that it is in Government, as it is doing now.

The background that I’m talking about too is that this Government is now undertaking the biggest rescue of the public health system in this country’s history, and that rescue is being carried out against the background of fighting the worst pandemic the world has seen in a hundred years. We are rebuilding the house at the same time as fighting the brush fires around it. That’s the situation that we have been in for four years and are continuing to be in.

But I look at our COVID response, widely regarded now as world class and as world leading. We have one of the lowest case numbers in the world, we have one of the lowest hospitalisation rates in the world, we have one of the lowest fatality rates in the world, we have one of the most highly vaccinated populations in the world, and—for the benefit of those out the front—we have administered more than 10.1 million doses since we started the programme last year and nearly 2 million booster doses since we started the booster programme at the end of last year. That’s 61 percent of the eligible population now boosted, 216,000 paediatric doses administered in the last few weeks, and we have 95 percent of people aged 12 and over now with two doses of the vaccine.

Since our friends out the front have been out the front, in the last seven days, 373,000—nearly 374,000—more doses have been administered in the time that they say they represent the rest of the country. Even first doses: over 400,000 first doses are still being administered in the time that they’ve been out in the front, and 15,000-plus paediatric doses in that time. So this is a vaccination programme that has worked really well.

But, as I said, we are rebuilding the system and fighting the brush fires as well, and I want to acknowledge the incredible work of those in our system, those doing the policy leadership in the ministry, and those on the front lines: those leading our DHBs, those working in our wards, running the vaccination programmes, running the testing programmes for the COVID pandemic—those doing an incredible job providing the healthcare that New Zealanders expect and still coming up trumps. Even when it is short-staffed, even when so many nurses are working short-staffed shifts, and even when doctors are working extra hours and knowing that they don’t necessarily have all the colleagues, because all the slots for their particular discipline aren’t filled on their slate, they are doing an incredible job. But one thing we will not do is we will not under-invest in our health system. That’s why I want to come to why the plan that the Prime Minister outlined in her statement is so important.

I want to acknowledge, too, of course, that in all that time it has been really tough. The COVID pandemic response has been really tough on so many people: so many families who have had their family lives disrupted, family connections disrupted, celebrations of family events disrupted, and the ability to grieve over loss and loved ones disrupted. That has been tough, and that is real—it’s real for people out on the forecourt and it’s real for thousands and thousands of other New Zealanders—and that is regrettable. But it has been important that we respond to COVID in a way that protects and preserves as many lives as possible, and protects our health system to be able to respond to all the demands placed on it and not just those placed on it by the pandemic.

But I’m really proud to lead a Government and to lead a health reform that is going to make so much difference to everybody. We’ve already started a programme of investing to reboot our mental health system: more than 800 new front-line mental health roles added to our mental health workforce in the integrated primary care system that we’ve got; more people with access to talk therapies when they turn up to their GP; investment in new facilities, with the construction about to start on as many of those as possible; and investment in our youth mental health, as well, particularly for Māori and Pacific services.

We’re doing all those things, but now the next phase is under way. We’ve made commitments to reform the system through our health and disability system review. We’ve made the commitment to remove the 20 DHBs and put in place Health New Zealand, with all of its ability to do much better localised planning and regional funding and to lead a nationwide system so that our clinicians and our people in this system can start thinking of themselves as part of a truly national system and draw on the best of the system, wherever it is in the country. We start to address inequity too: the Māori Health Authority is a major advance and a major development that will make a huge difference to the inequities in our health system that have been around for so long. I look forward to Health New Zealand and the Māori Health Authority. Their interim bodies are in place already, but the permanent bodies, subject to the passage of the legislation, will be in place by 1 July this year, and that will make a significant difference.

We have an opportunity with the reforms that we’re putting in place to actually have a nationwide hospital network that will serve the needs of all New Zealanders, where patients can move to where the best care is for them without a whole lot of form-filling, without a whole lot of bureaucracy, and without 20 different administrators having to make a variety of different decisions. We will have a revamped primary and community healthcare system. Primary healthcare will be a big winner out of the reforms. We’ll see more funding going into primary care than we’ve ever seen before, and we will have the Māori Health Authority.

Labour has had as its historical mission the support of, the creating of, and the building of a truly quality public health system. That’s what we did from 1935, in the Government that started then. We’ve picked up that mantle again and we will restore a public health system that is the pride and envy of New Zealand and the world.

BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is good to be back in Parliament, but, unfortunately, being back here in Parliament means that the Government is also back in Parliament, and that is hugely unfortunate for any New Zealander who actually wants to go about living their lives with little distraction from Government regulation and over-interference—making laws that make it harder just to get ahead. But, while the Government’s back, the ACT Party is back and we’re here to hold them to account for all of their silly, ill-informed policies that they might try and pass through Parliament this year.

I want to start by acknowledging the people up and down New Zealand who are doing it tough. Over the break, when Parliament was on recess, I travelled around a little bit of the country and I saw a lot of businesses that were really hurting and struggling. I walked past restaurants that had one table full in the entire restaurant, places that were practically empty because there were no tourists. I went on an Air Milford flight and talked to the pilot, who said usually he does five flights a day, but because there were no tourists at the moment, he was down to one flight. It’s hugely sad. There are hotels that are just sitting empty, with no one there to turn up. Tourist operators don’t want another handout from the Government. They want people to be tourists. They want people to come through their borders that have a good experience, that eat good food, and that enjoy being out and about around New Zealand. They don’t want another Government handout; they want good public policy. Cafes are in the same situation. So is the events industry, who just want to get out there and put on good events for the people of New Zealand, but they’re being restricted from doing so.

While Parliament is back, it might only be for a short while, because, like a lot of businesses, we will be seeing Parliament probably close because of the isolation requirements of the Government with close contacts. I’ve been speaking to a lot of business owners who are really struggling with knowing what sort of solutions they should put in place to make sure that their businesses don’t stop functioning in the months coming up. So I really want to take my hat off to all of the people that are still striving and still trying to make a difference and keep their employees employed.

It really does feel like people are falling behind. People are working harder and harder, but it’s feeling like it’s getting harder to get ahead, and a lot of that has to do with what this Government has done with COVID and how that’s affected our economy. We need a healthier economy this year.

If we look at just housing, for example, I was in contact with a man just this week who’s a solo dad of one young boy and he really wants to be able to provide a new home for him and his kid. He’s found a home, he’s got the 20 percent deposit for the home, but, in the meantime, he can’t get his mortgage pre-approval because of legislation that the Government put through which is making it harder and harder for banks to sign off on giving people access to that dream of homeownership. It’s the same for a solo mother that I was in contact with, with two kids. She already has two jobs and the bank said, “No, you need a higher income to be able to get a mortgage pre-approval.” So she’s out there looking for a third job.

There are so many things that are making it harder in the meantime, while they’re trying to get mortgage approval, to even save. Rents are going up, the cost of living is going up, you know, going to the weekly shop and trying to fill the basket is just getting so much more expensive. Every time you fuel up at the petrol pump, it’s getting more and more expensive. But for the landlords and the rents—we’ve had the healthy homes standards, we’ve had interest deductibility, we’ve had brightline standards being extended, and Kāinga Ora is also in the bidding, making house prices even more expensive. There’s just so much bureaucracy, which is making it hard to get ahead as a New Zealander.

We need to actually get rid of the bureaucracy and allow for more opportunity. ACT’s solution to the housing crisis is: just simply allow for more homes to be built. The real issue is infrastructure financing and funding. We’ve been hearing so many different regulations and ways that people could build more homes, theoretically, in this Chamber, but it really does come down to infrastructure financing and funding. Our solution is to allow for half of the GST on every new build to go to the local council that issues the consent, because that’s where the true hold-up is. We try and make it sound so difficult, but it really is quite that simple.

The cost of living has been going up because of the Government’s response to COVID19, and we’re seeing, essentially, a 6 percent COVID tax. I think a lot of New Zealanders need a break, especially those New Zealanders who are striving so hard to put money away to save for that house deposit and they’re finding, in the meantime, it’s getting whittled away by inflation. We should be giving them a tax cut to help them get ahead. We need better economic management, less wasteful spending, less bureaucracy, and more opportunity.

We also need healthy, thriving communities. You don’t have to go very far in New Zealand to talk to people who are feeling unsafe on the streets: women who are afraid to walk out of their buildings at night; people, even now, who are afraid to walk to work. People don’t feel safe, and dairy owners in particular are really feeling this. And you shouldn’t, in New Zealand, feel unsafe when you’re just trying to live and make an income. I think we need to do better to make our streets safer, and the ACT Party has many policies around this: on gang injunction orders and also making sure that we’re rehabilitating prisoners so that there is opportunity for a safer community.

I think a lot of the stress that comes from managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ)—and we need to get rid MIQ. We currently have community cases transmitting in New Zealand, and yet we’re still allowing for the borders to be closed for people who have negative-tested, who have vaccinations, and they just want to come home and see their families. It’s quite cruel what we’re doing as a country to New Zealanders who are locked outside of our own borders, and it creates division.

We need to do better to have a healthy, thriving community by acknowledging that our education standards are slipping and we have to do better. We have to acknowledge that the healthcare reforms that the Government’s trying to put through don’t actually fix the real problems that are faced in the healthcare system—the workforce shortage. With the borders shut for nearly two years, we didn’t allow for health workers to actually enter the country and help out with our COVID response and for the long term.

We need to have a better mental health policy. There are a lot of people struggling in New Zealand, and we don’t need to spend more money—like we hear—on mental health policies; we just need to get rid of the bureaucracy in the system. There’s a lot of money that sloshes around and doesn’t actually get to the people who truly need it.

I want to talk briefly on the last issue of this year that’s important to me, and that’s the Kiwi identity. I went to an event this weekend and I heard from a man who’s a Sri Lankan New Zealander, and he said last time he went back to Sri Lanka, he went into a business and asked, “Is this a Tamil, Muslim, or Sinhalese business?”, and the owner said, “It’s a Sri Lankan business.”, and I like that. I think that’s what we need to be like here in New Zealand. We are a multi-ethnic society. We have so many different races and religions and we are all equal. We all belong here. We’re all New Zealanders. Every single business in New Zealand is a New Zealand business. We are more than just Māori and generic white; we are hundreds of different ethnicities that all deserve to be respected. We need to be united behind good policy that acknowledges this, rather than being divided based on our race. We should be a liberal democracy that respects every person’s right to be treated equally. Instead of becoming fixated on our differences, we should respect our common humanity.

There has to be hope, and the ACT Party will be delivering that this year. We will be holding the Government to account, but we’ll be proposing good ideas to make sure that we have a healthy economy, a healthy, thriving community, and a shared Kiwi identity, and that is behind good public policy, which we’ll be promoting this year. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Minister of Agriculture): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s indeed an honour to speak for the first time this parliamentary year and to support the Prime Minister’s statement. The most important question, the one asked by the youngest New Zealanders, the children, is: “Why?” I’ve always believed that that is the most important question they ask and we should ask always. There have been, over the last couple of years here, in facing the COVID challenges, thousands of decisions made by my colleagues, often shared with members of the Opposition—a heads-up on these things. They are hard decisions and the question of “Why?” is a reasonable one that everyone should ask about those decisions.

There are people outside the Parliament here who are somewhat confused. Their answer is not the answer that we would provide. I believe that the PM’s “why”, through her statement, is the one shared by Māori. My good mate Willie Jackson would say I’m a very poor student of tikanga Māori. He’s probably right but I do keep trying. Māori have a saying: “What is the most important thing in the world? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.” Everything that we have done in Government, through COVID and before that, is for people, for New Zealanders. There was some wisdom in the previous speaker, Brooke van Velden’s statement, but there was an underlying view that we are here for business. What a ridiculous statement. We are here for people. The view that people are here for business is not true. Businesses are here for people—the owners, the customers, the employees—but we’re not here as the slaves for business. We are here to support people—New Zealanders first and foremost.

When COVID broke out, we reached out to people who were researchers around the world. We reached out to them for their knowledge to develop the vaccines. We reached out to healthcare workers. Fortunately, we weren’t confronted with the realities of COVID like other countries, but we had the wisdom to stay ahead, to ask the questions, to ensure that we put in place provisions to protect our people at every part and stage and sector of our community and society. We remain committed to that and we’ll always remain committed to that. He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.

We realise that the people we needed were not just doctors and nurses but, actually, supermarket workers, truck drivers, and people who worked on farms, and we moved, firstly, to protect them from what could have been a flood of COVID, and then to ensure that we had assistance for them through the wage subsidy. We ensured we had assistance to business to ensure that the people who owned businesses—not the businesses; the people who owned them—were in a position to be able to continue to keep that business going if they thought it was viable.

We moved to cushion the blow that was going to occur to our economy, but we focused on the people, and we will continue to. And it worked. Our economy bounced back. Firstly, we dealt with COVID. Then, we had the onslaught of Delta, and that set us back a little bit, and now we have Omicron, but we worked our way systematically through those challenges and, yes, it has interrupted business, and, yes, it’s interrupted people’s lives, but the facts speak for themselves. The lowest level of deaths and hospitalisations in the OECD: something each and every one of us should be proud of. It’s not us; it’s every New Zealander who has committed to do the right thing, and I thank them for that.

But the question of why we’ve done this is important. There are businesses out there and there are business owners and people who worked in those businesses that might have lost jobs or lost all their savings. Take the primary sector, where, because of the border closures, we didn’t have the people working in to do the jobs across many of the sectors. So, firstly, we got alongside the training establishments, the people who could help upskill those people, taking on board the fact that many people had lost their jobs in tourism, and assisting them to transition across. We did that from the top of the country to the bottom, and we kept places like Taratahi and Telford going. In fact, we built them up after they’d been run down by the previous National Government. We built them up to provide the courses, to provide the skills to people who needed to transition into other jobs. It may be temporary; it may be long-term.

We are approaching $50 billion in primary sector export earnings—never ever before achieved—through the COVID pandemic. Yes, it has been challenging. Yes, I acknowledge the changes and challenges for people in those sectors, but congratulations—we have done it, because we’re Kiwis and because we’ve built on the values of egalitarianism and equality of opportunity, but ensuring there are safeguards and protections for those people who are unfortunate. It’s not for business. If we have good, well-trained, healthy people, we will have vibrant businesses and a healthy economy. The facts speak for themselves. The $50 billion is a success story through COVID, and I doubt that there’s any other country in the world that’s achieved that sort of growth, that sort of success. Yes, there are some sectors, like tourism and hospitality, that are doing it hard, and we’ll work through to help them.

We have a trade agenda. We’ve always been, as a trading nation, focused on trade, but we now have a new agenda called Trade for All. There was growing concern that trade was just benefiting some people, some businesses, and not flowing through to each and every New Zealander. Our Trade for All strategy ensures that what we negotiate through trade agreements, what we do to facilitate trade through the Government agencies—New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and all that good work—enables all New Zealanders to see the benefits of that.

Because we had, in summary, still a low-wage economy, we lifted the minimum wage. We had to do that. There is huge pressure on people on low incomes. We need to lift that up and for a nation that is proud of its innovation, that’s enjoying the success of record commodity prices at the moment, we have to keep in mind that sharing some of that wealth will ensure that we have a better future. Build back better—that’s been said a lot around the world. Well, we have to do that, not just talk about it. So sharing that wealth that we create among all of society is absolutely crucial to ensure that all New Zealanders benefit.

There is a lot happening in the trade area. We have, of course, just announced the date—7 April—of the free-trade agreement with China, negotiated in 2008 by the previous Labour Government and now upgraded by this Labour Government to give us growing opportunities into that big market. But that’s not enough. We have to diversify. We have to open the doors in the UK and the EU and work across the globe to ensure the fine, high-quality products and services we produce can be sold around the world to generate the wealth we need. We’re reconnecting with the world. It has been hard to bring New Zealanders in. No, the ACT Party is completely wrong to say we didn’t bring in healthcare workers. Those are misconstrued facts, mistruths, the kind of misinformation that goes out to the people in front of Parliament to fuel their unfortunate ignorance and views.

We will allow people in as long as we can ensure that the hard work that Kiwis have done to save lives in this country is not undermined by a rush for a few months, a month here or two, to get people back. We know we need them. We know that in viticulture and horticulture there are seasonal pressures, and we’re doing all we can to alleviate those pressures, and then moving on through into dairy. But so too are other sectors, and the one that is most important—and there’s no wealth without health, and if we think we can run our healthcare workers into the ground through a COVID pandemic and outbreak, they’ll be packing their bags and leaving through exhaustion. We need to look after them. I want to thank them for what they’ve done to prepare. They will be facing more infections and a healthcare system under pressure, but I have confidence in what my colleague the Hon Andrew Little is doing to bolster the healthcare system and in what we are doing as a Government to focus on people: he tangata, he tangata, he tangata. That is why a Labour Government is in power. That is who we govern for: the people of this country—all of them.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you, Madam Speaker. So here we are today debating the Prime Minister’s statement, after four years of her Government being in power. The speech was riddled with platitudes, self-congratulation, and hyperbole. That’s not to say the Government hasn’t achieved anything; I want to acknowledge that it has. But I think there is something that has occurred under this Government that is much more insidious; in fact, it is invidious. It is undesirable and it’s unwelcome. It has seeped out and spread throughout our community and our country. It is the issue of how divided a society we have become.

The Prime Minister is very accustomed to delivering edicts to New Zealanders. Standing on the podium of truth, she has happily proclaimed the new rules, and an army of public servants have set about implementing them. And while this has been necessary in the short term, during periods of crisis, over the longer term this has left many New Zealanders feeling steamrollered, confused, and alone. The Prime Minister has made it clear that her Government knows best, that Wellington is the centre of the universe, and that there is nothing she won’t centralise. What this serves to do is to alienate many New Zealanders.

The Prime Minister persists in using the term “the team of 5 million people”. But only someone who is wilfully putting their head in the sand could be blind to the dysfunction of this so-called team. New Zealand is divided because the things that we all thought were what New Zealand stood for have been tossed out the window. They are being contested, leading to unfair outcomes. There are the haves and the have-nots. The gaps have widened and we have all witnessed the huge divisions that have emerged.

For a start, the Prime Minister is excluding the million Kiwis who are currently living and working overseas, the so-called flightless Kiwis. We have all seen the callousness of this Government. We have heard from our elderly superannuitants stuck in places like Australia for more than 26 weeks, who are now getting letters from the Ministry of Social Development demanding that they repay their super because they haven’t been able to get back to New Zealand. They do not feel like they are part of the team.

Then we’ve had the really cruel outcomes. We’ve had families split apart because members can’t get through the house of misery called MIQ—managed isolation and quarantine. They’ve been unable to see their loved ones before they die or even attend a funeral. It is totally unreasonable that a person has to go on a hunger strike to be able to see their dying father. It is not any surprise that they do not feel like they are part of the team.

And then, the division between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, those who accept the mandates and those who do not, as evident outside this wall—their anger is palpable.

Then, there are those who work from home, calling for greater restrictions, while hard-working New Zealanders go out to work every day in places like petrol stations and supermarkets. But when the Government centralises—sorry, forcibly takes rapid antigen tests that forward-thinking New Zealand businesses have ordered and when Sir Ian Taylor has to speak to the media because many New Zealand businesses are too scared to criticise the Government, is it any surprise that these people do not feel like they’re part of the team?

Then, there are those who are in work and those who are on benefits. Why is it that there are 187,000 people on the jobseeker benefit now, when there are businesses crying out for help? What is the Government doing to get those people back to work? Instead, we have a Government that is in the business of growing benefit dependency. One out of nine working-age Kiwis is now on a benefit. That is not kindness; it is shameful.

Then, we have the old and the young. The elderly are fearful that they will get COVID, but they are also angry. Many can’t understand te reo and feel threatened and disrespected because they can’t. They don’t know how to use a computer well and they’re confused about the robot on the end of an 0800 number and they worry about internet banking.

On the other hand, our young are angry at the older generation. They feel that they’re ruining our planet and not embracing climate change faster, at a time when this Government is importing a record amount of coal from Indonesia. They’re upset that they will never own their own home, because they have been priced out of the market. Is it any surprise that these Kiwis do not feel part of the team?

Talking of property, the Government’s cocktail of policies will lock and is locking our younger generations out of homeownership. New banking regulations are making it harder for people to get a mortgage. Interest rates will rise as a result of inflation skyrocketing, and the new DTI—debt to income—limits that Grant Robertson has allowed the Reserve Bank to look into and investigate will only make it much harder for first-home buyers. Weekly rents are up by $125. Almost 25,000 people are on the waiting list for a State house. That’s a fivefold increase in four years. Is it any surprise that these Kiwis do not feel part of the team?

Then, there’s the divide between city dwellers and rural communities. Urban dwellers are blaming the farmers for poor water qualities; while farmers blame urban dwellers and developers that lead to sediment run-off and poor council-owned waste-water treatment stations that foul our waterways and beaches. And don’t get me started on the rules and regulations and condemnations being raised and rammed and directed at our farmers. Is it any surprise that these Kiwis do not feel part of the team?

And a really worrying aspect is the divide between those who respect the law of the land and those that do not. Hundreds of law-abiding citizens and gun owners turned in their rifles and their handguns while the gangs held on to theirs.

And while we’re talking about that, we’re also seeing a growing divide by race. Proposals like the three waters have done untold damage because many people see them as a takeover of assets built up by all New Zealanders, and the uncertain future role of Māori in the management and ownership of those assets. Rather than being open and transparent and taking New Zealanders along with them, we have a Government that has been less than transparent, with discussions held behind the doors. I’m ashamed of what this is going to do to the race relations in New Zealand and what it’s done already.

Finally, there are the many small-business owners who’ve been prevented from trading as a result of Government-imposed lockdowns. In the meantime, massive multinationals have hoovered up their customers and their trade. These are people crying out for our help. I talked to a tour operator on Friday. I said, “How’s your business?” “My revenue’s down by 50 percent,” he said. I spoke to my taxi driver last night: “How’s business?” He said, “Shocking.” I spoke to a restaurant owner—he has six restaurants in the lower part of Queen Street; he’s closing one down, at a loss of about a hundred jobs.

And then, over the weekend, I got this message about a person saying all the foot traffic is leaving Queen Street and how it’s taking his profitable business and turning it into an unprofitable business. And what have we got? We’ve got a Government that thinks the only solution is a wage increase. Is it any surprise that these small-business owners do not feel part of the team? We are in a bad place.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister of Defence): Can I thank that member, Andrew Bayly, for his volley of contradictions. What I heard from that member was running down local councils for their poor handling of their assets and fouling our waterways, and then in the next line having a go at the three waters proposal. That proposal is to make sure that those assets are managed in a way that benefits our country as a whole. The other contradiction was—he’s clearly against the raising of the minimum wage, yet his deputy leader is in support of raising the minimum wage, something that will see families around this country see an increase in income, and that always leads on to increased spending in their community. That is good for business, that is good for our community, and that is good for our whānau, wherever they might be.

If one listens to that side of the House, you would swear it was a picture of doom and gloom. The ACT Party today has just got up and said that they would look towards a huge policy reform where—well, a quick look at their policies will help one see that, actually, they only mention the word “inequity” in their health policy once. And that’s because they think it only applies to rural centres and Māori that live in those rural centres. It does not acknowledge that most Māori live in an urban centre. It doesn’t acknowledge the conversation I had with a wahine in Paihia a couple of weeks ago—Pākehā wahine—who said to me, “You know what, Minister Henare? I got my vaccine first dose, second dose, and the booster from the local Māori provider, the Ngāti Hine Health Trust. Why? Because our GP services don’t cater for us, so I go to the Māori health provider who is providing more in rural communities than any of the other GP services.” And yet you just have to quickly look at the health policies from the ACT Party and you’ll see a step backwards.

Our Prime Minister, in her statement this year, made it very clear that together as a country we have overcome many obstacles—obstacles that were there before COVID-19 and obstacles that came about because of COVID-19. We did that with strong leadership. We did that with a focus on the wellbeing of our people, acknowledging that the wellbeing of our people makes for the wellbeing of this country. I agree with the sentiments of my colleague the Hon Damien O’Connor: he tangata, he tangata, he tangata. This Government has done a fantastic job. If we look across our record, it’s easy to compare the statistics with other countries overseas that show just how well we’ve done: such a low death rate, high vaccination rates.

I recall, after the announcement of the Delta outbreak, the other side of the House claiming, “Why should Māori get preferential treatment for vaccination? Why should they get extra funding?” We now have an eligible population of over 12 years-plus with a vaccination rate amongst Māori of over 90 percent. We were told that was unachievable. We were told there was no way you were going to encourage Māori people to get their vaccination rates up so high. I’m proud. I’m proud of the leadership from this Government. I’m proud of the leadership and hard work from our Māori health providers right across the country.

A quick look at some of those statistics will show that some of our larger Māori health providers, in fact, almost 65 percent of the vaccinations they delivered were to non-Māori. That is because Māori take a he tangata, he tangata, he tangata approach, despite the assertions from the other side of the House that we are walking down into a divided State, that we are seeing separatism. That’s absolute rubbish. A quick look at those vaccine numbers will tell members on that side of the House that Māori providers cater for all of our people. That’s a simple suggestion to say that what’s good for Māori is good for the rest of the country.

And you’ll see that in the health reform agenda that our Minister the Hon Andrew Little is progressing for our country. You will see the establishment of a Māori Health Authority, something I am extremely proud of, so that we can turn around the entrenched inequities that have seen Māori health statistics continue to head downwards—something that I’m sure everyone in this House will agree with, but the difference is this Government’s doing something about it. The other side of the House is quite happy to run down Māori efforts or even personal responsibility for the fact that our system has been actually established to run against them over many, many decades now. This Government is taking the opportunity to fix that.

The Hon Andrew Little is right. It’s going to take some time. And I’m proud that in a short period of time, he has led our health reform work that will see, on 1 July, the lights on for the Māori Health Authority and Health New Zealand. When we announced that policy on 21 April last year, everyone laughed and said that it couldn’t be done. Everyone laughed and said, “You can’t disestablish DHBs, create a Health New Zealand, create a Māori Health Authority within the space of just over 14 months. You can’t do it.” I’m proud to say we’re well on track. We have our interim boards in place. Just recently, in fact yesterday, I was privileged to be a part of the pōwhiri for the new interim chief executives for both Health New Zealand and the Māori Health Authority. We look forward to continuing our work with them to make sure that come 1 July this year, it’s lights on. But, like the Minister said, that’s just the start. We need to continue to support the aspirations of our communities, their health aspirations, and their wellbeing aspirations, to make sure that as we continue to develop our health reform work and our health sector, it matches those aspirations.

As we look towards our COVID response, I’ve talked about vaccination numbers, we now find ourselves in the onset of Omicron and are shifting to phase 2. We’re unapologetic about the plan that we established for making sure that our community continues to stay safe during the Omicron outbreak. Phase 1 was about continuing to push the message for boosters and vaccinations, continuing to drive paediatrics roll-out for the vaccine. That was important because we know the science is very clear: the vaccine will continue to support and protect our communities. That is the important message that we continue to espouse in our communities and make sure we can give our people the best chance for protection. But as we look towards the onset of phase 2—that’s about working to minimise the disruption of Omicron while also protecting our most vulnerable—there are going to be some changes around the way we isolate and also the testing regimes that we use.

In my contribution, as well, today, I want to say to our whānau out there: do not be afraid. Our Māori health providers, our health providers, and our health sector, our community leaders have been well briefed with respect to this particular plan and how we deal with Omicron in our community. I encourage, for those whānau who are feeling a little bit nervous about Omicron coming into their communities, reach out to the whānau, reach out to your Māori health provider, reach out to the health sector who can support you to make sure that, as Omicron continues to sweep across our country, you are in the best position to keep you and your whānau safe. That’s the message we need to make sure our people hear: not the message from what we’re hearing on the forecourt of this Parliament, but the message that we can do this and we can do this together. We’ve proven over the past two years that our response to COVID-19 is world leading and we can continue to make sure it’s that way as we look towards the future and what comes.

I’ve talked about the health reforms. There is so much going on in the reform space that our people are excited and optimistic about what that brings. In my final minute and a half I want to just say thank you. Thank you to the team of 5 million. Thank you to our hard-working health sector. Thank you to our hard-working health workforce. Thank you to our Defence Force personnel. As Minister of Defence, I know that they’ve worked hard in our managed isolation and quarantine space, but they’ve also been agile and responsive to the needs internationally and domestically. I want to say thank you to our community leadership who continue to support our communities, our families, despite the challenges of disinformation and misinformation that is being fed to them constantly. I want to say thank you to every mum and dad who has encouraged their child and taken them along to be vaccinated, because we know vaccination and being boosted will give you and your family the best protection as we look towards protecting ourselves beyond the coming weeks and into the months ahead with respect to COVID-19.

I also want to say, and it’s unlike us, but I want to say thank you to my colleagues, the leadership from our Prime Minister, the leadership from our Ministers, fellow colleagues right across this entire Government who have worked hard to continue to support our communities while also coming here to do the mahi where our people expect them to be to make sure that their voices are heard, here and in the responses and policies that this Government put in place to protect our whānau. A big thankyou to one and all.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister for Māori Development): I want to follow on from Minister Henare’s kōrero and talk about, obviously, supporting our Prime Minister’s statement, but also add my thanks to the Minister who has just finished his kōrero and has led the way in terms of our Māori response.

Mihi ana ki a koe, Peeni, mō tō kaha ki te kōkiri te kaupapa. Ahakoa i ētahi wā he nui te whakahē kei te kōkiri i te kaupapa, he mihi nui ki a koe.

[I acknowledge you, Peeni, for your strength in driving this initiative. Despite the many criticisms at times, the project still progressed, and I acknowledge you for that.]

He has led the way for us, despite some of the criticism and condemnation sometimes from the other side, and has played a vital part in the team going forward—a team ably led by our Prime Minister, and that’s why our Minister has singled her out. And, of course, that leadership team, led by herself, Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson, and, of course, Chris Hipkins, has come up, I think, with the best wellbeing and survival strategy, perhaps, that the world has seen. It’s been a brilliant strategy, despite the dire predictions from the Opposition: the National Party, who wanted to open up the borders last September, who ran dopey petitions, and then the petitions disappeared into the abyss; the ACT Party, who would have opened the borders 12 months before the National Party; and the Māori Party, who would have closed the borders forever. None of them could match our strategy that has seen 53 fatalities—a number so small in comparison to other countries. We’re talking about 11 deaths per million. We, of course, were given no credit from the Opposition, just criticism and mad accusations.

Sadly, my mates from the Māori Party have been the leaders with the crazy accusations. They accused the Labour Māori caucus of being murderous, of playing “Squid Games”. They were adamant that thousands of Māori would die, and we were guilty, as a Māori caucus, of rolling out a modern genocide. Somebody needs to tell them 18 Māori died. Obviously a tragedy—obviously a tragedy—but that’s not exactly a modern genocide. Millions have to die for a modern genocide, thousands maybe, but not 18. So, sadly, our relations and our whanaunga, friends in the Māori Party are very confused, but intent on running fearmongering strategies and opportunistic campaigns.

Sticking with the facts is probably the right way to go, rather than coming out with nonsense—the latest nonsense being that they don’t support mandates. I have to ask the Māori Party: what mandates don’t you support? Apparently co-leader Rawiri Waititi says they support the hospital ones but not the other ones. Oh, right. The other ones that actually look after our kids at schools and preserve their lives. So the Māori Party doesn’t support those ones, but they’re—anyway, they’re a confused lot, your relations, Peeni Henare, I tell you. So a question’s got to be asked of the Māori Party: what mandates do you support? Because keeping our kids safe should be paramount.

So they’re a silly lot, and I had to say that today. What a shame they’re not here. I really wanted to tell them, but I’ll send them a text just to confirm my kōrero, and ask them to get their acts together, instead of coming out with their extreme, opportunistic, they think they’re campaign-winning strategies but they’re stupid strategies, from a silly party who are confused about things. And the sad thing is, if you listen to a Rawiri Waititi speech or Debbie Ngarewa-Packer speech, you’d go and jump off the Auckland Harbour Bridge afterwards if you were a Māori, because they’re so negative and there’s not a positive thing they’re saying about Te Ao Māori.

So, sad about the Māori Party and the Opposition, but we as a Māori caucus, as a Government, are really proud of the mahi we’ve gone down, and Minister Henare went down that track. We knew that when we rolled out by Māori, for Māori strategies and solutions, we would get a turn-around, and we got a terrific turn-around in the last three months when we rolled out $120 million to our Māori communities. We saw vaccination rates really ramp up. Since the fund opened, the first dose rate for Māori increased from 69 percent to 90 percent, with the fully vaccinated rate increasing from 48 percent to 86 percent, and the gap between Māori and non-Māori really started to close. Through Te Puni Kōkiri and Te Arawhiti, we have been able to access and work with our people. This is on top of other Māori health investments. So we are pleased with the way things are rolling and ramping up, and we’ve seen a turn-around that I think we would never have seen under other Governments.

I want to also look at some of the other things that we’ve done well as a Māori caucus and as a Government. And we’ve had a very good economic response, I feel: a billion dollars of investment made in the Māori economy, employment, culture, and our people at the last Budget. And in the housing area too—an area where myself and Minister Henare work—we’ve seen the launch of Whai Kāinga Whai Oranga in 2021: a joint programme that has invested in 182 houses, with more approvals expected in the coming months. TPK—Te Puni Kōkiri—has committed $16 million out of the $98 million available for years 2021-2022, and there are 108 homes on papakāinga and 438 house repairs. The main point of the housing area, though, is that we negotiated—Minister Henare leading the way again in that area, with myself in TPK—a coming together of TPK and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, which is crucial if we’re going to turn around some of the housing rates for Māori.

In the employment area, 724 cadets have been contracted in the year to date through the cadet programmes—$10 million committed; $2 million has been committed to Pae Aronui. I’m very proud of some of the work that’s gone in in terms of Pae Aronui, where we have got right in with the gang whānaus and the disaffected and we’ve seen real turn-arounds. In the enterprise area, TPK continues to lead development of the Māori economic resilience strategy and the Māori small to medium sized enterprise ecosystem support and the procurement policy to date. The number of Māori businesses that have been appointed to all-of-Government panels has significantly increased. And we’re proud of this procurement area: an area that Minister Mahuta led initially, and I’ve taken over. It is a position that we’re very proud of because, of course, we could not advance the procurement side of things when we were last in Government because, again, we get hit with all this separation nonsense. But it has been a real asset and boost for our people in the Māori business area.

In our reo area of Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori, we’ve secured $14.8 million over the next four years and appointed a Māori broadcasting board that will complement what’s happening in the public media area that Minister Faafoi is rolling out. These are some of the examples of the work that we’ve done so far. I’m proud of the way that our Māori caucus has worked and our Māori Ministers have worked. Recently, we did a groundbreaking spectrum deal. This is a unique deal that gives Māori a real opportunity to develop their interest in the area into the future and a deal that was widely and positively supported by all the major players in the telco industry. I was really pleased that National did not utter one word of criticism—so congratulations, National. I think that was probably only done because you saw how well the industry reacted and responded. And so it was good that you shut up when we did this ground-breaking deal: a deal that the National Party would never have done; in fact, refused to do when they were in power, choosing just to give cash to our people. It was groundbreaking stuff: 20 percent in terms of the spectrum and a major investment. So, well done to our people.

We have Matariki being celebrated officially for the first time as a nation. That will be happening this year. We’ve got our Māori Health Authority that Minister Henare talked about. Māori will be part of the three waters reform, and we make no apologies for that, because Māori have been factored out of that area for so long, it’s not funny. And later in the year, I’m hoping to complete my kōrero and our work with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: mahi that was started by the National Party, started by John Key, started by the Māori Party, and we’re committed to finishing that work so that New Zealanders can have a say on what sort of nation we should have going forward and what sort of constitution we should have. It won’t be binding, but it’ll be, in my view, a great example in terms of New Zealand race relations going forward in the future years. Kia ora anō tātou.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The next call is a split call. I call on Chris Baillie.

CHRIS BAILLIE (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Last year, MPs started their Christmas holidays and trotted off to spend time with their families. Some even trotted off around the world and were lucky enough to get managed isolation and quarantine spots ahead of thousands of New Zealanders—very lucky!

I thought I’d tell you about how some business owners in the hospitality industries spent their holidays. We’ll start by with dealing with the COVID rules. Scanning-in, checking vaccine passports—all were the responsibility of the business owner. Fewer people coming in the door but they had to employ more staff—despite customers all being over 18, they know the rules, and they know when they’re breaking the rules, there’s no personal responsibility involved there at all or expected. Staff are having to wear masks in sweaty, uncomfortable environments, making it difficult to communicate with these customers. There’s been a huge increase in broken glasses, tripping on steps, and burns, due to the decreased and reduced peripheral vision that these masks create. Any health and safety inquiry would recommend the getting rid of masks.

Hospitality venues have had to deal with customers who feel the enforcement of the rules aren’t tight enough and staff get abused. And then, next thing, customers that feel there shouldn’t be any rules at all, and again, staff bear the brunt of this customer dissatisfaction.

Then, there was the brilliant idea of paying unvaxxed staff four weeks’ pay to give them time to change their minds—whether they get vaxxed or not. No worries, businesses can afford it, no problem! One business has two staff left, which meant the end to any holiday plans the business owners had. I suppose that’s just what you get for owning a business and employing people!

Over the last seven weeks, there have been six statutory holidays. Christmas was on Saturday and most hospitality businesses are closed on Christmas Day—actually, not because staff don’t want to work, quite the opposite in a lot of cases, and not that the public don’t want to go out, but it’s just not affordable: time and a half, day in lieu, the prep time that is involved, and the ridiculously archaic liquor laws just make it unprofitable. And, of course, Monday and Tuesday after that were holidays. Then, New Year’s Eve was on a Friday, so the following Monday and Tuesday were holidays. We did get a couple of weeks with five days in them. The staff member that left because they weren’t vaxxed was actually vaxxed and got another job.

What do we do? What does the business owner do about it? We all know that the personal grievance legislation only works one way, as all the employment lawyers opposite will agree to, I’m sure. Then, there was Anniversary Day, another statutory holiday, and Waitangi Day fell on a Sunday, but, of course, we need another holiday, so that was Monday.

This Government believes that if you repeat something often enough, you actually believe it yourself and sometimes convince others as well. Just a few examples: the red light means back to normal—it’s not. People aren’t going out; they’re being told not to by the Government and the Government’s representatives. People are even cancelling their weddings. But the bride and groom will always get their day in the sun, and I don’t really care much about that, as much as I care about the actual business that employs the function staff, the food, and everything that goes along with it, and whose January—a month that’s normally busy and the business can put a little bit away to get them through the winter months—has been ruined. The myth that businesses have been looked after with the wage subsidy and the resurgence support payment—it’s just nonsense. I haven’t got time to explain it now, and I shouldn’t have to, but the fact that businesses are expected to be grateful for the small-business loans—loans that have to be paid back when Government policies make it impossible for the business to make money.

The Government must drop these crippling restrictions immediately or offer more realistic targeted support. Only in the Michael Wood school of economics held in the Council of Trade Unions club rooms does anyone believe that the endless minimum wage increases is the way forward. Even the Government’s own advisers don’t think so. From one business: three out of 26 employees are on the minimum wage. They’re students living at home, no rent to pay, no food to buy, being trained and learning skills that will see them right for the rest of their lives. The rest of the employees have earned their higher pay rate through loyalty and hard work—and they’re happy. Building a work ethic in this environment of entitlement and mediocrity in all areas of the Government’s policies is difficult. The good news is that the hard-working employees, ones who understand, will get through. So the business owners didn’t get a holiday; they didn’t get paid either, but their staff did. They deserve a lot more respect than what this Government is giving them. Thank you.

Dr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I apologise to my colleague for trying to steal his call. It is great to be back and have Parliament back and be sitting again with Ministers answering questions or sometimes vaguely addressing questions. I have to say, however, that I’m not a huge fan of the landscaping job that’s been done out the front of Parliament. It is a sorry state of affairs out there. This weekend, we saw some mind games being played out, as well as a whole lot of very unhappy residents, business owners, and Wellingtonians just trying to go about living their lives. What was absent was any real leadership from the Government.

Earlier this month, the Government announced yet another multi-stage approach in its COVID-19 response: this time, the gradual winding down of managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ), finishing in October—in theory. On the one hand, I applaud the Government for providing a time line that people can plan around. But, on the other hand, MIQ is past its use-by date and needs to be put out of its misery, for the misery it’s creating, sooner rather than later.

In its announcement, the Government said that they’re maintaining MIQ to “reduce the spread of COVID-19 in our community from recent arrivals”. However, there is little justification for its continued existence for most of this year. With the number of community cases undoubtedly more than what is actually been tested and showing up—starting to get on that exponential curve—we’re only picking up a few dozen at the border. It is evidently far more likely that people coming into New Zealand over the next few months will catch COVID-19 here, domestically, rather than bring it in with them. There is no need to prolong the anguish of Kiwis and visa holders trapped overseas—not to mention their families here. Using MIQ to limit the spread of Omicron is arguably nonsensical at this point.

The Government also stated that their plan will finally—I say “finally”—but it will “immediately” address worker shortages. My first thought was, “An acknowledgment—I can’t believe it—albeit small one, of the damage caused by its immigration policies and a lack of visa processing in general.” My next thought was that I’ll believe when I see it, because, in all my years of interacting with the immigration system, it has never even remotely been as poorly managed as it is now under this Government—not by a long shot. The Government has run out of ideas in addressing a total shambles of its own making.

Recent examples are the scenes of migrants that you would have seen on TV, or in person, in Auckland especially, sleeping or camping out on the street all night just to get the chance to remain here. This a highly predictable outcome of the way that medical certificates are dished out. Once upon a time, any registered doctor in New Zealand could issue a medical certificate for immigration purposes. This made sense—they are medical professionals, after all. For better or for worse, this was changed some years ago—it probably made sense at the time—but, as a result, around New Zealand, there are just 135 doctors who can do this for immigration purposes. In fact, in my home city of Hamilton, there are just four who have Immigration New Zealand seal of approval. They are now dealing with a significant number of people needing to get medical certificates before the end of July, when applications close. Given Immigration New Zealand has only managed to approve 15 percent of the applications in their little December trial run of this resident visa, I wonder if they’re actually quite happy to see the bottleneck caused by the lack of approved doctors around the country. This is just one thing that could have been so easily avoided with proper policy-making.

For our international student market, we thought we would be getting them in semester A in good numbers, but now it turns out that it’s just going to be mostly semester B, with a cap on those numbers. That’s assuming countries like Australia haven’t taken them all yet, which they probably have.

We had the Productivity Commission last year bamboozle the Government’s entire justification behind its mythological immigration rese—and speaking of which, by October 2022, it would be 30 months since the border closed. With changes to the skilled migrant category coming, why haven’t stakeholders far and wide been involved in a consultation process? The reality is that simple changes can be made to our immigration settings to achieve what the Government wants in the medium to long term, without leaving behind a trail of human misery.

If you’re an entrepreneur and you want to innovate here in New Zealand, you want to come here and do that, you are evidently not welcome; there’s no good visa option. And if you’re already here on a work visa and try to set up a little side business for some extra income, you will have your visa cancelled, and deported. None of this makes sense. ACT will continue to be a productive and thoughtful Opposition in Parliament and we’ll use our time well in proposing good ideas for the country. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Hon JAN TINETTI (Minister of Internal Affairs): I’m delighted to take a call in this debate in support of the Prime Minister’s statement, but I want to start, like many have done before me, by acknowledging the people of New Zealand who have risen to the challenges that this global pandemic has imposed upon them. COVID-19 has not been easy, but the way that New Zealanders have risen to this challenge to fight for each other and joined together in unity has been inspiring. I want to thank everyone from the scientists, to our vaccinators, to our public servants, to our Kiwis who have just stayed at home and followed the rules because they know that, by doing that and putting people in their thoughts at the centre of what they do, they are saving lives.

It is through the leadership of our Prime Minister that our country has united to be a world-leading nation in the fight against COVID-19. Throughout this pandemic the Government has worked relentlessly to save as many lives as possible and to protect jobs and to cushion the blow to the economy. At every turn we are focused on what we can do, to do the right thing. We’ve acted early and decisively to prevent the worst of the impacts that we have seen elsewhere in the world.

Listening to some of the contributions from the Opposition here today and over the past few days, you might think that they didn’t even know what was going on in the rest of the world. It has been horrific and horrendous, and that is why I am very proud of the approach that this Government has taken. Our approach has worked. Our confirmed cases, hospitalisations, and our deaths have been the lowest in the OECD for each of the past two years, and unemployment levels have been at record lows. These results are a powerful confirmation of our collective effort, and I think we really need to emphasise that. This has been a collective effort of the vast majority of New Zealanders. The measures we have taken have saved lives. Our policies have protected jobs and saved businesses, and the plan we have followed has worked. We now face the challenges ahead in a better position than many countries in the world.

It is great to see our highly vaccinated population: almost 4 million New Zealanders double vaccinated and over 200,000 children have had their first dose. Over 1.9 million New Zealanders have received their COVID-19 booster vaccinations and uptake is rising rapidly. Our vaccination rates and the COVID-19 protection framework defied predictions of a summer surge and prevented the Delta destruction seen around the globe. It’s something that is not talked about very much, but we did defy what was seen around the rest of the globe. We can draw confidence from our position, confidence that with a clear plan, good scientific advice, and a unity of purpose New Zealand can chart its own path and together we can do this.

I particularly want to acknowledge our educators: our teachers, our school principals, our support workers, our teacher aides, and all of those who work in education to contribute to educate and inspire our young people. I can only imagine how challenging it must have been to replicate the learnings of the classroom in an online environment, something that is completely unfamiliar to most teachers, but I also want to thank the families who played their part, and will play their part in the future, in supporting their young people’s learning at home.

It has been challenging for our learners. I think about our 6- and 7-year-olds, particularly our 7-year-olds, who would have been 5 in 2020. A vast proportion of their education has been spent in an online environment particularly during the lockdowns and the uncertainty of that going forward, although we do hope, and we have put the framework in place, that that will be minimised.

For those preparing to leave school and sit their final NCEA exams, the last couple of years spent away from their peers would have been tough. And close to my heart is the learning support students—those students that need a little bit of extra support—but our amazing learning support professionals did everything that they could during those lockdowns to support them.

All of these sacrifices were necessary in order for us to save lives, but it wasn’t easy, and we heard the call from the sector that investment from the Government was necessary and urgent, and we responded. The Government supported teachers during lockdown through the delivery of learning packs, TV learning channels, resources, and devices. We also provided substantial support to help re-engage students after lockdowns, particularly in low-decile schools, from deciles 1 to 4, and our approach was to get those students back in front of their classrooms and back learning.

Through all the challenges that COVID-19 posed for education, there are also opportunities for learning, around doing things in a new way. COVID-19 has been a huge disruptor, but sometimes with disruption comes opportunity, and many of the schools that I have engaged with over recent weeks are well supported to look at the next phase and how they can provide flexible learning environments for the young people in their school. But many of them go beyond that. Many of them are excited about different ways of working, around how we can change up what school and what education can look like for our young people, and that’s a really exciting place to be. We can rethink what great educational delivery can look like.

We also know that during lockdowns and throughout the COVID journey to date stress associated with this has had a big impact on mental health, particularly for our young people, and the Government is working to address this. For the first time ever, 141 primary, intermediate, and small secondary schools throughout Aotearoa now have access to counsellors. This is expected to reach 24,000 young people with access to counselling support at school, and all—that’s “all”—large secondary schools have had an increase to their counselling staff allocation. Mana Ake, the mental health and wellbeing programme that is in partnership with Health, or led by Health in partnership with Education, is being rolled out into another five regions across New Zealand.

We know that learners who are happy and healthy learn better. That is why over the last few years, this Government has taken a range of work to support the wellbeing of learners to ensure that our kids get the best start possible. We’ve looked at and implemented healthy lunch programmes and the provision of free period products in schools, and this is a testament to this Government’s commitment to barrier-free access to education.

Just in my last couple of minutes, I also want to acknowledge the work that we are doing as a Government to ensure that an opportunity exists to address historical and persistent inequalities in the labour force for women. That is why as Minister for Women I am working to deliver New Zealand’s first ever women’s employment action plan and to look at the immediate and long-term actions needed in changing the labour market to get disadvantaged women into work and to support them to stay in work.

It is of course also important that women feel safe and supported within their work environment and that they are paid fairly and equally to their male counterparts. That is why I am proud to be part of a Government delivering on pay equity settlements across many workforces, lifting the minimum wage, which will have a massive positive impact on women, increasing sick leave, and requiring better work conditions for hard-working New Zealanders.

So this Government has provided stable and united leadership in a time that has been one of the most challenging in New Zealand’s recent history. We have invested in our young people, in our education system, in our workforce, and we have done so while continuing to make progress on the long-term challenges New Zealanders face. We will continue to make pragmatic progress to make the lives of all New Zealanders safer, healthier, and happier.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I understand that the Parliament is being beamed live out into the forecourt, which I’m not sure is going to help the situation that much at all. And if it is, I’d just say to those people out there, I support your right to express your views and I support your right to freedom, but please be respectful of other people’s freedoms as well. I’ll leave that there.

It’s been quite interesting, actually. I noticed this year when I got back a distinct change. I look over the other side and see here, or see on the Zoom meetings for select committees and around about in Copperfields and other places a huge change in the demeanour and the body language of the new entrants to Parliament in 2020 who came in on the other side on the high-water mark for Labour. As sure as the tide comes in, the tide goes out, and the realisation that that is starting to occur is starting to dawn on them, and they’re looking at one another and thinking is their career going to come to a very short end. I actually feel for them—I do feel for them. It’s been a hard road to get into Parliament and it’d be such a shame for many of them to only have one term, but that is what we sign up for. That’s what it’s all about. We all know that. On this side of the House, we know that far better than those new members do. It was pretty brutal in 2020, but these things happen, and so it’s always better to be prepared.

This is a generally happy time of year for the wine industry, because we’re really starting the vintage—right now, actually, grapes are being picked. The 2022 vintage is well under way. Unfortunately, like other agricultural industries, the wine industry has struggled to get critical workers into New Zealand. Getting them recognised as critical workers has actually been an incredible battle. To think that bureaucrats in Wellington can define who is a critical worker is beyond belief, actually, and the wine industry has, like many others, struggled to get enough staff in. At this time of year—it usually starts in January, actually sometimes before Christmas—winemakers and cellar hands, highly skilled people from the other side of the world, and grape harvester drivers come into New Zealand to work the vintage in the Southern Hemisphere. In our winter we have winemakers, cellar hands, and harvester operators that go to the Northern Hemisphere and work in their vintage, thereby turbocharging their careers and getting two vintages in one year. It is a really great symbiotic relationship; it’s fantastic for broadening people’s experience, but unfortunately not possible under COVID.

It could have been managed much more easily. It could have been dealt with properly, but they didn’t get recognised as critical workers and therefore couldn’t come in. On top of that, we don’t have the recognised seasonal employer (RSE) workers that we could and should have, most coming from COVID-free Pacific Islands. But no, we couldn’t get those in either. However, if they had just been rappers or DJs they’d have been in. It’s just outrageous what their priorities are on the other side. It has put incredible stress on industries that didn’t need it. Then on top of that, we have all the uncertainties with the isolation rules.

Fortunately, the wine industry has now been recognised under the critical worker exemption, but there’s still all the issues with these isolation rules, and it is absolutely crazy. Everyone is very concerned about that, and the whole industry can fall over or any industry production can grind to a halt very, very quickly. It’s right down in the other industries to the dispatcher, the forklift driver, the truck driver, the shelf stacker, and the checkout operator in our supermarkets, for example—all of our critical workers, all reliant on getting through these rules unscathed. That is a huge challenge.

The wine industry and other agricultural industries are all struggling with this. It is a massive issue for them. I’d be quite surprised if we get through unscathed. Right now, we’ve had an incredibly long botrytis infection period over the weekend in Marlborough, so that’s put more stress on because they haven’t been able to have the adequate RSE workers and other critical workers to—

Hon Member: There’s plenty of RSEs.

STUART SMITH: —do the really good canopy management. Well, there might be RSE workers in some places; they’re not where they need to be. That’s a part of the problem. All of these issues come down to a Government led by people with little or no business experience—little, I would say, if any at all. That shows in the way their policies are rolled out. They have no idea how things work in the business world—no idea whatsoever.

Anyway, moving on, I notice in the Prime Minister’s speech that one of their flagship policies, 100 percent renewable electricity by 2030 wasn’t mentioned—not once. I wonder if they’re backing away from it. I deeply suspect they are. Everybody in the industry told them it was a silly thing to try and achieve. We can get to the high 90s and we will on our own—even the Climate Change Commission said it wasn’t something that was worthwhile doing, but anyway, the Prime Minister has backed away from that. So I think that’s very interesting. It could be little wonder.

Maybe they’re seeing what’s going on in the UK. I doubt they are, but maybe they are. Energy poverty has become a huge issue in the UK because of very poor energy policies, energy policies driven by a net zero approach without actually thinking through the consequences. They’ve actually now approved six new gas permits in the UK. They are sitting on massive shale gas reserves as well. In fact, the Bowland Basin would be able to supply all their energy needs for 50 years if they exploit it. We have gone down the same route with banning oil and gas, which not only does it—it’s only new exploration, as the Minister is getting very fidgety on his seat trying to say. Actually, it’s had a chilling effect on the investment in gas. In the meantime, we have record amounts of dirty Indonesian coal being imported into New Zealand at twice the emissions, all because of a misguided approach to energy.

Lake Onslow, of course, is another folly that the industry—it’s really difficult. I’ve been visiting many in the industry right across the sector. I’ve yet to find anyone who supports it. But apart from the NZ Battery Project, I don’t think anyone does. It’s a massive over-expensive white elephant and challenging geological conditions. I think it’ll be very interesting to see what comes out. I’m told the conservative estimates are $10 billion - plus, albeit that the official number is $4 billion. No one believes that—not one that I’ve come across anyway.

I also note that the Minister of Energy and Resources in her speech earlier in the day said she needs to see what the Opposition are going to do, we need to tell them what we’re going to do. I wonder why. I think it could possibly be because every time we come up with a good idea, six or seven months later, they adopt it. Well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and we’re very happy to do that. We’re quite happy for them to adopt our ideas. What we would urge them to do is do it in a more timely manner. Had they done that, we’d have ample rapid antigen tests in the country and businesses wouldn’t be fearful about stopping.

I can’t understand why they would lack the competence to actually get on and organise these things. It’s because they took January off; the rest of us all worked. They didn’t sit around and do their job, and we are all paying for it. Businesses in New Zealand are suffering needlessly because of poor management on that Government’s behalf. I think we deserve far better than that in New Zealand. I think a number of the people that are out there on the lawn protesting at the moment, they are just angry and confused about what’s going on in New Zealand, and they’re venting their frustration. I don’t support all of the things they are standing for, but I can understand why they are feeling the frustration that they are. I think it’s shameful that this Government doesn’t heed those calls. Do things in a more timely manner. Get the rapid antigen tests available. They’re not even able for people to get in the supermarket. They should be there. They can’t, because they’ve—[Time expired]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I call on Ginny Andersen. The next call is a split call.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. As we enter into this, our third challenging year of confronting a global pandemic, we may be better prepared than many other countries in the world, but we must always continue to make progress. We must continue to make progress for the wellbeing of our people and for the wellbeing of the next generation. I often look at my kids and I think about how they will look back at this chapter in our history—how they will be proud or not of what has been achieved—and I look at what’s been created and I think that they will be proud of what we have achieved.

We have committed to putting the wellbeing of not only current New Zealanders but also those future New Zealanders as well, putting that at the heart of everything that we do. And this goes well beyond having one of the highest vaccination rates, one of the lowest rates for the second year running in the OECD for both hospitalisations and COVID-related deaths. It goes well beyond that. It goes into things like our education on a daily basis—the very structures that our kids go to school in. Well before this Government came in, the structures that we’re putting our kids in, classrooms, were dilapidated. We had asbestos, leaks, kids learning in libraries. We had school infrastructure that was well underdone. In the Hutt Valley alone, not only are all primary schools receiving a much-needed injection to help those infrastructure costs but our three major public high schools have all received a major rebuild—Taita College, Wainuiomata High School, and also Hutt Valley High School—and this underpins the belief that it does not matter where you come from or how much your family earns, you have the right to get a good quality education, and you have the right to learn in a warm, dry, modern, fit-for-purpose classroom. And that is exactly what this Government is delivering.

It’s not just about the buildings, though; it’s also about what we’re learning inside those classrooms and what’s being taught. New Zealand takes pride in teaching its own history, and I’m pleased to be able to see that implemented across schools in New Zealand. I am extremely proud that schools will have the resources available for them to teach New Zealand history in school. New Zealand is a country that takes pride in our heritage, a small island nation in the Pacific with voyaging routes from both Hawaiki and Europe. I’m pleased that our kids will be learning all about that. Matariki—how exciting is it for our young people to not only learn about our history but to be able to celebrate that in a brand new public holiday. I’ve learnt about that from my children for the first time.

But it goes further than that. It also goes into what happens after school, with one of the lowest unemployment rates that New Zealand has seen for an incredibly long time. It is so good to be able to see young people going straight into employment and being proud to come home and help pay for groceries and to help pay for some of those costs that they need to. When this Government took office, it was faced with a vocational education system that was pretty much stuffed—fragmented, uncoordinated, and lacking strategic direction. Right now, we see skills training and employment, with businesses all lining up. I have to acknowledge, in my own area, the great role that the local Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce has done in coordinating from high school, to training, to employment to make sure that we are keeping all our young people engaged, employed, and skilled-up as much as they possibly can to earn the highest wages possible when they’re in the workforce. Free trades training—that’s been a huge boost as well. Our investment in fees-free apprenticeships and targeted training has seen more than 175,000 people take up that opportunity since July 2020—and that includes over 80,000 apprentices, who are out there right now working.

This has been great, but also there’s more to be done as well, and that’s in the space of keeping our communities safe. Feeling safe is crucial for young New Zealanders, as well as the rest of our community, and the huge injection in keeping communities safe has been well received. At a local level, we see the reopening of the Wainuiomata community police station after nearly a decade, with a full-time senior sergeant, two community youth aid officers, and two community constables providing on-the-job, local policing that has been well overdue in an area that’s needed it. We have the largest Police workforce ever, with huge numbers of officers focused on community and, also, organised crime. I’m proud to be part of a Government that’s delivering safety and security right across the board. This is not just about surviving the pandemic; it’s about building back better and giving our children a better future. I’m proud to be part of a Government that’s doing that every step of the way.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): E te Māngai, tēnā koe, huri noa i te Whare, tēnā tātou.

[Greetings, Madam Speaker, and throughout the House, greetings to all.]

So the Prime Minister’s statement is an important part of Aotearoa New Zealand’s democracy. On Parliament’s first sitting day of the year, the Government outlines its intentions, and I’m pleased to be able to participate in this debate on the Prime Minister’s statement.

New Zealanders, as the Prime Minister said in her statement, have entrusted the Government with a huge responsibility, the responsibility of bringing New Zealanders and this country through a crisis. It has been hard. The decisions to close borders, to lockdown a country, to change the way we live our day-to-day lives are not decisions any Government wants to make, but these are decisions that had to be made to keep New Zealanders safe. And I’ll pause here to state the reason why this is so important: on this side of the House, all lives are important and worth protecting, no one is expendable. Protecting the lives and livelihoods of New Zealanders has always been our driving force. No response will ever reach unattainable perfection, but most New Zealanders will agree, whatever their political stripes, there was nowhere else in the world that they would rather be.

But our response is not just directed at essential decisions to get us through a crisis, on this side of the House we have continually committed—as other speakers in this debate have said—to build back better. This Government will lead New Zealand through this pandemic, take on challenges we face as a nation, strengthen our economy, and we will emerge stronger than before. The Prime Minister rightly drew attention to this, to New Zealand’s world-leading pandemic response. Despite the one-in-100-year pandemic that we are currently facing, unemployment is at record lows, record numbers of New Zealanders have moved off a benefit and into work, and growth remains strong in our export sector with record export prices on our dairy.

But we won’t go back to business as usual. The Government will improve our health system so it can respond to the ongoing health needs of New Zealanders and any future crisis that may arise, through the establishment of Health New Zealand and the Māori Health Authority, to deliver a genuine national health service for all New Zealanders. As the Prime Minister said, “We want all New Zealanders to live longer and healthier lives”, which is why the Māori Health Authority is absolutely key. As the Prime Minister said about reaching equality, “this is because we do not have [it]”, and on this side of the House we recognise this as a reality and that something needs to change, and so we are taking action.

The Government will also set up a new public health agency to ensure we are better equipped to fight outbreaks, new variants, and new pandemics in the future. We will also provide better support to the estimated 1.1 million disabled people in New Zealand through the new Ministry for Disabled People, and we will continue to roll-out primary mental health services in New Zealand.

New Zealand businesses and workers, as the Prime Minister said, have proven to be resilient, innovative, and highly adaptable during this pandemic, because, again, we are better than “business as usual”. Our economic plan, still, despite this pandemic, is to build a high-wage, low-carbon economy that provides economic security in good times and bad times. We need to—and we will—increase the value of our exports and develop new markets, invest in skills and new technology, modernise infrastructure, and use research and innovation to drive productivity, reduce emissions, and increase wages.

Much of my work on the Education and Workforce Committee is focused on building skills and training opportunities for New Zealanders. It was great to see the Prime Minister’s statement reflecting the importance of skills and training as a key part of this Government’s agenda. If we want a productive, high-wage, innovative economy, then skills and training are going to be a huge part of that. We’ve already committed to raising the minimum wage again this April to support New Zealand’s lowest paid workers. As with all economic recoveries, it is workers who will, in the end, deliver this, and we will support all New Zealanders—workers, their families, and the businesses that they work for—to move us past the pandemic, past business as usual, and into a better, more resilient, healthier, happier Aotearoa New Zealand.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to take a call on the Prime Minister’s statement, my first call in 2022.

Last Friday, I visited a local pharmacy in Hamilton to receive my COVID booster shot. There were a number of people waiting in the foyer. I waited for a period of time, and then I went through. I met with a gentleman named Ahmad, and Ahmad administered the booster shot, and I said to him, “How many booster shots have you administered, Ahmad?” And he told me he’s personally administered over 10,000 boosters. He said he’s actually done so many that he gets blisters on his fingers and, actually, at night time, he’s even dreaming about administering booster shots. The reason I mention Ahmad’s name is because I believe that his name should be mentioned in the Hansard, because he and many other health professionals have done an absolutely amazing, wonderful, tireless job in terms of supporting our COVID response.

While I start with COVID, the real topic I want to talk about from the Prime Minister’s speech is the topic of climate change. Because while as a country we are working through the COVID challenges—and, actually, as a globe—we’re working through the COVID challenges, the number one issue still facing our planet is climate change. If we don’t work together as countries around the world, as people, as one people across this wonderful Earth that we have, and if we don’t find solutions to climate change, the reality is there is no positive future for our planet and for our people. I’m very pleased to hear from the Prime Minister, in her statement, the continued climate change commitment. The previous Government, and I acknowledge them for it, signed us up to the Paris accord, and that was the right thing to do. That means we have targets to meet. At the moment, there are challenges, particularly in agriculture and transport, and I’m just going to touch on transport because transport affects all of us as New Zealanders, very personally.

I’ve been very excited to see—

Barbara Kuriger: So does agriculture, if we eat.

JAMIE STRANGE: —that we have got New Zealanders coming on board in terms of some of the transport changes. The member opposite mentions agriculture. Agriculture is important and I’d like to acknowledge all of the farmers—I have two uncles who own farms and they’re doing absolutely fantastic work in that space as our farmers continue to deliver high quality products as we sell food to the world. But just moving back to transport, I’d like to first touch on the clean car subsidy that the Government has given. There has been tremendous uptake on this. In fact, I’ve got the statistics here that there were more electric vehicles registered in New Zealand in six months last year than were registered in a full year in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020. So double what we’ve seen in previous years, effectively. It’s really exciting to see New Zealanders get on board with these incentives in terms of these electric vehicles. I remember seeing a picture recently of the wharf in Auckland and it was full of Teslas—and other electric vehicles, I’m not here to endorse Tesla in particular—but it was full of a range of electric vehicles, and it was fantastic to see that.

I’d like to acknowledge the work that Waka Kotahi is doing in the transport space—for example, supporting things like passenger rail between Hamilton and Auckland, the Te Huia passenger rail service, which I actually rode on recently.

Hon David Bennett: That’s gone well. Come on Jamie, you’ve got to be faster.

JAMIE STRANGE: And I acknowledge the Hon David Bennett on the other side of the House there, who attended the sod turning for that a couple of years ago, so I appreciate his enthusiasm for that project. If I could just mention to the House, and those who are listening at home, that if you haven’t tried Te Huia yet, I encourage you to do so. An absolutely fantastic way to travel—you can be productive while you’re travelling, you can arrive at your destination fresh and, look, as a country we are behind the eight ball on rail compared to other countries. But, as a Government, we’ve invested significantly in rail and we will continue to do so.

Just another example of what Waka Kotahi are investing in is our public transport fleet, and we see many examples of this around the country, but I’ll just mention one example, which is Flex on-demand small buses. We’ve seen them start to roll out across cities in New Zealand, where you can use an app to basically book a small bus, which has around 12 seats. For around $2, you can get to your destination—very accessible and exciting. It’s fantastic to see these rolled out. I’d like to acknowledge councillor Angela Strange for her work on this—who’s been doing an absolute fantastic job there—and others who have been working incredibly hard on this. So there are many examples within the transport industry of the good work this Government is doing. Thank you.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour—Banks Peninsula): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to stand and speak in the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement. It’s a pleasure because it’s clear that throughout this pandemic, the Government has worked relentlessly to save as many lives as possible and to protect jobs and to cushion the blow to the economy. It’s also very clear that at every turn, the goal here is always to do what is right, to prevent the worst impacts that we have seen elsewhere and almost everywhere across the globe.

Although it’s been stated, it’s worth repeating: our confirmed cases, our hospitalisations, and the deaths have been among the lowest in the world. It clearly has been a world-class response, and one that’s been roundly acknowledged as such. Unemployment is at record lows; New Zealand has essentially weathered the disruption better than most.

The Prime Minister has led our response, our world-class response. The Prime Minister has led the response based on evidence, based on science, and based on a determined conviction to keep people at the centre of the response, and, importantly, the response has worked. Just as importantly, our approach has worked because the vast majority of people saw it made sense. They understood it made sense, and they did their bit. They realised and they understood that we don’t beat this as individuals; we beat it together. The choices we all make every day have impacts on others, and the vast majority of New Zealand people have made, and continue to make, choices that help protect others, and I want to thank all of those people for doing that.

The Prime Minister also talked about modernising New Zealand’s infrastructure. Just yesterday, I was talking to a constituent, a retired gentleman in my electorate with a background in engineering and construction, and among the various things he wanted to raise with me, he wanted, quite specifically, to note that our historic under-investment in infrastructure has had a really negative impact, and it’s stopped us from reaching our potential. We know that building new infrastructure is essential if we’re going to remain globally competitive and connected to the world, but some of the projects that I’m most enthusiastic about is this Government’s continued commitment to rebuilding our health system, with 24 new construction projects due to be completed this year, just as an example; also, completing the 350th Rural Connectivity Group mobile tower to keep rolling out broadband to some of our rural areas. Two such towers stand out for me in particular: Le Bons Bay, I understand, due to go up in May-June, and Lavericks Bay later on in the year. And our local team will keep working on other bays in the beautiful Banks Peninsula also, and I want to acknowledge how important this issue is for you all.

The Prime Minister’s statement also emphasised our focus on tackling climate change. This challenge will be a core part of our economic strategy. Like any challenge, it can seem a bit daunting, but it’s also a great opportunity for new jobs and for higher wages. We know that other countries are starting to move to make the most of these opportunities, so New Zealand simply can’t get left behind. Much of the work in this area is underpinned by protecting and restoring nature, and I was especially pleased when conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan recently announced Government funding for six fantastic projects in New Zealand, two of which happened to be in the beautiful Banks Peninsula. There will be planting and pest, weed, and predator control, not to mention heaps of jobs, in Whakaraupō Lyttelton Harbour, with further pest control programmes in various locations across Banks Peninsula and Port Hills. We welcome this Government’s investment.

Another area that the Prime Minister emphasised as an absolute focus is mental health. This, too, represents a real challenge and one that’s not easily resolved, not the least of which because the way that we conceive of mental health and wellbeing is evolving and changing—for the best, but we need to create new services so that people have more access and more choice to the support that they need. That’s why establishing primary and community services in general practice, kaupapa Māori, Pacific, and youth services is important and will continue to be rolled out and expanded over the next two years, and I look forward to that.

These services have delivered more than 280,000 sessions since July 2019 and 27,000 people were supported in the first quarter of 2021-22. But as with other challenges, there is still more work to do. But as our Prime Minister reminded us in her statement, our opportunities, our potential, greatly outweigh our challenges, and I look forward to doing more work.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I call Mark Cameron—five minutes.

MARK CAMERON (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I know why I came here. The ACT caucus knows why I came here. I got off a quad bike after 30 years on a farm in rural New Zealand because I had seen this Government oversee a rort in New Zealand farming communities, and it just got wider. Somehow this Government had created this fictional character like a dark overlord that literally went rampaging through rural New Zealand.

The Government by its own hand spawned the groundswell impetus—

Hon Member: The farmers are making huge money!

MARK CAMERON: And I see the member over there has got a contribution; she wants to weigh in on it. But to understand the year that happened, we have to understand year that was—sorry, I beg your pardon, the year coming. We must acknowledge that this Government is like a bull in a china shop. It has assaulted the rural communities in every sector. We routinely hear it, the Minister of Finance applauding the rural sector. The dairy industry, he says, has been the impetus that is driving New Zealand out of this COVID pandemic, financial security can be found in the dairy sector, but on the other hand he will target it and is part of a Government that does.

What do we know? We have to look back on the rural calendar highlights. We’ve seen a Government that have gone after your ute and they affectionately call that a fee-bate scheme, a tax on a tradie’s ute, a farmer’s ute—his tools, his ability to function on a farm. They’ve eroded our trust with the acquisition of private property rights masked under significant natural areas (SNAs). And when questioned by me through an Official Information Act process, the Associate Minister for the Environment, James Shaw, said that names and titles were withheld when requested by me as to who he had actually met with pursuant to SNAs.

But, hey, the list goes on. We could talk about three waters. I know on this side of the House that this is an animating conversation. We’ve had 27-odd mayors in rural New Zealand weigh in on that. They see this as a theft of their ratepayer assets. And the water services bill, a piece of legislation that we spoke to on this side of the House, asks for a carve-out for the 70,000 rural water schemes. Nanaia Mahuta, the Minister of Local Government repudiated the requirement for that.

Barbara Kuriger: Bureaucracy gone mad.

MARK CAMERON: Yeah, gone mad, as the member notes. We have seen central planning and this red tide Government that seems to think that this is the way to proceed.

Freshwater reforms and intensive winter grazing: it took this side of the House and, arguably, members from the ACT Party who happened to be farming to talk to better options for that. And albeit that iterations—it’s through OVERSEER—failed 11 times I was told. Members on this side of House might wish to speak to that further.

And the big one, the tamale, this is coming: climate change. We had a Prime Minister that said that was her nuclear-free moment, this generation’s nuclear-free moment. Minister Shaw sets fantastical targets by all assertions out of the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment and Treasury. That will totally cook the books for not only farmers in their ability to operate but the overall fiscal wellbeing of the Government. Well, ACT is asking for logic. We hope that logic prevails, albeit that’s a hard ask when you look at the quality of the policy being delivered on the other side of the House.

Very quickly, we’ve got to have a conversation about He Waka Eke Noa and the emissions trading scheme (ETS). We at the ACT Party said that farmers shouldn’t be in any pricing scheme until all the calculables, all the measurables, all the on-farm sequestration is given consideration to. Farmers need the tools. They need the methane vaccines and inhibitors. We’ve got to have an honest conversation about the ETS and farmers’ inclusion in it or He Waka Eke Noa. Forget the slogans on this side of the House. We know they simply don’t add up.

Hon Member: But you’re full of slogans.

MARK CAMERON: There we go. I’ll leave my contribution by saying that unfortunately we have a Government high on its own hubris, drunk on its own arrogance, and constantly looking through a myopic lens with rural New Zealand. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Does the member want the call?

Damien Smith: I call, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Damien Smith—five minutes.

DAMIEN SMITH (ACT): I rise on behalf of the ACT Party and what we’ve seen in this statement is another example of the empowerment of the Labour political class. It’s the long arm of the State that continues to be what drives this statement, and in no word does it mention that the economy is facing a crossroads. They have an economic model that inherently requires heavy-handed State intervention—need to change. Major macro shifts are occurring and it’s going to be a very difficult two years, and the great moderation is over of low interest rates and low inflation. We have on one side the Reserve Bank of New Zealand pumping water surely into the economy to fulfil its role as inflation fighter, and it’s gone from promoting inflation to fighting it. And now we’ve also got high rates coming down the line. At the same time, we’ve got a Government that is cashing cheques it can’t write over the next five years. Clearly, there is no coordination between the monetary and fiscal policy that’s required to get us through any major, major event.

So on one hand, we’ve got Mr Orr raising interest rates, and then on the other hand, we’ve got the Prime Minister and we’ve got the finance Minister pouring more petrol on the economy, and it’s not going to end well. We think that they have to be very careful that they don’t induce a self-induced recession. To allow bubbles as well, in all the markets, whether it be commodities, housing, and let them happen along the way, is simply not good economic policy. Effectively, the Government’s been very quiet in its statement about the impact of those sectors and the ability to build houses and the cost of living. We know that, in New Zealand, the cost of living and healthy communities is a really essential mind-set to have to get through daily life, and this has been affected.

There’s something new going on and it’s not Marxism or socialism or any other variant of the traditional left-wing ideology. What we’ve got is a real threat to liberty, which is more generic. So rather than having history rooted in some doctrine like the Workers Union or in any class of socialism from the industrial era, what has now been forced upon us is the aggrandisement of the State and the empowerment of the political classes that are allowing them to make economic decisions that will be hard to justify, and they will pay the price at the next election. David Stockman calls this movement scientism, and whether it’s around the green agenda, the public health science agenda, infrastructure or climate change, it’s all relying on sweeping control and intervention by the State. The long arm of the State in the daily economic and social lives has to stop.

At ACT we have policies where we believe that bringing more capital into the country through overseas investment is essential. We believe in giving New Zealanders a tax break where they actually get some money in their back pockets again. We encourage a wealthy economy, not one that’s contracting, and we implore the Government to reduce its Government spending programme and instability, giving what is likely to be a high interest rate environment—which you just will ignore anyway—and a high inflation environment, even though the Prime Minister does not believe that to be the case.

So our economy is running unhealthy; we’ll never get healthier and wealthier if we don’t focus on getting away from the nanny State. We believe there’s still an opportunity to be a star economy in New Zealand if we manage the risks correctly, and that’s why the ACT Party here will be holding the Government accountable to.

NAISI CHEN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m so proud to be contributing to this debate standing on this side of the House because this side of the House wholeheartedly stands in support of our Prime Minister and her statement. The Prime Minister’s statement made last week was one that showed this country had a future and a bright one. Our Prime Minister laid out our plans for the future. It shows that she is leading a Government with a clear plan to navigate us not only out of Omicron but into economic recovery; one that is clean, one that is green, and one that will actually see all New Zealanders better off.

Today is Lantern Festival—元宵节快乐!—one that is usually marked by the Auckland Lantern Festival, the largest festival in Tāmaki-makau-rau. This year, unfortunately, we’ve once again had to move all celebrations online.

This Government is committed to supporting all communities. That’s why last year, in 2021, we opened the Ministry for Ethnic Communities; a portfolio that was deemed unnecessary by the Opposition members because they had actually lowered their reporting levels, but a portfolio that represents so many people in all of our community in this country. I’m proud that this ministry will continue to support ethnic communities during the continued COVID recovery.

I’m reminded of the Chinese word for “crisis” which is “危机” which directly translates to two characters meaning “危”, which is “crisis” or “danger” and “机” which is “an opportunity.” You would have heard the Prime Minister talk about the many opportunities that will arise out of COVID recovery.

On social media, for the past few days, you would often hear people compare the protest that we have outside right now to the one that had 40,000 people participate—especially young people—who campaigned to look after our environment, this earth. One of those opportunities that we have and that we’re faced with right now is to build a cleaner economy, and that is something that I want to spend the rest of my contribution talking about.

I’ve already talked about—last week—that I was lured into buying an electric vehicle because of our clean car scheme. When I was looking for a Wrangler, but, really, I knew I had to do the right thing, and I was given the right incentive, the right opportunity to stand by that. Transport accounts for more than 40 percent of Auckland’s total carbon emissions, so making sure that we have progress on our buses, the electric ones, in terms of being able to travel long distance, is so important to reducing our overall carbon footprint.

In terms of public transport and transforming the way that we move around our cities, it’s really important to build good routes in our cities. I remember one of the last events that I attended in the East Auckland electorates was actually the opening of stage two of our busway, our Auckland-Manakau Eastern Transport Initiative (AMETI) project that I was privileged enough to attend with the Hon Michael Wood.

I still remember on one fateful day, actually, during question time while I was sitting in my chair in this House that I received a text from my MP support in my electorate. He texted me saying, “Naisi, are you listening to the council debates at the moment?” I said, “No. What’s happening?” He said, “Auckland Transport have just actually cut funding for the AMETI project in East Auckland.”

This project means a lot to East Auckland residents, because often because of the geographic location we’re cut off from the rest of Auckland. I ran over from my seat to Michael’s seat and I said, “Michael, what are we going to do about the East Auckland transport?” I want to thank him personally, the Minister, for working with me on this issue to make sure that we’re funding stage three of it, to make sure that it will open in 2024 and 2025 to make sure that the route from East Auckland, from Botany, to the city will be a less than 40-minute route. Right now at peak hours it actually takes one hour and 30 minutes to get from Botany to the city. That means a lot for young people of the electorate because they need to get uni, they need to get to their jobs, and so in order to build good infrastructure—and actually the first hydrogen bus in New Zealand was actually established on route 70 in the Botany electorate as well. To have a clean, green, low-carbon emission public transport system is so important for all of us.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Before I take the next call, I’d just like to remind the House that members of this House are to be mentioned by their full name. Thank you.

TERISA NGOBI (Labour—Ōtaki): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in this House of change, my first speech for 2022. I’m proud to stand here not only as the member for Ōtaki but also in support of the Prime Minister’s statement. That’s where I’d like to start—just by thanking our Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern and our Ministers for, essentially, saving my family’s life. I mean that not just as a backbencher but as someone who lives in the Ōtaki electorate and knows what could have been if it wasn’t for this Government. I know that my mum and my dad are very vulnerable; my children, my husband, and our neighbours, and the people we love around us. I get it every day—messages of absolute gratitude that we put lives and families first. We put the health of our people in New Zealand first, and I am grateful to this Government, our leaders, and especially our Prime Minister for that.

This is in stark contrast, I guess, to the Opposition, where you’ve seen, I guess, the rolling four leaders saying “open the border, shut the border, open the border, shut the border” and more recently Mr Luxon saying it’s “freedom day” in December. Thank God we didn’t have “freedom day” in December—because God knows what could have happened then. But thanks to this decisive leadership, we’re in good stead, and not just around our COVID response, which we know has given us the lowest numbers, as we’ve heard in the House today. Actually, we hear it on the streets too, because people know the real rhetoric that’s happening out there. People know they’re grateful to live in Aotearoa and not overseas. They also know we have the lowest number of deaths. We have the lowest number of hospitalisations. For a Pasifika person, that’s a big deal. Hospitalisation is massive for us in terms of access, so we keep hospitalisations as low as we can so we have at least a starting chance of getting in there if we have any other issues is critical for us. So that’s massive, and, again, I’m grateful to this Government for making sure that’s happened. The other thing I would say is I’m really grateful to the 96 percent of vaccinated Kiwis out there. I’m really grateful that you also are doing your bit to make sure that my babies and my family and the people I love are alive and safe. So I say thank you to you also.

This Government is doing what it said it would do. The Labour Government is putting people and their wellbeing first, and they’re also managing this worldwide pandemic at the same time. But, still, we are progressing with our plan, and that is to make sure we support the most vulnerable—and we see that. Again, we’ve got the lowest numbers in terms of deaths and hospitalisations, but if we go further than that, we’ve also got a great economy. We’ve heard our Deputy Prime Minister talk about the fact that to have good economy, you need a good health response. They go hand in hand. We’re proof of that—these are facts now. We have seen in terms of the OECD what our economy looks like. People message me all the time to say they wish they lived in Aotearoa. We just have to look at Fonterra who have had a record pay-out this year, and that is thanks to this economy and the hard work of our farmers. The dairy, the beef, and the sheep industries are doing amazing—even in a massive worldwide pandemic. That is thanks to the decisions that this Government is making. We’ve got a record 3.2 unemployment rate. That’s never been seen before, and, again, for Māori and Pacific people, for our women and our people with disability, that’s huge. That’s critical. You can’t underplay that—and, again, in the middle of a massive pandemic.

There’s been over $20 million to support business during the COVID pandemic. Nobody has been left out of this Government’s support. We also have indexed benefits to wages. That makes a massive difference. We’re making sure we’re supporting our most vulnerable, but where are those people going to spend that money? In our communities, again, helping our economy. We’re making sure that people on low wages and benefits live with dignity. That is what this Government is about. That’s what we promised the people of New Zealand and that’s what we’re delivering. There has been a minimum wage increase, and, again, on 1 April, an increase to $21.20. That will be what the minimum wage will go up to. That is life-changing for some of our whānau out there. I could keep going on all these changes.

This Labour Government continues to put people first while still managing a massive, worldwide pandemic really well, by the way, and also focusing on reducing child poverty and making sure we tackle climate change, and there are more bills tonight that talk about that—our clean car bill. We are also making sure we’re making massive waves on housing, with the most that have been built since the 1970s. This Government is doing that for us. We are making changes in our communities. I see it every day. I’m proud to be part of this Government.

ANNA LORCK (Labour—Tukituki): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m boostered and back into it, and so I’m pleased to be standing today to speak to the Prime Minister’s statement and make a significant speech for the regions. It’s because of the regions and what’s happening in regions like mine in Tukituki—Hastings—where it’s coming from, where we are building back stronger and better.

As part of this I’ve been hearing about all the doom and gloom from the other side of the House, so I thought I’d better give some actual facts around what’s happening in Hastings. Gross domestic product: up 5.7 percent. Consumer spending: up 9 percent. Tourism expenditure: up 22.6 percent. Residential consents: 12.8 percent up on last year. Non-residential consents: 59.1 percent up. Now, let’s talk car registrations. Cars: up 18.5 percent. What about commercial vehicles? Up 41 percent. Then, unemployment down to 3.7 percent and employment up 2 percent.

These are real stats, real figures, and if we want to talk about figures and statistics, let me tell you about how we are leading on the home front in Hastings. Hastings: 438 social houses are being built in Hastings right now. That’s 135 for Flaxmere; 40 in Kauri Street and Kauri Place in Mahora, Hastings; 77 in Mayfair Avenue and Nikau Street; 14 in Plunket Street; 35 in Tarbet Street; 28 in Tomoana Road; and 82 in Waingākau. The Minister of Housing, Megan Woods, marked a milestone in Hastings earlier this year, visiting a Hastings development and to Flaxmere. All of this was going on, all the way through—building houses.

Now, in reflection to the houses that we’re building on this side of the House, I have been told that in the nine years of the National Government, where they ripped down houses, sold off our housing stock—guess how many the National Government built in nine years? Six—six. That’s the amount of houses that the National Government built. That’s what I’ve been told from the Hastings District Council. Six social houses, compared to 438 houses going up in Hastings—affordable homes.

That’s not just where it stops for Hastings and Hawke’s Bay. Positive stories about building futures where we’re committed to working together with local companies like Tumu Timbers, and where we’ve got an eight-week free programme going, supported by the Ministry of Social Development open to school-leavers and job seekers aged 17 to 26. This is to teach life skills and onsite job training in the timber processing and building supplies area, because, again, we’re building homes and we’re growing jobs, not like the six in nine years.

Let’s talk about what else we’re doing. We’ve got fantastic big employers like T & G, who are pouring millions into the Hawke’s Bay region. We’ve got a $100 million new automated pack-house being built for the region right here—the size of two football fields—and the best thing about it is that they will use all the redeployment of workers to operate in the pack-houses and have no staff job cuts. This will be happening in Hawke’s Bay.

Then I’ve spent an afternoon with Heinz-Wattie’s, where they’re harvesting like never before: 10 million equivalent cans of tomatoes are going to be harvested in Hawke’s Bay, and all of the produce except for the boysenberries is grown within 36 kilometres of their factory. Six hundred locals work there—vaccinated, boostered, and ready to work—and they keep this economy going, because that’s what we do in the regions.

All this is happening under a Labour Government—boostered and proud. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I call Rachel Boyack—five minutes.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): I’m proud to take a call today on the Prime Minister’s statement. I want to focus my speech today on some of the tough decisions the Government has made in order to protect the lives of New Zealanders and the steps we are taking in Nelson to build back better as we recover from COVID-19. But first I want to put on record my thanks to everyone in the Nelson-Tasman region who’s worked to support our vaccination roll-out. Our vaccination rates in the top of the South are high: 97 percent have had one dose and 95 percent are fully vaccinated. We have one of the highest booster rates in the country, and nearly half of our 5- to 11-year-olds have had their first dose. My thanks to everyone involved in this life-saving work: our health workers, vaccinators, administrators, the public health contact tracing team, our COVID testing teams, and everyone doing their part to keep our community safe from COVID19.

Last week my staffer’s 4-year-old boy was diagnosed with cancer. Over the next few weeks and months, he will receive treatment at Christchurch and Nelson hospitals. These treatments will mean he is immunocompromised. Willy deserves all the protections he can get to avoid catching and becoming ill from COVID-19. I am grateful to all of the health workers who have chosen to be vaccinated to protect vulnerable children like Willy. Willy is too young to be vaccinated. He has no choice. He needs adults to make choices that will protect him from getting sicker than he already is. He deserves to be treated and cared for by health workers who are vaccinated. Willy’s diagnosis has brought home to me the stark reality of COVID-19 and the risk it presents to our most vulnerable. I am proud of this Government’s decisions to protect our most vulnerable, like Willy, from the worst impacts of COVID-19. The overwhelming majority of New Zealanders have made decisions and sacrifices that benefit the collective good; decisions that aren’t just about themselves but are about their neighbours, whānau, friends, and strangers, because we are better off when we look after each other.

The Prime Minister said in her statement how essential building new infrastructure is to continue growing our economy and lifting productivity. The previous National Government left a legacy of massive under-investment in health infrastructure, including ICUs. For two whole years, National didn’t invest a single cent in health infrastructure, despite a growing and ageing population. By contrast, the Labour Government has already put $6 billion into health infrastructure. I’m pleased, as the MP for Nelson, to have been able to secure a commitment from this Government to upgrade Nelson Hospital. Nelson desperately needs a new hospital. In 2020, a Government stocktake of hospitals nationwide found the George Manson building to be in the worst condition of any hospital building in the country. Built in 1960, the building has fire separation issues, a likelihood of asbestos, and seismic restraint issues. It is critical we have fit for purpose buildings, and this is the priority for me as the local MP.

My electorate of Nelson has faced a growing housing crisis that has built up for decades, and our Government is taking steps to address this. As the Prime Minister said in her statement, investing in the infrastructure needed for good, quality housing is a priority for this Government. In Nelson, we are seeing a range of measures to address this, including the transfer of ownership of council-owned housing from Nelson City Council to Kāinga Ora, freeing up $12 million for the housing reserve fund in Nelson. Last year, I successfully lobbied, alongside community housing providers, to release some of this fund immediately to support the development of community-owned social housing in Nelson. Nelson Tasman Housing Trust have ambitious plans to lift their housing stock from 50 houses to 100, and the Government’s changes to how we structure payments of the income-related rent subsidy gives them the certainty to invest in these developments. Habitat for Humanity Nelson also have ambitious plans for housing in the region, and the Government is pleased to be providing financial support for their progressive homeownership scheme locally, which supports low-income families to get into their first home.

COVID-19 has presented challenges for New Zealand and the world that we have not seen for a generation. I am proud to be part of a Government that is putting the health and wellbeing of all our people first as we respond to COVID and that seeks to build a stronger New Zealand for the generations to come. Kia ora.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): The only thing that the House has learnt this afternoon, from any of the speeches from Government members, is, in fact, that the supply of tomato sauce in New Zealand is secured because of the hard work of Anna Lorck in her local electorate. I want to congratulate her for rolling her sleeves up, for getting those tomatoes in, getting them in the vats, and putting them in the bottles. But that is the sum total of what we have learnt new from any Labour speaker in the House this afternoon. I stand in support of the amendment to the motion moved by Christopher Luxon that says that all the words after “That” be deleted and replaced with “this House has no confidence in this Government that returns to Wellington at the start of each year with yet more promises it has no intention of keeping and regularly fails to deliver”.

I congratulate all of the Labour speakers today for the diligent way in which they have recited the research unit notes for the House—the way in which they’ve repeated all of the slogans that the caucus rehearsed in their caucus meeting on Tuesday, religiously putting them in front of the House and, almost as religiously, elevating the Prime Minister to a near-sainthood status.

This is a country that has faced down, so far, very, very well the COVID-19 threat. But there are some things about that that cause a problem, and I want to pick up on the last speaker, Rachel Boyack, who talked about the vulnerable. Well, what about the vulnerable people out there who cannot, for one reason or another, take a vaccine, who cannot, after they’ve had an adverse reaction to their first vaccine, progress to the full vaccine status? Why are they being cast out into the wilderness?

Hon Member: They’re not.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: The member over there says, “They’re not.” Well, get acquainted with the reality of what’s happening and going on in the lives of so many of those people. And then, just to top it off, we’ve got the State running round now, saying to people in that position, “Get yourself doubly vaccinated, get yourself boosted, or your job is all over.” They’ve got no ill intention—none at all. Quite happy to, but can’t. And that’s where I think this Government falls over. So-called compassion only extends as far as the mantra that comes out of the health department—no further than that.

You look at all of the other aspects of life in New Zealand, and I am reminded that it has been previous Labour leaders—and, indeed, the Labour leader we’ve got now, and I use that term because that’s how she described herself in the House today—who have always said New Zealanders’ greatest concerns are about health, they’re about housing, they’re about education, they’re about the economy, and they’re about security. Well, let’s just go through all of those things and have a look at the record of this Government.

Let’s, for a start, look at security. How many people in this country are happy with the extraordinary levels of crime, the extraordinary levels of burglary, the extraordinary levels of violent crime and murder that we see at the present time? No one is happy with that. And this Government’s response will be, “Oh, well, we’ve actually increased the numbers of police.” That’s also totally misleading, because the poor old police are now asked to do so many tasks that are away from the actual day-to-day policing that they are so good at. So let’s not be silly about this. Let’s at least acknowledge that there is a crime problem in New Zealand, and very little is being done about it—lots of words; lots of, as I said at the start and as Mr Luxon has said in his amendment to the motion, good intentions, promises, but failure to deliver.

Then there is the issue of education. We have, in this country, only 60 percent of our enrolled students regularly turning up to school. I’ll say that again: only 60 percent of our enrolled students regularly turning up to school.

Hon Member: During lockdown.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Oh, so over the other side, “Well, they were in lockdown.” Dear me. Those people, those students, according to the education Minister, were able to log on and to continue their schooling through all of that. I’m talking about truancy. If the member over there says there’s a 40 percent truancy rate simply because of lockdown, that’s a failure of Government policy.

Then you look at something like housing, and this is where it really hurts the Labour Party. They’ve made massive, massive promises about what could be done. Then all they can do, really, is look over their shoulder and say, “Well, none of it was our fault. None of it was our fault.” Well, let’s be very, very clear about this: at the moment, a young person trying to put together a deposit is faced with the mountain of having to accumulate 20 percent of the house price that they are trying to buy—or 10 percent if it’s a new one. So, if you look at the average house price of a million dollars, they’ve got to come up with either $100,000 or $200,000.

Hon Member: The average house price isn’t a million dollars.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Well, that’s an average price, over there. Somebody just started mumbling, saying, “You probably can get them cheaper in Hastings.” If people looked at who was representing them, they’d probably be deserting the place in droves. No wonder—the member has driven the property price down! But here’s the point. Here’s the point: on average, young people have to amass either $100,000 or $200,000 to get a deposit on a house. You know, in many cases, they can actually afford the extraordinary mortgages that they would have to take on from that point. But, no, the system’s been shut down because this Government prefers that people are in the Government’s thrall and crows only about a Government housing programme, forcing people into a life time of rent. Well, I don’t take any objection to the other side of the House saying that we sold some State houses. Largely, they were sold to tenants, who had paid for those houses over the 60-odd years of their existence many times over.

Then you look at some of the schemes that they’ve come up with. What was that one—the shared-equity one? Big announcements. Big television coverage by the media, who seem absolutely enthralled by anything the Government does. And what’s the result? Twelve—12 houses. That’s a big, big dent in the housing problem! Twenty-five thousand people currently on the waiting list for a State house; 4,500 children living every day in motels, at a cost of $1.2 million a day—$1.2 million a day for motels to keep 4,500 children in the company of less than desirable circumstances.

Hon Member: You sold the houses and put them in motels.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: And, over there, they’re saying, “Wasn’t that great they’re not on the streets?” Well, there are still people on the streets, and there will be more if the economy continues to go down the track that it is. I’ll come back to the economy in my final comment.

The last one is health. I heard Andrew Little telling us how wonderful the health system is going to be in the future, how marvellous it’s all going to be, and then caveat by saying it might be five or seven years away. As if somehow creating new structures—Willie Jackson, today saying, “The Māori Health Authority is going to solve everything.” It won’t—it simply won’t. People will get sick and need treatment regardless of their ethnicity, and that should be the focus, and it always was the focus under the previous National Government.

The economy is very interesting. We’ve got 6 percent inflation at the moment, and a Government over the other side of the House that said, “No new taxes.” Well, sometimes there is a thing called a de facto tax—a de facto tax. And that is: when the value of your dollar starts to fall, your purchasing power is reduced. That, effectively, is a tax if it’s sheeted back to excessive or unnecessary or unreasonable expenditure by a Government. And what happens over there? They all just scream across, saying, “Tell us what you’d cut—tell us what you’d cut.” This is a Government planning to spend at least another $6 billion in the coming year, and no explanation of that. Has there been, ever, a decision to sit down and have a look at all the Government expenditure and say, “What can we look at?” No, that won’t happen, of course, because these guys think everything they do is absolutely brilliant—absolutely brilliant, totally necessary, the whole lot. And then they’ll say, “Well, you only came up with small examples.” [Bell rung] Sorry, Madam Speaker, is that the end of me, or what?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): No. Hon Gerry Brownlee, I just hit the button a bit late.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Right, that’s happened to me once before, Madam Speaker. I’ll start my 10 minutes again—that’s fine!

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Well, you’re welcome to carry on, with 41 seconds left.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: The point I make is that, when people are having the purchasing power of the money they earn reduced by a 6 percent rate of inflation, that’s a tax on their pay packet, without a question. If the Government doesn’t do something about reining in its own expenses, that trend won’t stop. Look at the increase in rental prices. Extraordinary. A couple of hundred dollars on in the last three years. How do people do it? Of course, it exacerbates because then there is the accommodation supplement that goes into that, as well. This is not a Government that knows where it’s going. It is a Government absolutely enthralled by its own spin.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I call Glen Bennett—five minutes.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. Thank you for letting me take a call on this very important debate around the Prime Minister’s statement. Our previous speaker, the Hon Gerry Brownlee, spoke for 10 minutes and the only sentence I remember of that 10 minutes was, “Is this the end of me?” Well, if that speech is anything to go by, it probably is.

But on this side of the House, we are excited and motivated to ensure the wellbeing and the future of New Zealand. I want to thank our Prime Minister. I want to thank all of our Ministers who have worked so hard in the last few years, who have worked so hard since the last election to ensure the wellbeing of New Zealand, the wellbeing of all people. It’s been tough. It’s been really tough—and I don’t say that lightly. I know that for all of us, it has been hard. But we’re here. We’re working together, as the Prime Minister said, and we will rise to the challenge that COVID-19 throws at us. It’s drawn us together. I know that there have been moments when we’ve been apart and it’s been tough, but it is a pandemic that we have to focus and deal with, and I thank our Prime Minister for taking the lead on that.

I want to take a moment, as the MP for New Plymouth, to reflect on what’s gone on for myself and for those in the electorate of New Plymouth: the things that we’ve done around building back better, which has been so important. I want to talk about, really briefly, because it’s kind of a strange one, but we put $37 million in to our thermal drying facility in New Plymouth for our wastewater treatment. I know it’s a crappy thing to talk about, but it’s actually really important to ensure that we create jobs—I created a good pun; that was really average and a dad joke, but hey, I got there in the end.

Our education system—many of our schools in the New Plymouth electorate and many of our schools around Taranaki, and many of our schools around New Zealand have needed work done, and I’m proud that this Government has invested $23 million—$23 million—in the rebuild of Spotswood College in New Plymouth; not only creating jobs but creating a modern and a 21st century learning environment for the students who will go through Spotswood College in my ’hood. There was also more than $5.4 million put into classroom upgrades and to ensuring that pool facilities and fields were organised—and again, creating jobs as we build back better.

Jobs for Nature in Taranaki: 15 projects equalling more than $17 million has been put in, not only for our environment, not only for our sustainability, and not only for the restoration of what has been lost but it’s also around those jobs. More than 116 fulltime-equivalents are being created around the Jobs for Nature, doing things such as pest control, riparian planting, stream health, species restoration, the protection of taonga species such as our kiwi and our kōkako, biodiversity and biosecurity projects, and the restoring of our ecological corridor from the Waiwhakaiho River through to our beautiful Taranaki Maunga, ensuring that with planting and weed control that our water species are able to thrive once more.

I’m grateful that we are able to invest in our marae around Taranaki, around the New Plymouth electorate. Such an important space. So much was lost so long ago and it’s a step in the direction of partnership. It’s a step to remind us that we value and that we will continue, and I will continue, to support the development of iwi and hapū in a post-settlement region such as Taranaki.

I just want to finish around our vaccinations, and I want to say to those here today that I’ve got the numbers this morning for Taranaki around our vaccinations. Our Pasifika community in Taranaki are 100 percent vaccinated—100 percent fully vaccinated. How exciting is that? We’re 93 percent fully vaccinated, 95 percent full dose, and 60 percent have been boosted. We’ve also got our Māori who are 86 percent, and double-vaxxed is 90 percent. We’re almost there. We’re getting close and I’m grateful to our health professionals. I’m grateful to those who are ensuring that our society, that our region, and that the electorate of New Plymouth is protected from what is to come: this Omicron that is here with us right now. I want to say thank you to our Prime Minister for taking the lead, to our Ministers for walking and supporting her, and I am really proud to stand in support of the Prime Minister’s address.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I move, That this debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): This debate is adjourned and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break, and the House will resume at 7 p.m.

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

Bills

Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill

Third Reading

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of the Minister of Justice: I present a legislative statement on the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill.

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

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I move, That the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill be now read a third time.

I want to begin by thanking my friend and colleague the Hon Kris Faafoi for his shepherding of this legislation. His dignified and empathetic approach has been on display for all to see as the bill has proceeded through its stages. I particularly want to thank him for offering me the opportunity to move this third reading. It is a mark of the man that he stood aside to allow an MP such as me from the rainbow community to move this historic legislation. Fakafetai lahi lele.

This legislation does two very important things. First, it rights a wrong—a hurtful, insidious, destructive wrong—but it also sends a message: a message of love, support, and affirmation to all in the rainbow communities. This is a historic day, and I am immensely proud that our Government is bringing this to the House as a Government bill. It will stand us alongside the other Acts on the walls of the rainbow select committee room as a triumph for New Zealand to be able to pass.

There are further thankyous to make. To the hundreds of activists who have campaigned over many years to get us to this point. Change is hard: it’s 90 percent perspiration and 10 percent celebration. It’s even harder when you’ve been hurt so much by what you are trying to change. As we celebrate tonight, I think each and every person and group that has been part of the campaigns. I remember well, standing outside in August 2018 with representatives of the Greens and Labour and other supporters to promote this legislation. I salute the work of everyone who has been a part of this. This campaign has and will save lives; there is no higher accolade than that. And to Amanda Ashley: it’s nearly done.

I thank my parliamentary colleagues who have worked so tirelessly to get to this point along with Minister Faafoi, in particular the members of the Justice Committee, who have shaped a law that has gained support of much of this House. A special thankyou to the rainbow members of Parliament for your courage and mahi, and, in particular, my Rainbow Labour colleagues. And, finally, to our dear colleague Marja Lubeck, who carried much of the burden of this issue last term. Marja, you’re a true ally and friend, and our communities love you dearly.

There are two other groups of people who need to be acknowledged at the outset: the parents, like mine, who supported and affirmed me as a gay man when I came out; the parents who each and every day support their children to be who they are; and the parents who provide the unconditional love that is the bedrock of growing up confident and happy. I grew up in a religious, churchgoing household in the era of homosexual law reform. There were plenty of negative messages for me to hear as I grappled with my sexuality and the challenge of feeling very different from those around me. When I finally gathered the courage to come out to my parents, I was met with love. Whatever fears that they held for me, and I know that they did, they were full of acceptance. My father—who is no longer with us—I knew, would find it hard, but he expressed only one thing that he was annoyed about—he’d heard it from someone else and not from me. If that was as bad as it got, then I knew I was a lucky person. But not everybody is or was so lucky.

The other group who need to be acknowledged at the outset are those from our rainbow communities who did not make it. In my case, I think of James, my work colleague from many years ago; the sweetest, most gentle man that you would ever meet. James was brought up in the same church that I was, but his experience could not have been more different. When he told his parents he was gay, he was met with anger, rejection, and derision. His parents wanted him to change to be someone he was not. It was intolerable for him. He could see no way through, and he took his own life at the age of 23. To James and the many like him from all parts of the rainbow communities and also to those who have been directly affected by conversion practices or attempts at them, we want to say: this legislation is for you. We cannot bring you back, we cannot undo all of the hurt, but we can make sure that for the generations to come, we provide the support and love that you did not get, and that we protect you from the harm of those who seek to try to stop you from being who you are. We will never forget you. Kia moe pai ināianei.

[May you rest in peace.]

Let us be clear what this legislation does. Its purpose is to recognise and prevent harm caused by conversion practice and to promote respectful and open discussions regarding sexuality and gender. It deals directly to the falsehood that people’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression can somehow be fixed. As my straight-shooting colleague Kieran McAnulty said when he explained why he supports the bill: “There’s just no one who needs to be converted or changed here.” I recognise that for some people this bill doesn’t actually go as far as they would like in some aspects, particularly in the area of the ease of prosecution and in penalties. I can understand that perspective, and that in any law there needs to be access to justice and appropriate penalties for those who break it, but I believe that the select committee has got the balance right here. The presence of a civil regime using the Human Rights Commission alongside the criminal provisions is in the spirit of the dual purposes of this bill.

I want to say something particular to our trans community. Throughout the debate on this legislation and this issue more generally, there has been an attempt to somehow separate the right for freedom from harm for those who affirm their gender identity or gender expression from others covered in this legislation. Too often, in recent times, we have seen trans community members put under intolerable scrutiny and stigmatised. As a rainbow community member, I want to say clearly tonight that I am extremely proud that this legislation puts gender identity and gender expression alongside sexual orientation when it comes to prevention from harm. Nothing less than that should be acceptable.

It’s also important to remember what this bill doesn’t do. It does not, as some in this House have said, undermine freedom of speech or expression or worship. The bill does not cover the expression only of a religious principle or belief; it is only when that is part of a practice with the intent to change or suppress. I welcome the support of many religious organisations for this legislation, including those who’ve had some concerns but understand that at its heart, this bill is about the removal of insidious practices that they would never want them or their organisation to be part of.

It is disappointing that this legislation does not have the full support of this House, and I do want to speak briefly to those who oppose it. Listening to some who’ve opposed this bill, it is clear that they have a view of free speech that is divorced from reality. As Vanushi Walters said in an earlier contribution on the bill, free speech has never been absolute in our laws—think defamation, think obscenity, think profanity. More than that, for me it’s about the principle that all rights come with some form of responsibilities. The right to speak or act in a way that will cause serious harm does not meet the test of responsibilities that come with those rights.

It is actually my view that this bill enhances freedom—the freedom to be who we are, the freedom to have the conversations that are needed. Again, in the speeches I heard in Opposition, it’s the tired old view that someone else getting some rights and freedoms somehow or other diminishes the rights that you may have. That’s not true. This bill enhances all of our rights. Speeches I’ve heard in Opposition in this House also seem to see this as some kind of extension of the culture war—it’s not. It is an affirming and positive law that protects people from harm. It’s what we are here to do. I invite those who seem to see this as somehow a diminution of their rights to ask themselves what they’re afraid of and perhaps what they might be able to embrace into the future.

To finish, I want to speak directly to the younger members of our rainbow communities. This legislation is a promissory note from this House to future generations of the rainbow communities. It’s our commitment that we will love, support and affirm you for being who you are, that we will not give licence to the peddlers of hate, bigotry, and dogma to impose the ill-informed and dangerous beliefs on to you. We cannot promise to solve all the problems and challenges that you will face in your lives, but we can—and, indeed, in my opinion we must—give you hope for a life of love, fulfilment, and dignity. Kia kaha, kia māia, kia ātaahua. Be strong, be brave, be beautiful. I commend this bill to the House.

SPEAKER: Members, a couple of points I want to make now before I put that the question be put, and that is that it is my intention again to use a split voting method, notwithstanding the fact that this is a conscience vote. So people will have to inform their party whips as to the way they’re voting, or, if they choose, they can vote individually on the floor of the House—there’s an ability to do that as well. But we will not be having members in the lobbies, for COVID reasons.

Because, again, it is a conscience vote, speaking lists and party lists do not apply. I will be taking calls out of order from around the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to. Those of that opinion will say Aye—

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Mr Speaker?

SPEAKER: Sorry? Oh, Paul Goldsmith—the Hon Paul Goldsmith.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Sorry to prolong the debate! Happy to speak on the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill. As has been well-traversed, the National Party has treated this as a conscience vote. I’ve recently become the justice spokesperson, and so have taken a particular interest in this as an issue affecting the laws of the land. And I want to say at the outset, I will be supporting this bill personally. I don’t support conversion practices or the attempt to change the sexuality of people, particularly in any coercive way, and there’s no question that there’s been much damage done to many people over the years through such attempts. Some of them are driven by hate and dogma, as the previous Minister talked about; some of them, no doubt, with good intentions badly carried out. So I’m very pleased and prepared to support this.

What we have raised through the process are some concerns about the way this particular bill has been drafted, and serious issues around the extent of what is captured by a “conversion practice”. And that is, of course, exactly what we should be doing here in this House as legislators: looking at what the bill in front of us actually says, because what we’re dealing with in Parliament is not what our intentions are—that we want to just stop a particular practice—it’s what the piece of legislation in front of us actually achieves. So my three concerns that I wanted to see rectified were—just being absolutely clear—around free expression, around making sure that the legislation doesn’t in any way inhibit the proper discussions that people need to have before making life-changing decisions, particularly in the context of medical interventions around gender identity, which has been included in the broad scope of the bill, and, finally, that parents, who don’t agree with or aren’t prepared to give permission to significant medical interventions wouldn’t be captured.

And I introduced three Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) in the House to clarify that. The Minister has given assurances that each of those areas won’t be covered by the legislation: i.e., that any free opinion or just a statement of opinions is not captured by the bill. The concern was, of course, with a broader definition of conversion practice to be a “practice, sustained effort, or treatment” that that would be directed towards an individual because of their gender identity with the intention of changing or suppressing an individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. That’s quite broad, and so people will naturally ask the question, “Well, what does that mean? What is captured by a ‘sustained effort’ to suppress somebody’s gender identity?” If you’re confronted with a young teenager, a 13- or 14-year-old, asserting that they are a different gender and wanting to make very, very significant decisions. So we’ve heard from the Minister, “No, no. Nothing in this bill will in any way inhibit frank discussions by medical practitioners prior to any significant decisions.”, which is wholly appropriate and should be quite clear. That basic question that should always be asked before any significant medical interventions is “Do you really want to do this?” And you need to be able to have that in a frank and open way, without feeling inhibited.

And thirdly around parents, again, not being criminalised if they were to not give consent to those medical interventions, which I think people would expect to be clear-cut. So notwithstanding that those SOPs weren’t supported, I did think it was still a useful exercise in getting it quite clear in the Hansard and in the parliamentary debates, which will have an impact and influence on how this piece of legislation is interpreted when it does indeed come to the courts. I do think that that was an important set of assurances to have from the Minister.

So my hope now is that this bill will be one that does provide future generations of young people from all sorts of backgrounds to have that level of confidence that they won’t be exposed to some of the terrible practices that some of the earlier members of the community have faced. And with that, I want to conclude my speech. Thank you very much.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I feel incredibly privileged to be able to speak on the third and final reading of the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill. I stand here today and I think of all of the people in New Zealand’s history that have gone before, to fight each step of the way to improve and strengthen the rights, the dignity, and the freedoms of New Zealand’s rainbow community. All of these people have stood against discrimination, and all of these people have stood for improving human rights in New Zealand.

I remember, clear as day, as a young girl standing in the street watching—the first time I’d ever seen protests or the demonstrations for homosexual law reform back in the mid-1980s. The first thing I remember that struck me was that they were some of the most fabulous costumes I’d ever seen. Secondly, I remember wondering why people had been “shut in a closet”, and it took mum to explain what that actually meant. But what stuck with me the most was the hatred in the voices from the sidelines, using some of the most obscene words I’d ever heard, as a young person. And in the weeks and months after that, hearing those same words echoed around the playground and around the streets, as other kids learnt those words from adults. And it’s there, when I look back, I remember where that discrimination started and where it’s continued. It makes me think of how far we have come as a country, but yet still how far we have yet to go.

This bill will not end discrimination, but I truly hope it is yet another step forward to making sure that there is wellbeing within our rainbow communities, and it will go towards creating a more inclusive New Zealand.

The select committee process I won’t go over because it’s third reading but, without going into detail, we broke all records with there being somewhat of an online warfare between two sides as to how many submissions could be registered, and we broke into the four subgroups. I want to acknowledge the members of the Opposition on the committee who worked so well to come to an agreement in how we would hear as many as possible, and give all of those people who wanted to submit the ability to do that, and I think that that was quite a healing process, in hearing all of those submissions.

I’m saddened that we don’t have unanimous support across the House tonight and, back then, well, National wanted to demand the debate—it seems like they’re not quite so keen on doing that now. I wish we could be able to have that debate, and I think that’s an important debate to be able to have. In fact, in a country where my children are growing up it’s so important to have those two underpinning principles in this bill. The number one principle that underpins this bill is to prevent harm, and the second one is to encourage safe, respectful conversations around sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.

We owe it to the next generation to be honest, and it’s for this reason that I’ve personally responded to all the emails I’ve received on this bill, and I’ve had dozens and dozens of conversations, whether they be in person or on the phone, to those people who want to understand exactly what this bill does. A lot of those conversations have been in and around the relationship between a parent and their child.

I had a constituent who called my office just last week, who was angry, irate at the fact that this bill was preventing him to have a conversation with his child or his grandchild, and he was fearful that this conversation would be criminalised. When I spoke through the clarifications, the examples the select committee had done to spell out what, in fact, was a conversion practice—to say that it was specifically encouraging someone to believe that their sexual orientation needs to be changed or fixed because it’s broken, to say that somebody is wrong, and to use shame or coercion with the intention of giving a person an aversion to same-sex attractions—his response was “Well, who would do that to a child?” It was so important to be able to have that conversation with some people who had, quite clearly, received misinformation about what this bill aims to achieve. Because it aims to do exactly the opposite: it aims to have open, frank, honest conversations with young people who need our help, who need our support, who need to have their own pathway found to find their identity.

I’m going to read one part of the departmental report because I think it sums it up so beautifully. Before I read this, I would just like to acknowledge the incredibly hard work that officials did to pull this together and the wonderful penmanship and work that has gone into summarising so many submissions. I quote from the departmental report on page 30: “People who are struggling with their sexuality or gender … should be able to receive the support they need, including to explore their identity … to reconcile their faith and sexuality. However, rather than being supportive or exploratory, conversion practices are external attempts to achieve a pre-determined outcome of changing or suppressing a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.” I would like to put it on the record. It is so important in this day and age that we take our information from more than just one source. And when a bill is being passed, a really good place to start is reading the bill itself.

There was so many groups who submitted from faith-based organisations who did such a great job, and I’m just going to read my favourite two, because I thought they did such an amazing job of reconciling some of the real tensions between the faith community and the rainbow community that came out through our submissions process. One in particular reads: “We offer the submission with painful awareness that a founding principle of our faith that we treat others as we would have them treat us has been neglected. We see conversion therapy practices have been conceived to serve a narrow understanding of a person’s identity that are at odds with the teachings of Jesus. We believe that well-crafted legislation to ban conversion therapy will help eradicate these neglectful and abusive practices in Aotearoa New Zealand.” The last one I would like to mention comes from St Martha’s Anglican Church in Dunedin: “We do not believe that practicing conversion therapy is to love others. Especially when it is well known that almost half of the same/both-sex attracted … [people] consider suicide”.

That was the other main theme of what I would like to cover tonight, and that is the mental health of our rainbow communities. The Labour Government has stood strong as one that supports improving access to mental health support, and this is even more important in our rainbow communities. We want to make sure that we continue to give access to those services and to support people to find their own space and their own identity in a way that makes them stand strong in our world. The last quote that I’ll give tonight is one that nearly brought me to tears. I won’t give his name, but he did such a great submission. “Queer people do not grow up as their true selves. We grow up hiding parts of who we are to minimise the ridicule and the bullying. Conversion practices are insidious practices that force us to hide the parts of us that society refuses to accept.” This has been an amazing process. I feel very privileged to be a member of Parliament that has been part of this process in improving New Zealand’s ability to give everybody a fair go.

I would like to acknowledge a number of people: Marja Lubeck, who first took this member’s bill. Thank you, Marja, for your continuing advocacy and passion to improve rights for our rainbow communities. Rainbow Labour, you are relentless and amazing. From your petition to your presentation to the last Parliament, you’ve continued to be a strong advocacy for rainbow communities and for New Zealanders, and I thank you for it. I would also like to acknowledge the 90 submitters who themselves were subject to conversion practices—the strength and determination and resolve that you took to tell your stories and make those public. I acknowledge how much you have done.

I know that we have a long way to go, but in banning conversion practices New Zealand joins other countries in sending a clear message to all people, especially our young people, that they deserve to be protected no matter what their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression is. All people, including the rainbow community, deserve the protection of their rights and their dignity, and to live their lives freely just as they are. And I’m proud to see this third and final reading come to rest today in this House. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Associate Minister of Health): Conversion practices are harmful and degrading. That’s why I’m proud to support this bill to prohibit conversion practices. Conversion practices are defined as “practices intended to change a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.” Conversion practices are wrong because there’s no good reason to seek to change someone’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression—and besides which, you can’t change these elements of a person’s identity anyway.

But conversion therapy can harm a person, because how conversion therapy is actually undertaken sends a person a message: a message that they are not good enough, that they ought to be ashamed. They are stigmatised. Efforts are made to erase them, to rub them out, to take away parts of their very essence. They are threatened with being cast out from their family or community. Worse, it often happens to young people at a time when they should be nurtured by the adults around them and be allowed to develop a sense of belonging to their community. We are social beings and this type of psychological abuse is as harmful as physical abuse. So it is not surprising that conversion practices lead to worse mental health outcomes for those people who experience them later on in life. Tonight, we have the opportunity to consign conversion practices to history, where they belong, with all their abuse and superstition.

I want to acknowledge all of the work that has gone on to getting this bill to where it is today; to this moment. I want to acknowledge Marja Lubeck, a true ally of the rainbow community, for her work to develop this bill in the last term of Government and Minister Faafoi for his work as Minister of Justice bringing forward this bill as a Government bill. I also want to acknowledge the survivors of conversion therapy who submitted on the bill and their courage in doing so, and also the many members of the rainbow community that campaigned for this; I wish you could be here with us now.

In saying that, I also want to say something I’ve thought of since I was a teenager coming out—or talking to my friends about coming out—and it’s one of the things that I really admire about the rainbow community: so many of us have our own stories of stigma, hate, or rejection to share, but in so many instances we respond with dignity, love, and pride. Pride is a catch-cry of the gay rights movements; it is the opposite of shame. The first pride marches were radical because people had been stigmatised all their life in the way that conversion practices stigmatise people. These people marched in the streets, being open about who they were for the first time. Pride is inclusive and welcoming of all. It is a very affirming movement. I’m proud to be a member of Labour’s rainbow caucus that has fought for this and other legislation to advance the human rights of the rainbow community.

When we think about the arc of progress activists have made over the last several decades, we could draw a line from the 35 years ago where homosexual law reform was passed in this House, the Civil Unions Act passed 18 years ago, the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Act in 2013, and now this next step to end legal discrimination against members of the rainbow community.

I think one of the things that makes this bill so important to me is, now as I reflect on it, as a mother, and I think about all the little things you do to protect your child from abuse and bullying. It is so important that our rainbow children and young people know they are beautiful just the way they are and worthy of love and inclusion. It is with great pride that I commend this bill to the House.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Thank you for giving me the opportunity, the privilege, and the weight to speak on the third and final reading of a piece of important legislation for our country. And this evening, I just want to not necessarily tell my stories, but tell other people’s stories, people from around Aotearoa who have shared with me what tonight means for them. Most of the people I’ll be speaking about are Christians, some are in the rainbow whānau, and some are our allies. And today marks a change in Aotearoa’s progress to being a better country for our rainbow citizens. The fight isn’t over tonight, but it’s just another step in terms of our equality, our inclusion. One of my friends spoke about the words of the psalmist that said, “How long, Lord, how long?” Today is long enough, and we will not tolerate conversion practices any more.

A friend of mine, Neil, spoke to me about the Christian church talking a lot about the love of God, the unconditional love of God, and who made us in their image. And this ban, this move tonight, helps to action this. It sends a strong message: that rainbow people, we’re not mistakes. We aren’t damaged. We don’t need to be fixed. God’s love encompasses all.

I want to say thank you to the Auckland Rainbow Community Church. I know many of us here know them. For more than 40 years, they’ve been singing from the song sheet. They’ve been fighting, whether it be around homosexual law reform, whether it be around marriage equality—the list goes on. And I want to say thank you to those members of the Auckland Rainbow Community Church, who have spent so long—long before I was involved in this; long before I was alive, as well. I say: thank you.

This piece of legislation changes lives—and I know we have this rhetoric and we talk about it, but if you haven’t been through it, you might not fully understand. David said to me this: “I was raised in a Christian family, and when I realised my attraction to others of the same sex, I was told that God didn’t like me, that I was going to Hell. I was 12 years old. I spent a lifetime of prayer ministry, being exorcised. I completed two conversion therapy programmes. I finally learnt that I can’t change my sexual orientation. I’m still gay, and I have never met anyone whose sexual predispositions have changed. I wish that I hadn’t had to go through so many years of being told, and feeling, that my very being was wrong. I believe in a loving and just God. I hope for a loving and just society. While this won’t change the haters out there, this law at least does something to right some of the wrongs.”

For me, in my journey—for me, coming to a space as a Christian and as a member of the LGBTIQ+ community—I’ve had people on my journey who have supported me, I’ve had people on my journey who have not supported me, who have told me some of the things like Hell, like I’m broken. But Mike Hercock, who lives in Australia these days, he was one of those people that empowered me to be me. He said, “Hey, brother, the journey’s been a long one for me, too, and it’s best symbolised by the ability of a man like yourself to be part of bringing about this change.”

It is not the fear and loathing that I reflect on as the basis for outlawing this practice, although this is incredibly powerful and dangerous; it is simply that we were made to be loved and to love, and no one on this earth has the right to take that away from any other human being. For me, I found that love, and I’m grateful to be married, to have a husband, all because of this place. I say it many times, but this place is a place of liberation. It is a place of other things, but we can make it a place of liberation, like we are tonight.

As we reflect on what this means to our whānau out there, to our parents: don’t be afraid. This doesn’t change your ability to engage. It doesn’t change your ability to be a good parent, to listen, to learn, to ask questions of your children. Because that’s all, I think, we ever want.

A friend of mine, Craig, a number of years ago, came out to me. He’d lived a life of depression. He’d lived a life of a lot going on. So I asked him today, I said, “What does this piece of legislation mean for you? What does it actually mean?” And he said, “The more I continue working to grow out of the harm that was done simply by listening to and coming to believe the ideology the proponents of conversion therapy profess to be true, the more I realise how incredibly insidious these ideals were and how deep the damage went. Living a huge part of my life in fear and extreme doubt, struggling with mental health in the form of severe depression, my only real defence being secrecy, I’m now in my early forties starting to fully understand what it is to be at relative peace with oneself and freely expressing the daily moments of joy that make life worth living.” In his forties, and he’s still trying to overcome the challenges of something that us as a church put upon him and put upon others.

I’ve got a friend who’s a teacher, and she says, “For me, it means my rainbow rangatahi will grow up in a country that will protect them from harmful practices.”

I want to go on to Greta, who said, “Every time I wanted to write back to you today, I almost cried, because I think of all the times I hid myself, all the way through school, from my church, from my friends. I think of the time I came out to a friend and he pulled out his Bible and quoted Leviticus to me. Don’t tell me it’s about freedom of speech, when it’s not your freedom on the line. Don’t tell me it’s about freedom of speech, when it’s your freedom on the line.” That’s powerful words, thank you, Greta.

For me, I’m grateful to those who have worked so hard. Generations before us, those who worked and walked so hard on this journey in this House over recent parliaments. I’m grateful to those services out there that work with young people, that work with those on the margins who have been excluded, who are struggling with mental health. And I hope that this piece of legislation is a symbol of our society, that we will not tolerate this any more. I want to finish with a quote by L.R. Knost, and it says, “Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention.” And for me, this bill is around fixing a broken system, and it’s not time that fixes it; it’s with intention. In that case, it’s the intention that this bill be passed tonight. Kia ora.

BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise this evening on behalf of the ACT Party at the third reading of the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill. I want to start by firstly acknowledging Minister Faafoi and the work that he and his staff have done in preparing this piece of legislation. But I want to also acknowledge the hours of diligent work that our justice spokesperson in ACT, Nicole McKee, has done for us as a party on this bill. I know that the Justice Committee period of time was quite extensive and I want to thank all the members of this Chamber who sat through hours of work to make sure that we get this piece of legislation right. I also want to acknowledge the select committee staff, because I know how hard it is to read hundreds of submissions—if not hundreds of thousands of submissions. I do think the work that they’ve done has been strenuous but very worthwhile. It’s wonderful to see the diligent work that they put in to make sure that we get the laws in this place right.

I want to acknowledge also the 90 submitters that we’ve heard of today that did submit who had been through conversion therapy. I know, having heard many people submit on select committees before, voicing your views in Parliament can be extremely stressful, but doing so when you’re opening up on such a personal issue like conversion therapy, I really cannot even express how that must feel. It is extremely brave. There were concerns on both sides throughout the select committee process that said that the bill either didn’t go far enough or that it went too far.

I want to acknowledge that there are valid views on both sides from people who are just expressing their genuinely held beliefs. But when we come to what the bill actually is and what it’s hoping to do, a conversion practice in the bill is encompassing a broad range of practices that seek to change or suppress a person’s sexual orientation, their gender identity, or gender expression. I note that the purpose of this piece of legislation is to prevent harm caused by conversion practices and to promote respectful and open discussions regarding sexuality and gender. There are some conversion therapy practices that are happening in New Zealand that are extremely detrimental to people’s health and wellbeing. I know in the select committee, people heard horror stories of shame, manipulation, people attempting to change their gender and their sexuality through psychological trauma and through physical trauma. That has ongoing mental harm that some people will never get over for their whole lives. I want to live in a country where we accept all people, that we have a common humanity, and all people are respected to live the lives that they want to, and they’re respected for being themselves.

Throughout this piece of legislation being in the House, the ACT Party has supported it at its first and second reading. We believe that it’s been well intentioned and we care about making good public policy and making sure that we get it right, because as lawmakers, that is our duty. So we have voiced a few of our concerns, because we’ve seen what happens when legislators get the law wrong. You only have to look at the recent example of the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act which has led to people, when they’re trying to get pre-approval for mortgages, being told that they have to choose between feeding their cat or unsubscribing from Netflix or not even giving Christmas presents to their kids, to make sure that they get a mortgage. That has been an unintended consequence of the law.

So we want to make sure that when we’re getting the law right, we are getting it right, and we’re doing due diligence, because we need to make sure that we are getting that balance between protecting people from harm and not overreaching into the family home. So we did voice our concern that people had raised in select committee about finding that line between what is a criminal act and the ability to converse in the family home. Because we did not want parents to be in fear of prosecution for expressing their concerns, for expressing their religious beliefs, and having freedom of expression to be themselves. There are difficult conversations that occur between family members when it comes to people’s sexuality and their gender identity, and parents shouldn’t be in fear of thinking that they may go to jail for expressing their own views when we’re also, in this law, trying to ensure that others can express themselves.

So we prepared some Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs). We had two of them—one that said that the law should be reviewed after three years, and the second making sure that conversations between parents and children were exempt as a conversion practice. Both of these SOPs were voted down, but we put our concerns to the Minister in the committee of the whole House. We thought that was very important because the committee of the whole House, and the Minister’s comments when they’re in the Chamber writing law, is very important for how the courts will interpret the law. So I want to read two of the responses that the Minister gave us for anybody who might be listening.

On our first concern about the review, we have here, “the Human Rights Commission through its functions through the civil redress system, the Police through statistics and other data it can collect and other quantitative things it can collect, and also the Ministry of Justice through its stewardship process of making sure that our laws are appropriate, will be able to undertake, essentially, a review of the legislation. We want to make sure that it works, for the very same reasons that the ACT Party does”.

The second was about the SOP about conversations between parents and children. And I quote: “Can I again reiterate and reinforce clause 5(2), which, through subclauses (b) to (e) goes to the very heart of what is not a conversion practice and actually goes to the heart of what Mr Court was outlining—again, in a very thoughtful way—because the purpose of this bill is to ensure that we are promoting respectful and open discussions regarding sexuality and gender. I think we all collectively want to agree to that. But through clauses 5(2)(b) to (e), in terms of those conversations that pertain to the SOP, there are certainly protections within this bill to ensure that those conversations continue to happen in an open and respectful way. Clause 5(2)(b), ‘assisting an individual who is undergoing or considering undergoing a gender transition’; or (c) ‘assisting an individual to express their gender identity’; or (d) ‘providing acceptance, support, or understanding of an individual’; or (e) ‘facilitating the individual’s coping skills, development, or identity exploration, or facilitating social support for the individual’ are all carved out in the bill, as it stands, as things that are not a conversion practice. And again, I think that goes to give confidence to some people who may have concerns—and certainly there were submissions to that end—that those conversations can happen; they can happen in an open and respectful way to assist people who are going through these issues and who need support and who will be safe to do so in the knowledge that this bill carves out that for them and a space in order for them to do that.”

Because of the comments made by the Minister and being assured that conversations for parents and children will be allowed and exempt as a conversion practice, the ACT Party believes we’ve been constructive in alleviating some of those concerns and making sure we’ve got them on the record, and we are happy to support at the third reading. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Dr ELIZABETH KEREKERE (Green): E te Māngai, tēnā koe. I’m proud to rise in support of the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill at its third and final reading. He wā whakahirahira tēnei.

[This is an important time.]

Thank you to all of you, including the Minister and those in this House who have got us to this point, the activists who have focused on this kaupapa, and those who have integrated their advocacy into a broader framework of health and wellbeing. Ngā mihi aroha to those groups and individuals who have supported survivors of conversion practices. When the mental health system has failed our communities, and usually without recognition or resource, you have been there. I acknowledge people like my mother, Erin Kerekere, and her best friend, my godmother, Susan Thompson, who worked for nearly two decades in PFLAG South within the communities and churches of Dunedin to raise awareness and help make them more inclusive of rainbow people. Staunch Catholics—when their Catholic church was not ready to listen, the Methodists gave them an office, and that’s where they worked their magic from.

Thank you to the researchers who have made sure we have real data of the Aotearoa experience, counting ourselves for trans and non-binary people, and identified the LGBTQ young people: Jack Byrne, Dr Jaimie Veale, Dr John Fenaughty, Alex Ker and your research crews. We are in your debt. And I note that questions on this will also be included in the Manalagi survey, the rainbow+ Pasifika health and wellbeing project, which we launched on Saturday. So shout out to Dr Patrick Thomsen, the legendary Phylesha Brown-Acton, and the Manalagi crew. Thank you again to everyone who made submissions both written and oral—even if the select committee did not count form submissions, we recognise the intentions of everyone who put their name down and know that your names are for ever recorded in the archives of this Parliament. Whether you are a rainbow person, whānau, or an ally, collectively you have moved the Overton window. You have moved this country to a place where we as politicians can be here tonight and put this law into place.

I want to explain why the Greens are supporting this bill, even though it does not address all of the issues raised by our rainbow communities. One thing I’ve learnt here is that any of these laws are not the be all and end all. Today, this bill is a stake in the ground. It’s a reflection of where we are as a country. This bill can be amended, and one day we probably will. I’ve learnt that the general policy statement that comes with the bill, the legislative statements for each reading, the departmental report, and the Justice Committee report can all be as important as the letter of the law, because they’re the whakapapa of this bill through this Parliament. And this is taken into account because those documents categorically and emphatically state that conversion practice is wrong and it must stop.

So there’s two areas that I want to demonstrate how community could use those mechanisms to hold the Government to account when this bill goes into law. The first, of course, is with health. Many submissions noted that the health system has been a place of great harm for trans, non-binary, and intersex people historically and, of course, today. Many have seen the exemptions of health providers as a free ticket for them to continue doing what they’re doing. That is not correct. As the select committee report specifically states, and I quote, “We note that this clause is not intended to act as a blanket exemption for health practitioners to perform conversion practices” and “this would … lower the risk of harmful conversion practices being able to be practised under the guise of a health service.” A bright light is shining on those practitioners, and tomorrow they will not get away with what they’re getting away with today. I don’t know about you, but I was keeping a note of submitters who admitted on live streamed and recorded hearings that they were flouting their own code of practice to perform conversion practices in their workplace. They may never be prosecuted for that, but the very least I would expect is that they lose their right to practise in this country.

The second area is the exclusion of intersex people in this bill, those who have suffered conversion practices. The main rationale that’s been given for that exclusion is that the Government realises that intersex issues are very singular, particularly in the case of gender normalising surgery on intersex infants, and that it needs to be considered elsewhere. So I suggest we take the Government at their word because it states also in the report that the Government is looking to “move away from a solely medicalised view of intersex health care, and take a rights-based approach that focuses on ensuring that intersex people and their whānau have all the relevant information and support to make informed decisions about their healthcare” and to “support health practitioners to provide best practice health care for intersex people.” This is the basis now of our advocacy. This is the place where we can hold them to account. I certainly feel a new members’ bill coming on to cover this.

Now, let us remember also that the select committee received tens of thousands of submissions from organisations, churches, anti-trans lobbyists, and what I call hate groups who did not support this bill and, to be fair, did not actually respect the humanity of many members of our rainbow community, especially our trans woman, but also our intersex people and our non-binary people. They did not support the bill, and they tried to add more exemptions—their scaremongering and hate speech under the guise of well-meaning paternalism, their transphobia, homophobia, interphobia, and biphobia thinly veiled as feminism. Even though they felt it was not about hate speech, it wasn’t about free speech and never was. It is just hate speech, and I’m looking forward to having our laws sort that out.

Even so, with those disclaimers, frustrated people watching at home may have some questions in mind. Is this a perfect bill that does everything that we want it to? Of course not—if such a thing even exists. Is it the best we can do right now? Absolutely—that is what I believe. Will it still make a difference? It definitely, definitely will. And is there any cause for celebration? We should be partying. We should party tonight because each step that we take forward is a step that acknowledges everything that has gone before us. And if I didn’t think I could answer those questions, I would not put my name to it, and the Greens would not be supporting it here today.

Finally, I dedicate this speech to those whose wairua, whose hinengaro, whose mauri has suffered because of the harm done to them by conversion practices. The weaponising of religion and spirituality has a particular impact on takatāpui, when our ancestors would have accepted us for who we are.

To those countless takatāpui and rainbow whānau we have lost because they could not recover from the harm done to them in their places of worship, in State care, and in their own homes: we remember you. Moe mai rā, moe mai rā i te moenga roa.

[May you rest in peace.]

To those who are experiencing conversion practices right now, or not even sure if that is what is happening, reach out for help. Talk to somebody, and if you can’t have those conversations in your own home, look for somewhere safe to go to. We’ve put a stake in the ground, and as we increasingly create safety for all rainbow people regardless of their gender, their sexuality, or their sex characteristics. So as the world becomes increasingly unsafe and less tolerant, we’ve actually got no room for people who think they can continue with this kind of behaviour. On that note, I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

SPEAKER: Tāmati Coffey—a five-minute speech.

TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’ll keep an eye on the clock. I’m incredibly proud to be able to stand here as part of the rainbow caucus and the New Zealand Labour Party and acknowledge the significance of the third reading of this bill. The goal posts have kept changing throughout my lifetime. When you, sir, were fighting for homosexual law reform back in 1986, I was a 7-year-old boy and I realised at the time that a big thing was happening in New Zealand and that, actually, it was going to be OK, and that whatever I chose to be—and I think I knew from a pretty early age—actually, it was going to be OK because there were giants whose shoulders we stood on. So to all of those people that helped champion that reform, this is the evidence, this is the product.

In 2005, when the Civil Union Bill went through, it was another momentous shift in the psychology of what it was to be a rainbow person here in New Zealand. It made it OK for me to acknowledge the love that I have for another person, and be it male, be it female, it didn’t matter. It always struck me that I felt such a deep sense of injustice that both of my sisters could get married and that I couldn’t because I was gay. What that bill did was that it normalised this.

When it came to marriage equality in 2013, it was another momentous step. It actually put us on par with those of our heterosexual brothers and sisters who were out getting married and enjoying everything that went with it, and suddenly we were able to get married as well. So I acknowledge that tonight as we read the third reading of this bill here in 2022. This, the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Act, will come into legislation, and I want to take a moment to appreciate that as I stand here and do this—as we stand here in this Chamber and do this—there are kids out there that are watching their TV screens right now, that are listening on the radio, and they are the ones that are going to be standing here maybe, in 20 and 30 years’ time, talking about the momentous shifts that this House has created in modernising our laws so that what it is to be a member of the rainbow community makes you valid, makes you important, makes you seen, makes you heard.

As a new dad, I think about my son. I think about the decisions that he’ll make in his lifetime. I think about the New Zealand that he’ll grow up in, and I want him to have the best of everything, like all of the parents in our country do. We want the best for our kids. But I don’t want a New Zealand which thinks that it’s OK to shout hate speech, where they think that it’s OK to convert you to change your identity. And that’s not just us saying it as parents, as MPs; actually, through the submissions process, listening to our psychologists, listening to our doctors, listening to our nurses, it was them that came forward with their voices and said, “This is not appropriate. You do not need to change these young people. They are young and they are beautiful.” If only we all looked at our young people and saw them for what they were, which is a taonga, which is a beautiful little spirit, and whether or not they choose to one day love a male, love a female, or somewhere in the middle there as well, that actually, they’ll be OK. They’ll be looked after, they’ll be lifted up by the community that they live in, but most importantly, they’ll be lifted up by their family.

And that’s where it starts. These conversations do start in the home. It is still really nerve-wracking to come out as a young rainbow person in our community today. If you think that it’s all gone, it’s not. The pressure is just as hard for somebody that has to have a challenging conversation with a person in their house who’s either going to do two things: go, “You’re a wonderful person. Let me give you a hug.”, or “I don’t want to talk to you. You’d better think about packing your bags.” And that’s not the New Zealand that I want.

Before I sit down, I want to acknowledge the words of the late Dame Whina Cooper—and she brought it all back. While we talk about conversion practices here tonight, she was talking about just the beauty of children in general. She said, “Take care of our children. Take care of what they hear, take care of what they see, take care of what they feel. For how the children grow, so will be the shape of Aotearoa.” I commend this bill to the House.

SPEAKER: Joseph Mooney—a five-minute speech.

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill. This is an example of this House taking members of the community, who are not a majority, and taking steps to protect them. That is something to be commended. It’s something that we should all reflect on.

I have had concerns about this bill, which I expressed at the second reading, and, in particular, the ability for parents to withhold parental consent to medical intervention for children. A Supplementary Order Paper was put forward by the National Party. I am happy to say that the Minister did directly address that and put on Hansard record that that is not the intention of this bill. I am bolstered in my confidence in that that will be taken into account by the fact that there can be no prosecution without the Attorney-General’s consent. The Attorney-General is a legal expert and will be looking at the Hansard before determining whether a matter should be prosecuted. That gives me confidence that the clear intention of Parliament, as expressed by the Minister, will ensure that parents are not prosecuted in those circumstances.

I, also, did have some concerns around the overreach into the family home; the expression of opinion, expression of religious belief. I do note, however, that in clause 5(2)(f) it makes clear that a conversion practice does not include “the expression only of a belief or a religious principle made to an individual that is not intended to change or suppress the individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.” And that, on my reading, makes it clear that it is not intended to affect opinion—i.e., a belief or a religious principle, which people are entitled to do. Again, there cannot be a prosecution without the Attorney-General’s consent, who is a legal expert and will analyse any factual scenario against the clear intention, as expressed in this bill and in the words of the Minister. So I thank the Minister for making those matters clear during the committee of the whole House stage.

This is fundamentally—I think, it is good that Parliament is putting a very clear line in the sand here, that it wants to ensure that this group is a valued people, who in a rainbow community are valued members of our community, and that they should not be exposed to conversion practices that are directed towards people in a harmful way, that are directed towards making people feel that they cannot be who they are, and that is to be commended.

I would just make a note, Elizabeth Kerekere made a comment that did send a small chill through me when I heard it, and I know it comes from an intention to be in a good place. But she did say that she was taking notes as people made their submissions to the select committee, and that she hoped that they would lose their right to practice. I do have concerns about that because we do need people to come to Parliament to make clear what their views are and for us to hear them. We don’t have to agree with them but we should allow them to express those views without having the fear that the submissions they make will be used against them in the future. So I would caution against that.

This is the continuation of, I think, a good trajectory for our country. The first parliamentary attempt to make homosexual reform was, I think, in 1974 by a National MP. It wasn’t until 1986 that the law was reformed. And I note the changing of social mores, where at a previous part of our history, society thought it was OK to send people to jail for being homosexual, and we’ve now moved to a place where we’re making it very clear that people should feel safe to be who they are. And that is something to be commended. For those parents who are concerned, I would point to the safeguards both in the Minister’s speech, and the Attorney-General must consider any factual scenario before recommending a prosecution. So on that basis, I will be supporting this bill at the third reading.

SPEAKER: Shanan Halbert—five-minute speech.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Thank you, Mr Speaker. As chair of Labour’s rainbow caucus, tonight it is a great pleasure to speak on the third reading of the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill to ban conversion therapy now. If I was to look back at the whakapapa of this particular piece of legislation, it fulfils a key manifesto commitment that we made to New Zealanders at the general election to ban conversion practices and protect our rainbow communities from the demonstrable harm too many are currently subjected to. This bill is an example of Government responding to grass roots activism. And I turn to our young people this evening, and I want to acknowledge you, Young Labour, Young Greens, and Young National, for working together on a petition to the last Parliament, asking us to act to stop these barbaric practices now.

Also I want to acknowledge the organisations that have engaged with their communities and encouraged them to have their say in this process: to RainbowYOUTH, Outline, the Conversion Therapy Action Group, our church groups, Rainbow Auckland, and university chaplaincies. And, of course, our rainbow caucus want to put on record our thanks to Minister Faafoi and his officials for their solid work on this bill. Minister, I thank you for your strength in confronting what are difficult issues and for skilfully managing your way around our passionate rainbow community.

It was difficult for members of the select committee to hear evidence for and against the bill. Some of us are members of rainbow communities and all of us either have rainbow family members or friends. The stories we heard stirred memories for many of us. For instance, I recall asking submitters from within my own faith community how we could come to a better appreciation of how sexuality, gender, and faith go to making up a whole person who deserves love, their acceptance, and their pastoral care, similar to the way that I live my life. Their response was that my happiness would be transitory if I continue this way, that they were looking for restorative therapy, and no they weren’t going to call it conversion therapy because I had, it would seem, been converted from the way that I was born to another way. They prayed that I would be restored to what God wants me to be. This would follow the natural law.

And I’ve spoken before and I continue to speak about the importance of kotahitanga on this issue. And I’ve seen the journey that other church groups have made towards acceptance when they have come to confront their attitudes towards conversion therapies, and I applaud them for doing that. I remain hopeful that others will walk the same pathway, and I’m happy to play my part in that too. But tonight I say that God wants me to be me.

The public debate around conversion practices, which has generated large amounts of discussion, in my view has been an educative one for our country. But through the debate and around the bill, we’ve learnt that there are a whole range of other practices that people have been subjected to to try and get them to change who they actually are.

I want to put on record my thanks to all members who have supported this bill. I’m grateful to sit alongside so many others who have had the courage to treat this issue as an issue of humanity. Rainbow rights are human rights. And I ask those members who are considering voting against this legislation this evening to think carefully about determining that vulnerable members in our community should not have their basic rights protected.

Tonight, Labour will proudly add banning conversion practices to the rollcall of progressive legislation that we have championed for our community. As a party, we are relentlessly proud of rainbow New Zealanders. We will continue to back them to live their lives authentically, happily, and with dignity. There is still more work to be done creating more inclusive schools and more inclusive work environments. And to the young people that I continue to meet, and this time last year Birkdale Intermediate and Northcote College, and tonight, my godson sitting listening at home with his two mums, this bill is for you, to change for future generations: aroha atu, aroha mai—love given is love received. Love is love. I commend this bill to the House.

SPEAKER: Marja Lubeck—is it five or 10? A five-minute call.

MARJA LUBECK (Labour): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Thank you for the opportunity to take a short call on this bill; it’s a real privilege. I had the opportunity to speak in the first reading and now to be here at the third reading, it’s actually quite overwhelming. It’s also been overwhelming to hear my colleagues speak all from very personal experiences, and that is kind of why I feel it was a real honour for me to be able to be part of this kaupapa. So I would like to talk a little bit, as my colleague Shanan Halbert already has, about the whakapapa of this bill, because for me, when I became involved, it was after watching a documentary on TV in 2018 that was talking about the subject of praying the gay away. I was really shocked at the time because I had no idea that in New Zealand in 2018 these practices could be happening. It is also quite astonishing to think, being from the Netherlands—people will probably think that this is something that in the Netherlands has been outlawed for a long, long time, but, in fact, only just this week have those discussions started, that perhaps there should be fines for trying to convert people from who they really are. But at least the conversations are starting, and I think it is really important. It was important for me that the hurt and damage that discrimination and condemnation causes for people was acknowledged with the work that we have been doing on this bill.

So when I was approached by Amanda Ashley—who has been mentioned previously—in rainbow Rodney on starting a petition on banning conversion therapy, I was really honoured that she wanted me to help her with that piece of work. So she started the petition, she got 5,125 signatures, I believe, from memory, and she would keep me updated weekly on how well she was doing—and really proud of that work. Then she was joined by Young Labour and Young Greens, and it was an omission of mine in my first reading speech to forget to show the petition with over 15,000 signatures. [Holds up petition] So altogether, over 20,000 signatures were presented in August 2018. I had then the support of my full Labour caucus to put this as a member’s bill in the tin. Then, of course, as part of our 2020 manifesto, we were able as a Government to bring this to the House as legislation. Enormous gratitude for the courage that our Minister Kris Faafoi displayed in doing that, because it is not so common yet, if you look around the world—yes, there are countries and different legislatures where they have banned conversion therapy—but we are following a gold standard that Australia started with the Victorian legislation, and the Minister grabbed that gold standard and, I believe, in my view, made it even better. So we can be standing here really proud of the history made.

I would like to repeat the long list of people that have worked so hard and fought so long for this particular piece of legislation, but I kind of got up to speak without that preparation and I dare not to start that list because I’m bound to forget someone. So, yeah, that will just have to be on the record from the first reading speech.

I think the importance of keeping young people, our rangatahi, safe from the hurt and damage that certain practices can cause is one of the most important pieces of work we can do here in this House, especially with the terrible record that we have, still, on mental health. So, for that, I would like to do a last shout-out to our grassroots activists, our rainbow communities, our rangatahi, and to say that this bill is for you. This bill says you are not broken, you don’t need to be fixed, and you are loved for who you are. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Kieran McAnulty—five or 10?

Kieran McAnulty: Five, please.

SPEAKER: A five-minute call, Kieran McAnulty.

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour—Wairarapa): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It wasn’t my intention to speak on this, this evening, but there have been more opportunities than we expected—because we thought that there would be some members tonight that would wish to speak in Opposition to this bill. Given that there were seven members that voted no, we thought that some of them would come to this House tonight and explain to the New Zealand people why.

But I am an optimist, and I would like to think that that’s because they’ve had time to reflect and they’ve changed their mind. Perhaps it’s because they’ve thought of the old saying, “You can’t change what isn’t broken.” What’s the point in trying to fix what isn’t broken? That is the guts of what we’re debating tonight.

There is nothing wrong with being gay. There is nothing wrong with being trans. What is there to change? What is there to convert? This whole concept that there is this process that could change someone from being gay to being straight is a falsehood and it is based on discrimination and it is based on hatred and it is dangerous. What right do people have to say to others that they are wrong? What right do they have to say to them that they are inferior—that they are immoral?

I think of the journey that this House and this country has taken in a very short period of time. The civil union bill in 2004 passed 65 votes to 55—and we all remember how controversial that was at the time, to allow people to enter into a legal arrangement. Then in 2013, the marriage equality bill passed 77 to 44.

Hon Member: The skies are falling!

KIERAN McANULTY: That’s right, we were told all sorts of things would happen. None of them have come true. Now, in 2020, we’ve got an opportunity as a House, all 121 of us, to say: this is wrong; there is no place for this nonsense in our country; that there is absolutely nothing wrong with someone’s sexual identity, sexual orientation, or gender expression. If it’s theirs it’s theirs alone, and you have no place to say otherwise. That’s what we’ve got an opportunity to do as a House tonight.

I say to the seven that have voted against it at the second reading: you’ve got a chance to change your mind; you’ve got a chance to do right. Think of all the people since 2004 that have changed their opinion on civil unions, on marriage equality. We’ve seen members in valedictory speeches apologise to their sons because they made the wrong call at the time. Five of the seven that voted against this bill also voted against marriage equality. Tonight is your chance to make that right, because we as a society can stand proud today and say: conversion therapy has no place in New Zealand.

In the small amount of time I have left in this five minutes, I wish to speak to the constituents that have got in touch with me over the last few weeks encouraging me to vote no on this bill. They’ve done so, I believe, out of a sincere and genuine concern because of what they’ve heard from those that oppose it. They’ve heard that this bill will stop them having caring conversations with their children or with those members of their community, perhaps in a religious group. They are misinformed. I don’t believe they come at this with any hatred in their hearts; I think they come at this with fear; fear that’s been stoked and stirred up by people that have not taken the time to understand the harm that conversion practices cause to individuals.

I say to my constituents that are concerned about this: you do not have anything to worry about. I don’t believe for a second that you believe that being gay or being trans is wrong—not for a second—and if that’s where you’re coming from, then you should be supporting this bill, because you can’t change what doesn’t need to be fixed. I am going to be proud to lend my vote on behalf of myself and my constituency in support of fairness and in support of love and in support of a society that accepts everybody how they come and how they’re meant to be.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a bill that has travelled here on the wake of the voices of many rainbow activists. For those who’ve been involved in the advocacy for this practice to end, I know it’s been a labour of love, and while I’m on the topic of Labour, Young Labour, Rainbow Labour, and our Rainbow Caucus, the integrity and leadership you’ve demonstrated in the fire, as we saw this through, has been exceptional to watch. For those of us who are rainbow allies, what an astounding privilege to stand with you on this journey.

The objections to this bill have been laden with apparent rights issues, and I’d like to address them briefly. The first: that conversion therapy should be allowed because it’s a manifestation of a religious belief. Rights are boundaried by two things: the boundary of the definition of the right itself and then by section five of the Bill of Rights Act, which permits a right to be limited in a reasonably justified way.

In terms of defining a right, there’s a principle called the equal regard assessment, and it’s the idea that a right is not interfered with if a prohibition treats those who are religious the same as those who aren’t. In other words, it’s a prohibition that applies equally to everyone, and the equal regard approach is supported by case law, actually, both internationally and here in New Zealand. In the European Court of Human Rights, C v the UK, in 1983, the court found that the right to manifest your religion doesn’t give people the right to refuse to comply with legislation that applies neutrally and generally to all members of the public. In New Zealand, the case of R v J, the Court of Appeal found that the right to manifest religious beliefs excluded decision making that endangered the child’s right to health or life. In my view, whether you take a definition-balancing or an equal regard approach or a section 5 balancing approach, the legislation is justified. It’s consistent in a credible way with case law and it’s rights affirming.

The second argument is about freedom of speech and that it should trump the harm principle. Freedom of speech is a right that is old and deep, and we should have regard to it, but as all rights are, this is a right that has been subject to reasonable limitations. In my speech last week, I gave some examples of how we do this in everyday legislation. I’m going to throw a few more into the mix: consumer protection, workplace bullying, electoral regulation, copyright, confidential information and privacy, and the rules of evidence. Yes, the rules that direct us to get us to the evidential best truth restrict freedom of speech.

I want to also make an observation about how rights are often used in the defence of the most horrific things. Rights aren’t things to be verbally wielded around one’s head; they require precision and definition and analysis. I’m often horrified that people quote Voltaire when they’re wielding that right around their heads. They quote him and say he said, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” He did use those words and he also supported criminal laws against libel, slander, incitement to violence, and treason. Some people quote Mill in the same regard, but yet he also announced the harm principle and spoke of preconditions to expression, which was framed in a responsible way before you exercised the right.

Today is a day about pride, about love, about respect, about dignity, about fairness. We are here on the wake of the voices of many and the rainbow community—kia kaha. I hope that those of you who’ve been advocating for this take the time to revel in the legacy that you leave. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Justice): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Thank you very much. Soon we’ll vote on the third reading of the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill, which will be the final hurdle for what I think is a torch relay. And that torch relay did not start here in this House. It actually started in some very dark places, through the experiences of the likes of the 90 people who came to the select committee and submitted and told us of their stories. That baton or that torch has been carried by people who are no longer here, and I want to acknowledge the pain and the hurt that it obviously had caused them. But I do want to acknowledge the holding and the passing and the carrying of the torch to this point, with this House, with near unanimous voting. We will be able to send a very clear message to New Zealand that the New Zealand that we live in today is a place where no sexual orientation or gender identity is broken or needs to be fixed, and that this piece of legislation is an extension of the freedoms, the rights, and the protections of our rainbow community to be who they are, to be who they want to be, and to love the way that they love.

Many acknowledgments need to be made, and can I again acknowledge those people who submitted at select committee and told that committee of the harrowing stories that they went through. The bravery that they showed at the select committee to tell those very personal stories, I think, needs to be commended. Can I also acknowledge all the members of the Justice Committee, led by the chair, Ginny Andersen. It is well known that 107,000 submissions on this piece of legislation were received, and I understand that the Justice Committee worked in a way that respectfully acknowledged all the submissions that were made on an individual basis, and they worked collectively and collegially to make sure that those who wanted to make an oral submission had their day at select committee. That also needs to be acknowledged, because some of these stories and some of the submissions were both harrowing from those perspectives of people who had been through disturbing conversion practices, and because of some of the obtuse fundamental beliefs of some of the people who submitted at the select committee too. So I want to acknowledge all the members of the Justice Committee and the staff that enabled that to happen to the point where we have got to today. Can I also acknowledge Ministry of Justice officials in that too.

Can I acknowledge how proud I am to be a member of the Labour caucus today. This legislation is a manifesto commitment that we made in 2020, which we are following through with because we understand the harm that has been caused to our rainbow community as a result of conversion practices. By passing this legislation, the aim of this bill is to prevent harm and encourage respectful and open discussions between people about their own sexual orientation and their gender identity.

I want to acknowledge some of the submissions that have been made to the House tonight by the likes of Joseph Mooney and Brooke van Velden, who, at the select committee, raised concerns that were obviously raised at the select committee process. And I think it is important for those who had concerns that we put those on the record in this House to ensure that, if we ever were to get to a court, the court understands the intention of this House by passing this piece of legislation.

I did feel quite a weight of responsibility when taking this piece of legislation through the House, because I knew I had to make sure that we got it right for our rainbow community because of the times and the places that this debate could have gone to. Again, I’m thankful that through the second and third readings and the committee stage of this House, this House kept things respectful and made sure that any concerns that were raised through the select committee were raised in a respectful and also a thorough manner. So I want to acknowledge the House too.

I don’t want to prolong the passing of this piece of legislation but, again, it is with great pride that I stand as a member of the Labour caucus. I know a number of my Labour rainbow caucus colleagues are behind me and I want to say just how proud I am to stand beside them to pass this piece of legislation. I also want to acknowledge Rainbow Labour, Young Labour, for their continued advocacy for this piece of legislation.

This bill has drawn a circle around our caucus; it has not divided it. We’ve heard many stories of why we fundamentally support this bill and many stories of our own parents. And I want to acknowledge my parents as well because of the way that they brought me up to make sure that our values were very strong in making sure we stood up for and protected the rights of the rainbow community. I want to acknowledge my late father, who back in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s was a member of the Pacific Islands AIDS trust and made sure that we were standing up for the gay community within the Pacific Islands community, to make sure that they were supported. That kind of advocacy from my parents made sure that when I’m asked about legislation that I’m very proud to have voted for in this House, it’s the vote in 2013 around marriage equality and this piece of legislation here today. I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 112

New Zealand Labour 65; New Zealand National 25 (Bayly, Bennett, Bishop, Brownlee, Collins, Dean, Doocey, Goldsmith, Grigg, Hipango, Kuriger, Luxon, McKelvie, Mitchell, Mooney, Muller, Pugh, Simmonds, Simpson, Smith, Stanford, Upston, van de Molen, Watts, Willis); Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; ACT New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Noes 8

New Zealand National 8 (Bridges, Brown, Lee, McClay, O’Connor, Penk, Reti, Woodhouse).

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

House in Committee

House in Committee

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, the House is in committee on the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill and the Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Bill.

Bills

Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Amendments to Land Transport Act 1998

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): We come first to the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill. We move to Part 1. This is the debate on clauses 3 to 12 and the schedule, “Amendments to Land Transport Act 1998”. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m happy to take a reasonably brief call at the start of this debate on Part 1 of the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill. I think, as all members of the committee know who have been involved in the debate over its previous two readings, this is quite a significant bill in terms of the Government’s ambitions to develop a cleaner vehicle fleet by influencing both the supply of clean vehicles and then the affordability of clean vehicles for New Zealand consumers.

Part 1 of the bill specifically amends the Land Transport Act 1998, and that’s what the focus of these discussions in committee will obviously be. It does a number of quite important things that enable the bill, in particular the enablement and the establishment of the Clean Car Standard. This part of the bill enables regulations to be made for fees and charges to be set up under the Clean Car Discount and the Clean Car Standard. It also enables the establishment of regulations to require a minimum proportion of zero-emission vehicles being imported as well. It provides for regulations for the approved testing cycle—that’s a very significant and important part of the operation of this piece of legislation. There needs to be an approved and consistent testing cycle in order that the regulator and consumers can have confidence in the emissions standards of the vehicles that are both coming in for the purposes of the standard and also the discount.

It also sets up some quite important provisions in terms of the Clean Car Standard in respect of the flexibility that has been designed to support importers to be able to achieve the Clean Car Standard. This is quite an important point, because the purpose of the standard overall is to drive down the emissions of the fleet, and we’ve great confidence that will happen. But we’ve tried to design it in as much as possible to provide flexibility for individual car importers—bearing in mind that they will have different fleet typologies—to be able to meet it. The purpose of this legislation is not to catch them out and to have people paying big fees, it’s to help them leverage down the emissions over time.

So Part 1 also sets up the ability for importers to be able to bank, borrow, and transfer the carbon dioxide credits that are established under this scheme. All importers will have to establish a carbon dioxide account, and as they bring vehicles in, the carbon emissions profile of those vehicles will, effectively, go into that account as credits or debits. Those importers who over-achieve will have the ability to be able to transfer those credits to importers who might be under-achieving in order to help them balance up and, ultimately, achieve their obligations. So it is important to note this point that the intention is to lower those emissions across the fleet and those facilities help to enable that.

Some other important points to note within Part 1—the first is the establishment of targets under the standard for both Type A and Type B vehicles. I think this is an important point for the committee to note in terms of the way in which this legislation scheme has been structured. We specifically set up different targets under the standard for Type A vehicles which are small passenger vehicles, and then for commercial vehicles and utes, which are Type B. They have higher targets that they are allowed to operate within. We are realistic and we understand that the emissions profiles of those types of vehicles are generally higher, and so the standard allows for that. It has a greater tolerance for carbon dioxide emissions.

That’s quite an important point because we know that, ultimately, if the levels within the standard are set too low and are unachievable, then we won’t get the outcomes that we want. We won’t be incentivising those importers to get the right kind of vehicles in if they are simply not available. But equally, if the allowances are too high, we won’t be getting the incentives in place either. So that’s quite an important part of the design of the scheme, the Type A and Type B vehicles, to allow for the different emissions profiles that are there, along with different penalties and charges in respect of used and new vehicles, which is a recognition that used vehicles will generally be on the road for a lesser period of time and therefore will emit less within the New Zealand context than new vehicles. That’s why, under the Clean Car Standard parts of the provisions, we see that there are lower fees that apply there. Part 1 also ensures that we have obligations around record-keeping for those importers. That’s a very important part of the integrity of the scheme, and Part 1 establishes those provisions as well.

I just want to touch on one more point, which is, I think, quite important in terms of—well, it’s an important part of Part 1 in itself, but I think quite important in terms of members of the committee understanding the underlying rubric of this piece of legislation. Here I’ll refer members to page 6 of the reported-back bill, which takes people—we’re looking at page 6, at the bottom of the page here, which sets out the considerations that the Minister must look at when the Minister is making regulations in respect of the bill to set fees and charges. This really goes to the purpose of the bill and Part 1, because these are the things that myself and future Ministers will be looking at as we make those fees and charges.

So the first one, if you look new section 167A(6)(a), set out in clause 5, “that the fees or charges are appropriate to sustain a scheme designed to increase consumer demand for zero- and low-emission vehicles and decrease consumer demand for high-emission vehicles:”. So there we have the high-level objective of the scheme, which is pretty plain and pretty direct, and that is the purpose. It’s not a kink of the scheme that we want to disincentivise the highest emission, most polluting vehicles; it is the purpose of it. And the purpose of it is that we incentivise those vehicles which are cleaner. Here I go back to New Zealand’s performance in this area over the years, where we have built up one of the dirtiest fleets in the OECD, and it’s been the lack of these provisions and regulations that most other countries have that have led us there.

Then if we go to new section 167A(6)(b), set out in clause 5, this provides a little bit more detail about those factors that the Minister might consider. I just want to take a moment to take the committee through these because, again, they’re important. I guess they set out the way in which we have tried to put together quite a carefully considered scheme here, because these factors that the Minister might consider are about the real world. So, firstly, new section 167A(6)(b)(i), “the variety and availability of zero- and low-emission vehicles expected to enter the New Zealand light vehicle market in the following 12 to 24 months;”—so the Minister will be looking ahead, receiving advice from officials, from those people that she or he consults with to understand what the supply of vehicles might be coming in and then to calibrate the targets around that.

New section 167A(6)(b)(ii), “the market behaviour of consumers, including the nature of any continued demand for high-emission vehicles”—so actually looking at the responses that we are receiving from consumers. We’re already getting good market data as things stand from the Clean Car Discount.

New section 167A(6)(b)(iii), “international and domestic climate change ambitions and commitments”—this is a very important point, because it’s explicitly linking this legislation to both our international commitments, those commitments that Governments of both stripes have signed up to in terms of reaching net zero, and also the domestic commitments that the Parliament and the Government have signed up to in respect of the independent Climate Change Commission and its recommendations. They are factors that must be considered in setting this, and I think that is a very important point for the committee to note. This goes to the why of why this legislation is going forward.

Finally, there is the anticipated impact of fees and charges on the market, and also whether the estimated revenue to be received from the charges is sufficient to meet the costs of the scheme, which is important. So I’ll leave it there. Those are some key points, I think, for members to consider as we make our way through this debate in respect of Part 1. I’m very happy, obviously, as things move on to answer questions and hope that we can have a good debate about this important piece of legislation.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you, Madam Chair. This is a significant piece of legislation that the Minister has brought to the House. It’s a piece of legislation that has been anticipated in some sections of the market place in terms of vehicles, but it’s also a piece of legislation that has caused angst and concern, particularly for those who are involved in the sale, purchase, and distribution of vehicles.

I want to start my contribution tonight talking about exactly where the Minister has left off, and that is in clause 5 particularly. Now, the Minister has made mention of the high-level purposes that are defined in new section 167A(6)(a) “that the fees or charges are appropriate to sustain a scheme designed to increase consumer demand for zero- and low-emission vehicles and decrease consumer demand for high-emission vehicles:”. So this is, essentially, a high-level purpose that seeks to manipulate a market place; that’s what it is trying to do. It’s trying to use market forces to change behaviour. Essentially, what that clause does is define at a very high level: what is perceived by the Government to be “good” purchasing behaviour will be rewarded and what is considered to be “poor” purchasing behaviour on the part of the Government will be punished. And my concern is the potential for perverse outcomes to be achieved by a market manipulation of this sort by a Government that likes to control from the centre, to centralise, and to manipulate markets as they see fit—will have outcomes that are unintended.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan of electric vehicles, and I particularly want to support at every opportunity the uptake of them. But this measure of using carrots and sticks to punish people who have few choices and few options and little ability to pay, and at the same time reward those who have options and can afford to pay, strikes me as being contrary to the professed core values of the Labour Government, which often says, well, it’s all about caring and equity and fairness. And in this piece of legislation that simply appears not to be the case.

So this is a market place that is changing and changing rapidly. There will be sections of the market place that simply don’t have a choice. Now, we know that over a period of time ahead of us there will be an increasingly wide range of low emission vehicles available in the market. That range of vehicles that will be available will be determined not by New Zealand legislators, not by New Zealand customers, not by New Zealand drivers, not by New Zealand road users but actually by marketing companies and manufacturers of vehicles overseas. And they will make a range of vehicles available to, for instance, farmers, tradies, and so forth. And so this high-level purpose that is set out in subsection 6 at the moment makes it very difficult for those businesses, farmers, and users of vehicles who don’t have a choice. Now, it may be that at some time in the future they will have a choice, but right at the moment they don’t.

And I have a question that I’d like the Minister to address, and it actually relates to subsection (6)(b)(v), where it says that one of the factors that needs to be taken into account is the imposition of levels of fees, and then (v) says, “whether the estimated revenue to be received from the charges is sufficient to meet the costs and expenses of the clean vehicle discount scheme”. Now, my question to the Minister is what happens to the revenue that is collected if the revenue collected is greater than that that is paid out by subsidies under this scheme? Will that money just go into the consolidated fund? Where does it go? What happens to it? Because the potential, I think, is that there will be significantly more revenue collected from hard-working New Zealanders who don’t have choice and can’t afford it, but will still have to be forced to pay this revenue-generating tax more than is paid out. So that’s my question first off for the Minister.

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): I’ll just deal with a couple of the member’s points quickly, and, hopefully, that’ll be useful for him. I mean, the first points he made were general policy points about the bill. But I understand where he’s coming from and the way in which they relate to subsection 6 that we were talking about. He talks about the lack of choice. The problem is that at the moment there’s a lack of choice in the New Zealand market place compared to most other developed markets. That’s because there is no particular incentive for importers to get the cleaner vehicles into our market. So you can look at those other markets, which have standards like this, and because they are incentivised to do so, the importers in those markets get the clean vehicles from head offices. We don’t get them in New Zealand. We’ve already heard from importers in New Zealand that the first stage is the Clean Car Discount. The prospect of this bill being passed is enabling them now to get a greater supply of cleaner vehicles into New Zealand, because they can go to their head offices and say that the Government is setting the incentives here.

To the member’s point, yes, this is the purpose. We are trying to use market mechanisms to get cleaner vehicles into the country. We’re not being particularly shy about that, and nor should we, given the woeful performance in the previously under-regulated market. We’re already seeing, for example, for tradespeople much cheaper electric trade vans coming into the New Zealand market, some dropping in price by around about $20,000 to get under the cap, and then getting the Clean Car Discount. Those are the kind of vehicles that we’ll be incentivising getting into the market, and people will actually have more choices than they do at the moment. That has been the experience time and time again in overseas markets. I make this point: these are not novel schemes internationally. New Zealand is currently the outlier in not having these. The only countries in the developed world without a standard scheme like this are Russia, Australia, and New Zealand. And guess what? They’re about the three with the worst emissions profile in the world and the poorest choice of clean vehicles.

On the final point that the member made, I can respond to that very directly. He asked the question about new section 167A(6)(b)(v) in which the Ministers take into account the estimated revenue and the cost and expense of the scheme. The intention is for the scheme, which was funded by around about a $300 million injection from the Crown in Budget 2021—is that it balances over time, and that the incomings balance the outgoings. The Minister will have to take that into account and work within that scheme. So it’s designed to balance out. It’s not designed to generate either a surplus or a shortfall. Of course, on a month-to-month, year-to-year basis there might be small unders and overs. If, in the end, the scheme does have surpluses, it will not go back into the general consolidated account; it will go into the National Land Transport Fund. But we do not expect that to happen, and, if it does happen, we do not expect it to be a particularly large portion.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to take a call on the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill. It’s interesting, just the comment there by the Minister of Transport where he says, “Well, we kind of expect this to sort of wash up in the end, but we’re not quite sure, and if it doesn’t we’ll just take that money and put it into the National Land Transport Fund.”—taking money away from people who are purchasing vehicles, potentially for their farm or for their trade, and hoovering it up and putting it into the National Land Transport Fund. And I’d like the Minister to actually answer some questions in regards to that, in terms of what modelling and expectation—he says it may vary. It may vary. Well, what modelling has been done by officials to determine whether he does expect it to be cost-neutral, and also what the cost of actually administering this scheme is going to be, out of the percentage of the money raised, to actually administer practically all of the different functions in the scheme?

Now, I want to touch on a part in clause 5, which, under the new section 167A—this section, effectively, gives the Minister of Transport carte blanche authority to, effectively, manage the new car industry in New Zealand. It says here: “(1) Without limiting the generality of section 167(1)(j), regulations for the purpose of promoting the transition of New Zealand’s light vehicle fleet to zero- and low-emission vehicles and reducing vehicle carbon dioxide emissions may be made under that provision providing for fees and charges to be paid in relation to the carbon dioxide emissions of imported new and used light vehicles.”

Now, my question to the Minister is: is there any limit on the maximum amount of fees or charges that could be placed upon a vehicle coming into this country? Is there actually a limit, or is that something which the Minister of the day is able to, effectively, decide as to how he or she wishes to charge those vehicles coming into the country? Because I think people listening at home, or, potentially, on the forecourt—because the Speaker’s decided, in his infinite wisdom, to blast the House out to the forecourt—

Hon Member: It’ll be edifying.

SIMEON BROWN: —which must be edifying—at least, my speech must be edifying! But the question they’ll be asking is: what could the maximum charge be, if I’m buying a ute or if I’m buying a van or if I’m buying that family wagon that I need for my family? Is it something that the Minister could, effectively, set overnight and would be able to change at a whim? How frequently can the Minister decide that “Actually, I’ve decided that the $5,000 tax on that ute, well, too many people are buying that particular ute. It’s far too cheap. We’re going to increase the fee to $7,000, and we’re going to start that by next month.”? At what kind of frequency is the Minister able to amend the fees or charges at, in order to try to manipulate the market as he or she sees fit for the purpose of this section? So the question is, is there a maximum? If so, what is that maximum? And the next question then is: what is the frequency by which those fees or charges can be set at? Can they be set on a regular basis, or is it required to be set on a yearly basis, or what is the frequency regarding that?

And a final question, before I look forward to the Minister’s answering, is regarding the regulations, because this bill—and we’ll talk about commencement shortly, obviously, because this part is not talking about the commencement. But the regulations that this section authorises need to be, obviously, implemented within six weeks, because the bill is meant to come into force on 1 April. And so my question is: have the regulations been drafted that will be implemented under this particular section? Have officials already been beavering away, drafting the regulations for this particular section, and what stage are they at and what consultation have they been undertaking with the industry? Because I can tell you, people in the motor trade industry will be looking at a six-week time frame and wondering: “How on earth are we going to implement this piece of legislation in six weeks?” I look forward to the Minister’s answers.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you, Madam Chair. This issue relating to with whom the Minister must consult is, I think, quite important, and my colleague Simeon Brown has already made mention of a concern that he has. The issue that I particularly want to raise with the Minister relates to what appears in the legislation to be a lack of a requirement to consult with actual stakeholders from the motor vehicle sector. These are the people who are charged under this piece of legislation with actually making it work. This is a sort of ground zero for the implementation of this scheme, and yet there appears to be no requirement for the Minister—should he choose not to—to engage, consult, discuss, and, actually, take with him on this journey to low-emission vehicles the sector that is going to be most concerned with the day-to-day implementation of it. And these are the people in the motor vehicle sector that are going to have to make it work.

So I’m speaking in support of the amendment in the name of my colleague Simeon Brown. It’s the amendment that would amend clause 5. It’s numbered (f) on the Table. It would amend clause 5 to read that, in clause 5, replace new section 167A(5A) with “Before recommending the making of regulations, the Minister must consult with (a) stakeholders in the motor vehicle sector; and (b) any other such person as the Minister considers appropriate.” And so I think that that makes practical common sense. It’s the sort of practical logic that is often lost, I think, on a Government that brings to this Parliament agenda-driven policy that is party political rather than pragmatic. If there’s one thing that we’ve learnt over the years, watching this Government—five long years—it is that they do like to have things done their way, and they don’t particularly like to hear from people who might have a contrary or a divergent view from their own. But, in this particular case, it seems to be painfully obvious, with a piece of legislation that so dramatically impacts on the day-to-day operation of the motor vehicle sector, that they should be, by definition, included in the legislation—be a group of stakeholders that are named for consultation by the Minister in terms of his implementation and decisions he makes about the regulatory impacts of this legislation.

My question to the Minister is: why has it been that stakeholders in the motor vehicle sector have, on the face of it, been excluded from specific inclusion in the legislation? Will he support and adopt the very sensible, pragmatic amendment in the name of my colleague Simeon Brown? And, if not, why not?

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Tēnā koe, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to rise to speak on the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill. As always, I’d like to begin by acknowledging my colleague Julie Anne Genter for her work in putting in the building blocks to get this legislation started, and I commend the Minister for the progression of this bill.

I have been reflecting on the comments of the members to my right, because they’ve spoken plenty about the requirement to consult with the motor vehicle sector, and I was actually more interested about the Minister’s views regarding perhaps the variety of public groups that exist in our society who are going to be deeply impacted by this policy—for example, communities in areas that may be affected by climate change. Those are communities who will ultimately gain and have the most to benefit from a transformation of our transport industry.

I also wanted to get an understanding of, I guess, what the Minister’s understanding is of who’s purchasing new vehicles, because through the passage of this bill we’ve heard a lot of the members to my right saying that this bill is an attack on working-class communities, but I’ve yet to see evidence that these are the people who are buying new vehicles. If anything, my understanding is that what this bill would do is create options. So I guess if the Minister can enlighten us with any evidence around who will be the people who will be affected by this bill when it comes to options, that would be great, because it would help perhaps dispel some of the misinformation that we’ve heard through the passage of this bill. Thank you.

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): Just responding to a few of the queries that have come through from members. The first is from Mr Brown, who raised a series of questions around the regulation-making powers in respect to the maximum charges under the scheme. They’ll be determined by the Minister and set through secondary legislation. The legislation itself doesn’t set specific parameters on what the maximum or minimums for those should be, but, as we’re discussing, the criteria by which the Minister must determine those are set in the legislation. I think that’s the appropriate way to take this forward, bearing in mind that those criteria point the Minister of the day to a range of quite real-world factors, including the supply of clean vehicles, the market response, the need to have a balance within the scheme between incomings and outgoings. So, for example, if a Minister chose to set very high fees that brought in a lot of revenue, that would imbalance the scheme and the obligation under—I think, is it clause 5—is to ensure the scheme is balanced. So those sort of controls will be there as well as broader questions of political acceptability when the Minister of the day sets those levels.

The Government, as members of the committee will be aware, has broadcast both the discounts and the fees very transparently from the beginning of this process and they’re beginning to have a useful effect already. The regulations are beginning to be drafted and they will be confirmed following the completion of this legislation but in time for the planned 1 April implementation date.

Mr Simpson raised questions about who would be consulted in the course of the setting of those fees and charges. As the legislation sets out, as returned by the select committee, there is an obligation for the Minister to consult such persons as the Minister considers appropriate. I do think it was useful of the select committee to make that addition to ensure that the requirement is there in black and white in the legislation for the Minister to consider who should be consulted. That wasn’t there previously and that would certainly be our intention. The point I’d make here is that I don’t think that it makes for good legislation to be very specific about that at the point in time at which the legislation is being set. We don’t quite know exactly who the groups will be—maybe in five years’ time or so—who the Minister at that time would be wanting to consult with to make sure that they got the right outcome and got the right information in these decisions.

I can give some assurance to the committee that we are consulting widely. I’ve established a clean car leadership group, which includes key representatives including the Motor Industry Association, the Imported Motor Vehicle Industry Association (VIA), and other groups with a strong interest in the sector, and it will be my intention to continue working with them and consulting with them as we develop up regulations under this piece of legislation.

In response to Mr Menéndez March—I think I’ve addressed that point in the first instance. We do want to consult widely. So that group, for example, also has representatives from Consumer New Zealand on it and a mana whenua voice on it, because we want to make sure that we’re actually hearing from everyone who’s affected by this. Yes, the commercial parties who import vehicles, but also the consumers and also the communities who ultimately are affected by our success or our failure in reaching our climate change ambitions.

The evidence is very clear internationally that the overall effect of these schemes is a progressive effect, that it gives the biggest advantage to the lowest income people and there’s strong evidence, particularly out of the Californian schemes, to support this, and that’s because there’s a massive lifetime saving for people who get cleaner vehicles in terms of the ongoing fuel costs. It’s something that people are feeling at the moment. To fill up an electric vehicle, if you have one, is the equivalent of filling up at the rate of 20c to 40c per litre. The more of those vehicles we can get into the fleet now, the more we’ll start cycling through the fleet and becoming more affordable. Already under the modelling for this scheme, we know that there are large vehicles, including hybrid vans, that either do not attract any charge or attract a discount under the scheme that’s here. And, again, the point of this is to incentivise the importers to bring in the cleaner models that are not currently available to purchasers in New Zealand because there is no incentive for that. That will advantage middle and low income earners, who will save money by getting more efficient vehicles to use.

MARK CAMERON (ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair. To the Minister, would he consider giving an exemption to tradies and farmers, given that the technology that he is alluding to is probably the better part of a decade away? And what does he postulate the cost of an electric vehicle that would be conducive of that kind of livelihood would cost to the average farmer or tradie?

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Madam Chair. What an excellent question there, regarding exemptions. I would just like to ask the Minister myself: it says here as part of this clause in regard to the regulation-making power in new section 167A(3)(b) in clause 5 that the Minister may “prescribe any vehicle or class of vehicle as excluded from the definition of light vehicle for the purposes of the regulations:”, and my question to the Minister is: will he support my amendments?

I’ve got two amendments in regards to excluded classes of vehicles. One is in regard to the good old trusty ute, which our farmers and our tradies rely on to keep our productive sectors of our society going, which they don’t actually have reliable options available at the moment. That information was very clear. It came through via the submissions but also in the departmental report regarding the number of options available. At the moment, there are none, and so, effectively, they’re left in a position—farmers and tradies—where they have to pay a 15 to 20 percent increase, potentially, in the cost of their vehicle, without the opportunity to be able to have a different alternative which they could get a discount for.

The second particular exclusion for which I’ve also put forward a tabled amendment is in regard to disability vehicles. There was a very good submission by Rod Milner, who runs a company in Auckland which specialises in the importation of disability vehicles and the modification of these vehicles, and they are going to have to pay the extra charge. Due to their weight and due to the fact that they are generally higher-emission vehicles, they will have to pay a higher fee, and, again, there are no other alternatives available to them. So my question to the Minister is: is he going to actually put an exemption in place, or will he support this tabled amendment which allows for an exemption for those two particular classes of vehicles?

Now, I do just want to finish my contribution here on a point in regards to the regulation-making powers. I asked the Minister before whether officials have started actually drafting the regulations, and the Minister said yes. Now, I find it intriguing that the legislation hasn’t even been passed. It’s going to have six weeks—or, actually, less than six weeks—between when it receives its Royal assent and the implementation date, and how is he going to fulfil the requirement in new section 167A(5A) in clause 5: “Before recommending the making of regulations, the Minister must consult such persons as the Minister considers appropriate.”? I guess my question there to the Minister is: is he already doing the consultation now? Has he already started consulting now, prior to this legislation actually going into law? I look forward to the answers from the Minister.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you, Madam Chair. To the Minister, I, also, am quite concerned about the utes for farmers and tradie vehicles. But I want to take a little bit of a wider perspective as well, because I think some of my colleagues have actually drawn the attention to the lack of availability of utes. But I do know that in the consultation document that the Minister put out a few months ago, there was a line in there that referred to building cycle-ways so that rural people and tourists could go about their business. I just actually wondered whether at that point in time the Minister had actually been in rural New Zealand and realised how people do go about their business. But I do know that the Minister was at the opening of the bypass of the Awakino Tunnel, a fantastic project, along with Mt Messenger, that was announced by John Key and Simon Bridges six years ago in 2016.

Hon David Parker: It took us to deliver it.

BARBARA KURIGER: I also noticed that the Prime Minister mentioned in her statement the other day that Mt Messenger was on her list of things to do. It is a six-year-old project, Mr Parker, and I will say that not all of that is the Government’s fault. I won’t point all of the finger at you, because a lot of it is to do with the Resource Management Act—but, Mr Parker, I would like some hurry-up in that regard so we can get some of the roads done in the projects that you’re currently working on. Which then goes back to my question, and it is all related, which is that when the Minister was down opening the Awakino Bypass, which, by the way, badly needs a resurfacing already—so take another drive out into rural New Zealand—you wouldn’t have noticed very many chargers, very many electric-car chargers on the way past. And I wonder in all of this, when a lot of the vehicles in rural New Zealand are of the ute variety, you would have also noticed, when you were out there as you drove through the King Country to get down there or maybe you flew into New Plymouth and went up, a lot of hill country, a lot of places where you need four-wheel drive vehicles—you didn’t see a lot of infrastructure for charging systems.

And the other question, I guess, the Minister would like to ask is while he’s actually bowled through all of this, saying, “We’re going to do all of these things with renewable vehicles.”, I just wonder how much renewable electricity infrastructure we have and how much Indonesian coal we’re actually going to be burning to fuel these renewable electric utes that we can’t get the ute or the electricity for at this stage, so a little bit wider. I’m supporting Simeon Brown’s amendments, but I wanted to just ask those questions around infrastructure, please, Minister, and I’d be really grateful for an answer. Thank you.

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): Just responding briefly to a few of the points raised by members, and I think a number of the points raised by Barbara Kuriger are part of the broader debate around this—I don’t quite know if they relate to Part 1. But I can report that I had a very nice summer holiday travelling through her electorate and happily charged up my electric car in Ōtorohanga and Te Kūiti and many other parts of rural New Zealand who have now got those chargers, on average, every 75 kilometres along the State highway network, and it’s building well.

Barbara Kuriger: Seventy-five.

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Seventy-five. That’s right, yeah. Mr Brown did raise one point that I do think is quite important for the committee to take account of, and certainly the Transport and Infrastructure Committee and the Government have taken account of, and that’s the particular situation of disability vehicles. We have listened to the submissions that were made in respect of that, and we will be providing exemptions for disability vehicles through regulations. So we won’t be agreeing to the Supplementary Order Paper, but we will none the less be dealing with that issue.

In respect of the question of utes, again, I think this is actually a broader policy and political debate—I’m not entirely clear on the link to Part 1—but, if I can respond briefly, the point of this scheme as I’ve described is to ensure that New Zealand’s fleet is geared towards cleaner vehicles. We are going to get a supply of cleaner vehicles across all vehicle types. We have that in many cases—in the United States, this year we’re already seeing electric vehicles coming into the fleet. Within New Zealand we know that the majority of utes that are bought and sold are actually bought and sold on the used market, which isn’t impacted at all by the clean car discount scheme. And of course, yeah there’s a little bit of typecasting here. Yes it’s well understood that utes are an important of rural life, but actually so are other vehicles, and people in every part of New Zealand will get better access to those and the cost savings and environmental benefits of them, including people in rural communities. We’re already seeing those numbers going pretty well there. But, ultimately, providing widespread exemptions in a scheme like this ends up being a mug’s game, because the whole range of sectors can make an argument, and you end up undermining the scheme.

We have confidence that we’re actually going to have good supply of those vehicles and more choices for people. I note this as well: the evidence that we already have is that the scheme is beginning to work, in that we know from a range of importers that they’re already actually adjusting the type of utes that they are bringing into the New Zealand market to bring in lower emissions utes to attract lower charges. So there’s already a positive effect there. It’s bringing the supply of the vehicles into New Zealand, but a supply of lower emissions utes. That’s a good thing for New Zealand, and that’s a good thing for the people who will be buying them, because they will be cheaper to run.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to pick up where Minister Wood left off there in regards to the conversation of utes. I’m not sure if he actually read the departmental report, which officials brought to the select committee on this bill, where it said—it gave some very clear evidence in regards to the availability of utes, which may be hybrid, plug-in hybrid, or zero emissions up to 2025. The evidence is very clear: for the four-wheel drive ute market there’s looking to be one particular type of ute which may be able to fit that market by 2025. So what the Minister is, effectively, saying here is that he is happy for farmers and for tradies and people who require a four-wheel drive ute for their job to, effectively, have to rely on one particular model, which may have a very limited range, being their only option available up to 2025.

So this is not just some sort of theoretical, ideological issue which the Minister, sort of, looks at in his ivory tower up there in the Beehive, and looks at the market and can try and pull the levers. This is a reality. It’s an actual reality in terms of what is required by these people in our community, who work on our farms, and the tradies who build our houses, and do those jobs throughout New Zealand. What this Government is, effectively, saying is what the Prime Minister said as well, which is actually, all those people buying utes, they don’t really buy them for legitimate purposes. Actually, they don’t purchase them for legitimate purposes. They’re actually just illegitimate ute owners. They could actually just put their tools in their bag and go on the train, or potentially—

Hon Member: Bike.

SIMEON BROWN: Bike. Bike down the farm to the far end and deal with the—

Hon Member: You could get a horse.

SIMEON BROWN: Get on a horse. That’s right. Or, potentially, cycle across town to work on that building site. That’s, effectively, what the Minister is trying to say. Or they can have a vehicle, which—

Hon Member: Slow tram.

SIMEON BROWN: Or a slow tram—or a slow tram, which may, potentially, be built by 2050-something, I don’t know. Or, potentially, it won’t be built at all, which is probably more likely.

But the point here is the alternative is they have to buy a vehicle which, effectively, doesn’t fit their needs and won’t be able to, actually, give them what they need. The Government and the Prime Minister says “Well, they’re making an illegitimate choice.”, and that is exactly the chardonnay socialism which is littered through this piece of legislation in giving extreme powers to the Minister without actually working, again, with industry to make sure that people have the choices that they actually need to be able to do their jobs. And so, in this instance, when it comes to utes, effectively, the answer in this piece of legislation is to tax those people rather than actually saying “Those people should be exempted until the market is available for them to be able to have that option and that choice.” That is something which isn’t available now, and up until about 2025 the evidence is very clear from the submissions that that market is still developing and will need more time. So I do ask the Minister to reconsider his very hard-line and extreme position of not supporting this Supplementary Order Paper.

I do acknowledge his willingness to engage with me in regards to disability vehicles. I’m grateful that the Government has listened to my pleas on that issue and will be exempting disability vehicles. I know there’ll be many people up and down the country grateful that the Government has listened to what the National Party has been putting forward on that particular issue.

But when it comes to utes and our farmers and our tradies, the Government continues to say they are illegitimate users. Another piece of evidence, which was brought to the committee, was the fact that 70 percent of people purchasing utes are purchasing them for their business. They’re not just purchasing them to have a cool, big car to drive down the road. They’re not just buying it just to park it in the driveway. They’re actually buying it for their work, so that they can contribute to this country and contribute to our economy, and actually build things, and do things, and make things. Those are the people that this Government punishes whilst they find money to support and subsidise those who can already afford to purchase Teslas and other types of electric vehicles.

So I do ask the Minister to reconsider his position on this particular issue. I know there are tens of thousands of New Zealanders who are looking at this and staring at these costs and saying “That’s unacceptable. It’s just another tax from this Government.”

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): That previous speaker, Simeon Brown, should remember the old axiom that “success has a thousand fathers, failure is an orphan”—so he will claim anything that he likes.

My question is to the Minister. Minister, is he aware what percentage of utes are registered as commercial vehicles in New Zealand? My understanding is less than 10 percent. He might like to comment on that.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s interesting that Greg O’Connor was the last speaker. People of his generation, and that of the Hon David Parker, will recall that when GST was first introduced into the New Zealand economy, there was a lot of debate and discussion about whether pricing should be GST-inclusive or GST-exclusive in terms of advertising—for instance, supermarkets and any kind of consumer goods and what have you. It’s in that regard that I want to speak to the, again, very pragmatic and sensible Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) in the name of my colleague and friend Simeon Brown. It relates to an amendment that he is proposing to clause 7, which would require after section 172 to include the following words: that “For the purposes of the clean vehicle standard, sellers and importers of motor vehicles must include any rebate or charge in the prices of their motor vehicles, including in any advertising.”

I think that’s a very sensible option that Simeon Brown has put forward, because already we are starting to see vehicle sellers advertising pricing that is confusing for consumers. And why wouldn’t they? They’re in the business of selling vehicles and they’re trying to maximise their competitive advantage against other manufacturers and other brands and other sellers of vehicles. Some of the advertising seems to include the clean car discount already taken into account, and some of it doesn’t, but there doesn’t seem to be any clear or consistent mechanism for consumers to understand what the ticket price of the vehicle will be. I would’ve thought that—again, putting aside their academic and sort of ideologically driven views about who should have what cars and when they should be driven and how they should be driven and how they should be powered—it would make sense to make it very easy and clear for consumers, potential purchasers of cars, to know what the actual price is. And right at the minute, I think that there is reasonable concern amongst consumers about a confused pricing mechanism that doesn’t mandate or require one way or the other. Should the price on the windscreen in the car yard have a price that reflects the discount taken off it, or is it a gross price or a net price? And what is it that the consumer is actually going to have to pay to pick up and purchase that car?

So I’m interested to know what the Minister of Transport’s view is on the communication and clarity of pricing vehicles in the market place. Does he think that it’s appropriate that consumers should have some clarity around it and that there should be some definition so that there is in his clean car standard a clean price standard as well?

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I rose so many times and didn’t get the call; now you’ve picked me and you’ve caught me out! Anyway—hey, I just wanted to start by acknowledging the Minister’s comment about the holiday he had through Te Kūiti, I think, and every 75 kilometres he was able to get a charger. And it kind of reminds me that that was actually, I think, if we look back, a former National Government initiative to have a charging station every 75 kilometres. And now I think of it, when I think of Greg O’Connor’s quite in-depth report back in the second reading about National’s legacy within electric vehicles (EVs), it’s disappointing he missed that one out, because I thought we do have a very good narrative and a very good legacy in this space.

I want to start with new section 167B(5), which talks about “the Minister must not recommend the making of regulations unless the Minister is satisfied—(a) that the fees and charges are appropriate to increase supply and availability … (b) that the imposition and level of charges … are appropriate [for] international and domestic climate change ambitions”. And it does strike me, in a pragmatic sense, that that would be potentially one provision to look at where we can look at the inequity of people who need certain cars around, potentially, their occupations; and why we could not have in there “if the Minister was not satisfied that certain groups of people didn’t have choice”, because, as we know with this “ute tax”, some New Zealanders are not going to have choice under this scheme.

And that’s part of the issue, isn’t it? The title, the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill—very benign, but I suppose when you look at new section 167B(5), that would be the place to ensure that all New Zealanders were supported under a very benign title, because, you know, let’s be very clear: if you’re in the regions, if you’re in North Canterbury, you’ve got petrol going up, you’re paying your road-user charges, your tax, the National Land Transport Fund’s been raided again and taken out of the regions for pet projects like light rail in Auckland, and now you’re being told as a tradie and a farmer in North Canterbury that you’re going to have to pay a “ute tax”. And the Government even cancelled your motorway—the Woodend Bypass. So, you know, this is pretty unfair stuff.

And then also, it does strike me, once the Minister’s responded to that, that maybe under new section 167(A)(4), where it talks about “Different rates of fees or charges, or both, may be prescribed or fixed in respect of different classes of vehicles or on any other differential basis.”—it does sort of occur to me, under that “differential basis” wording, I mean, could there be a category for people that do not have choice? Because, ultimately, I don’t think anyone disagrees—let’s incentivise EVs.

Although the Minister did make a statement—I wrote it down—that consumers, and I’m paraphrasing here a bit, would save money; we all know, you know, the importers and the retailers have put the price of EVs up. So I’m not sure anyone’s going to save money; some people are going to make money. But, of course, it’s actually disappointing that with a group of New Zealanders who are increasingly marginalised under this Labour Government—and that’s regional New Zealanders—there’s actually no pragmatic solution within Part 1 of where they clearly could be supported when they do not have a choice. And I’ll be interested to hear the Minister’s response to that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): Thank you, Madam Chair. Over the course of the last few speeches there has been quite a bit of general commentary on the issue of utes, which I know is deeply felt by some members of the committee—it doesn’t particularly pertain to this part of the bill, but I just want to make the point: the fact is that the Minister considers those factors of supply and demand and those factors of consumer demand which we’ve already covered in discussion there. I think that is where the Minister, whether it’s myself or another Minister will consider the range of vehicles that New Zealanders do have access to.

There was one specific question which I do want to respond to. It was raised by Mr Simpson who—sort of, I’ve got to say—sort of pinched the glory for Mr Brown’s Supplementary Order Paper and got in there and kind of introduced to the committee, but fair play, I guess, and that was about the transparency of the discount on fuel labelling. I just want to confirm for the benefit of the member and for the committee that that will be transparently set out in regulations, that there will need to be clarity on the labelling about the discount on the vehicle, that’ll be the vehicle fuel economy regulations, which will be prepared subsequent to the legislation being passed. I can give assurance that members of the public will clearly be able to see on the labelling what the base price was, what the discount was, so that there’s no way in which that can be fiddled with.

Of course, it will be in the interests, actually, of the retailer to be transparent about the discount. We’re already seeing that in the advertising which is coming through. The retailers want to say what the discount is because it’s attracting people to buy their vehicles. But, to avoid any doubt, that will be extremely clear in the labelling legislation.

Look, I think all of the other points were largely policy points about utes; I have provided a response on that. There won’t be an exemption to those vehicles but we are providing greater choice. It’s important to point out, if you listen to members opposite, you’d think there was a ban on these vehicles; there’s not. There’ll still be exactly the same choice that there is now and, actually, increasingly, there’ll be more choice. All of the key players that we talked to in the sector do tell us that in the coming years we’re going to have a reasonable supply of both hybrid and electric vehicles coming in, which is what we’re already seeing in the international market.

Dr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to draw attention specifically to Supplementary Order Paper 119 in the name of my colleague Simon Court. It is a very small amendment, but it very much deals with one of the major issues and complaints about this legislation and the concerns that we’ve been hearing up and down the country—particularly from rural New Zealand but by trades people as well, who just say that the supply is simply not going to be there, the options are not going to be there.

I would like to hear the Minister’s thoughts on the Motor Trade Association saying that the industry will simply not be able to meet the targets and that penalties will flow on straight to consumers, and what his thoughts are about this and the cost of living over the medium to long term. And I also wonder if the Minister would be willing to admit a bit of an inconvenient truth here, which is that the supply and variety of vehicles will just not be available in the time frame stipulated by this bill. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I thank the Minister for his contribution. Look, I just wanted to come back to Part 1, new section 167A(6)(b)(iv). And the point here is around consideration by the Minister that the imposition of the level of fees and charges are appropriate after considering “the anticipated impact of the fees and charges on the market;”. And so what I’d like the Minister to articulate to the committee is: what is the analysis that he has considered and the advice that he has received from officials in regards to the anticipated impact on rural New Zealand as a result of not providing an exclusion particularly for utes, as a result of this legislation?

I wanted to clarify that because I was a member of parts of the select committee process in which the fifth largest producer of motor vehicles in the world provided a submission categorically around the fact that the availability of electric utes in the New Zealand market is not going to be something that we’re going to see in at least a couple of years. And even then, the reality is that these will be left-hand drive vehicles, which will then have to be productionised in terms of scale for a right-hand drive market. So we’re going to deal with a period of time in which consumers and the good, hard-working Kiwis in rural and semi-urban New Zealand—it’s not just rural, semi-urban as well—will be faced with the impact of fees and charges articulated in subparagraph (iv) there at that market. And the Minister has an obligation in subsection (6) “The Minister must not recommend the making of regulations unless the Minister is satisfied”. He has provided no substantiation of the evidence that he is confident that this will not have an impact on those members of the market. And so I would call on him to give us a degree of confidence around that.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you, Madam Chair. The Minister’s probably going to say, “Not utes again.”, but I just couldn’t help taking another call on this point, because while the Minister did enjoy, obviously, a wonderful summer holiday going to Ōtorohanga and Te Kuiti when the sun was shining and they had not been any rain for a period of time, if he had come this weekend when, actually, Marokopa and places further out like Piopio and various areas had been flooded, he would not have had a practical way with an electric vehicle either to power it up or to actually get out of Marokopa altogether. The mud was deep. I know that the Prime Minister, when the Canterbury floods happened last year, actually travelled in a ute to go and have a look at the damage. I happen to know that after three floods on the West Coast of the South Island, maybe Maureen Pugh may never have come back to work on occasions if she had not been able to get into a ute to cross certain parts of the country.

So the Minister may well say, “Not utes again.” and have a holiday on State Highway 3. State Highway 3 is a wonderful place to travel, but it’s not remote rural New Zealand. The hills are achievable. You don’t need a four-wheel drive to get up them. I just think that forcing a tax on people who don’t have an alternative at this point in time is very short sighted, particularly as I said again before that we don’t have the renewable electricity anyway. We’re burning Indonesian coal to get it. It’s a very short-sighted thing to do in the name of climate change. If there were vehicles available, we’d all have them—we’d all have them. The Minister said, before, “You’d think we were banning them.” Well, I think people know that you’re not banning them, but I can tell you that those utes and a Ranger have been the top-selling vehicle because people know that they’re going to need those vehicles and they know the impracticalities of what the Minister is going to introduce.

So I’d like the Minister to tell me, in his other role, and I know it’s a bit away from the bill, but he’s also the health and safety spokesperson for Health and Safety at Work—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! The member really is getting and straying a little bit far from the bill. Can we—

BARBARA KURIGER: Yes, I am straying.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Well, I’m inviting the member to come back to Part 1.

BARBARA KURIGER: Yeah. So I’ll come back to Part 1 and I’ll ask the Minister how people are going to cope in rural New Zealand if they don’t have available these utes, other than having to pay the taxes that the Minister’s demanding of them.

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): I’ll respond fairly briefly to some of the points that are made here, which largely amount to “we think that utes are good in some places” and I think are quite general in their nature. I want to draw members’ attention to one of the considerations which is identified here before the Minister must make regulations, which are the international and domestic climate change ambitions and commitments we’ve made. Now, under the draft emissions reduction plan that we are consulting on—which derives from the independent climate commission’s recommendations—the overall goal is that by about 2035, we need to have around about 30 percent of our fleet being zero emissions. By 2035, about 30 percent of the fleet needs to be at zero emissions. But if you would listen to the members on the other side of the House, they are creating a sort of doomsday scenario in which everyone is forced out of their vehicles on the implementation of this legislation, and that is simply not true. The members also make the mistake of not properly reading through the legislation and actually what it sets up, which is a regime which through the standard and the discount incentivises cleaner vehicles over time. It doesn’t go from zero to 100 at once.

And so between high emitting vehicles and zero emissions vehicles—primarily electric vehicles, but potentially other fuel sources as well—we also have lower emission petrol vehicles, we also have hybrid vehicles, and they are probably most likely to be one of the answers to the challenges that the members opposite are raising. I would invite those members to actually think about how we make this transition across all parts of our country instead of just kind of putting up this poster and saying that what we’ve got now is what we want and that’s never going to change. The world is changing in respect of the provision of these vehicles, and this is actually about how we help New Zealanders to get there. Because when those hybrid utes start to come on to the market, it’s this scheme—it’s this scheme—which will make them more affordable for people to buy.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I couldn’t help but rise in response to that. What a mischaracterisation by the Minister. We are not proposing a doomsday of getting out of cars. What we’re saying is the difference on this side of the House is we back New Zealanders to make the right decisions. We want to give them the carrots; these guys want to give New Zealanders the sticks because they don’t believe New Zealanders will do the right thing. And they’ll bring out a stick from the beltway of Wellington, and smack regional New Zealanders around with it.

I want to point out—look, coming back to the title, Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill—we’re not just talking about electric vehicles here. When you look at what the Minister referenced in his last response about being appropriate for international and domestic climate change ambitions—no one disagrees with that—but even in the Minister’s own comment to a previous question, when we asked about the carve-out of utes because some occupations do not have a choice under this bill, the Minister said, “Well, they’ll be coming on stream in a couple of years”. Surely there’s going to be an unintended consequence there, because some of the emissions savings is around fuel efficiency—cars that are more fuel efficient.

So if you’ve got a dirty gas-guzzler and you know, at the moment, you’re going to be charged a tax to replace that ute, and you’ve got no other choice, then you’re going to sit on that gas-guzzler for longer. Why not give that farmer or tradie an incentive to shift? But that’s not what they are looking at. This is not pragmatic; we’ve clearly outlined, under Part 1, new sections 167B and 167A in clause 5—there is a pragmatic approach where some New Zealanders could get a carve-out because they do not have choice.

On this side of the House, we’re pragmatic and we want to give people carrots, and we know that New Zealanders—given the right framework and the right settings—will make the right decisions.

MARK CAMERON (ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair. Just very quickly, Minister, I’m fascinated to know what official advice he’s actually had on any supportive infrastructure that would be needed in rural New Zealand—i.e., charging stations, etc.? When would it be readily available, and what sort of additional cost—notwithstanding this is already an expensive exercise for rural New Zealand farmers and communities—would it add to their overall costs of running the business?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): A great deal of advice, but none of it relates to Part 1 of this bill.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for opportunity to take another call on Part 1 of this piece of legislation. The question I’ve got is in relation to the tabled amendment which my colleague Scott Simpson touched on earlier in regards to the clear advertisement of the fees and charges or the discount. The Minister, effectively, answered half of the question that was put in regards to these tabled amendments but was very careful in his reply to not answer the other half. My tabled amendment says that when it comes to the clean car discount or the clean car standard, the amount that the Government is increasing the cost of that vehicle should be transparently put in the advertisement for the cost of the vehicle, and if there’s a discount, the discount should be clearly advertised as part of the cost of the vehicle.

There’s a number of reasons for this, but the Minister was very quick to say, “Well, yes, of course, of course, I agree with that. In fact, I’m going to ensure that, through regulations, the discount is advertised.” But he didn’t mention anything about the fees or the charges. What he’s trying to do is pull the wool over New Zealanders’ eyes by advertising how gloriously amazing his scheme is in terms of the discounts, but, actually, when it comes to the fees or charges, “Well, no, no, no, those have to be hidden away. We can’t talk about those. We can’t disclose those, because, actually, I don’t want people to know how much extra they’re paying for their vehicles.” If we can have it one way, Minister, why can’t we have it both ways? Because this scheme relies on robbing from Peter to pay for Paul. If you’re going to rob from Peter, Peter should know how much he’s paying; if you’re going to give to Paul, he should know how much he’s getting. So my tabled amendment, effectively, says, when it come to the clean car discount or the clean car standard, both of those fees and charges or rebates should be transparently placed as part of the advertised cost of the vehicle. The question is: why does he just not simply adopt my tabled amendment, which seeks to do that, and which will allow for that transparency to be put forward out there, in terms of the market, and people to make those decisions?

The other point I would like to make in regards to that point is that, for a consumer who’s going to buy a new vehicle, it’s actually important that they know what the actual value of that vehicle is. For instance, if I’m going to go and buy myself a $25,000 ute and the price of that is actually $29,000 and I don’t know that $4,000 of that is actually a tax—it’s probably going to be more than that of a tax—but the actual value of the asset that I’m purchasing is $4,000 less than what I’m paying, as a consumer I should know what the actual value of that particular asset should be. Of course, that has an impact if you’re a business, in terms of the value of asset that you put on your business’s balance sheet, in terms of those accounting practices. There may be implications in terms of what banks are prepared to loan against the value of that asset, because the resale value may not be as high as what you actually paid for it. So, in terms of asset financing, that could potentially become an issue for the banks. So the question here is—actually, the value is really important, and if you’re getting a discount on the vehicle, it’s also important that you know what the actual value of that vehicle is that you’re purchasing—even though it may have a discount attached to it.

So the question here is: why not pass that tabled amendment, make it abundantly clear to consumers so they know what they’re paying, they know what they’re getting, and they know what this Government is taking at the same time? I ask the Minister to address these issues. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): Very happy to address that issue and to clarify for the member that the Vehicle Fuel Economy regulations will include provision for both the discount or the charges that apply for the clean car discount scheme.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you, Madam Chair. Earlier in the committee’s discussions I asked the Minister about the revenue and where it would go, and I specifically asked a question relating to whether it would go into the consolidated fund or where, and the reply came back from the Minister that it would go into the National Land Transport Fund. But the question I have is relating to clause 6, where it says, “In the heading to section 168AA, replace ‘national land transport fund’ with ‘Crown Bank Account’.”, so I’m interested to know from the Minister quite why that would be. Is the replacement of the National Land Transport Fund, as he has answered earlier, with Crown bank account—does that mean that there’s going to be some kind of intermediary slush fund where the revenue will be collected, and if it is going to be collected in this sort of intermediary slush fund, who will administer it, how will it be administered, who will have control over it, and what will happen to those funds during the period of time that the revenue is held in the “Crown Bank Account” which is not the National Land Transport Fund?

So it seems to me that there is an area that is grey and uncertain in this matter, which I think the Minister needs to make clear. As we know, as my colleagues have made very clear in this discussion and debate so far this evening, this is a Government that likes to tax, likes to collect money from taxpayers, likes to have big buckets of money that they can then try and dole out and use for a whole range of petty political party policies of the sort that they have become famous for.

And then there’s a second matter that I’m quite keen for the Minister to answer a question on, and it relates to the “Interpretation in this Part”, new section 172(1), in clause 7, and it says that “category 1 light vehicle importer means a person who carries on the business of importing new or used light vehicles and whom the Director approves as a category 1 light vehicle importer under the regulations”. Now, I didn’t have the opportunity to sit on the select committee, so forgive me if this has been defined somewhere else, but I’m keen to know what the director will choose as a definition for someone who carries on the business of importing new or light vehicles. Is that someone who imports one vehicle a year, is it someone who imports two vehicles a year, or is it someone who imports three or four or five? What is the quantum? What is the definition? When does a person who acts as an importer become someone who meets the designation of being by the director, someone who “carries on the business”? What is the definition of that? So if the Minister could give me an answer, I would appreciate it.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): With apologies for the very excellent questions asked, but the time has come for me to report progress.

House resumed.

Report of Committee of THE Whole House

Report of Committee of THE Whole House

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill and reports progress. The committee has also considered the Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Bill and reports no progress. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The House is suspended, and I will resume the Chair at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning for the extended sitting. Pō mārie.

Sitting suspended from 9.58 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Wednesday)

TUESDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2022

(continued on Wednesday, 16 February 2022)

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The House is resumed. Members, in accordance with the determination of the Business Committee, I call on Louisa Wall to move the first reading of her private bill.

Bills

Paige Harris Birth Registration Bill

First Reading

LOUISA WALL (Labour): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Tēnā koutou katoa. I move, That the Paige Harris Birth Registration Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 4 March 2022, and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

Today is an incredibly important day for Paige Harris, Kyle Harris, and the Harris whānau. The Paige Harris Birth Registration Bill will require the registrar-general to enter the details of Katherine Elizabeth Harris as mother on the registration of the birth of Paige Katherine Elizabeth Harris, as well as the details of Kyle Jason Harris as if a notice under section 23 of the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 1995 had been received containing that information, and an adoption order had been made in favour of Kyle Jason Harris and Katherine Elizabeth Harris.

We are here today debating this private bill brought to the House by Kyle Harris because under the Adoption Act, the person who gives birth is the legal parent, and the only way intended parents, such as biological parents in the case of surrogacy, can be recognised is through adoption. Paige’s mum, Katherine Harris, died before Paige was born by surrogacy. Katherine’s death from lung transplant complications in December 2019 meant Kyle and Katherine Harris were unable to complete Paige’s adoption after her birth, the only way intended or biological parents of a baby born through surrogacy can be officially recognised as parents. In preparing for the debate this morning, I asked Kyle what he wanted to share. These are from Kyle: for him the Paige Harris Birth Registration Bill fulfils a promise Kyle Harris made to his dying wife, Katherine Harris. As she was dying, Kyle and Katherine were well aware that there was an issue given the requirement to adopt their genetic child as she was born by surrogacy. This bill is very important not only to Kyle and Paige and Katherine; it is also incredibly important to Renee and Josh Johnson, Paige’s surrogacy family, and Katherine’s surviving family, her parents, John and Alison Fraser, and her brother Stuart.

This bill will finally give Paige her right to her full identity. This bill finally allows for Katherine to be rightfully listed as Paige’s mother. Kyle and his family have found this process unnecessarily hard. Our law is not fit for modern New Zealand. Our law must be reformed. I particularly want to take this opportunity to thank the internal affairs spokespersons from the National Party, from the ACT Party, from the Green Party, from Te Paati Māori, and, obviously, the Leader of the House, Chris Hipkins, who, through the Business Committee, have provided for the reading of the Paige Harris Birth Registration Bill this morning. It really does highlight how Parliament can come together to rectify what is a huge injustice to this whānau. So on behalf of Kyle and his whānau, thank you very much.

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank people who have helped Kyle and the whānau highlight the issue that we have. We’re using this family’s experience to solve an issue for Paige Harris, but, in fact, I think there are generic issues that will have to be addressed. There are approximately 60 children born in New Zealand every year via surrogacy, and, in spite of, in many instances, that child being the genetic child of the intending parents, they have to go through an adoption. So I want to acknowledge the over 50,000 New Zealanders who signed a petition in support of Kyle Harris and his family. I want to acknowledge Paddy Gower, who shared the experience of this family, which enabled some of us to understand that there was an issue.

I also want to acknowledge my colleague Tāmati Coffey, who has the Improving Arrangements for Surrogacy Bill. Within the context of Tāmati’s bill, he will be able to address this issue for any child who is in this situation in the future. The principle within Tāmati’s bill is that the intending parents will become the parents of a child born by surrogacy at birth. There will not be need for adoption, and, in fact, his bill will allow for full transparency for that child. So, for example, that child’s birth certificate will list parent, mother, father, it will also list the name of the surrogate, and in some circumstances it may also list the egg donor and the sperm donor. I think that principle is incredibly important because in modern New Zealand society where surrogacy is being used more and more to help families, to help loving couples, to help people who want to add to their family, this issue is going to become more and more relevant. I know that Tāmati engaged with the whānau, he tried to find a solution through his bill, but ultimately Kyle Harris and his family decided that this was the best avenue for them.

I also want to take the opportunity to thank the officials at the Department of Internal Affairs and acknowledge Minister Jan Tinetti. I know her officials spent a lot of time engaging with Kyle, and looking at the law, and what the law could do, and in this instance they could not help. But they have been incredibly quick and very responsive through the Minister to offer their support to the Governance and Administration Committee. I want to thank her and her ministry for that support. I also want to acknowledge that the Minister of Justice the Hon Kris Faafoi also supports this whānau. He, too, was looking through some of the work that he is doing on surrogacy to see whether or not there was an opportunity that he could assist. So on behalf of Kyle and the family, I thank him also.

Just finally, preparing a private bill is quite complex, and I want to especially take the opportunity to thank Pavan Sharma in the Office of the Clerk, who’s an expert on parliamentary law and practice. His guidance throughout this process has been exceptional. I thank him dearly on behalf of Kyle for navigating through a system that required quite a few steps to be taken before we were able to bring this bill to the House. I also want to acknowledge Prue Tamatekapua, who drafted the bill initially. The family, obviously, had exhausted many resources to go through a process to see whether the law was fit for purpose, and within the context of a private bill there has to be a draft for the Parliamentary Counsel Office then to review. So I thank Mel Bromley and Jessica Kruger, who checked the bill to ensure it was ready for publication. I want to thank Wendy Stevenson, who helped with the advertising for the bill, which was conducted in a very prescribed process. I want to thank the parliamentary staff who assisted in the dissemination of the bill. And, again, I want to highlight the responsiveness of Paul James, who’s the Secretary of Internal Affairs, and also Jeff Montgomery, because within the advertising of this bill we actually had six other New Zealanders contact me that I was able to refer two of them on to Jeff, who had issues that they wanted resolution for.

So again, I just want to acknowledge that Parliament has the ability, when injustices such as this are presented to us, to come together. And so from my perspective and from Kyle Harris’ perspective and his whānau, again, we thank this Parliament sincerely for providing the opportunity for this family to get resolution, and, ultimately, for Kyle, it is to fulfil a promise to his now dead wife, Katherine. Kia ora.

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

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s great to be able to take a call here this morning. Can I first acknowledge Louisa Wall for the work that she has done in bringing this private bill to the House. I can’t recall in recent memory a private bill getting up to this stage of debate. We often enjoy our high tide of comradery and collectivity when we are doing members’ bills, but they nearly always have a wide impact on society—at least we hope so, as member’s bill promotors.

It’s quite rare to get something that is reaching into an individual family who has had to go through a very painful experience because of a rule that is, by any rational measure, archaic and outdated, and have it brought to this House for it to be individually adjusted for that person. That is quite remarkable, and it does talk to Louisa Wall’s tenacity and persistence. But I must add to this conversation that Kyle Harris had also raised the issue with the National Party, both initially with Simon Bridges, as our then justice spokesperson, and specifically with Simon Watts, who worked with them to try and find a solution. It was then signalled that the Government side would pick this up, and, frankly, there’s no better person, in my view, with a track record of advocacy and getting outcomes for communities and individuals, than Louisa, who has brought it to this stage today.

When Louisa sent me the email, I have to admit I had to read it twice, not because the issue was complex, but I found it quite remarkable that biological parents who had established a close relationship with a surrogate who would carry their child, who would then go through the tragedy of losing, in this case, Katherine, and for them not to have Katherine noted on the birth certificate, because that was the rules—I looked at it again and I said, “Surely that can’t be right.” Surely in 2020, when you are the biological parents and you have a tremendous partner, if you like, in a surrogacy journey, there should be no reason that your role, be it past or present in terms of being the biological mother or father of this child, should not be able to be captured in an official document. It makes, I think, all of us wonder, regardless of our political persuasions in this House, how many rules over time have distilled, which at the time might have seemed relevant purposes but now seem completely out of whack with what an open, pluralistic, comfortable Aotearoa New Zealand is in terms of being able to express who they are and their connections with their own family and whakapapa. It seemed quite remarkable.

So it didn’t take us long from a National Party perspective, because of the good work that Simon Watts had already done on behalf of Kyle and Paige, for us to support this here today. I think Louisa has set out very clearly the problem that this specific bill seeks to address. I think all I would be doing is filling time if I went through it again. It’s very precise. It’s a specific change. It’ll enable Paige to have on her birth certificate a reference to Katherine, her mother, and that is just so important for Kyle, for Paige, the wider whānau, and the fact that we here as a Parliament can spend a short amount of time, as Louisa Wall said, fixing that injustice I think should really require no more conversation. The National Party entirely supports this.

TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): This is a really necessary piece of legislation that’s happening here, and I want to thank my colleague Louisa Wall for bringing this to the House. And can I acknowledge the family out there, who will, no doubt, be watching Parliament TV or listening to this in their little part of New Zealand.

Our surrogacy laws need a lot of reworking. This is a really big area, where lots of families who have entered into surrogacy arrangements seem to fall through the cracks. It happens regularly. Our surrogacy laws are not fit for purpose. Our surrogacy laws need to be modernised, and we need to be able to say with our hands on our hearts that we here in New Zealand have modern laws for modern families, and, unfortunately, this is one occasion where that hasn’t quite worked out.

Can I thank Kyle and his support network around him, actually, for championing this and for making sure that he’s delivering on, as we’ve heard earlier, a promise that he made to his wife, now passed. He said that he would get baby Paige’s mum recorded on that birth certificate, and that’s why we’re all here today.

Before, my member’s bill was talked about, and it’s still waiting for its first reading; it’s sitting there on the Order Paper. We will get to it, but when we do, one of the things in the bill will talk about the fact that if we are modernising our laws, if we are creating modern laws for modern families, then the idea that a family should have to go through a pretty arduous adoption process through Oranga Tamariki, as our child agency—actually, we should have other means to be able to do that. In my member’s bill, I’m proposing that we put forward a surrogacy order, and that surrogacy order goes through the courts, and from the time of birth, baby then becomes the child of the intending parents, and that transfer happens at the time of birth.

So we’re discussing those options, but if we had already had surrogacy orders in place, the surrogacy order would have dealt with this. The fact that the mother, Katherine, had died would have been secondary to the fact that the surrogacy order would have been approved by the courts and everything would have just happened as it should happen. Paige’s mum would have been recorded on the birth certificate because it would have gone though that formal court process. Unfortunately, we don’t have that law at the moment, so while we’re waiting for it to happen, this is a private bill that’s been brought to this House to deal with this very specific issue. As the previous speaker, Todd Muller, said, there’s not too much more that needs to be said on this, except to say that we are standing alongside the people who brought that petition forward on behalf of Kyle and his family, the 50,000-odd of them who saw the injustice and reached out to us as members of Parliament, whether from that side or this side, really seeking that solution.

I want to take a bit of time to acknowledge the angst, probably, is the best way to put it, of Kyle, who I have had the pleasure of having a few conversations with. In those conversations I realised just how overwhelming it must seem from his perspective and that of his network around him. All he wants to see is a name on a birth certificate, but it’s taken all of this—it’s taken our parliamentary counsel, our lawyers, our MPs really turning it on—to figure out how we can do this. It is daunting process. The legislative process can be incredibly intimidating for people that don’t walk into this House every single day, such as ourselves, so I want to acknowledge Kyle for his persistence and also for his network of people around him who have stood next to him and provided strength for him and his baby girl at a time when he really needed it most.

So, Kyle, to you and to the family, who are listening, we’re on the journey now, and, hopefully, it won’t take as long as it’s taken to get us to this point today. I commend this bill to the House.

TEANAU TUIONO (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. First of all, I wanted to acknowledge the aroha behind this bill—the aroha for the whānau, the aroha for Kyle Harris. When this was brought to my attention, that’s what kind of radiated out of the email and the pages, for me, and the connections between that whānau, the father, the intending mother, the whānau that carried baby Paige, as well. I would like to acknowledge that: tēnei te mihi atu ki a koutou te whānau i whai wāhi te hari tēnei kaupapa ki mua i te aroaro o tēnei Pāremata nā runga i te aroha, nā runga i te ngākau ki tēnā, tēnā o tātou, ki tō mokopuna, ki tō pēpi, otirā ki ngā uri whakaheke.

[This is an acknowledgment of the family that took the opportunity to place this issue before this Parliament with love and affection to each and every one of us, to your grandchild, to your baby, as well as to the future generations.]

When I looked at this, I really thought about it from the perspective of whakapapa and the importance of whakapapa and how that can play a really crucial part in shaping the identity of our children, of our babies. It helps to centre them in this world, it helps them to understand their connections with their close-knit family but also with their wider families as well. For me, that’s what whānau is all about, and I acknowledge what Louisa Wall was saying earlier, how our laws are archaic and not fit for purpose in terms of our modern families, but I would also say that sometimes it’s not fit for purpose for the ways that families have always been, the way that families have been connected in different ways. It’s not just about families; it’s about whānau and what that means for our tamariki mokopuna.

Also supporting the calls around the House to Louisa for bringing this to our attention. This showed up very quickly and I knew that we were going to support it, and just being able to go through that process as well.

The Greens are very supportive of this kaupapa. It puts the child at the centre of the whānau; it puts the child at the centre of how we should be thinking about how to do these things. I was surprised at the inflexibility within the legislation. I was surprised with how rigid it was—that it wouldn’t be able to bend into shape in ways that would meet the needs of modern families, but in many ways not meet the needs of the way that whānau have always been.

So the Greens will be supporting this bill. Nā runga i te aroha ki te whānau, ki te Pāpā Kyle, otirā ki tō hoa rangatira i wehe atu. Anei mātou ngā Kākāriki e mihi kau ana ki a koutou, otirā tēnā tātou katoa.

[With love for the family, for the father, Kyle, as well as for your late wife. We the Greens acknowledge you. Greetings one and all.]

Dr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I say, on behalf of ACT, thank you to Louisa Wall for bringing this work to the House. This was one of those cases when it came through where I thought—again, reflecting on the nature of the system and the outdated laws—that it was extraordinary that it needed to need legislative intervention like this to get this issue sorted. So I think it really highlights just how archaic and out of date our laws are, and, certainly, we’re very interested in working to see those changed.

ACT will, obviously, be supporting this, and I just want to say to Kyle: thank you for your perseverance. This has been a long journey and a lot of work to get it to this point, and, obviously, my colleagues around the House have put their thanks out to the many people involved in this. So thank you once again. You’ve highlighted a change that’s necessary in our legislation, and I’m sure we’ll get to it, but I wish you and your family all the best.

ACT is certainly very supportive of this. Thank you.

LOUISA WALL (Labour): Just in conclusion, can I again thank Todd Muller, who represented the National Party, Teanau Tuiono from the Greens, James McDowall from ACT, who, as your internal affairs spokespeople, took this through your caucus; and also Te Paati Māori for their tautoko, and obviously, from our Labour team, we have been 100 percent supportive of this piece of legislation.

Just finally, I want to say to Kyle, specifically, that your tenacity, you’re fortitude, and your love for your wife is commendable because you’ve put your family’s experience out there and you have allowed us to experience all the emotions that come from not only having a child but losing a spouse. And it has been an incredibly painful and traumatic journey for you, but I hope that there is some peace in your heart as we as a Parliament have come together to support your aspiration, and your aspiration is for your daughter, Paige, to have her mother’s name on her birth certificate before Paige turns two on 25 March. I know, from everybody here in this Parliament, we share your aspiration and we will do all we can as a Parliament to fulfil your obligations to your wife and your aspiration. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is, That Paige Harris Birth Registration Bill be considered by the Governance and Administration Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Governance and Administration Committee.

LOUISA WALL (Labour): I move, That the Paige Harris Birth Registration Bill be reported to the House by 4 March 2022 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196(1)(b) and (c).

Motion agreed to.

Business of the House

Business of the House

KIERAN McANULTY (Chief Whip—Labour): Point of order. Thank you, Madam Speaker. After consultation with the other parties, I seek leave to postpone the second reading of the Biosecurity (Information for Incoming Passengers) Amendment Bill in the name of Steph Lewis and the second reading of the Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Bill in the name of Nicola Willis until the next members’ day.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Could the member please confirm that you do have the agreement of both members in charge of those bills for this course of action.

Kieran McAnulty: Yes.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you. Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is none. Those bills are postponed until the next members’ day. I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Harmful Digital Communications (Unauthorised Posting of Intimate Visual Recording) Amendment Bill and the Sunscreen (Product Safety Standard) Bill.

House in Committee

House in Committee

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Members, the House is in committee on the Harmful Digital Communications (Unauthorised Posting of Intimate Visual Recording) Amendment Bill and the Sunscreen (Product Safety Standard) Bill.

Bills

Harmful Digital Communications (Unauthorised Posting of Intimate Visual Recording) Amendment Bill

In Committee

Clause 1 Title

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): We come first to the Harmful Digital Communications (Unauthorised Posting of Intimate Visual Recording) Amendment Bill. The first debate is on clause 1. This is the debate on the title. The question is that clause 1 stand part.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 Commencement

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that clause 2 stand part.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 Principal Act

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that clause 3 stand part.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Clause 3A Section 4 amended (Interpretation)

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Members, we come now to clause 3A. This is the debate on amendments to section 4. The question is that clause 3A stand part. The question is that Louisa Wall’s amendments to clause 3A set out on Supplementary Order Paper 82 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that Golriz Ghahraman’s amendments to clause 3A set out in Supplementary Order Paper 103 be agreed to.

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that clause 3A as amended stand part.

Clause 3A as amended agreed to.

Clause 3B Section 20 amended (Court may vary or discharge order)

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that clause 3B stand part.

Clause 3B agreed to.

Clause 3C Section 21 amended (Offence of non-compliance with order)

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that clause 3C stand part.

Clause 3C agreed to.

Clause 3D Section 22 amended (Causing harm by posting digital communication)

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Members, we now come to clause 3D, which is the debate on the amendment to section 22: Causing harm by posting digital communication. The question is that clause 3D stand part. The question is that Louisa Wall’s amendment to clause 3D set out on Supplementary Order Paper 82 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that clause 3D as amended stand part.

Clause 3D as amended agreed to.

Clause 4 New sections 22A and 22B inserted

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that clause 4 stand part.

Clause 4 agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): I will report the bill with amendment.

Bills

Sunscreen (Product Safety Standard) Bill

In Committee

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, we come now to the consideration in committee of the Sunscreen (Product Safety Standard) Bill. The first debate will be on clause 1. This is the debate on the title. The question is that clause 1 stand part.

Clauses 1 to 5 and Schedule 1

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Madam Chair, I seek leave for all provisions to be taken as one question.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is none. The question is that clauses 1 to 5 and Schedule 1 stand part.

TODD MULLER: This is very good, thank you for your kind gesticulation to assist me through this process, which I’d have to say has turned up slightly quicker than expected. That was a very speedy committee stage in the previous bill. For those hoping the same speed will occur in this one, I think we’ll be close to that but perhaps not as fast.

Look, as the member who has promoted this bill from the start, I think it is appropriate just to spend a few moments reflecting on the clauses that changed when this bill was reported back from the select committee, which was a good process and I touched on that in the second reading. Dr Liz Craig chaired it, a lot of cross-party support, and really good questioning of the significant number of submitters, actually, nearly all of whom were in favour to ensure we get a bill that works within the relatively narrow constrains of the ambition, frankly, that I put on the table when I put the member’s bill in place in the first stage.

The key changes were in Schedule 1 and clause 3, in the interpretations. A significant rewording of the definition of sunscreen product—I won’t go through it; it’s listed there in both 3A and 3B. The key point here is we made sure that the wording was aligned with the Australia and New Zealand shared standard. We didn’t want a scenario where you have a joint Australia and New Zealand standard which have specific definitions with respect to sunscreen that was then different in this bill, so the wording there is now aligned.

The second big change—which was quite a step forward for us, and one that I was very, very happy to support—is rather than the original clause 5, which required the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs to make regulations that gave effect to sunscreen products or product safety improvements of those products, we now have a specific clause 5 which has the product safety standard for sunscreen products treated as if it was a product safety standard under section 29 of the Act. This is significant, it gives the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs greater confidence that those who manage the Fair Trading Act can, if they see breaches, be able to move quickly, because those breaches will be an explicit breach of a product safety standard which is in section 29 of the Act.

The other key addition here is that the joint shared standards between Australia and New Zealand do change—they change over time when both countries agree that more additions, more clarifications, improved specifications need to be captured in those standards—and it makes it very clear that the Minister has the regulatory power to ensure that the product safety standard, now treated as if it is a product safety standard under section 29 of the Fair Trading Act, can actually change with those changes.

The other, last change was one that we debated for quite some time as a committee, and ultimately we agreed that this was the fairest way forward, although every one of us on the committee felt that it erred on the side of being generous. What that is is in Schedule 1, Part 1; it, essentially, gives existing products that have been manufactured or imported before this comes into effect—which is six months after Royal assent—12 months to ensure that the product is no longer in the supply chain and on the shelves. Now, we argued that, frankly, all those who provide sunscreen to New Zealanders should be meeting the standard right now and not need a transitional arrangement to get it to standard. We were ultimately swayed by the argument of those in the sector that said that, actually, there would be a significant cost to getting it out earlier. It was a judgment—personally I would have preferred a sharper incentive; however, this is where we have landed. Of course, as with all these things, it’s a negotiation to ensure that you get an outcome which gets it to second reading, committee stage, and then through the House for third reading support.

I would like to now turn to the Supplementary Order Paper which I’ve tabled, which essentially realigns the dates in the bill to the 2012 standard. We had hoped, as a committee, that we would be able to have the 2021 standard referenced in the legislation. The challenge with this is that the Australian side of the joint standard haven’t promulgated it and agreed the transitional arrangements in an Australian context. There is real risk of confusion if the two countries aren’t aligned. So what we are doing is just clarifying that the standard that sits and underpins these changes is the 2012 standard. There is a 2021 standard that’s very close to being agreed between Australia and New Zealand authorities. When that happens, the regulation-making power as reflected in clause 5 kicks in, and the Minister of Consumer Affairs will be able to very quickly amend the product safety standard in this bill, to the new standard.

So it’s all a little bit technical, but I think this is a step forward, it’s not a panacea, but it keeps the pressure on sunscreen manufacturers to know that, actually, this House sees the issue of ensuring the efficacy of sunscreen products is important. This is a good step forward. The next big challenge will be a therapeutic goods bill—that is pending, maybe; it’s been pending for two Governments. It’s still pending, and that will be the next step in ensuring consumers have the confidence that they need to have, that when they put sunscreen on themselves—and, more importantly, their children—if it says Sun Protection Factor (SPF) 50, then it will give the protection of SPF 50. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that Todd Muller’s amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 99 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that clauses 1 to 5 and Schedule 1 as amended stand part.

Clauses 1 to 5 and Schedule 1 as amended agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment.

House resumed.

Report of Committee of the Whole House

Report of Committee of the Whole House

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Harmful Digital Communications (Unauthorised Posting of Intimate Visual Recording) Amendment Bill and reports it with amendment. The committee has also considered the Sunscreen (Product Safety Standard) Bill and reports it with amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

Bills

Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion (Safe Areas) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 10 November 2021.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Before we begin the debate, I’ll advise members that in accordance with a decision of the Business Committee, there will be a split party vote at the end of the debate. When the House was last debating this bill, it gave leave for this to be a two-hour debate with speeches of not more than 10 minutes, so that if there’s time left from the shorter speeches, it can be used by other members.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Several years ago, I had the privilege of serving on the international board of Amnesty International at a time when we began a journey of truly fighting for women’s rights. This included violence against women, women’s education, but also, critically, women’s right to health. Over the course of that role but also many others, I’ve heard some very personal stories from women about the barriers to accessing healthcare they’ve faced both overseas and in New Zealand. Many faced harassment, obstruction, or intimidation, and there have also been stories of women who didn’t have an experience of harassment or obstruction but who spoke about being terrified that they would, that they’d have their photo shared on social media. They were terrified of being identified or harassed while trying to access a health service. There were some who chose simply not to present to access that health service at a healthcare facility.

Terry Bellamak wrote last year of the problems we faced, and she wrote “The actions of harassers sometimes take a turn for the dramatic. Shouts of ‘murderer’ or ‘have mercy on your baby’. Or pelting people with baby doll parts … Sometimes they say things like ‘you don’t have to do this’ … But people being harassed can recognise when they are being condemned whether the weapon is abuse or condescension.”

So what about the argument that this is about freedom of speech? Well, as we know, rights and freedoms in New Zealand are subject to a balancing act. Freedom of speech considerations have to be balanced by the ability to access healthcare, and what we must determine is whether the provisions are a justifiable limitation of the right. In this case, this health access proposal doesn’t remove a right to free speech; it proposes a reasonable limitation, allowing individuals to protest outside of the protected access area. Women should be just able to walk up and access healthcare providers without being harassed, without being obstructed.

I’d also note that for many women—in fact, some of our most vulnerable women—without this bill, the effect of the Abortion Legislation Act 2020, which decriminalised abortion, will be meaningless. They’ll simply be too scared to access the services that they’re entitled to. For some, this’ll mean engaging in unsafe practices or putting their own health at risk. Having a right to health includes the ability to have access to that right safely. I commend this bill to the House.

RACHEL BROOKING (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to make a short call on the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion (Safe Areas) Amendment Bill, and, of course, the focus there is on the safe areas. As the previous speaker has just said, laws have already been passed to decriminalise abortion, but they did not provide for this safe area, and it’s so important that when women have made a decision to seek medical help and to seek an abortion, they can do so in some peace.

I reside in beautiful Dunedin. We often have protesters outside of the hospital, and I’d like to credit a friend of mine, Sam Sharpe, who often stands out there with them in trying to support the women who are coming in to have an abortion. So I’m sure he’s got better things to do with his time and will be able to not do that in terms of when this legislation is passed and that safe area is provided for those women, who have always made a very tough decision—to decide to have an abortion. It’s not an easy thing to do. It has a huge impact on your body, of course, and it’s so important that once they’ve made that decision, they can go ahead with it in a safe way.

So for the reasons that previous speakers have spoken to as well, I commend this bill to the House.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): It’s my pleasure to stand and take a call on this the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion (Safe Areas) Amendment Bill. I acknowledge the member in charge of the bill, Louisa Wall. She seems to have the luck of the Irish in having her bills come to the House. But the thing that I always like about the way that Louisa approaches her members’ bills is that she does a lot of cross-party consultation. She came and spoke to me about this bill when it was first drawn, and absolutely I support it.

I think that it doesn’t remove the right for people to protest, but what it does is it puts a safe area in place for women and their families when they’re going through what is an extremely stressful—you know, they’re going through something that’s extremely stressful to them anyway, and when you look around the world, it’s very sad to see that often at these abortion clinics you’ll see doctors attacked, verbally abused, you’ll see women attacked, and verbally abused. I think it’s only right that they’re allowed to go there and they’re allowed to have access to medical support without actually having to be subjected to that type of sometimes physical but definitely verbal abuse—and even having their photos taken, with the risk of their going up on social media.

So it’s a good bill and I’m very happy to stand in the House and take a call and support it.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I too rise to take a very short call on this bill, a bill that I’m incredibly supportive of. I’ve spent most of my work life prior to Parliament in the women’s rights space, supporting women’s rights. I’ve met, over the years that I’ve been in Parliament, with Terry Bellamak from the Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand, I’ve gone out and visited abortion clinics as well, and I couldn’t be more supportive of this bill that aims to reduce the intimidation and harassment that many women face as they enter or walk towards abortion clinics, but, equally, the intimidation and harassment that staff at these clinics face daily with people protesting very close to the doors in ways that can be quite scary.

I just want to quote something that Terry mentioned—it has been mentioned in the House by other speakers as well and I feel very strongly about it because this is often pitted as a freedom of expression debate, and it’s not—she says, and I quote, “Freedom of expression does not include the right to target a captive audience and force them to listen to your message. People tell me they find the harassment outside the abortion services intimidating and upsetting.” As other speakers have noted today in their contributions, having an abortion is in itself is an incredibly scary time for many women and having people with explicit messaging and often photographs right in your face as you’re walking to those clinics—and for the staff, day in day out—is intimidation.

This bill doesn’t remove the rights to protest, it’s a right that all of us, I think, in this House hold strongly, but it doesn’t allow them to be quite so in your face and intimidate women going in. So, for those reasons, I support this bill and commend it to the House.

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour—Wairarapa): We’re in a similar situation to last night, where it doesn’t appear that many people, particularly those who wish to oppose this, wish to stand up and have a yarn. Therefore, I’ll take the opportunity to talk about this bill.

I’m very much in favour of this bill, and I hope that it does continue to enjoy the support we’ve seen in the first reading. This, I think, is just about safety and a very simple proposition: does this House think it’s OK for people who are seeking a legal medical procedure to be harassed and intimidated? That’s the question that we have to consider today. I say, no it’s not OK—very simple. This is a legal activity, regardless of what people may think of it, regardless of what their views are on the moral question of abortion. That debate has been had. That debate has been won, and people that don’t like it—that’s fine, but they’ve got to accept it, and they don’t, I believe, have the right to impose on those who are seeking what is a legal medical procedure.

I get the arguments against abortion. I don’t agree with them, but I get it, because I was raised as, and still am, a Catholic. But I come back to the point that was raised a number of times when this House was discussing the question of whether abortion should sit within the Crimes Act. People can have their own views, but what right do they have to impose those views on the choice of others. People can believe, through religious or other reasons, that abortion is wrong. That’s their right and good on them if that’s what they think. Again, I don’t agree—I wholeheartedly don’t agree—but if that’s what they think, fine. How dare they impose that view on others.

If someone chooses, for their own reasons, to seek this medical procedure, they should be able to do so as if they were seeking any other medical procedure. They should be able to arrive, access it, and leave without anybody imposing their views on them, without anybody impeding them, harassing them or abusing them. Some may say, “We don’t want to do that. That’s abhorrent. We just want to talk to them.” Nah, sorry—you want to talk to them on the basis of telling them that their decision is wrong. I don’t think you have that right. By all means go and protest if you want but do it somewhere it doesn’t impinge on somebody else’s legal right to seek a medical procedure.

I think we have to take a step back and fight for rights of people to freedom of speech and freedom of protest, but we have seen, very recently, how protests can cross the line. We will fight in Parliament at every opportunity for people’s right to protest, but when that protest then stops other people going about their rightful, legal lives, that, I believe, is crossing the line. What this bill will achieve, when it passes, is ensure that people that are pursuing a legal right to a medical procedure can do so safely. I commend Louisa Wall for bringing this bill to the House. I say to members in the House: if you’re going to vote against it, fine—get up and tell us why.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. First of all, I too would like to acknowledge and thank Louisa Wall for this bill and for shepherding it through the House so adeptly. I also want to acknowledge the committee, which I have the privilege of sitting on, and the chair, Liz Craig, for what I felt was a really thoughtful and constructive interrogation of the issues. We worked really hard on the committee to make sure that we would provide protection for pregnant people who needed to access information about abortion or abortions themselves, while protecting the rights of people through our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. According to the Attorney-General, we achieved that balance, I’m really pleased to say.

In the Green Party, and as a member of the Green Party, we believe that all people have the right to access healthcare in safety, with their privacy protected. It’s pretty foundational. This right is protected for most people through our code of health and disability rights, which guarantees all consumers the specific rights of privacy, respect, and the right to freedom from discrimination, coercion, harassment, and exploitation. But, sadly, there’s a whole lot of people who do care that some pregnant people have abortions, and we heard from many of these people through the select committee process. We read hundreds of submissions from people who believe it’s their right and actually their duty to intervene in a way to try and prevent people having abortions.

Despite so many testimonies of peacefulness, the committee was presented with a recent survey of abortion service providers that found over half of them are currently dealing with protests. That protest action is increasing, not decreasing. We heard evidence of patients being chased into clinics. We heard of pamphleting, loud hymn singing, blockading of doors, protesters approaching and speaking to patients and calling individual staff by name to intimidate, photographing of staff and patients, and refusing to leave when asked. This is why some who previously had indicated they didn’t support safe zones have indicated that they now do, because they are seeing an escalation, an escalation that the Green Party have felt in a physical way, where our co-leader James Shaw was assaulted by somebody who said a reason for that assault was our position on abortion rights.

Providers reported that protests make patients tearful, distressed, angry, or defensive. They have also known women who are attending services to also become abusive to protesters because of the sense of escalation and fight. One woman spoke of trying to access an abortion during the so-called 40 Days for Life and there being a counter-protest at the time. She commented that she had no issues about getting an abortion, but having to walk through that gauntlet of pros and antis was incredibly anxiety-inducing, and it’s not conducive or appropriate in the context of accessing healthcare. She believes safe zones will stop any escalation. There won’t be a voice for or against in these areas. I’ve been on those protests, I’ve got to say. I’ve been part of that environment she was describing, and I happily give up my right to protest out there in support of people’s right to access abortions to ensure that that is a zone with absolute privacy and respect and none of that stress.

We also heard from women concerned that people, especially young women, accessing other services from Family Planning, as an example, also lose their right to privacy when these protests happen. This is of real concern for clinics like Family Planning, where many women in particular go for added specialisation but also privacy away from people that they know, and we do not want to create a situation where people are deterred from getting good healthcare. So I will continue to, admittedly begrudgingly, defend the right of those who oppose abortion to express their views, to campaign, and to organise for law change. I will say what I think about that, and it will be a free contest of ideas. But I do not believe they have the right or that any interpretation of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act gives them a right, let alone a duty that many feel, to do whatever they can to stop pregnant people from having abortions. That is an interference in the right of people to privacy, dignity, and impedes their right to access healthcare.

This bill is not about whether abortion is OK or not. This bill has very little to do with the freedom of expression. Say what you like, just not within 150 metres of a service. This bill is about ensuring all people have the right to access healthcare in safety, with their privacy protected. Those opposing the legislation will say many of these behaviours are already covered by existing legislation and it’s completely unnecessary. What they’re actually saying is the status quo of abuse that I’ve described earlier in this speech is acceptable, because we know that’s happening under the current legal framework. I don’t agree with that. That is why I am supporting this bill.

It is true that many but absolutely not all of the behaviours described and affected are covered by the Summary Offences Act, the Trespass Act, and the Harassment Act, but what we heard from providers and women who were accessing services was that these laws aren’t stopping abortion harassment, largely because they rely on that person going for an abortion or abortion advice to provide evidence, to be the complainant for a case to succeed, and that is the last thing that they want to be dealing with when they are going for an abortion. That is a further breach of their right to privacy—to try and get in and have your healthcare and then stand up in front of court and potentially have somebody report on it is not a practical solution for their safety and protection of right to healthcare.

So that’s why the committee made some amendments to the bill as well. The bill as introduced would have required the prosecution to demonstrate that the person subjected to the prohibited behaviour was a protected person, and that would have relied probably on them being required to give evidence. So we removed that so complaints could be laid by people other than those accessing or providing abortion services. We also removed the requirement to prove specific intent or knowledge. While now this could be considered a strict liability offence, we were advised this aligns with similar offences—so it’s not out of the ordinary at all—while noting the accused would still avoid liability if they could show the existence of a defence or absence of fault. We did not manage to get to the same place for visually recording another person, but we believe this is probably a good first run of it, and if it proves to be a problem, we’ll be able to fix it later. I understand that visual recordings, if shared, would not require the person accessing the service to give evidence.

Many submitters in support of the legislation wanted automatic safe areas, and I shared that desire. That was my starting point too, just like “Let’s make this really simple and just do it.” What we were given evidence of in the committee process was that, actually, in terms of balancing rights and ensuring that the safe zone did not go too far, you need to design it specific to each site. Now that abortions are not just happening in hospitals or the very few Family Planning clinics that they were able to be in before—some of them are in mobile situations, some of them are in community areas—actually, they need to be named to be consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and good legislative guidelines. So we just couldn’t work out a way to make it automatic, but we did put a provision in there to encourage the Minister to streamline this process. It will probably take three or four months, and if anybody could come up with a solution to that before the committee stage, I’m sure we’d be interested. But we did really look into this in great detail, and it is consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and it will protect people’s right to healthcare.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour—Northland): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Thank you for this opportunity to take a call on the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion (Safe Areas) Amendment Bill, and can I please start my contribution by acknowledging the member Louisa Wall, who has brought this bill to the House. I supported the abortion legislation previously, and I’m pleased to see that this issue that arose during that debate actually has come before the House and we are able to debate it and, hopefully, address this issue this morning.

I myself haven’t personally seen or observed this behaviour. I wasn’t on the select committee, but I have heard in the speeches this morning and I have heard from colleagues who have seen it firsthand for themselves how awful this must be for those who are trying to access services, something that is their right and that is, ultimately, their decision. As we have heard in the speeches this morning, what we are trying to do here is balance one set of rights versus another set of rights. The right that is often used to oppose what is being proposed in this legislation is that right of freedom of expression—freedom of speech—and what had to be weighed up here was the other rights that people have to access medical services, to their privacy, and to go about their own business. It was a challenge, as I can see, for the Health Committee to weigh up those. I see that they gave it real consideration as to how that could be balanced in trying to achieve the objectives of this piece of legislation.

What the bill does is it actually defines the type of behaviour that is prohibited, so I think when anybody is hearing about this or considering it, they should actually read what is in the bill and what is being prohibited, and it’s defined as “intimidating, interfering with, or obstructing a protected person—[either] with the intention of frustrating the purpose for which the protected person is in the safe area; or … in a manner that an ordinary reasonable person would know would cause emotional distress to a protected person:”. I think when you read that, you read the type of behaviour that’s proposed to be prohibited by this bill, you would see that it is not an unreasonable restriction on somebody’s freedom of expression. Their freedom of expression is going much further than I think is acceptable to us, and that’s what we are legislating for today.

It’s also “communicating with, or visually recording, a person in a manner that an ordinary reasonable person would know would cause emotional distress to a protected person.” So it provides a safe area and it provides that it cannot be more than 150 metres from the perimeter of the premises. We heard an excellent explanation from the member Jan Logie about why it’s not just a blanket thing but it needs to be applied to each site, and I also heard your point about how possibly that could be more streamlined. But it was something that, obviously, the Health Committee grappled with and tried to figure out if there was a blanket way in which it could be done, but what was ultimately landed on was that it would be site-specific, and there’s a process within the legislation for that.

The recommended changes from the Health Committee: I think the one I wanted to focus on mainly was around the Attorney-General’s report on the bill to the House, in which it concluded that clause 5 of the bill appeared to be inconsistent with the right to freedom of expression as affirmed in section 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and the Attorney-General was concerned that the bill would criminalise communicating in a way that could be distressing. The way in which the Health Committee dealt with this and undertook that balancing act and tried to provide clarification for that was to recommend amending clause 5 by replacing new section 13A and removing the definitions of “prohibited behaviour” and “protected person” and by specifically defining the types of behaviour that would be prohibited in a safe area.

That’s why I encourage anybody who is thinking about this piece of legislation to actually read what it says in the bill. I saw this last night with the conversion practices prohibition. People were just making a statement and making assumptions, but they haven’t necessarily read the legislation, which is outlining for clarity what it does include and does prohibit and what it doesn’t.

So the proposed new section 13A(1)(b) would prohibit a person from visually recording another person in a safe area in a certain manner, and they could not do so in a way that was likely to cause emotional distress to a person accessing, providing, or assisting with providing abortion services. I just want everybody in the House to just take a little moment to consider that: somebody going to access these services in what could be a really difficult situation for them, and you have somebody with a mobile recording device recording you doing that. I’m really proud that we are putting this in legislation to prohibit that type of behaviour.

The new section 13A(1)(c) would also prohibit a person from undertaking certain activities in a safe area, and these activities would be ones that “could easily be seen or heard by another person (A) who may be accessing, providing, or assisting with providing, abortion services:”. The prohibited activities would be advising or persuading A to refrain from accessing or providing abortion services; informing A about matters relating to the provision of abortion services, unless it was when the services were being provided; and engaging in protest about matters relating to the provision of abortion services.

To be clear, though, a person could carry out these activities while accompanying person A with consent. So this would be to avoid it being an offence for a private conversation in a safe area where A was being dissuaded by a person accompanying them from accessing or providing abortion services, and I think that’s an important point for people to know. Somebody who, with the consent of the person going in for the services, may be having that private conversation would not be captured by this bill. However, somebody who is not there with the consent of person A and who is trying to do that is what is being captured by this bill.

So, on that basis, the Attorney-General provided feedback on those proposed changes and concluded that they considered that “while the revised draft of the Bill would still limit freedom of expression within a safe area under section 14 of the Bill of Rights Act, it would do so in a way that was demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society under section 5.” So I really want to commend the Health Committee for the work that they did and the recommendations and changes that they made in order to try and achieve that balancing act. I commend the committee on what they arrived at, and, therefore, I feel honoured and privileged to be able to stand up in this House this morning to make this contribution and to support this legislation. Ki a koe Louisa, tēnei te mihi nui ki a koe e te wahine toa. Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare.

[To you, Louisa, a courageous woman, this is a great acknowledgment. Greetings to the Speaker of the House.]

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, I also rise to speak in favour of this legislation, which I think is very important particularly given some of the stories we’ve heard in the House of the kind of harassment that has accelerated in some of the areas around clinics providing medical services for people who are needing an abortion.

This piece of legislation is not about the rights and wrongs of abortion and who should be able to access it—previous speakers have made that point well. It is about whether or not people should be able to be stopping people, encroaching upon people’s freedoms, within 150 metres of a site that is providing medical care in respect of abortions. I think from the outset it’s always important to remind ourselves that no one at all is ever seeking an abortion because of a situation they deliberately sought out. People do not find themselves needing an abortion because of something they wanted—it’s not a position anybody wants to find themselves in, putting it plainly. People who are seeking an abortion are often in a position of some distress. It can be a stressful situation for the individuals involved, and, as a consequence, it’s important to remember that people in the position of needing an abortion can be vulnerable, you know, whether that is because of rape or incest or any other number of horrific realities that, unfortunately, can sometimes be inflicted upon some of those who will need abortion services, or for other medical reasons.

So I think finding the balance is what this bill seeks to do, between freedom of speech and those who wish to protest against some aspects of abortion—finding the balance between that and protecting the rights of individuals to access medical services without harassment. I do feel that this bill has sought and found a balance, and previous speakers have referred to the work of the Attorney-General and his comments—the changes made in select committee to try to ensure the right balance is struck; shifting away from certain language, moving towards other language, which describes the kinds of behaviours that are prohibited: “ obstruct[ing] a person in a safe area who is approaching, [leaving, or entering] any building in which abortion services are provided; … mak[ing] a visual recording of another person in a safe area in a manner that is likely to cause emotional distress to a person accessing, providing, or assisting with providing, abortion services”, or a number of other behaviours that might indeed be perceived by the person accessing the services as intimidation or harassment.

I think, again, if we come back to that position where we know that those who find themselves in the position of needing an abortion will not have sought to be in that position, I think it’s a call upon our humanity to make sure that those people are able to access the services in what can be a very distressing situation, particularly where there is harassment, which is documented. Look, I mean, in my electorate there is a hospital and there are people actively protesting outside where people are going to seek medical support, and, I have to say, it makes me distinctly uncomfortable to see that practice. I feel that this bill is striking the right balance. It’s preserving the right for people to protest further away, to make their point, and people need to be free to express their concerns and to protest the way that laws are, but there are appropriate ways to protest and to get a message across and to support change if that’s what you firmly believe should happen, and there are ways which are more akin to intimidation, and those must never be allowed to prevail because that’s not the society that any of us in this House want to live in.

I think, also, one aspect that I’ve seen less comment on in the time I’ve been following the debate in the House is the requirement for review of this legislation, and I think it’s something that is more and more best practice, but I actually think it’s a good thing to make sure things are fit for purpose. I just this morning presented on the Data and Statistics Bill that is before select committee, and one of the aspects that’s happening in that bill, similar to here, is a requirement that when we conduct censuses, we review each time and learn the lessons and make amendments to laws and so on if they need updating. The way in which our society is moving and changing means it’s very hard to project forward in 10 years’ time whether this will be appropriate, whether people accessing services will arrive by different means, whether they’ll be provided in set premises or in other circumstances as medical science improves or changes. It could be that these kinds of protections we’re passing today are not relevant in 50 years’ time or 30 years’ time or whatever. The stats bill, it’s nearly 50 years since it was last updated and it talks about statistics. It doesn’t even talk about data. Here we’re talking about a medical practice as it’s currently carried out and the behaviours that we’re observing that cause distress to those who are seeking medical attention. So I think that that’s something, although not covered in the debate, I think is a very good thing to see in the legislation.

I do thank those who have given it consideration in select committee, who have ensured that we have those regulation-making powers there—no later than five years, they must be reviewed and “ at subsequent intervals of not more than 5 years, the Director-General … with the Secretary for Justice, must—(a) review the regulations (if they are still in force) to determine whether that prescribed safe area is still—(i) desirable for the purposes specified in subsection (2)(a); and (ii) demonstrably justified as specified in subsection (2)(b);” and report to the Minister of Health and the Minister Justice to facilitate amendments if they’re required, or revoke the Act. So I think these are really healthy and good things to see in the legislation—that is good practice. We do need to revisit these things as practices change, and, indeed, the member Louisa Wall, who’s brought this bill, has looked to current practice and said, “Look, what we’ve got here does need to be updated and changed.”, and I commend that and I commend her for bringing this bill to the House.

So I also want to just acknowledge the respectful debate that’s being held in the House, and I think that that is incredibly important for a healthy democracy. We do need to be able to debate the rights and freedoms that are being developed here today and the balance that’s been struck in the legislative change—that is incredibly important to our democracy. I do want to also acknowledge the way in which that’s been done in a respectful way in what is a very difficult and sensitive topic, particularly for those who have endured trauma and had to engage with the peculiarities of the medical system, the particular institutional arrangements that often characterise it, which may not always be culturally familiar to those who are accessing services in our country.

So, in concluding, I do want to say thank you again to the member who’s brought the bill. Thank you to members around the House who are debating, actually, important issues of freedom of speech, because curtailing it should only be done in a way that is really clear about what we’re prohibiting and that is those things that that could be well characterised as intimidation, and also balancing that out with the privacy and the rights of people to access, without harassment, medical services. I do commend these changes to the House.

BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m going to take a call this morning on behalf of the ACT Party on the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion (Safe Areas) Amendment Bill at the second reading. I’m doing so on behalf of ACT in acknowledgment that we have all adopted a position in support of the second reading, but also doing so for my own self. I have always been a staunch believer in a woman’s right to choose. I’m very thankful that my colleagues are also in favour of a woman’s right to choose. In fact, David Seymour, when he was the only member of ACT in this Chamber in the last term, voted in favour of the Abortion Legislation Bill, but actually wished for the more progressive side of that abortion legislation to occur. That didn’t happen. The House agreed on a more restrictive form for that Act.

But I acknowledge that there are a range of views that occurred in the Health Committee, which I was privileged to sit on and listen to some of the submissions. I want to acknowledge the hours of work that the Clerk’s Office and the officials did in reading through all of those submissions—a huge number that were very emotive. I have a lot of respect for the Clerk’s Office and the officials who do such diligent work for us. A lot of the submissions, though, weren’t actually about safe areas. A lot of them were to do with whether or not we should, in fact, allow abortions to occur at all in New Zealand. But that’s not really the debate that we were to have, because we settled that in the last term with the abortion legislation. But if there is any cause for doubt, we are firmly in favour of a woman’s right to choose.

This bill, in particular, aims to protect the safety and wellbeing, the respect and privacy and dignity of women accessing abortion facilities, and practitioners providing and helping with abortion services. That’s a very well intentioned aim. I think we all know women who have had abortions, many who would never have actually told us. But, thankfully, with how society is progressing, more and more people are feeling it’s OK to actually talk about these things with their friends and their family. And I know, personally, many people who have had abortions and they should be respected for their choices and not feel like they’re going to be threatened or obstructed from entering an abortion service when they’re already in a very vulnerable situation.

I do also want to acknowledge the role that ACT had to play in bringing this bill to Parliament. When we had the debate on the Abortion Legislation Bill, the ACT Party removed the provision for the safe areas. That was because we wanted to make sure that the correct balance was struck between protecting women from harm when they’re going to enter an abortion facility, and also the principle of the right to freedom of expression and free speech. We believe that both of these are very important principles and aims, but we didn’t believe that, at the time, the correct balance was struck in that piece of legislation, and we are very happy that it was in fact removed. I have to admire the tenacity of Louisa Wall for putting forward a member’s bill to put safe areas back into legislation.

Now, we didn’t believe the right balance was struck then, and we also didn’t believe that the right balance was struck between protecting people and their rights and also protecting freedom of speech at the first reading. That’s because we looked at the word “communicate”, and that was the same reason for why we removed that provision in the abortion legislation—it’s because we believe that it was far too broad and actually went against people’s rights in an undemocratic and unjustifiable manner. It was far too broad to simply say that communicating in an area close to an abortion facility should be prohibited. We believed it would have a chilling effect on free speech. And I note that our fears were actually also the same fears of the Attorney-General, because I read some parts of the Attorney-General’s section 7 report where he believed it was also inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and he said clause 5 of the bill, as introduced, would be defining a behaviour that would be prohibited in safe areas that would include intimidation, interfering with or obstructing a protected person. Those are, you know, well-intentioned aims, but also said that it was “overly broad and not a justifiable limit on s 14 of the Bill of Rights Act.” He considered that the term “communicating” had a broad scope because it “appears to cover any speech or behaviour with a communicative element, rather than focusing on the forms of communication common to anti-abortion activism”, but also believed it was “likely to have a chilling effect on all forms of communication within a safe area.”

Now, we had a lot of discussions in the select committee about how to strike that correct balance, and we wanted to see the word “communicate” struck from the bill and the scope narrowed, and I’m glad that we were able—in good faith—to come to a compromise that struck a better balance between the right for people to access health services in a manner that they feel respected, but also to uphold the rights of freedom of speech in a democratic country with justifiable limitations. We were also glad to see the removal of safe areas being automatic, and I think one aspect that became quite apparent was listening to one submitter that said, “Well, if my home is within the safe zone, does that mean that I can’t talk about my own personal beliefs within my home?” And the advice that we had was, yes, that would actually be a prohibited behaviour. So I’m very glad to see that the safe zones and the requirements around the regulations have been much, much more narrow.

We have struck a much better balance and we are happy to now support the bill because of the good faith that has happened in the select committee to make sure that we have that correct balance between freedom of speech and the right for people to access a health service. We believe that it’s really important that people do have access to health services. It is their right under our New Zealand laws. I actually believe it is the right thing to allow people to have that choice. But we also must ensure that we’re upholding freedom of expression and freedom of speech, and it’s not unnecessarily impinged on. I’m glad to see that the Attorney-General, after the changes made at select committee, does believe that the limitations on freedom of speech are democratically justified.

At first reading, we did say that we would support the bill if the word “communicate” was removed. That has happened, and I’m very proud to stand here on behalf of a party that makes sure that we are always making sure that we’re getting good public policy right and that we’re taking the time to do due diligence and making sure that we are not unnecessarily impinging on people’s rights and freedoms, and that we are creating the correct balance between everybody’s rights in society. I do note that there is the provision for a review in five years, and if anything happens that is impinging too far on freedom of speech, we can come back and review it at that time. But, on balance, ACT as happy to support this bill. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Look, I wasn’t going to take a call on this bill, but I did want to point out and lay out for the record the excellent process that has been gone through on the bill. I am one member who struggled with the proposal as it was first put forward by my colleague and friend Louisa Wall at first reading, primarily because of the reasons that have been ventilated by others around freedom of expression. And in the last Parliament, I was a member who essentially supported the removal of the safe areas from the abortion legislation as it was going through the Parliament, because I’m a very strong supporter of free speech and freedom of expression, and I believe strongly, in some ways, that it’s the paramount right in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Many other rights in our constitution and in our political framework flow from the intrinsic ability to express oneself not just in this Parliament but around the country. It is, in some ways, the paramount right in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

So I was very concerned about—well, I was concerned about the proposal as it was initially drafted. I voted for this bill at first reading to send it to a committee so we could try and fix some of those issues, and see whether or not we could find a balance between protecting the rights of people who wish to protest and express their views around abortion, which is a highly charged emotive issue—fortunately, we don’t have the same litigious culture and the same venomous culture around the debate around abortion in New Zealand that they have in the United States, for example. But there are people in New Zealand with strongly held moral, religious, political, social views around abortion, and their rights have to be respected.

Equally, people who wish to procure an abortion—women who want to access abortion services and health services— have a right to do so unimpeded from emotional harm and distress. So the question before the Parliament has been: what is the appropriate balance to protect, in so far as it’s possible to do so, the rights of both groups of people? The bill as it was initially drafted, I think everyone will acknowledge, needed some work, and so I voted for the bill at first reading to send it to the Health Committee—which I sat on briefly; I won’t admit to the House that I was super-involved in the committee’s deliberations, because there had been a few other things on. I enjoyed sitting on the Health Committee for some time while we considered the bill. I have to say, it was an extremely good process, because what we did as a committee was we took the report of the Attorney-General under section 7 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and we said to the officials, “You’ve got to fix the bill. We’ve got to bring this bill into line so that the Attorney-General doesn’t have a problem with it.”

And I’ll tell you what’s really interesting: section 7 reports are probably too often ignored by Parliament. Members will know that the Attorney-General is required to make a report if he thinks a bill before the Parliament, including members’ bills, are unjustifiably inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. And quite often, committees say, “Oh well, you know, that just the view of the Attorney-General; that’s all very interesting, thanks very much for that, but we’ll just charge on anyway.” And Governments too, to be fair—it’s not just an issue to do with committees; it’s Governments. And the Health Committee did the opposite. The Health Committee took the report seriously, and I believe it will go down in the record books as a paradigmatic example of how to take rights seriously, and, also, how to balance rights seriously—excellent work done by the committee.

So we went through that long process, we heard all the submissions, and what we’ve done is made some changes that other members have ventilated to the House around the bill. And then what we did was quite interesting: in order to give members comfort that what they were doing was now voting for a bill that was New Zealand Bill of Rights Act - consistent—so a bill that was no longer inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—we wrote to the Attorney-General and we said, “It would be really good if you wrote back to the House”—essentially—“and said that you no longer have any concerns with the bill.”

And, again, this is something—I don’t believe this has happened before, right? I actually think I’m right in saying—I meant to check with the Parliamentary Library before I came down. But I’m pretty sure I’m right in saying, and I’ll correct the record if I’m not, that this is the first time where a negative section 7 report has been presented that says the bill is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the committee has fixed the bill and then the Attorney-General has written to the Parliament to say, “I’m now happy with the bill.” I think I’m right in saying that. And so, no doubt, there’ll be New Zealand Law Journal articles and Law Review articles by learned scholars written about this. I’m sure Sir Geoffrey Palmer’s watching, extremely excited that his baby, the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, has had its jurisprudence further advanced, and I look forward to his correspondence on the matter, but I think I’m right in saying that it’s the first time, and that’s a good thing, because what’s happened here is that the Attorney-General is now advising the Parliament that he is happy with the bill as it’s been amended by the committee.

I know there are members in the Parliament who are voting, and I’m one of them, but there are other members including me who are voting for the bill now because they are happy and comfortable with the bill because it is now consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and they’ve got the judgment of the chief legal officer of the Crown, and the Government, who says so and has written to Parliament to say so. Now, reasonable people can disagree; there may well be colleagues who disagree on the conclusion that the Attorney-General has drawn, and that’s completely fine, and I respect that—reasonable people can have different views about limitations on rights—but it is significant that the Attorney-General has written to the Parliament and said, “I am now comfortable with this, and therefore, in my considered opinion, it is no longer inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.” I for one am much more comfortable voting for the bill because the Attorney-General has done that. So I want to commend the committee, which I am no longer a member of, for its prescience, or far-sightedness, in writing to the Attorney-General, and I want to commend the Attorney General, the Hon David Parker for taking the step that he has done.

Just very briefly, the particular substantive amendments that have been made, according to the Attorney-General, “There [is now] little prospect that communication from support persons or service providers would be criminalised … and have [their] appropriate exemptions built in.”—that’s new section 13A(1)(c)(i) and (ii). And the most critical thing for me is engaging in protest in new section 13A is narrower than the previous phrase. So the previous phrase was “communicating with”; it’s now “engage in protests”, which means that activities that are not regarded as protest, such as people engaging in silent prayer, will not risk being criminalised. Now, again, reasonable people can disagree as to whether or not that’s an appropriate thing to do—I respect everyone’s views on that—but I think there would be broad consensus that we don’t want that behaviour banned.

So the Attorney-General says that while the bill will still limit freedom of expression in a safe area, it would do so in a way that is demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. And that’s what the New Zealand Bill of Rights is all about. People often say, well, everything breaches the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Almost anything Governments do is an intrusion on some right; the question is whether or not it’s a justified limit and whether or not it’s a proportionate limit, and whether or not you can actually do it in the least rights-intrusive way possible.

So I just wanted to take—it was intended to be a brief call but it hasn’t been a brief call. But I did just want to take a call to lay out what I think is a very important process, and I hope that in the future, when it comes to dealing with contentious issues of freedom of speech and, actually, significant intrusions on rights generally, other committees will do what the Health Committee has done alongside the Attorney-General and engage in a very robust dialogue back and forth to try and make sure that bills are as least rights-intrusive as possible. And with that, I commend the bill to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion (Safe Areas) Amendment Bill. Look, what an interesting debate this has been, given the passage of this bill and also the changes that have been recommended from select committee. The purpose of the bill is really a regulation-making power to set up those safe areas around specific abortion facilities on a case by case basis. It’s a very interesting discussion, as we’ve just heard from the previous speaker, Chris Bishop, around the balancing of rights. And look, given the debate in the House last night regarding conversion practices and also the discussions going on regarding the current protest at Parliament, the balancing of rights is a fascinating and important discussion that we have as a democracy. The question sort of goes to, when do your rights impinge on those of others and how do we get that balance right? This bill is a really good example of Parliament working just the way it should—the select committee has taken on board advice and the view of the Attorney-General under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act in order to make appropriate amendments to this bill so it does not contravene the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. It’s heartening to hear that both parties—ACT and National—which are very quick to defend freedom of speech, are supporting these amendments on the basis that it appears that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act will not be contravened if these amendments go forward.

It draws me back to think of my time in university learning political theory. I think of those political theorists that have gone before, such as John Stuart Mill, who was an English politician and member of Parliament, but also a political theorist. The very concept of utilitarianism, which is about—in a nutshell—the greatest good to the greatest number, and the actions are right in proportion if they tend to promote happiness, but wrong if they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. So right back in 1870, democracy and classical liberalism has been debating these very questions: when does someone’s rights impinge on others and how do we weigh that up?

Of course, these change in the context of the society that we’re living in and the values that we have. It’s important that we re-debate these issues time and time again in order to make sure that we get it right. So this is a good example in this bill where we didn’t get it quite right—that balance wasn’t quite in place. And that’s debateable. People will have their views on that, but it’s good to hear that there seems to be unanimous agreement within the House that the way this bill will proceed will protect those rights of women who want to receive an abortion—a medical treatment that is legal—and they should have the right to do that without being filmed, without being yelled at, and without being abused. But at the same point, people have a right to protest and people have a right to make their views known that they do not support it.

I will note that in the submissions on this bill, as well as my own member’s bill in the previous Parliament around bereavement leave, it’s interesting how we always get a significant amount of submissions that are just against abortion. To be honest, I do get frustrated with that because it would be really good to have engagement more on what the issue in front of is. It’s right that people can have those views, but I’d just like to note that we do hear those same arguments again that are just outright in opposition to abortion without trying to think about the issue at stake of balancing rights.

The Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion (Safe Areas) Amendment Bill was supported by the majority of members at the first reading. In fact, it was 100 votes in favour, 15 votes opposed, and two abstained. I always find it interesting to see who votes for these bills and who doesn’t. So now that it has been examined, the amendment bill has been recommended by the majority to be passed with the following amendments. Just to go over the process in terms of how the Attorney-General has worked and how the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is working in a healthy way, in February, the Attorney-General presented a report on the bill to the House, which I have here, in which he concluded that clause 5 of the bill appeared to be inconsistent with the right to freedom of expression as affirmed in section 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. He was concerned that the bill would in fact potentially criminalise communicating in a way that could be chilling or stopping freedom of speech. So members from the committee took on board that advice and had, I understand, a robust debate at select committee level and amended clause 5 by replacing the proposed new section 13A, removing the definitions of prohibited behaviour and protected person, and by specifically defining the types of behaviour that would be prohibited in that particular safe area—so giving it further clarity and drilling it down to make sure it was quite clear what the prohibited behaviour would be.

So the proposed new section 13A(1)(b) would prohibit a person from visually recording another person in a safe area in a certain manner, and they could not do so in a way “that is likely to cause emotional distress to a person accessing, providing, or assisting with providing, abortion services”. So the proposed new section 13A(1)(c) would also prohibit a person from undertaking certain activities in that said safe area. The activities were clarified to be ones “that could easily be seen or heard by another person … who may be accessing, providing, or assisting with providing, abortion services:”. The prohibited actions are specifically carved out, and I think it’s important that that level of detail is gone into, in order to make it very clear.

So subparagraph (i) says that a person must not “advise or persuade A to refrain from accessing or providing abortion services”; secondly, (ii) inform A about matters related to the provision of abortion services” unless it was when the services were being provided, and, finally, “(iii) engage in protest about matters relating to the provision of abortion services”. So it’s important to note here that a person could carry out these activities while accompanying with consent. This would avoid it being an offence to have a private conversation in a safe area where the person receiving the abortion was being dissuaded by a person accompanying them from accessing or providing abortion services.

I’d like to note that this is a highly contentious area. This is a view where people have very well-refined views and sharp views, and it is a point where we have debate and we have discussion about how to get that balance of rights. I would just like to point out that there is no harm at all in having a very robust debate about these issues. There’s no shame, there’s no point in reverting back to being offended or even caught name-calling in these issues. It’s so good to be able to have a good debate across the House about where those lines should lie within New Zealand, where someone’s rights to receive a service and where someone’s rights to protest, sit.

The fact that we have an Attorney-General that’s able to provide feedback on the changes is fantastic, and to see the conclusion where the Attorney-General has stated, “I consider that, while the revised draft of the Bill would limit freedom of expression within a safe area under section 14 of the Bill of Rights Act, it would do so in a way that is demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society under section 5.”

So look, I would like to commend Louisa Wall for championing this bill and taking it forward after we’ve already taken abortion out of the Crimes Act. To have this further measure in place is good for women’s rights, is good to access services that women need to, and women have the right to do so in a way that they feel their personal privacy is respected, and it’s important to make sure these services remain accessible to all New Zealanders should they wish to. I would like to acknowledge those members opposite who are voting in support of the bill, and I think it’s a good day for women’s rights in New Zealand. I commend this bill to the House.

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): I rise to speak on what’s colloquially known as the safe zones bill. I want to acknowledge Louisa Wall for bringing this before the House on a difficult, challenging issue. I have to say this has been personally a difficult and challenging issue. At the first reading I came into the House and I sat and listened to the speeches. I carefully read the proposed piece of legislation. I carefully read through the Attorney-General’s report, and there were key issues there that I found incredibly difficult to consider and find a position on.

One is that if a woman has decided to make that incredibly difficult decision to go to an abortion clinic, it is probably the hardest decision that they’ve ever made and probably will ever make. They deserve to not be impeded and to not have their emotional distress added to when going to that place. On the other hand, I am a deep believer in freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is critical for freedom of thought, which is critical for the foundation of our liberal democracy. There needs to be real protections in place for that, and it’s incredibly difficult with an issue like this to balance those needs.

At the first reading, I was not confident, having looked at it, that this balance would be able to be struck in the final legislation and I voted against it. I will be changing my vote today and voting in support of it, and I want to outline why. There have been some amendments to clause 4 of the legislation, and premises in relation to abortion services have been defined now, in subclause (2), as “(a) the building in which the abortion services are provided; and (b) the land on which that building is sited”. Under section 13C, “Regulations: safe areas”, in clause 5, “(1) The Governor-General may, by Order in Council made on the recommendation of the Minister of Health after consultation with the Minister of Justice, make regulations for the purposes of section 13A prescribing as a safe area—(a) any specified premises at which abortion services are provided;”—i.e., the building and the property on which it is sited—“and (b) an area around those premises that is an area having a boundary of not more than 150 metres from the perimeter of the premises.”

There is concern that needs to be addressed about whether someone in their own home, within that 150 metres, could then be prohibited. However, that is dealt with under section 13A(1)(c), in clause 4, which says that a person must not engage in certain behaviour in prohibited areas “in a manner that could be easily seen by another person … who may be accessing, … abortion services:”. So if someone is in their own home, expressing their opinion or discussing in a safe area, they obviously can’t be easily seen or heard by another person out on the street. So that addresses that concern for me and preserves freedom of speech in a balanced way, in my view, in a free and democratic society.

I also note that there is two-stage process to this, in that in section 13B, in clause 4, a constable will not arrest someone in a safe zone without firstly requiring the person to stop engaging in the prohibited behaviour. So a warning will first be given. If the person continues to engage in that prohibited behaviour, the person may then be arrested and be liable upon conviction to a fine for that behaviour. In my view, this has struck the right balance now between, like I say, the women—who have to make probably one of the hardest decisions of their lives, in an incredibly emotionally fragile state in many cases, when they are going to those clinics—and the need for people who have very strong views that they are entitled to express, entitled to hold, and entitled to the right to protest, but not in an area around these zones. I think it has been done in a very sensible and balanced way, and I want to congratulate Louisa Wall and members of the Health Committee who have done that, and also the contribution from the Attorney-General in helping guide this conversation. Certainly, it has been of great assistance to me, and I’m happy now to commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion (Safe Areas) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 108

New Zealand Labour 62 (Allan, Andersen, Ardern, Belich, Bennett, Boyack, Brooking, Chen, Clark, Coffey, Craig, Davis, Eagle, Edmonds, Faafoi, Halbert, Henare, Henderson, Hipkins, Jackson, Leary, Lewis, Little, Lorck, Lubeck, Luxton, Mahuta, Mallard, McAnulty, McLellan, Nash, Ngobi, O’Connor D, O’Connor G, Omer, Pallett, Parker, Prime, Radhakrishnan, Roberts, Robertson, Rurawhe, Russell, Salesa, Sepuloni, Sharma, Sio, Tinetti, Tirikatene, Twyford, Utikere, Verrall, Wall, Walters, Warren-Clark, Webb, Whaitiri, White, Williams A, Williams P, Wood, Woods); New Zealand National 24 (Bayly, Bennett, Bishop, Bridges, Brownlee, Collins, Dean, Doocey, Goldsmith, Grigg, Kuriger, Luxon, McClay, McKelvie, Mitchell, Mooney, Muller, Reti, Simpson, Smith, Stanford, van de Molen, Watts, Willis); Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; ACT New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Noes 12

New Zealand Labour 3 (Kanongata’a-Suisuiki, Leavasa, Strange); New Zealand National 9 (Brown, Hipango, Lee, O’Connor, Penk, Pugh, Simmonds, Upston, Woodhouse).

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Lawyers and Conveyancers (Employed Lawyers Providing Free Legal Services) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

CHRIS BISHOP (National): I move, That the Lawyers and Conveyancers (Employed Lawyers Providing Free Legal Services) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Just to give members the brief background to this, this was a bill introduced in the last Parliament and it was sent—I’m pretty sure I’m right in saying—to the Justice Committee where it’s been being considered for quite some time.

The genesis of this bill came from a New Zealand LawTalk article that I was reading—this is slightly embarrassing, but I’ll say it anyway—over summer on holiday in Mexico, three years ago, on the beach in Tulum. It was an article written by a lawyer who had been proposing to the New Zealand Law Society the liberalisation of the rules made pursuant to the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act around employed lawyers doing pro bono—free—legal work and I thought, “Well, that’s a good member’s bill, because the law does not make any sense at the moment.” As he pointed out in the article, the law is frequently breached without people actually knowing about it, without sanction—but we should still change laws even if things aren’t enforced. It actually does have the effect of stopping people from doing real legal work that would make a difference for people who are in need of access to justice in the community. So the bill was, I think, unanimously supported at first reading, sent to the committee, and has been considered since.

It looks unlikely that the bill will proceed beyond this point, which I think is regrettable, unless the Labour Party has had a somewhat different view—the whip is shaking her head so, no, it looks like the bill is going to fail, well that’s a shame. This is a genuine opportunity to improve the law, it really is, and it is disappointing that we’re not going to make any progress on it.

I suppose the first point I want to make is: the law, as it currently stands disenfranchises employed lawyers from doing pro bono legal work and that has the effect, to quote the Community Law Centres of Aotearoa Inc., “That disenfranchises 8,000 lawyers from participating in pro bono work through Community Law’s pro bono clearing house.” So just so we’re really clear what we’re doing: this bill will allow 8,000 employed lawyers to do pro bono legal work through Community Law’s pro bono clearing house, Te Ara Ture, which we talked about a lot at the committee. They are currently explicitly prevented from doing that work. As Community Law told us, there are lots of lawyers who want to do that work. This bill will fix that and it looks like we’re not going to proceed with it. I think that is a real shame.

The bill—let’s be very clear—will enfranchise employed lawyers, 8,000 or so, and provide greater access to justice for many people. The law at the moment stops employed lawyers from doing free legal work outside of their employment. The only exception is through community law centres or Citizens Advice Bureau, but the legal work that Te Ara Ture does through the Community Law Centres of Aotearoa Inc. falls outside that ambit. So we need to change the law to include those lawyers within the ambit of the free legal work.

Now, the current law is widely breached, so let’s be very clear what it means. It means that lawyers employed by Government departments—of which there are, you know, hundreds in Wellington—can’t do legal work for their local tramping club. So if you’re the secretary of your local tramping club, you’ve got change the constitution for a variety of different reasons—members will be able to think of any number of innumerable examples in which people are on boards of trustees, incorporated societies, whatever, the residents’ associations, which are very active in the Wellington - Hutt Valley region. Anyone in need of legal assistance—you could be a Government department, you could be working for a Government department: you can’t do any legal work. You can’t, and I think that’s wrong.

There are some people who turned up to the committee and said, “Well, how do we know that if we liberalise the law, people will do the right work?” Well, in a funny sort of way, the right work is self-defining. The right sort of work is whatever work people decide to do where there is an unmet legal need.

I mean, by definition, if you do legal work for someone pro bono, there is a legal need there by definition. It might not be exactly what members here would want them to do, but there is clearly an unmet legal need if you’re doing work. Not to take the analogy too far, it’s like when willing buyers and sellers in the marketplace engage in a transaction. By definition, that is good, because if it wasn’t good, people wouldn’t make the transaction.

When I go to a dairy and I buy a can of Coke Zero, the dairy owner is saying to me, “I will sell you the Coke for $2.50 or whatever”, and I will buy it, and if I don’t want to buy it, I wouldn’t, and if they don’t want to sell it to me, they wouldn’t. The fact that the dairy owner sells me the can of Coke and I buy it makes us both better off. If it didn’t make us both better off, we wouldn’t do it. And it’s a bit like that with legal need. If I decide as a Government department lawyer to do some legal work for my local tramping club and the tramping club wants me to do it and I do it and they are happy with it, by definition, that makes us both better off.

Mark Cameron: Get a real Coke! Two dollars fifty for a Coke?

CHRIS BISHOP: What’s that? Mark Cameron’s saying, “Get a real Coke!” Well I don’t know how much they cost down your way, mate. I don’t drink Coke anymore, it’s just an example anyway. I don’t, it’s very bad for you.

Hon Member: They’ll be after you now!

CHRIS BISHOP: Very bad for you. I’ll have the—Coca-Cola Amatil New Zealand’s going to be writing me correspondence.

Anyway, my point is this: by definition it is legal need that is being met here. So there is a real effect on the legal needs of people. It will improve access to justice. By definition, the bill will improve access to justice, and I’ve already made the point around how the bill disenfranchises 8,000 lawyers from participating in pro bono legal work.

Look, the view of members opposite, I think, is that the bill is not perfect and therefore we should just kick it out. We did have a discussion around some amendments that could have been made to the bill. For example, one of them was—and this was a point of discussion in the committee—requiring it, rather than leaving it optional for the Law Society to make rules for employed lawyers and directing the Law Society as to the matters that they should look at, such as the appropriate level of professional experience and the appropriate limits on practice areas. Those were suggestions made by Community Law to the committee. We could have put that into the bill, but there was, unfortunately, not a lot of interest in doing that.

There were other amendments that could have been made to make the bill a bit tighter because—I don’t want to make perfect the enemy of the good, I was prepared to accept some tightening of the work that people could do in order to advance the bill, because at the end of the day, getting something is better than nothing. But unfortunately, that’s not met with the favour of members opposite.

It is a real shame because at some point Parliament is going to have to come back and revisit this issue, and I just repeat again: the current law is widely breached and nonsensical, and other countries have recognised this. We are way out of step with other countries. The law does not allow people who are employed lawyers rather than lawyers in a law firm, but employed lawyers—people who work for a Government department or people who work for a corporate, like Contact Energy, for example, or Genesis Energy, whatever, the law does not allow those people to do legal work outside of their employment and pro bono legal work outside of their employment.

As Te Ara Ture has pointed out, that means 8,000 lawyers cannot participate in pro bono legal work through that through the pro bono clearing house that Te Ara Ture has specifically established because there is such demand from the profession for people to do pro bono work. So let’s be very clear about that. And if you go to the Te Ara Ture website, it has a checklist for if you can participate in pro bono legal work. You’ve got to tick off the various things and then right down the bottom, it says: “Unfortunately, if you are an employed lawyer, you cannot currently do this.” I think I think I’m right in paraphrasing—it says something like, “Regulatory steps to improve this are underway.” Well, this is the regulatory step; that’s the bill that I introduced to Parliament that is now going to fail.

So I’ll make a prediction: at some point the law will be fixed and it will just come later than it otherwise would have. We could use this bill as a vehicle to improve the situation. Members opposite, unfortunately aren’t interested in that. It’s a real shame. So with that, I regrettably, and I proudly commend the bill to the House.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. That was a good potted history of the bill, but here’s my version. It’s a bit different.

So we had a good go. It is a reasonable intent in this bill to provide increased access to legal services in New Zealand, and we know that there is a need there. So I would like to make it clear that the Justice Committee had a number of attempts of trying to amend this bill in order for the areas that it was deficient in for it to be met. Really, it came down to submissions from two key submitters, and that was the Law Society and also the Law Commission—both were very important. We went to such detail to try and get this right that we actually called them back. I think they were called back twice—and maybe even a third time for the Law Society—to seek additional information. So I would like to thank both Community Law and the Law Society for the time and the effort they put in to try and make this work.

So in a nutshell, we needed to be making sure that that there were a number of measures in place for supervision. So if you’ve got a lawyer who’s providing pro bono or free legal services, there still is a requirement for supervision, because what we wouldn’t want to happen is for someone who is getting a free legal services getting a lower standard of legal advice. To make sure that that was working, it’s a requirement for the Law Society to provide a level of supervision, and potentially even insurance—that’s another side issue.

So what the Law Society told us is that if the bill was to continue in its current form without any policy analysis, there could be a real risk of channelling free legal services away from those who needed them the most. They were supportive of the bill’s intent of access to justice, but the real need was for further policy analysis to understand how that, in fact, would play out.

So at a minimum, the Law Society said—at a minimum—it would like to see the bill amended to assure that actual unmet legal needs are addressed, and it proposed doing this through the inclusion of a more narrow definition of “pro bono”. So the member in charge of the bill, Chris Bishop, took that away and made amendments to the bill—I think that was once—in order to try and get it. So we looked at that again. Then after additional advice that we received from Community Law, which I will go over in a while, the member sought to widen the scope of the bill, because at this stage, once we’d identified some of the issues around providing free legal services, the form of the bill was actually quite different to the one that the committee initially received.

So because of the additional policy work, the understanding of the costs and the requirements placed on organisations like Community Law and also the Law Society, we need to do all of that work before we pass a bill. It’s important to know what those implications are exactly. So it’s for these reasons that the committee regrettably cannot support a bill which has a good intent, which has a good idea at its heart, but how that’s executed and how that is delivered has not been fully thought through and has not been fully considered—the impact and the implementation costs are unclear.

This sentiment was echoed by a number of submitters. While the majority supported the purpose of the bill, there were mixed views on the best way to improve access to free legal services. One of the interesting points that was made is that if you just enable lawyers to do some work that’s pro bono—how you define that. It’s difficult to find out whether it’s meeting that unmet legal need. The member in charge of the bill who just spoke gave the example of, I think, a Scouts club or a tramping club, which is great, and there might be the opera society down the road who needs some free legal work done, and a local lawyer would be able to do that. But the point made by the Law Society was that how can we be sure that by enabling pro bono services to be made available, that this will actually be directed to the unmet legal need? That’s where the problem came, that the solution that the member was proposing to the identified problem wasn’t necessarily connecting in the right places.

So the important part to note is also to look at the work that Community Law put in, in terms of their submission. They recommended that the bill be amended to formally place pro bono legal services provided by employed lawyers into the remit of Te Ara Ture. Now, Te Ara Ture is a new online tool that enables lawyers to provide advice online. Essentially, by placing Te Ara Ture in a similar regulatory level as community law centres, it could employ lawyers to hold indemnity insurance, and it could also provide supervision to employed lawyers who provide free legal services. So this is a really good idea that we should be taking a greater look at. It provides an opportunity to increase access to justice and also to meet those unmet needs.

Community Law also told us that the solution to the issue would ensure that any additional pro bono resources could be allocated to access justice, and it told us that this would also increase the options for employed lawyers to do pro bono work. So this seems like a better pathway to take.

Community Law told us that this solution would require an additional Government funding of approximately $300,000. It noted, however, though, that the funding from Government would reduce the financial responsibility on the legal profession. So really interesting to see both of those different ways being applied. Of course, if the Law Society was required to be the supervising body, then that would incur a cost on lawyers, no doubt, as a way of sourcing that funding for administering it.

So the majority of us considered that although there was a clear problem with access to justice as it has been identified, the bill was not the appropriate way to adequately plug this gap. After quite a good amount of sessions of debate on the bill, we considered two potential means of tackling the issue. Those are the ones that have been laid out from both the Law Society and also the Law Commission.

Using the clearing house approach through Te Ara Ture I think has real merit and I’d be interested to see further work done in that space, and also costing of how that would work out. I think that having free legal services provided by employed lawyers through a clearing house supported by Community Law is an idea with real merit. But I would point out that that is a very different solution to the problem than the original member’s bill that the committee received. If we could enable free legal services to be provided by employed lawyers through a clearing house, that is a good idea, and it would be one that would address the unmet legal need.

I would like to acknowledge the member in charge of the bill, who did a significant amount of work—not only just listening to the issues that submitters provided but engaging with those issues and trying to resolve them in a way that enabled the bill to proceed. I think that it’s important to note that there was support right across the committee on the problem of improving access to justice. That is an important fact.

I would like to note that in Budget 2020, Community Law has received an additional $7.7 million worth of funding over the past year—funding that I would like to note was completely cut under the previous National Government. National froze the core funding of these centres when they were in Government, leaving them to struggle, so it’s nice that we’re looking for solutions now. So after coming initially into Government, there was a 20 percent increase for Community Law in the 2018 and 2019 Budget, and then, as I mentioned, the subsequent injection, which is a funding of $8.72 million over the following four years. So that is to provide new case management across the country in 24 new community law centres, and also the establishment of Te Ara Ture as well.

So this is a good bill in principle, but the work needed to be done on the changed bill that we came to needs to be done before we can step forward and make changes to the way pro bono legal services work currently. So we will not be supporting the bill further.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Well, I’m afraid to say that was 10 minutes trying to justify the unjustifiable. We had Ginny Andersen explaining why the Labour Party is not supporting this bill, the Lawyers and Conveyancers (Employed Lawyers Providing Free Legal Services) Amendment Bill, which does something that, I think, most New Zealanders would say makes sense, which is to allow lawyers and conveyancers currently barred from offering pro-bono legal services because they are an employee, and opens that up so that they can provide community law. This has been put together by—an excellent bill—my colleague Chris Bishop, and the Labour Party is opposing it purely and simply because they don’t want to give Chris Bishop a win, and that’s what it all boils down to. They don’t want to allow a National MP to do something useful in this Parliament and pass a piece of legislation that will make the lives of New Zealanders better. So she spent 10 minutes trying to come up with all sorts of waffle to explain why they are opposed to this; none of it made any sense, and it was quite embarrassing to watch. I just hope that they’ll get a chance to reflect on that.

So what we’re trying to achieve here with this bill—and most people would be flummoxed that this is the case, but you know, there’s plenty of lawyers across this country, many work in law firms, of course, and many don’t work in law firms. Many are in-house lawyers for Government departments or companies, corporates right across the nation. Currently, under the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act, they are guilty of misconduct if they provide free legal services to the public outside of their employment, with only the exception of doing it through community law centres or Citizens Advice Bureau. So what that means in practice is if, you know, you’re the in-house lawyer for Fletcher Building or something like that, but you’re also a member of the local tramping club—is an example that Chris Bishop uses—but, you know, you could be active in the local church or synagogue or something like that, and a legal issue comes up, and they don’t want to go engaging Russell McVeagh to deal with it, but they just want some advice, you’re there, you could give some advice. You can’t do it at the moment. You know, look, there’s some history behind that. But this bill is trying to open this up and free, what, 8,000 lawyers in this situation across the country, in order for them to be able to do pro-bono work. All sorts of people come up with all sorts of reasons why this would be difficult, but none of them are very robust. What it could do is to provide better access to justice for the many community groups across the country.

And what do we got? We’ve got a Labour Party opposing it for no good reason. I just think they should reflect on that. It’s quite disgraceful really, given the opportunity that we’ve had through the select committee to make some changes, if required. No bill that’s introduced into this House is ever perfect, and the select committee process is the opportunity for laws to be improved. But then to go through that process and say “Oh, yes, there is an issue here, but we should probably do a bit more work on it down the line, and let’s think about it and carry on.”, is a very insulting way to handle the situation.

The other thing I would say is, you know, speaking more broadly, I think there are a couple of key issues in the justice sector. Of course, there’s the rise in violent crime and the doubling of violent crime, which is a massive issue, and increasing gun crime in Auckland, and the sense of lawlessness. That’s a number one justice issue that needs to be dealt with. The 50 percent increase in gangs in New Zealand. Sadly, there hasn’t been much focus by this Government on that, and that’s a real shame, and something that is of concern to many New Zealanders.

The second issue is around this access to justice. Now, part of that is the dysfunction in the court system, which is taking so long for people to get trials heard and justice delivered. But related to that is the affordability of access to justice. That’s why there are some real issues around the legal aid situation at the moment. Legal spending on legal aid has gone up by 70 percent since this Government took office. We’re spending about $230 million a year on legal aid; huge sums. And yet, the whole system is still gunged up and delivering no more, in terms of outcomes, than it was many years before. Actually, less work is actually going through the system because of the gunged up nature of our court system. And so, you know, getting access to legal advice and justice is a colossal issue that you would think that the Government would be focused on. Now, when you look at the priorities of this Government in the justice area, well, you see that they’re not very focused on those issues of the rise of violent crime and access to justice. They’re more interested in: the next things coming up is hate speech, banning that; dealing with screwing the scrum on electoral finance; cancelling three strikes; and, a whole lot of things all related to ill-thought through promises sometimes in Labour manifestos, and other variety of issues that are of particular interest to Labour Party activists and not necessarily middle New Zealand.

So the point I’d make in relation to that, is you would think that there would be a focus in the mind of the Minister of Justice and of the Government at the moment to do everything that they can to increase the accessibility of justice and legal advice to New Zealanders. This bill was one step in that direction, which is to say, we’ve got 8,000 lawyers across the country, they’re working as in-house lawyers in firms and companies and Government departments who could, on the weekends or in the evening, from time to time, offer some free legal advice to the community groups and clubs and places of interest, local schools maybe—I don’t know—that may be useful. Currently, they’re stopped from doing that in a very arbitrary way.

This bill was set out to rectify that, and it has faced the great clunking fist of the Labour caucus, which, I think, for rather mean-spirited partisan reasons have decided to oppose this. That, to my mind, is a great tragedy. I’m sure many of those 8,000 lawyers out there working away in their Government departments or at their firms right now, who have found this a frustrating bar on their ability to help might have been looking, with hope, towards this House this morning, and, instead, will be filled with frustration, and questioning why on earth would Labour be opposed to this bill. We didn’t hear much from Ginny Andersen on the topic, but I’m sure some of the subsequent speakers might like to come up with some slightly better reasons than put forward so far. Thank you.

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

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to stand and take a call on the Lawyers and Conveyancers (Employed Lawyers Providing Free Legal Services) Amendment Bill. I was, and am, a member of the Justice Committee, so I had the opportunity to hear from submitters and also to hear from Mr Bishop, who brought the bill to us. I won’t be supporting the bill to progress today, and I’ll outline the reasons why, but I did want to first commend Mr Bishop for the spirit in which he engaged with the committee. As a member of the committee, I can tell you we worked sincerely on the bill, and did recognise that there were underlying themes of access to justice which it contained. But the issues here are complex and weren’t able to be resolvable within this bill.

I just wanted to reflect on a few comments Mr Bishop made in his submission today. He talked about—I think he recognised that the bill itself wasn’t in a perfect state. But then he said, “It’s better to get something than nothing.” Now, that might be the case if you’re thirsty and heading down to the dairy to get a drink of something, but if you’re drafting legislation—particularly in an area like this—you need to take the time to ensure that it’s fit for purpose. The other issue I had with Mr Bishop’s statement is that he failed to define the problem statement as it is. He said that 8,000 lawyers were disenfranchised and couldn’t offer those services freely to communities—that is simply not the case. Community law centres currently have an exemption under the Act, so if an employed lawyer wished to do so at any stage, under the supervision of a community law centre, they could provide those voluntary services.

Mr Goldsmith, I was—yeah, expressed that he was perplexed about the current legislative scheme, but the reason why some lawyers are able to provide those services is because there’s regulation around exactly who can do it, to ensure that an appropriate skill level is in place. This is really about ensuring we protect consumers, because at present the Act doesn’t distinguish between services that are paid for and services that are given for free. There is a very valid reason, and I would recommend to the member that he reviews the rules under which lawyers practice.

But I want to talk about the big reason that, to my mind, the bill wasn’t fit for purpose, and why we need to do further, more robust, work in this area. That is that my sense was that there was an underlying access to justice theme, an underlying unmet legal needs theme, but it was never the principal purpose of this bill to meet true unmet legal needs. I want to spend some time talking about what that is.

I spent almost a decade working in the community justice space, for Youth Law Aotearoa, and it’s part of the movement that is truly about addressing that access to justice gap. We had volunteer lawyers, volunteer law students, who would come and work on those cases where individuals otherwise couldn’t access legal help. That is the key part of the definition. It was also a period of time where access to justice was acutely vulnerable because the National Government froze our core funding for these centres, and it really left us—at the time—to struggle. For me, as a general manager of Youth Law, we moved premises, in part so I could retain the total staff cohort. For many staff, who stayed because they were passionate about access to justice—true access to justice—it meant stagnant wages for almost a decade. After this Government came into power, we lifted that community law centre funding by 20 percent, initially, and then we made that funding permanent in 2019. As my colleague Ginny Andersen mentioned, in 2020 we supported community law centres with an extra $7.7 million over four years of boosted funding to do a number of things: establish a new case management system across the 24 law centres, also the establishment of Te Ara Ture, the pro bono clearing house that we’ve heard about, and finally—an important point—better wages so that community law centres can recruit and retain staff, and reward those many, many staff who stayed on those static wages over that 10 year period.

Following the Budget in 2020, the Government has announced a further $3.5 million over three years, and that’s an injection announced in August last year to help meet the increased needs that COVID has prevented as well. That investment into pro bono law in particular, the bridge to law, has showed our commitment to investing in access to justice. Yes, there absolutely will need to be next steps, but they’re not next steps that this bill has set out clearly. We were missing several things as we tried to nut through the bill at select committee stage. What we quickly got our heads around was that there was an un-appreciation of the gaps in access to justice more broadly, and where we ought to be directing limited capacity to address the most significant needs. I think you heard that in Mr Bishop’s speech tonight, that he just—still—hasn’t quite got his head around the fact that that is the core principle of addressing access to justice needs. There was a failure, when the bill came to us, to look at how other jurisdictions approach this—including Australia, who have some very useful points to reflect on in terms of the definition of pro bono, for example. There was little thought about the need for regulation, and the protection for the consumer. But when there was thought, through our discussions, I think there wasn’t quite the appreciation that the member had about what that would take, the work it would mean for the Law Society, the implications for lawyers themselves, as well, in terms of costs that are passed on. So I want to speak a bit about that.

The Law Commission made a submission to us where they talked about the need to establish new processes and new rules, and the way in which they communicated that to us was that it would be an extremely robust exercise, and so much so that the time lines they gave us were extremely broad. They also spoke to us about passing on additional costs to lawyers themselves, so increasing the levy. On those two points I would just say, while the member might think those are easy decisions to make, they’re not. There are serious consequences of how the legal profession might receive that, there are things to think through about whether we want the Law Society to regulate, in detail, in the rules, or whether that more appropriately sits with Parliament, whether we should be regulating for that within a bill itself. Finally, they talked about a balance needing to be struck between having necessary protections in place, but not overly burdening the Law Society with administrative burdens as well.

I’d also speak to the fact that the definition of pro bono wasn’t contained within the bill that the member brought to us. Now, again, for me this is foundational in terms of determining how we’re meeting that access to justice gap. If you look at comparable jurisdictions, for example in Australia, they’re very clear that you ought to be considering factors of access to justice, so whether or not people can afford legal services is one of the criteria you look at. Whether it’s a charity or a not-for-profit institution might be another. But that definition needs to sit soundly within any reform in this area, and in this bill the question of whether we could include that was deemed out of scope. Robust work needs to be done in the access to justice space, and this Government is a Government who demonstrated that we have a commitment to access to justice, and we will continue to going forward. I do not commend this bill to the House.

Dr ELIZABETH KEREKERE (Green): Kia ora, I stand on behalf of my colleague Golriz Ghahraman, to stand in support of this bill. We support—absolutely—volunteer effort and, in terms of access to justice and in the degree to which the Government has any sense of the unmet needs out there, I would dispute that they do. It is an extremely racist justice system that we have. Many Māori; Pasifika; many, many lower-income people struggle to get the advice they need. When we have a system where young Māori are routinely told “Just plead guilty and you’ll get a better sentence” by the people who are actually given to them as legal aid, we’ve got some really basic core issues happening here. So if they have access to someone in their family, in their community that they could go and just have a quick word to, we think that’s a really good idea.

We hear the points about supervision and systems where we would be fine to look at whatever the Law Society thought would be good to do. We have problems with the thought that an employer, at one time, can control the productivity, the skills, the knowledge, and the experience of the employees outside of that workplace, and that somehow the supervision they receive whilst inside that workplace somehow ceases to exist when they leave it. We don’t think that is accurate.

Many lawyers, I imagine—they certainly are in my family—are under pressure all the time to provide advice, and we want to give support to them to do that well, to do that properly. I certainly agree that that’s not going to stop. I have fully bailed up my cousin, who’s an expert in family law; I have fully bailed up my mate, who’s now a flash judge, and so, since I became an MP, was much more careful about that. But that happens everywhere. That absolutely happens in this country, and the fact that it’s illegal is very odd to us.

We support people using their skills to benefit their communities and their families as other people in most other, and probably every other, workplace can do. And so with those short words, we commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour—Wairarapa): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. You know, I think on the whole, as has been mentioned earlier today, members’ day is a day that demonstrates that Parliament works together where it can. This is a good example of that. There were reservations about this bill expressed by this side of the House when it was introduced, and they were articulated in the contributions from my colleagues at the time. But we did indicate that we supported and understood the intent of the bill and that we would support it at first reading to get it to select committee, to thrash it out a wee bit more. There are other examples that come to mind. I see members on the other side of the House who have come to this and had their member’s bill drawn from the ballot. Again, we wanted to get that to select committee to see if we could address the concerns that we’ve got and maybe look to improve it. I think, on the whole, unless there’s a fundamental opposition to what’s being proposed, you should always look to do that.

I look at my friend and colleague Todd Muller there, who’s had a couple of bills up: one around cooperatives and one around sunscreen. The cooperatives is one example where we went to select committee, tried to thrash it out, and unfortunately, despite appreciating the intent and appreciating the expertise of the member, couldn’t quite get it there. Then the sunscreen one is a good example where, again, we wanted to thrash it out and now we are supporting it. I think of an example of a bill from Ian McKelvie that came, and once we—

Todd Muller: Point of order, Madam Speaker. Oh, look, I just wanted to correct the speaker. I didn’t want to stop him in full flow. He tends to be almost engaging when he starts becoming at full flow. But his reference to the cooperatives bill not achieving the support of the House is actually incorrect. It passed with unanimous support after a third reading, and indeed, Mr McAnulty was a key part of ensuring that eventually the Labour Party saw sense in what was being discussed.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Thank you. I call on Kieran McAnulty to continue his very good speech.

KIERAN McANULTY: Thank you very much, and I see that Mr Muller fell for my trap and he corrected the record and gave me praise—so thank you for that. Got him in one. So as I was saying, this House cooperates whenever it has the opportunity to do so. I was giving the example, which is relevant to this one because I think it’s important to point out that wherever possible, political parties do actually work together a select committee.

One good example of that was Mr McKelvie’s bill around making the rustling of livestock a crime. It was unfortunate that it was just the way in which the bill was drafted, and the member conceded this himself. I worked really closely with him and went to the Minister and said, “We’ve been advised that this is out of scope in what it intends to do, and we can’t do it. Perhaps we might be able to include it in some of the Government’s work, to actually achieve it.” The Minister agreed and we actually got there. So the reason I’m bringing this up is I genuinely believe that again, unless there is a fundamental opposition to what’s being proposed, for members’ bills, there will be effort put in to get it across the line.

For Lawyers and Conveyancers (Employed Lawyers Providing Free Legal Services) Amendment Bill that was the intent: express some concern, we voted for it at first reading to get it to select committee, and as the chair of that select committee has demonstrated time and time again, and most notably with the conversion therapy bill that passed last night, she is a very good chair and wants to ensure that at every step throughout the select committee process, people have their say and those views are considered and where possible, amendments are made. I acknowledge the contribution that she made to this debate because I think she spelt it out very clearly that there was that intent to make it right.

But at the select committee stage, it became clear from submissions from the likes of the Law Society that there were concerns around whether this bill, as it is written, would achieve what it hoped to achieve and what we would like to actually support it to get there. And they couldn’t quite work it through, and that’s a shame, because I think if you look at the Government’s track record over the last four years around supporting access to legal advice and justice—I’m thinking about the support that came to community law centres almost immediately upon getting elected in 2017, we all, I think, recognised the contribution and support that community law centres give to our communities. I just think, at the top of my mind now, the numerous examples that the community law centres in the Wairarapa electorate have given to countless people in the community around guiding them through legal advice and the justice system. We recognised that funding for them was frozen over many years and swiftly provided a 20 percent increase in funding for them. So this isn’t some issue where there is such a fundamental disagreement as to what actually needs to occur. Community law centres were ultimately at the centre of many of the arguments in favour of the intent of this bill. You look at Budget 2020: further support of $7.7 million over four years in a funding boost to community law centres.

But, ultimately, you’ve really got to take into consideration the submissions that are given to select committees when deliberating on a bill. What it came down to was, as has been mentioned by other speakers, the submissions we received indicated that the bill as it was written was not likely to achieve what we had hoped it would and, I think, what the sponsor of the bill hoped it would. You know, it’s no secret in this House that Chris Bishop and I actually get on pretty well. We don’t agree on everything, but we co-captain the parliamentary cricket team with aplomb, I think.

Hon Members: Ha, ha!

KIERAN McANULTY: Yes, that’s right, and we will defend our honour against the diplomats later this month. But in this instance, we just couldn’t come to an agreement, and that is regrettable. But often, despite that, there’s the opportunity to support a bill even if it doesn’t quite achieve all your objectives. It’s not quite the case here. It’s not a case of achieving all your objectives; it’s a case of achieving the objectives that were set out in the bill when it was introduced, and it’s our genuine and sincere view that it doesn’t. So then we were, essentially, tasked with the proposition of supporting a bill despite agreeing with the intent, when the advice was that it doesn’t actually achieve that. As parliamentarians, you’ve pretty much got to suck it up and say, “Right—well, it doesn’t achieve what it says it’s going to achieve. We don’t believe, therefore, that it’s good law—with the greatest respect to the sponsor, but we don’t, and therefore we can’t support it.”

So my much more learned colleagues have articulated that better than I, but I just wanted to take the opportunity to stand in support of what they were saying, recognise the work that’s gone into it, both from the bill’s sponsor, but all parties that are represented on that committee, and also the officials that helped get to this point, because ultimately, yes, we are here to represent our electorates and the party that brings in list MPs, etc., but we’re also parliamentarians, and at the forefront of our role is to make good legislation. Ultimately, we came to the conclusion that this bill would not achieve what it hoped. We didn’t consider it was worthy of further support, but I think it’s fair to point out that it was given its best shot.

Dr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just want to thank the sponsor of this bill, Chris Bishop, for raising a very important issue that we were keen to engage on in select committee. It is certainly important that access to justice is equitable and anything like this to make it easier on people is probably a good thing.

Nevertheless, the select committee did raise quite a few concerns, particularly with the Law Society submission—others as well—but the practicality of the bill suddenly became less obvious. At the end of the day, when we start to deal with issues like that, and submissions like that, and we see that, as other speakers have said, it doesn’t quite set out to achieve its good intent—and it is a good intent. I think it has given an opportunity, it’s brought the submitters together to actually say there is law change that’s probably needed here—some work for the Government to do perhaps, or another member’s bill, but this probably isn’t it.

I thank the member again. From ACT’s perspective, unfortunately, we have decided to switch and to no longer support this bill. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

RACHEL BROOKING (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to talk on the Lawyers and Conveyancers (Employed Lawyers Providing Free Legal Services) Amendment Bill. I’d like to start my contribution by acknowledging Chris Bishop who’s promoted the bill and by saying I think I’m impressed that he took a LawTalk article with him on summer holiday to Mexico. I’ve read many LawTalk articles over the years, but never one in Mexico. I also want to commend Chris Bishop for wanting to act on the article he read in terms of improving access to justice. I think that’s something that all speakers in the House today talked about as being a very important objective.

It is interesting and relevant to this to think first of how lawyers are regulated. Lawyers exist in many different forms. We have lawyers that are in firms, and they will have a partnership or a directorship model, and there’ll be many different layers of lawyers and other staff beneath them. Those firms are very well insured. If it’s a bigger firm they’ll have many different people employed to think about risk training for junior solicitors to bring them up, and there’s a lot of support around people in a firm. Then you also have barristers, and these are people who are court advocates normally, or they might be specialists who write clever opinions on a specialist topic. They work by themselves so they are regulated in quite a different way from the firms, and they generally need instructions from a law firm before they can be engaged. Then you have the in-house lawyers, and these lawyers are what this bill applies to.

We heard from one of the previous speakers that in-house lawyers might be in Government departments. They might be in councils. They might in universities. They might be in agricultural companies. They might be in electricity companies. There is a whole host of in-house lawyers, and we’ve heard that there are 8,000 of them now. Those lawyers are working in quite a different environment from lawyers in a firm. Depending on how big the in-house team is, that lawyer might just be working by themselves and have no other lawyers that they engage with unless they’re talking to a law firm or a barrister. In some circumstances, they’re actually large teams of in-house lawyers, so there is a big range of in-house lawyers. My point is that this bill applies to those in-house lawyers and not ones in firms.

I was, in fact, an in-house lawyer of a sort. I had at least my practising certificate at the beginning of the millennium when I was working for the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. After that, I went into a law firm and stayed there, with some maternity leave, for almost two decades. So I have some experience with pro bono advice, training up junior solicitors, and also doing community law work. The mischief that this bill is trying to address is to enable in-house counsel to do this good work. Currently, in the current legislation, it is misconduct to give legal advice out of your employment if you are an in-house lawyer unless, as my colleague Vanushi Walters has discussed in some detail, you are providing that advice at a community law centre. I would say that this is something that many lawyers can take up. I used to attend community law centres and supervise some students there, and I can say I’ve never really practised criminal law or family law, which were the main issues coming before that community law centre.

The bill is very simple really. Clause 6 of the bill inserts a new section into the Lawyers and Conveyances Act. Clause 6, “New section 10A inserted (Lawyer providing legal services to person other than employer” states that “Nothing in this Act prevents a lawyer who is an employee from providing free legal services to a person other than his or her employer if the services are provided—(a) with the agreement of the employer; and (b) in accordance with practice rules made under section 94 by the New Zealand Law Society.”

So that’s it. It’s a very small bill, but despite it being a very small bill it does raise some very big issues. The clue with that is this reference to section 94 which concerns the practice rules made by the New Zealand Law Society. That is because standards apply to lawyers giving advice. Why might they do this? Well, if the lawyer gives bad advice, then that might put someone on a terrible course of action that may cause them harm, cause somebody else harm, and may incur some liability. This is something that you think a lot about as a practising lawyer. There are many client care obligations for lawyers when they’re dealing with a paying client, and also if you’re in a firm giving pro bono advice, those same rules apply.

There is a large burden on firms. They take the giving of pro bono advice very seriously. There’s been some movement since I started as a lawyer in that firms really want to show to the community that they are doing pro bono work, and now they often have a senior partner who decides what the best pro bono work is for that skillset of lawyers to be undertaking, and how they can get the most benefit for society from giving their free advice. As I mentioned, though, they still need to insured. Solicitors who aren’t partners or who can’t practise on their own account still require supervision, and there is a lot of process surrounding it.

Therefore, if in-house lawyers were to be able to do this pro bono work there would need to be some regulation around that to make sure the people who are getting the advice are getting good advice and, particularly, to make sure that those junior lawyers are protected from the consequences of giving bad advice. Alternatively—and this is what the select committee considered as well—rather than having additional regulation, you could have a community law - type clearing house, and this is Te Ara Ture, which we’ve been hearing about, and you could fund that so that in-house lawyers could have a special circuit to come in to give pro bono advice about their specialist areas, and they’d provide security for some of those concerns that I’ve outlined.

I’m not on the Justice Committee but from reading their report they spent a lot of time on the New Zealand Law Society submission, particularly around the process question—what process would you put around those in-house lawyers who are wanting to do this good work? They noted, on page 3 of their submission, at paragraph 2.5 that that would be needed and at paragraph 2.6 that there would need to be additional resourcing to work out what this framework would be. They said, then, at 3.4, “A balance needs to be struck between having necessary protections in place to ensure that professional standards are met, and not creating an overly heavy administrative burden for the Law Society and for employed lawyers (who are not approved to practise on their own account) wishing to undertake pro bono legal services.” They go on at 3.5 to say that the Act and the rules do not currently differentiate between fee-paying and pro bono work. So that is the issue I raised before about why the law firms are so careful when their lawyers are undertaking pro bono work to make sure that those lawyers and the firm are protected from any liability.

The Law Society submission goes on to say that “lawyers’ professional and ethical obligations apply equally to both paid and pro bono legal services. Care needs to be taken to ensure that a legislative framework facilitating the provision of pro bono legal services does not undermine the existing regulatory framework governing the legal profession. This will ensure lawyers are able to meet their ethical and regulatory obligations and consumers receive the regulatory protections provided for under the Act and the Rules.”

So, in conclusion, there does need to be more work to improve access to justice. We’ve heard before that there has been a major increase to community law and that will continue under this Government, I am sure, and I oppose this bill. Thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The next call is a split call. I call on the Hon Mark Mitchell.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m very happy to stand and take a call on this, the Lawyers and Conveyancers (Employed Lawyers Providing Free Legal Services) Amendment Bill. I didn’t sit on the committee. I haven’t sat on this bill. In fact, I wasn’t even in the House for the first reading of this bill, but I had been listening to the debate in the House. I note that Kieran McAnulty got up and took us on a walk down memory lane and was very effusive about the bipartisan approach and the approach across the House of working on these member’s bills. And actually I support that, I agree with that. Louisa Wall is in the House and we were just talking on her bill earlier, and that’s the right thing to do. But in this case, that spirit of cooperation wasn’t embraced. And I’m sorry, I know the speakers are standing up and they’re trying to be authentic and genuine about the way they are approaching this bill, but quite simply, the author of the bill, Chris Bishop, came to the Justice Committee and he said, “I’m happy to look at amendments. I’m happy to look at changes to this bill.” But, unfortunately, the Labour members on the committee would not embrace that. They wouldn’t support it.

The fact of the matter is when we’re living in a country at the moment when you’ve got a massive pressure on people around costs of living and interest rates and things like that, one of the biggest barriers to actually access our criminal justice system and legal advice is cost. Most people can’t afford to go and get legal advice. You’re not talking hundreds of dollars, you’re talking thousands and thousands of dollars, and it’s beyond the reach of most middle New Zealanders. It makes them stop and actually think and reappraise what their approach is and what they can do. There was a golden opportunity here for this House and for the select committee to actually support this bill, to make the changes to it, to make the amendments, to allay the fears of the members opposite. And I acknowledge the last speaker, Rachel Brooking, who’s a lawyer herself; I’m probably very sure—she’s got a strong social conscience—that she’s probably done some pro bono work and, probably, inadvertently, she may have actually broken the law, the way it stands. That’s why this bill was brought to the House, so that those areas could be dealt with. They’re laughing, but I’m sure—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! The member will come back to the bill, and please, can we not make inferences about other people breaking the law or not breaking the law? Thank you.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well, I just I got nods, Madam Speaker, saying that yes, she was engaged in pro bono work, so—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): No. Order! Order! She is shaking her head. Please go back to the bill, thank you.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: So, the reality is this, and I want to take you back to one very good point here. And that was a submission made by the Community Law Centres—because they do an outstanding job and I’ve visited them myself all over the country and I want to acknowledge the incredible work that they do and the people that go and actually provide pro bono services through them—but the submission from the Community Law Centres o Aotearoa was instructive. It was the Community Law’s recently established Te Ara Ture, a pro bono clearing house connecting volunteer lawyers to people who need legal help. In their submission of 27 October 2021, they noted—in relation to Te Ara Ture—“The main part missing from Te Ara Ture’s ambit is our ability to refer employed and in-house lawyers. Under the current regulatory framework, Te Ara Ture can refer clients only to law firm principals or barristers acting on their own account. These people make up only 42 percent of the profession. Based on 2019 figures, this means that 58 percent of lawyers for the profession—that’s over 8,000 lawyers—cannot participate in our programme.” That was the whole purpose—that was one of the big drivers of him even putting this bill together and bringing it into the House: it is to make sure that those over 8,000 lawyers were actually able to legally offer their services pro bono.

So I’m sorry, but for members opposite to stand and talk about and celebrate the bipartisan nature of dealing with and working on these member’s bills—that wasn’t used at all in this bill. To me, it was probably a cheap shot against Chris Bishop—I don’t know. But it was a good bill. We could have worked on it. Actually, I’m on the Justice Committee now, I know the members well, it’s a good committee. We could have worked across party and we could have actually made changes to this bill that would have had a material impact and effect on everyday Kiwis who often have the barrier of cost in terms of trying to access legal help and legal advice in our justice system.

So I stand here, proud to support the bill—I’m just very disappointed that it hasn’t been supported from the other side. Thank you.

Hon JAN TINETTI (Minister of Internal Affairs): I’m a little bit perplexed that that member would get up and suggest that a hard-working select committee would come to the conclusion that they disagreed with this bill on the basis of pure spite. This select committee did an absolutely amazing job at investigating if this bill was right, the policy work had been done, to ensure that this bill could be the best it could be. But the select committee came to the conclusion that not enough policy work has been done. Putting this through in this form without doing that policy work would be irresponsible and would be poor lawmaking—that would be the bottom line.

The select committee did not say this should just go away. They looked at it and said, “There may be some merit here, but somebody needs to do the policy work around this to ensure that we’re getting the settings right.” The select committee knew that cost was a significant barrier to access justice, but there was currently limited research. Who puts law in place based on limited research? It doesn’t happen. We have an evidence-based practice in this country for law. The policy work gets done first. So on that basis, on this side of the House, we cannot—cannot—support this bill at this time. So therefore, we will not be supporting this bill further.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour—Northland): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Gee, it’s getting a little bit rowdy in here. Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on this bill.

I was part of the Justice Committee that considered this bill and so I—well, I didn’t stand and take a point of order and claim to be offended by the comments. I’d use slightly different language. But it was difficult, I think, for us on this side who sat through the select committee process on this bill to hear those criticisms of us that claimed that we were being somewhat fake or disingenuous in our comments today.

I can say with all sincerity—and those that are here will know—that we actually spent a huge amount of time on this member’s bill. We went backwards and forwards with the officials so many times, with the key submitters of the Law Society and some of the others also, to try and see if we could find the solution to the problems that had been identified by the member that the bill was trying to address, and I know that for a fact because I was in that select committee. We’ve got so many lawyers on our select committee that we were really going through it all with a fine-tooth comb. Those who have worked for Community Law, like the member Vanushi Walters, could look at it from that perspective and that experience. So I stand here and say sincerely to the members on the other side that we really did try and find a way, but, unfortunately, as other members have expressed in their contributions today, we just were not able to do that. Therefore, we will not be supporting the bill.

But I just want to talk from my own personal experience on this matter. Like many in the House, I have a law degree. I remember graduating from Waikato University. I started my first job at Te Ohu Kaimoana. I was employed as an in-house solicitor for Te Ohu Kaimoana, and I remember that as soon as I graduated, whānau, my marae—they all contacted me with legal issues and wondered if it was something that I could help with, not understanding that, actually, we are prohibited by the law and the Law Society from doing that. Now, while that gave me a convenient excuse to be able to say no to all of the requests that I got to provide those, and while I really wanted to be able to do that, when I listened to the submissions and when I thought about my own situation back then, I could understand the concerns that were being expressed by the Law Society and some of their reservations for it. I understand that there is a good reason why we have this in place.

So I think back to my own experience. I was employed as an in-house solicitor for Te Ohu Kaimoana, I had supervision from my managers and I was working within a very defined area of law, and we had all the protection mechanisms in place. I was then being asked to do something which I absolutely understand whānau doing that or communities doing that or organisations requesting that support, because they just see you as somebody who is one of their own with a tohu—with a degree—that could do something for them, either because it would save them money by asking you to do it for free on a pro bono basis, or because you’re somebody familiar with them and they trust the advice and support that they might get from you. But the situation that I was in was that I didn’t necessarily have the skills and expertise in that area—so I should say no on that basis—or if it wasn’t a particularly difficult area, I still had nothing there to protect them in case I gave them the wrong advice.

That really was one of the big issues that we had in the submissions that we heard from the Law Society. There is a reason why we have a process for lawyers being able to set up in practice on their own account. They have to go through particular training and certification to be able to do that, which is why they get indemnity insurance. Some of the problems that were identified with what’s being proposed in this member’s bill were that in this type of situation, where you are not practising on your own account and you haven’t followed all of those processes, your employer is not responsible for you acting outside of your employment agreement, and there is risk to those who are obtaining these free legal services and legal advice.

So I think that that’s an important consideration. As well-meaning as somebody with a law degree might be to be providing services to the public, to the community, and to people who may not be able to afford it, or they just want to do it to make a contribution to their local cricket club, sailing club, marae, and so on, there are risks to those on the other side when they are obtaining what they believe is good legal advice, but they don’t know what goes on behind that in terms of the legal community, the Law Society, and so on.

So I can understand the problem. At that time, I was a young lawyer. I didn’t believe I had the skills and experience in that particular area of law to do that. How many times somebody’s asked me if I could just look over their sale and purchase agreement for their house—no, I don’t want to get that wrong—or it’s to draft up the marae charter rules or to do somebody’s succession, or can I do them a will, and so on. The list is a large one of what people regularly came forward for and requested.

When the other issue that we identified in this was described to me, it was well-meaning lawyers who wanted to be able to contribute to their community groups and give back in some kind of way, and they would, obviously, do it within the area that they felt competent to do that. But we’ve raised the issues with risks and liabilities there.

The other issue that came up and was brought to our attention was access to justice issues for those who cannot afford legal services. So this is not just your sailing club who happens to know a lawyer, or a marae trustee who’s got a nephew or niece that’s just graduated from university, but people who actually need legal services, but can’t afford to access those legal services. So, on that basis, we heard really good submissions from Community Law. We heard about their programme Te Ara Ture. We heard about how much of a challenge access to justice, access to lawyers, either free or affordable, is for people, and we felt that this bill was not going to be able to resolve that issue. It may have contributed in some part to that greater issue, but the issue is actually greater than just some people being able to provide free legal services, pro bono services, while in employment—so outside of their employed situation.

Community Law has offered up a suggestion on how they might be able to be a clearing house for those sorts of things, but this wasn’t a piece of policy that we could just make in the select committee process. It requires a much broader review of the problems and identification of all the possible solutions and the costs associated with that, and then it comes with a commitment to the resourcing to be able to actually deliver on that.

So while this issue of access to justice has been raised, I don’t really remember that being the first examples that we discussed, but it became a live issue during the process, and we really did try, as the Justice Committee—all members of that committee—to find a way through. But what we found in the end was that what was proposed through submissions was unworkable—it had fish-hooks in it and potential unintended consequences—and that further policy work needed to be done. We have recommended that that policy work does get done, and I’m pleased of the Government’s record of contributing to our community law centres over the last few years. The point has been made about the other side’s level or support or non-support of that. So we do recognise that there is a problem. We are committing additional funding to it. We are taking steps, and we have recommended that there be a wider review to address the access to justice issues that have been identified through this process.

I thank everybody for the huge amount of time that we’ve put into it, and, therefore—just to be clear—we are not supporting the bill to the next stage.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on the Lawyers and Conveyancers (Employed Lawyers Providing Free Legal Services) Amendment Bill, in the name of my colleague Chris Bishop. It’s an excellent piece of legislation, and you’d think, listening to the member on the other side, where she’s defined all the problems and said there’s so much more to do in this area, that, actually, the Labour Party would be supporting this piece of legislation, because, actually, this is the type of bill which is going to help many of their constituents to be able to access free legal services, and to actually get the assistance that they need. The reality is that the chardonnay socialists on the other side have decided again that they’d rather vote for legislation which actually makes life harder for their supporters and people who they say they purport to represent, rather than actually trying to work with the National Party to find practical solutions to make life easier.

So, effectively, this piece of legislation has one very important change to the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act, to allow a lawyer who is an employee to provide free legal work where the services are provided with the agreement of the employer and in accordance with practice rules made by the New Zealand Law Society. This is not about trying to come up with some dodgy way to get some free legal services done on the side; this is about saying, “Actually, there are around 8,000 lawyers who currently are unable to provide pro bono services.”—8,000 lawyers who are currently banned from being able to assist people, and from being able to make a positive difference in the community, and to actually make a difference.

The reality is what the Government is saying is those 8,000 lawyers representing about 58 percent of the profession should not be able to actually provide that assistance in the community, and I think that’s a real shame, because, actually, this Parliament had a real opportunity with this piece of legislation to really make a difference in those people’s lives and for these lawyers to be able to assist in the community.

We heard a number of submitters come to the select committee. I was on that select committee. We heard some excellent submissions, and, look, there are issues which needed to be worked through. But that’s the purpose of a select committee. A select committee is actually an opportunity to work through the issues, take the time, and make sure the legislation is going to give good effect to it. And effectively what this Government has said is “Well, because this is not perfect, we’re not going to aim for good; we’re going to just say no rather than work through the issues, get the advice, and make sure we have a piece of legislation which we could support.”

You know, I do acknowledge all parties in this Parliament who did send it to a select committee, and I think that was the right thing to do. But the next thing to do is actually to make sure that the select committee process develops it into good law so that all parties could continue to support it, because I think there was very much a strong intention to support this piece of legislation all the way through.

So I’m very disappointed that the Government has decided to not support this piece of legislation. What they’re saying here is that they want to continue to control who can provide pro bono services, continue to make overcomplicated regulations in regards to providing pro bono services, and what that, effectively, will mean is we don’t get that increased amount of people being able to get access to justice in New Zealand. There was clear evidence which came forward which said two-thirds of law firms spent only about 1 percent to 5 percent of practice time on pro bono work, and the whole purpose of this was to try to not only increase that percentage amongst firms which are already doing pro bono work but actually increasing the number of lawyers who are able to provide pro bono services, to be able to tap into those 8,000 lawyers so that they are able to assist New Zealanders.

What I find really ironic is you hear the examples going on about, you know, “Oh, well, it’s only going to help that sports club down the road—they’ve got a mate.” It’s very dismissive of the fact that, actually, our country is made up of people, individuals, communities, sports clubs, marae, and, actually, you know, these aren’t well-resourced organisations. I think of all the sports clubs in my electorate in Pakuranga, which, actually, yes, they might know a lawyer, but that doesn’t mean they’re well-resourced, and the only alternative is that they’ve got to go and now raise the money and pay for the services rather than actually talk to someone that they might know who can then talk to their employer and say, you know, “Can I have permission, and I will, of course, work within the rules and provide this advice.”

And we’re talking about very practical issues, and I can think of many times that I’ve had examples of issues where I’ve had to support local sports clubs in my electorate and they’ve come to see me and it’s an issue that I can’t necessarily get involved with—it’s potentially to do with a lease agreement with the council, and, actually, getting some legal advice in regards to those issues is actually a very good thing. But they come to me because, actually, you know, going to see a lawyer’s going to cost them 10 grand, and so they come and ask what support and advice I can provide as the local MP. And, look, as a local MP, we do that; we do whatever we can do to support and advise, but we’re not able to provide legal advice, and so it’s important they actually have that opportunity.

So here is the example of the Government saying to those people, “Actually, we don’t care. Go out there and find $10,000. Go and hire a lawyer.”—rather than them being able to use people in their networks and to be able to get that support, because, actually, New Zealand is very much a community-minded country. People like to help each other, people like to support each other, and this Government is saying, “Actually, no you can’t, and we’re not going to make this better.” So it’s very much a pity that that’s happening.

I acknowledge, again, my colleague Chris Bishop for bringing this bill to Parliament—a practical, pragmatic solution to an issue, trying to solve a problem—and, again, this Government puts its ideology in the way and doesn’t come forward and actually try to make sure that we help New Zealanders; a real big shame. We continue to support this bill, but disappointed with the Government’s dismissal.

LOUISA WALL (Labour): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. It’s my pleasure to speak on this, the second reading of the Lawyers and Conveyancers (Employed Lawyers Providing Free Legal Services) Amendment Bill. I too would like to commend Chris Bishop, who actually—his intention has huge merit. In fact, allowing a lawyer who is an employee to do free legal work pro bono, other than for the lawyer’s employer, on conditions set by the New Zealand Law Society, as many have said, had universal support at first reading. The merit was about improving access to justice, and, actually, that remains, I think, an intention that we are committed to improving through, I guess, the assessment and analysis of this bill. Having not sat on the Justice Committee, I want to congratulate and commend Ginny Andersen and the team within the Justice Committee. I’ve had personal experience with their work, so I have no doubt that full due diligence was undertaken and they in good faith tried to find a solution to some of the issues that were highlighted.

I think it’s really important that people understand what those issues were. In fact, the New Zealand Law Society, in their submission, did highlight the fact that an employed lawyer is potentially guilty of misconduct if they do legal work outside of the lawyer’s employment. But more than that, there were issues about providing free services and what that means in terms of adequate consumer protections. There are supervision requirements, for example, within those law practices. There are approval processes that have to be adhered to. There are client care obligations, and, actually, the handling of client moneys. So the liability—nobody could ascertain where that lay, and, in fact, if there was poor legal advice, how could we then help the person that the system was being designed to support, and would there be a requirement for that lawyer to hold professional indemnity insurance? Too many questions, unfortunately, that the select committee process could not answer.

I do want to acknowledge the 22 submissions and the nine oral submissions. So the Law Society, as a regulator—they in fact made a supplementary submission. There was a lack of policy work on the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. There had been no costing of the scheme, and the best method to meet the unmet need had not been ascertained. So the intervention logic wasn’t there, but, as I’ve said, there’s intent from the Government, but also all the parties involved and the Law Society.

I also want to highlight Community Law Centres o Aotearoa, who acknowledged issues related to access to justice, but from their perspective the issues related to access to justice are for specific groups of New Zealanders. Those New Zealanders are people with disabilities. Those New Zealanders are Māori, tangata whenua. Those New Zealanders are single parents. Those New Zealanders are those who suffer economic disadvantage. So in fact, the biggest issue that they had and the select committee had was matching that need with this proposal and matching that need with new investment that is obviously needed to make the intention of this bill actually work. That is the issue. That is the issue, because if we allow this bill to go through, in fact, we probably would have exacerbated access to justice issues, which would continue to contribute to inequitable access to lawyers. So that is at the heart of the select committee’s recommendation to this House by majority that this bill not be passed.

So I commend Chris Bishop for bringing this kaupapa to the House. I commend those 8,000 lawyers who would like to contribute. I commend the Law Society for their contribution to this discussion. I commend Community Law Centres o Aotearoa. But at the end of the day, it’s pretty clear that any investment in this space, any new resource, must be targeted to ensure that those who are most disadvantaged in accessing legal services can receive them. Therefore, I stand with my colleagues, unfortunately for Chris Bishop, in opposition not to his proposition, not to his intention but to the fact that this bill unfortunately is not fit for purpose. Kia ora.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Lawyers and Conveyancers (Employed Lawyers Providing Free Legal Services) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 45

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

Noes 75

New Zealand Labour 65; ACT New Zealand 10.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Plain Language Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 75

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

Noes 43

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion not agreed to.

Bills

Plain Language Bill

First Reading

Debate resumed from 20 October 2021.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): During the last debate on this bill, it was call No. 7 that we ended on; so the next call is for speaker No. 8, which is a member of the Labour Party. I call Ginny Andersen.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I’d like to congratulate the member in charge of this bill, Rachel Boyack, for promoting a bill that makes good sense. As members of Parliament, we know the importance of having things communicated clearly, and that’s even more important for people we’re dealing with in our constituency. I can say that having a bill that promotes plain language is a good thing to do. Look, while it might sound—I want to give an example of where “bureau-speak” or Government-speak can cause real confusion and difficulty for the average person in New Zealand to be able to understand what the Government or what agencies are communicating. Here’s a great one, here’s one from the New Zealand Transport Agency’s 2017 report, and it says that they are going to “‘Transform the Transport Agency’ establishes a deliberate change management approach to successfully transition the Transport Agency to the refreshed strategy and the new ways of working. It drives improved organisational effectiveness through tenacious alignment of strategy to business planning, resource allocation and performance measurement. It embeds our new DNA and the shift required to ensure we are customer focused, collaborative, curious, and seeking innovation and value for money in all we do.” So, in other words, they want to improve the customer service and spend the money more carefully, which would be easier to say it that way.

So while in Government documents it’s important, it’s also just as important if communicating to people—and as I say, in my role is as an MP, quite often people will front up with a letter they’ve received and it might be even from the local city council, it might be from a Government department, and a big part of that is reading line by line and helping to translate what the intent of the communication is. So it can be a barrier for people to access Government services and also to access justice if they’re wanting to understand.

I had someone who came to my office, probably just about a month ago, and it was in relation to accessing legal aid and, look, I had to ring up the number myself. I read through it three times and it was still not clear about what the entitlements of the person were. So having it in clear, everyday language is an important way of making sure that people know their rights, know what they are entitled to and be able to access those services.

It’s interesting to note that in the explanatory note of the bill, the member has noted that “The US Congress passed the Plain Writing Act of 2010 [and] This requires the US Federal Government to write all … publications, forms, and publicly distributed documents in a ‘clear, concise, well-organized’ manner that [they must follow] the best practices of plain language writing.” So the point of that bill back in 2010 in the US is to improve the effectiveness and also to improve accountability of federal agencies by promoting clear Government communication that the public can understand. This bill does exactly the same: it promotes the use of plain language in official documents and also online in official websites.

“Comprehensible information from government organisations is a basic democratic right.”—it’s important that people know what they’re entitled to and that that is made clear in plain English. To make that “a standard for all official public and private communications in New Zealand.”, will make that clearer to people who want to know what they’re accessing. And that’s even important because more and more people are going online to access their information and to make sure that that is communicated clearly.

So, look, I would like to commend Rachel Boyack, the member in charge, for picking up this bill. New Zealand is at its best when we can understand and easily participate in our democracy and this bill aims to further that by making sure that everybody is on the same page. I commend this bill to the House.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on the Plain Language Bill. I think I would reinterpret that title in plain language. It’s a bill looking for a problem. This is a bill which is really just—I just think, in plain language, just a joke. I mean, this is a bill which is, effectively, just trying to increase bureaucracy at a time when the Public Service is an all-time huge, massive beast, and now we are saying that we need to employ more people so that we can have plain language. Look, that’s a great intention. We all want to see documents in plain language. We all want to see, when we get a letter from the Government, that it clearly states what we are required to do. That’s all very good intent, but here we are, passing a piece of legislation which is just another piece of bureaucratic intent, which is going to clog up our Government departments. I can tell you that this will not make one single difference to people’s lives in New Zealand. The difference it will make is a whole lot of additional jobs in the Public Service.

We’re now going to have plain language officers running around. Each department has to appoint a plain language officer, who is responsible for ensuring that every document and every communication in that organisation is written in plain language that is easily understood. I’m looking forward to seeing how much that’s going to cost the taxpayer. How many millions of dollars we’re going to have to employ? What the qualifications for a plain language officer? What degree? Do they need a degree in linguistics?

Hon Member: Failed School Certificate!

SIMEON BROWN: Just a School Certificate? Well, School Certificate’s a bit old for me. I guess that’s NCEA level 2 or NCEA level 3. I didn’t do School Certificate; I did the English standards under the NCEA framework. I mean, that’s something we could put into plain language, isn’t it? We could turn NCEA into something much more plain language which people can understand a bit better. I’m sure there’s plenty of little opportunities for these little plain language officers to be running around, meddling in lots of business. Will they be having to check every email which goes out to a constituent or to a person or a customer of that particular Government organisation, making sure that the language is checked and it’s plain language, it’s easily understandable?

I just think it’s going to be an absolute waste of time. I just think this Government needs to really reflect on its own use of language. You know, the Prime Minister talks about how she’s got a great degree in communications, and she’s able to communicate to New Zealanders. Well, before the Government goes and tries to meddle in every single Government department to try and make sure that every document and email and everything is in plain language, why don’t they consider looking at how their own communication is for New Zealanders? Because I can tell you that people coming to see me in my office are not lining up at the door with their little letters and saying, “I don’t know what this says. Can you please explain it to me?” or “This Government annual report, it needs to be explained.” What they’re coming in and saying is, “Actually, all these COVID rules and regulations and nonsense and, you know, everything the Government says about, you know, we’re now in—what are we in?—phase 2 of traffic light red after step 3 of level 2?”

Hon Member: That’s not plain language.

SIMEON BROWN: I mean, that’s not plain language; that’s pretty darn confusing. New Zealanders are pretty confused. They’re frustrated. They don’t know how they’re going to get their rapid antigen test. They don’t know who’s actually a critical worker, who’s not a critical worker.

There are so many things this Government should be doing to actually make sure it’s communicating properly to New Zealanders, and that doesn’t require legislation. That just requires good management. That requires good communication. That requires the Government actually intentionally desiring for New Zealanders to actually know what the rules and regulations are as we go through this time of COVID-19. It doesn’t require a piece of legislation which will, effectively, create more bureaucratic jobs in Wellington—because, let’s face it, that’s where all these plain language officers will be employed. What we need is a Government which is actually addressing the real issues facing New Zealanders—the issues which mean that businesses can access rapid antigen tests, that everyone can access rapid antigen tests, so we can make sure we have the tools that will get us through this pandemic, not having a whole lot of plain language officers.

I just imagine they’ll have their plain language conference. They’ll come together for a plain language conference.

Hon Member: What will they call it?

SIMEON BROWN: I’m not sure what they’ll call the plain language conference, but you can see they’ll all get together in Wellington once a year for their plain language conference. The Public Service Association will come along to give a presentation, and they’ll all have their cups of tea, and scones with cream and jam, and the reality is taxpayers will be paying millions of dollars, and all of those reports—there’ll be absolutely no difference. This is not a bill the National Party supports—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! The member’s time is up.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour—Northland): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on the Plain Language Bill. I first want to acknowledge the member who is in the House this afternoon, Rachel Boyack, whose name this bill is in. I’m just reflecting on the previous contribution by Simeon Brown—

Simeon Brown: A good contribution!

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: Meh. You were sort of joking, making really flippant statements about a conference for plain language experts, and I thought that that was really mean. Because, actually, again I’ll reflect back—when I graduated from Waikato University, started my job at Te Ohau Kaimoana as an in-house solicitor, one of the courses that I went on was a plain language writing course, and it was actually a really valuable course to attend. In my time, both working at Te Ohau Kaimoana and then amongst my community as a consultant representing in the Waitangi Tribunal claims, one of the things that I saw—a lot—was people’s difficulty in understanding what it is in legislation and what’s required of them, or what’s in Government departments’ booklets about processes, policies, and procedures. And so, often, my job was to attend hui and to interpret all of that and present it to them in a way that they could understand and that we could make decisions as a collective and move forward on.

Now, my belief is that people who are expected to abide by the law or to follow policies and processes and procedures when accessing things from the Government should be able to read it, should be able to understand it—they shouldn’t need a lawyer who is breaking it down for them, interpreting it so that they can understand it. We just had a bill on issues around access to justice, costs for services and so on, and we had a member over there dismissing this bill. This bill is actually trying to address the very issue that people have come forward to me asking me to help them with. So I’m glad I’ve sat through both of the debates and have picked up on the inconsistencies, or people not actually seeing what this means in application.

So this bill promotes the use of plain English in official documents and websites, and I actually think that that’s a great proposal. The purpose of the bill is to improve the effectiveness and accountability of the Public Service by requiring their communications to be clear and accessible to the public. I think that that is a great goal that we should have. They may think that that’s what they are currently doing, but maybe through this legislation they will see that, in fact, there are lots of examples of where we are not achieving what this bill sets out to achieve.

I do note that the member has made a comment here or is clear that nothing in this bill affects Te Ture mō Te Reo Māori 2016/the Māori Language Act 2016 or the New Zealand Sign Language Act 2006. I can’t speak for those who use sign, but I can speak as somebody who is also fluent in te reo Māori. I know it’s not proposed in this bill to expand into that area, but some would argue that we should use some plain te reo as well—ha, ha!—because there are some words that are used that, you know, we have a similar problem of trying to interpret that and understand that. So to all of our licensed translators and interpreters, maybe something for us to think about, for te reo Māori. My husband being one of those qualified translators, and I also think the Hon Peeni Henare has his certificate too, so I don’t think that this is actually just an issue for English. Possibly our ethnic caucus will also say that this is common across other languages as well, but maybe we can set the trend that—at least in one of our official languages—we will aim to achieve plain language writing in all of our official communications, so that people who are trying to access the services of Government can clearly understand what it is that they need to do, the process that they need to follow, what actually is being provided, and so on.

So with that, I do want to commend the member for bringing this bill to the House, and I want to commend the bill to the House.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take the final call and have the right of reply in the first reading of my member’s bill, the Plain Language Bill. It has been nearly four months since the first reading of this bill began, and so as part of my speech preparation this morning, I pulled up the Hansard from those speeches in October and reread the comments from colleagues across the House so that I could respond to them now.

So I will begin with responding to comments from National’s Chris Bishop, which I must say were a disappointment to me and showed, I guess, a National Party that is out of touch with the needs of New Zealanders who come into our electorate offices every day seeking support understanding Government documents. He made some interesting comments that I thought were interesting, given Mr Bishop has spent time in a Minister’s office as an adviser a few years ago. He made some comments stating that Ministers, we don’t have to waste Parliament’s time passing legislation; there are endless ways for Ministers to do that. They can actually just direct it through things like letters of expectation.

So it was interesting to pull up some comments from the Minister the Hon Gerry Brownlee, that Mr Bishop worked for when he was Minister. So this is a comment from the energy and resources Minister back then, Gerry Brownlee, when his adviser was Mr Bishop. I thought, “Well, I wonder why Mr Bishop didn’t make a direction around this comment.” So I thought I’d read this one around energy and resources: “The regulatory function of the Electricity Commission was identified at the Jobs Summit by many sectors as delaying transmission investment and being a blockage to both infrastructure investment and expansion of jobs.”

Hon Member: Makes sense to me.

RACHEL BOYACK: Mmm, well, actually, I would respond to the member that, actually, this is what shows just how out of touch the National Party is, that, actually, many New Zealanders would not be able to understand that. I think that’s what we need to do in this House is ensure we’re actually making sure documents are understandable by all New Zealanders. So I just want to acknowledge that point was made by my colleague Glen Bennett—that point was made by my colleague very well, that, actually, it’s about our service to the people when we are writing these documents.

Just a note on the comments made from my colleague Jan Logie from the Greens, who described the bill as a golden retriever. Those of you who know me will say I just need to put on record, it’s a golden Labrador. So golden Labrador is how I would describe this bill, although I do like golden retrievers quite a bit as well. Ms Logie also made the point around ensuring this is part of our role as servants of the public: to ensure that people can understand documents. She also commented around the need to improve sign language services, and while that isn’t within the scope of the bill, I do commend the member for those comments and I agree with them.

My colleague Steph Lewis made some really useful comments around the role of lawyers—and we have many lawyers in this House. I do say, with respect, that often lawyers are our people where we need to begin some of this work with. She made comments around phrases like “null and void” and that when she was in law school, she was taught about how lawyers would often be paid by word, and so there was an incentive to increase the number of words being used. That’s part of the role of plain language is actually, like that sentence I read before, any sentence that’s longer than 20 words is actually considered under plain language rules as being too long.

I just want to note again a number of electorate MPs—unfortunately not Mr Brown, but a number of electorate MPs like Ingrid Leary, like Ginny Andersen, and like Willow-Jean Prime understand, as I do, just how often people come into our offices seeking support to understand letters from Immigration.

Just to respond to Mr Brown, actually, what they found in the United States when they introduced similar law, it actually improved the efficiency of the public sector. It actually saved money—it actually saved money. All the wasted money having to interpret these documents, that actually this type of approach saves us money and improves efficiency. So on that note, I look forward to hearing the submissions as part of the Governance and Administration Committee, and I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is, That the Plain Language Bill be considered by the Governance and Administration Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Governance and Administration Committee.

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

The House adjourned at 12.55 p.m. (Wednesday)