Wednesday, 4 May 2022

WEDNESDAY, 4 MAY 2022

WEDNESDAY, 4 MAY 2022

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia/Prayers

Karakia/Prayers

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Tatou ifo ma tatalo. Le Atua Silisili ese e, matou te sulaina lau Afio mo fa’amanuiaga ma tofi ua e fa’au’uina ai i matou. E lafoa’i ni o matou lagona ma manatua ta’ito’atasi i le amana’iaina o le Masiofo o Peretania. Matou te tatalo ina ia tonu ma fa’amaoni fuafuaga ma fa’ai’uga uma i totonu o lenei Maota Fono. Ia talosia ta’ita’i o lenei Mālō ina ia maua le tōfā mamao, le fa’apalepale ma le agamalū, auā le manuia ma le filemū o Niu Sila. O le matou tatalo lea, e ala atu i le suafa pele o Iesu Keriso, Amene.

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 the Hon Judith Collins requesting that the House request the Ministry of Education urgently prioritise the allotment of funding and restore the plan to rebuild Papakura High School and schedule building to begin in 2022

petition of Juliana Carvalho requesting that the House urge the Associate Minister of Immigration to exempt Arianna Alfonzo from the acceptable standards of health policy and grant her residence

petition of Yvonne Pern requesting that the House urge the Government to extend an on-shore working holiday and supplemental seasonal employment visa so that they expire no earlier than 31 December 2022

petition of Kostyantyn Starodub on behalf of the NZ Ukraine Action requesting that the House urge the Government to provide an immediate priority path to come to Aotearoa, open to all people based in Ukraine.

SPEAKER: Those petitions stand referred to the Petitions Committee. A paper has been delivered for presentation.

CLERK: Government response to the review of the Substance Addiction (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 2017.

SPEAKER: That paper is published under the authority of the House. A select committee report has been delivered for presentation.

CLERK: Report of the Education and Workforce Committee on the petition of New Zealand Human Rights Commission / Te Kāhui Tika, End pay secrecy: Establish an independent pay transparency agency.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Finance

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

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): The strength of the jobs market is continuing to support New Zealand’s economy. Statistics New Zealand reported this morning that the unemployment rate remained at a record low 3.2 percent in the March quarter. The number of people classed as unemployed stood at 94,000, which is 29 percent lower than a year ago and 19 percent below where it was in the pre-COVID December 2019 quarter. On comparable measures, New Zealand’s 3.2 percent unemployment rate stands against 4 percent in Australia, 3.8 percent in the UK and the United States, and 5.8 percent in Canada. The OECD average is 5.2 percent. This is a very positive result in what has been a challenging environment, and is a sign of confidence in the economy and the Government’s strong health response and sound economic management. Our economy is growing at 5.6 percent annually and is above pre-COVID levels with our fiscal position as strong, with triple A credit ratings from leading agencies. The recovery is growing momentum, and the easing restrictions and opening up to skilled workers and tourists will help businesses and the economy rebuild.

Barbara Edmonds: What did the report say about wage growth?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, wage growth rose at a faster rate, with the average hourly wage up 4.8 percent to $36.18 an hour. Statistics New Zealand also reported that 64 percent of workers received annual wage increases in the March quarter compared with 46 percent a year ago. We recognise New Zealanders are doing it tough at the moment with regard to cost of living increases, but our strong economic and fiscal position means that we are well positioned to respond and help ease the pressure on New Zealanders. The half-yearly update forecast from the Treasury also indicates that 2022 is the only year in the forecast period in which inflation will outstrip wages. The investments made by the Government to keep businesses open and Kiwis in work has paid dividends. Projections of 10 percent unemployment were avoided because of the actions we’ve taken, and today’s numbers highlight how successful our plan has been to keep and support New Zealanders in work.

Barbara Edmonds: What did the report say on growth in employment?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The data also shows that the economy continued to add jobs, with 2,000 more people in work than in the December quarter, with the strongest growth in construction and manufacturing. The total number of people in work is now 114,000 above where it was in the—pre-COVID—December 2019 quarter. Hours worked did decline by 0.2 percent, which reflects the challenges from Omicron as more people were away from work due to illness or having to self-isolate. ANZ’s economists said the labour market remained tight in the March quarter, despite the best efforts of the Omicron wave to disrupt things. With the indicators of labour demands still at or around record levels, ANZ are expecting that the labour market will further tighten over 2022 as domestic COVID disruptions ease, and this is where the important role of immigration will come into play as we fill much-needed skill gaps.

Question No. 2—Prime Minister

2. 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 this Government’s economic recovery plan, which has seen our economic activity increase 5.6 percent from a year ago—higher than it was before COVID-19—our goods exports up by more than 8 percent compared to March 2020, and milk powder and meat exports are up by more than 15 percent, and we’ve received two triple A credit ratings from the two leading agencies, something few countries in the world are able to say. We always maintained that a strong health response to COVID-19 was the best economic response and were prepared to step in with more than $20 billion of direct support for businesses and workers through the wage subsidy and resurgence support to protect lives and livelihood, and you can see today the impact that has had. Our unemployment rate remains at 3.2 percent, one of the lowest recorded since the survey began. The average hourly wage rose 4.8 percent to $36.18 per hour. In the private sector, wages increased by 5.3 percent. Our economic policies during COVID mean we’re now in a strong position to grow the economy and support New Zealanders through these uncertain times.

Christopher Luxon: With wages growing slower than prices and real incomes falling, does she agree that Kiwis are going backwards under Labour?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I’ve said in this House many times before, since we took office right through until 2022, wage growth outstripped inflation. Yes, we are in a period where we have now, obviously, inflation at high rates in the same way the rest of the world is experiencing, but even then there are, of course, forecasts that predict, once again, from the latter half of 2022, we will again see wage growth outstrip those increases in the cost of living. I contrast the Government’s approach in these times to some other parties in this House. We are investing in supporting New Zealanders through these tough times, targeting our support, lifting minimum wages, increasing the family tax credit, and bringing in the winter energy payment when the Opposition wants to take away from New Zealanders investment in services and give tax breaks to the wealthy.

Christopher Luxon: Why is she refusing to accept that Kiwis have gone backwards under Labour when total inflation since she became Prime Minister has been more than 13.5 percent, during which time total wage growth has been under 9.8 percent?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: My argument would be that the member is refusing to instead actually listen to the answers that I’m giving. We absolutely accept that alongside the rest of the world right now—the rest of the world is experiencing high rates of inflation: the euro, 7.5 percent; Germany, 7.3 percent; the US, 8.5 percent; the OECD average is 7.7 percent. Now, the difference is that since 2017, we came into this crisis with wage growth outstripping inflation in successive quarters and we will get back to a place where that happens again because of the actions of this Government, and it is the latter part of 2022 when we expect that to happen.

Christopher Luxon: Is she aware that quarterly inflation has been higher than quarterly wage growth for 10 of the 17 quarters since she became Prime Minister, so Kiwis have gone backwards more than half the time she’s been in power?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I reject what the member has claimed and, again, revert back to the answers that I have provided. Again, let’s look at the policies that have been proposed in this House around supporting Kiwis at this present point in time. This Government has increased the minimum wage. This Government is looking at ensuring that we don’t see a decline to the bottom, through things like fair pay agreements. This Government has increased the family tax credit, brought in the winter energy payment, brought in the Best Start payment, and increased Government support. On the other side, we have a party promoting an increase in the age of retirement, no increase in the minimum wage, and tax cuts for the most wealthy. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! I’m going to warn Mr Doocey: if he addresses me in that way again—and while he might, in fact, be accurate—he is not to bring me into the discussions in that way.

David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister stand by her statement that New Zealand is “open for business” and, if so, what does she say to Kiwis of, for example, Indian, Chinese, or Sri Lankan origin who hear the country is open for business, but can’t welcome their non-resident family at Auckland Airport into the country anytime soon, let alone defined by her Government?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Well, for many of those families, they may already have family members who hold existing visas that have multiple entry. There are hundreds of thousands of those in existence that are able to be utilised right now, and, as I say, they are multiple entry visas that can be used. The issue is the opening time for those from non-visa waiver countries—those who have not sought specific visas for entry into New Zealand from the reopening dates. We are looking at the possibility of bringing that reopening forward, but, again, there are already hundreds of thousands from those countries who can still come now.

David Seymour: What is stopping the New Zealand Government from simply treating those Kiwis whose families originate out of non - visa waiver countries the same as those Kiwis whose families do come from visa waiver countries? Why is that so hard?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: If the member is promoting the idea of the complete liberalisation of our immigration system, where everyone is treated as if they are from a visa waiver country—because, actually, the answer was implicit in the question. We do have different visa requirements, and by virtue of those and the fact that we are already processing residency visas, over 100,000, to ensure that we maintain our workers here in New Zealand—we of course are processing our critical workers, which we’ve opened back up to. Working holiday visas: it is simply a matter of sequencing, but we are looking to bring forward those as early as we can.

Christopher Luxon: How can she say Kiwis aren’t going backwards when annual inflation is 6.9 percent, but wage growth has just hit 3 percent—the biggest gap between price and wage growth on record?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As the member would have heard in both the Minister of Finance’s response and in my own, the average hourly wage rose 4.8 percent in the latest data, and private sector wages’ hourly earnings increased by 5.3 percent. We are in a period right now where we have got global inflation levels that are impacting on the cost of living, but these quarters are, relative to the others we’ve experienced in New Zealand, an exception not a rule, and we are projected, by the latter part of 2022 to once again see wage growth outstrip the cost of living. Finally, what I would say is that as a Government, we have worked hard to ensure that we have consistently had wage growth outstrip inflation in this country, and we have succeeded. But we are in an environment where there is currently a war in Europe. There are supply chain constraints, and we are not alone in this experience. The difference is we’re a Government who will cushion the blow for New Zealand. That is an Opposition party proposing to give the wealthiest tax cuts.

Christopher Luxon: Why does the Government believe yet another working group is the answer for tackling ballooning health wait-lists under Labour?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: If the member is referring to the fact that unlike other countries, we have not had the extended, extraordinary increases in wait times throughout the pandemic because we managed COVID in a way that allowed people to continue to access healthcare, but now we are using our clinicians in an environment where we are no longer hamstrung by the geographical boundaries of DHBs but are going to maximise the efficiencies of our health system—if that member suggests we shouldn’t use clinicians to support that work, that’s a matter for him. But on this side of the House, we think that’s a good idea.

David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister believe her Government has done enough to fix the cost of living crisis, and if she does believe that, why do 77 percent of New Zealanders disagree with her?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I am not for a moment going to argue that there is a silver bullet to the global issue of high inflation rates—there just simply isn’t—but there are ways that we can make a difference. Reducing the cost of fuel, increasing support for those on low incomes with the family tax credit increase, the winter energy payment—all of these things make a difference. But, ultimately, what we do want to get back to is the position we were in prior where wage growth was outstripping the rates of inflation, and we’re projected to do that later in 2022.

Christopher Luxon: What will the new health working group achieve that the 1,600 staff at the Ministry of Health can’t?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: With the Health New Zealand reforms, there is opportunity for us to ensure that we are better utilising our tertiary system to overcome the inefficiencies that we have had. The member may not be aware, but individual DHBs operate, often, using different categorisation and criteria to prioritise planned care. That in itself creates inefficiencies. We don’t operate as a combined network of tertiary care; we need to. That is what the Health New Zealand reforms are about, that is what these clinicians will support, and if the member is not aware of the differences between the way that our DHBs have worked to date, then I suggest the member get a briefing.

Question No. 3—Energy and Resources

3. ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour) to the Minister of Energy and Resources: What action is the Government taking to support businesses to cut their emissions?

SPEAKER: Could I ask Mr Seymour just to speak a little bit more quietly on his phone.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): Last week, I announced the Government has supported even more of New Zealand businesses to slash their emissions faster through the latest round of the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry Fund, or the GIDI Fund. In partnering with the private sector through the third round of GIDI, we’re helping to clean up production processes and help business reduce their emissions. Of the $13 million investment, this is matched by $32.7 million in private sector funding. Across all three rounds of GIDI, 53 projects have received $69 million in Government co-funding, matched by $117 million in private sector funding.

Angie Warren-Clark: What will be the impact of the Government’s investment in decarbonisation?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Projects funded through the latest round of the Government’s investment will save 900,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide over their lifetimes. The third round of GIDI will achieve annual emissions reductions equivalent to taking 14,400 cars off our roads. All three rounds will result in lifetime emissions savings of 7.46 million tonnes of carbon. This is the equivalent of taking 134,800 cars off the roads. The GIDI Fund is already making a tangible difference to the total greenhouse gases that we generate, and it’s great to see regions right across the country benefiting, including Southland, Otago, Canterbury, West Coast, Nelson, Hawke’s Bay, Bay of Plenty, and Auckland.

Angie Warren-Clark: What kinds of projects have been supported through the GIDI Fund?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Southern Paprika, where I announced a successful project, is set to install a biomass boiler with a carbon dioxide recovery unit—a New Zealand first, replacing fossil gas. This project will reduce emissions by 70 percent by replacing 70 percent of the process heat requirement with a renewable energy source. Other projects include funding to convert coal boilers and heat recovery at McCain’s Timaru plant and for Mataura Valley Milk to install New Zealand’s first high-pressure electrode boiler of 15 megawatts to replace all current coal-fired heat duties on the site, making the site 100 percent electrified.

Question No. 4—Workplace Relations and Safety

4. JAN LOGIE (Green) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: What new actions, if any, will he take in light of Mind the Gap’s research which concludes that pay gap reporting is likely to close Aotearoa’s gender and ethnic pay gaps by as much as 40 percent and increase pay by as much as $35 per week for the average worker?

Hon JAN TINETTI (Minister of Internal Affairs) on behalf of the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: I thank the member for her question. The Government is committed to improving employment outcomes, supporting pay equity for all women in Aotearoa New Zealand, and I acknowledge the advocacy for Mind the Gap on these issues. I am closely considering a range of matters that the Education and Workforce Committee has raised in its briefing into pay transparency. The Government will be responding to these shortly. We continue to support pay equity through a range of other actions, including through fair pay agreements, pay equity settlements, reducing the gender pay gap in the Public Service through targets and measures, and soon we’ll be delivering the first ever Women’s Employment Action Plan to remove barriers that prevent women from entering work and support better employment outcomes for them. There is more work to do, and it will take the work of businesses, unions, and Government alike to tackle the bigger issue of pay equity.

Jan Logie: Does he agree that an extra $35 for women, Māori, and Pasifika workers—which is an extra eight loaves of bread, five dozen eggs, or a bus pass—would make a real difference to working families right now?

Hon JAN TINETTI: I do want to caution picking pay transparency reporting as the only panacea to the gender pay gap. Pay reporting is one of the tools that could help us towards eliminating pay gaps. Other tools that we are already implementing include fair pay agreements, pay equity, and leadership targets in the Public Service. The Government has also delivered a suite of improvements from 1 April that will see income increases for over 1.4 million New Zealanders.

Jan Logie: What is the Minister’s response to research by Te Ara Ahunga Ora Retirement Commission which shows that the KiwiSaver pay gap is increasing, with women having 20 percent less in retirement savings than men, in part due to the cumulative impact of the gender wage gap?

Hon JAN TINETTI: On behalf of the Minister: the discrepancies that are happening in the KiwiSaver wage gap are symptomatic of the wider issues that are occurring in the gender pay gap and the drivers that cause that. I happen to know that my colleague the Minister for Women has commissioned some research around this, and I look forward to having future conversations with her about this.

Jan Logie: Nice. What is the Minister’s response to the Education and Workforce Committee’s final report into pay transparency, which found that the Government should urgently adopt mandatory pay transparency reporting and require organisations to take action to address inequities?

Hon JAN TINETTI: On behalf of the Minister: I found that the report from the Education and Workforce Committee was incredibly helpful in discussions that we will be having, going forward in this. We have the mandatory 60 working days to respond to that, and we will be responding to that in due course. But we do take this issue very seriously, and nothing at this stage is off the table.

Jan Logie: Does he stand by his statement on the pay gap that “there’s a strong level of commitment. We want to examine the evidence, we’ll examine the select committee’s report, and then we’ll make considered decisions”, and, if so, now that he has evidence from the committee and Mind the Gap that comprehensive pay reporting does work, will he finally take action?

Hon JAN TINETTI: On behalf of the Minister: to the first part of that question, absolutely. To the second part, we are working through those recommendations at the moment and our response to that report will come through shortly.

Jan Logie: How much longer will women, Māori, and Pasifika bear the cost of pay gaps because the Government has not started work on legislation to introduce comprehensive pay gap reporting, which was promised last term by his predecessor and the then Minister for Women, Julie Anne Genter?

Hon JAN TINETTI: On behalf of the Minister: while there is a gender pay gap, there is more work to be done, because while there is a gender pay gap, it is completely unacceptable, which is why we have taken work on implementing fair pay agreements, pay equity settlements, increased paid parental leave, leadership targets, and a dedicated Women’s Employment Action Plan. We are taking action to reduce the pay gap.

Question No. 5—Building and Construction

5. RACHEL BROOKING (Labour) to the Minister for Building and Construction: What are the trends in building consents granted since 2017?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister for Building and Construction): The Government has overseen a significant increase in building consents since we took office in 2017. We are building more houses than ever before and delivering the homes that New Zealand whānau need. This is reflected in the data released yesterday that shows a record 50,000 building consents in the year to March, which is up 24 percent on last year’s figures. This shows ongoing support for the biggest Government building programme in decades and that our economic recovery is continuing to gain momentum.

Rachel Brooking: What other trends are being seen in building consents data?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: It’s not just more houses that are being consented; we are also seeing an evolution in the sector as more medium and high density residential buildings are consented for construction. In March 2022, we saw 2,172 townhouses, flats, and units consented, as well as 616 apartment buildings. These are both well up on this time last year. While many of these consented were in Auckland, we are continuing to see the growth of these consents in regions like Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Gisborne, Wellington, Nelson, and Canterbury.

Rachel Brooking: What other effects is this drive in construction having?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: As our fourth-largest workforce, the construction sector continues to grow to meet this demand. In the year to March, the workforce added 13,225 more jobs and is continuing to grow, with 30,000 people supported into construction-related education or employment opportunities through the Construction Skills Action Plan. When you combine this with the ongoing work the Government is leading with industry through the Construction Sector Accord and through successful policies like free trades training, we’re making sure we’ve got the workforce we need for now and into the future.

Question No. 6—Finance

6. NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National) to the Minister of Finance: Does he consider the Government has done enough to alleviate the cost of living crisis facing New Zealanders, and will he rule out measures to provide them income tax relief in the upcoming Budget?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): As I’ve said in this House on a number of occasions, the Government is extremely conscious of the impact that the global energy crisis and supply chain constraints is having on households, and in particular those households that are the most vulnerable to increases in food and petrol prices. That is why, building on the support that we have provided through COVID, we have cut fuel excise duty by 25c a litre and halved the cost of public transport. We’ve introduced a raft of measures to increase income support, including family tax credit changes, childcare assistance, student allowances, and main benefits, and we’ve also lifted the minimum wage. We’re very aware that this remains a difficult period for many New Zealanders, and the Government will continue to work on ways that we can improve the economic security of New Zealand against these sorts of global shocks. In answer to the second part of the question, times like this require all political parties to think about what their priorities are and to make difficult decisions about where resources should be directed. We do not agree that tax cuts that favour those who earn the most are the priority right now, and we are not alone in this view, with the IMF saying during their recent assessment of the New Zealand economy that now was not the time for major tax changes.

Nicola Willis: Why is it that despite a record Budget spend-up and another year of debt and deficits, he still can’t find room for tax relief for the squeezed middle?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: On this side of the House our focus is on making sure that we support New Zealanders through this difficult time. The households that are the most affected by inflation rises and peaks in prices of petrol and food are those that we’ve been focused on with the support we put through on 1 April and by making sure that all New Zealanders can benefit from the cuts in the fuel excise duty. We always have to get a balance right here. There’s no free lunch. If we want good quality public services, we have to keep investing in them, and we saw the damage done when the last National Government was in office and failed to invest in them.

Nicola Willis: Does he believe a family receiving an average household income is too rich to deserve income tax relief?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What I believe is that all households in New Zealand deserve quality public services—a good health system, schools, housing, and making sure we have transport routes in place—and, yes, we will continue to support all households through, for example, the cut in fuel excise duty and also through the halving of the cost of public transport.

Hon Chris Hipkins: Has the Minister of Finance received any advice that suggests the squeezed middle starts at an earning bracket of $180,000 a year?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No, I haven’t seen that advice. But, remarkably, what I have seen is a proposal that would see those earning more than $180,000 a year getting thousands of dollars of tax cuts but someone earning $40,000 a year getting $2 a week. That doesn’t seem to me like a good use of the Government’s resources or, indeed, good for the most New Zealanders.

Nicola Willis: How much more income tax did the Crown collect in the 2021 fiscal year compared with the 2017 fiscal year?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The member knows that if she wants an answer to a detailed question like that—

Nicola Willis: Oh, he doesn’t know.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: —she should put it down in writing.

SPEAKER: Order! Order! That’s the end of it. A further supplementary?

Nicola Willis: Can he confirm that data released by Stats NZ today shows that no matter how you measure it, costs faced by New Zealanders are rising faster than wages, meaning Kiwis are going backwards in real terms?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What we saw today from Statistics New Zealand was that there was a 4.8 percent increase in annual average earnings over that year. That is less than the current annual inflation. This is the only year in the forecast period where that is true, and it was not true in the period building up to this. Under the Labour Government, we have made sure that New Zealanders’ wages have continued to lift. We currently have a global inflation spike. That is a struggle, and we are supporting New Zealanders through it. What I do note is that whenever we come to this House with measures that actually lift the incomes of low and middle income people like the minimum wage, like fair pay agreements, like the 1 April changes, the National Party oppose them. On this side of the House we’re actually doing something to support low and middle income New Zealanders.

Nicola Willis: What does the global energy crisis have to do with the biggest increase in annual average rents in New Zealand records?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The global energy crisis is part of the inflation story. Another part of the inflation story is the cost of housing, which is built on the fact that building supplies being imported into New Zealand are indeed rising, I think, 18 percent in the last numbers—far in excess of the other causes of rising housing prices.

Nicola Willis: Why won’t he simply give some of the additional $14 billion he’s collected in income tax back to New Zealanders by inflation-adjusting tax thresholds?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: On this side of the House we know the damage that can be done when a Government doesn’t invest in the health system so that we have sewage leaking down the walls of hospitals. We know the damage that’s done if we don’t fix school buildings so that children are learning in cold, damp environments. It is always about getting the balance right, and on this side of the House we believe that part of getting the balance right is investing in public services and supporting those on low and middle incomes. What is not getting the balance right is giving tax cuts to people who earn more than $180,000 so they’ll be thousands of dollars better off while someone on the minimum wage is about two bucks better off. That isn’t fair. That isn’t a good use of resources.

Question No. 7—Local Government

7. RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson) to the Minister of Local Government: Will the Three Waters reforms benefit smaller communities; if so, how?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Local Government): Yes. The reforms will deliver the benefits from scale and aggregation, primarily by leveraging waters infrastructure across large regions to finance infrastructure investment and improve water services to all communities, especially small communities. In Nelson, for example, over the next 30 years, the increase per household without reform is forecast to increase by $2,330 per household. With reform, households will be paying instead $1,260. But let’s look next door to Marlborough, because the forecast increase in cost to households without reform will be $6,560 over the next 30 years, in contrast to, with reform, $1,260 per annum. That’s got to be good.

Rachel Boyack: What response does she have to concerns that small councils and their local interests will be deprioritised by larger council areas in the four large entity areas in the three waters changes being proposed?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: I was initially concerned right at the beginning when I heard those types of concerns, which is why we try to ensure that they were being addressed within the context of the changes that we’re proposing. However, I’m particularly grateful to the recommendations of the governance working group for their suggestion to improve the changes that we’re making by establishing sub-regional committees to ensure local priorities are consulted on and being addressed within the context of the reform. This means also that we will be responsive to consumers and ratepayers and their needs will be the subject of greater scrutiny that is already happening in the current case under economic regulation. We know that when those benefits are being reported on to ratepayers, there will be greater transparency over the benefits of this reform that will meet the household needs of deserving communities big and small.

Simon Court: If councils get one share in the new water entities for every 50,000 ratepayers, how many shares would Waitaki District Council get, with 23,000 population, or Manawatū, with 33,000, and would that give them the same rights as shareholders under the Companies Act?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: As I’ve already explained, those communities with 50,000 people or less will get at least one share. That’s an important principle when we consider that across a large entity, small communities will be able to benefit from scale and aggregation where there will be a smoothing of cost benefit to those households. If there’s an alternative that that member has and is willing to put on the table, I’d be grateful to hear it.

Simon Watts: Does she think her reforms will benefit the communities in the Kaipara, Whangārei, and in the Far North district councils, who will have a total of five shares in entity A between them, while Auckland has 35?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: Absolutely, and across entity A, they have the added advantage of Watercare, which has already delivered demonstrable benefits through scale and aggregation that will only translate to benefit communities in the Kaipara District. And if the member has an alternative that he is willing to put on the table, I’d love to hear it.

Rachel Boyack: How will the interests of local communities—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! No, can the member start again. The very senior member should know better.

Rachel Boyack: How will the interests of local communities be provided for in the proposed reforms, and what assurance will they have that local priorities will be provided for?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: Thank you for the question, and can I just draw the attention of the House again to the helpful recommendations of the governance working group, who suggested that included under the regional reference group, each entity can establish sub-regional groups that will bring in local decision-making and set local priorities in such a way that that can be reflected through the water service entity by way of investment prioritisation methodology and frameworks set by the water service entity and included within the context of the statement of strategic and performance expectation, the statement of intent, asset management plans, funding and pricing plans, and the overall infrastructure strategy for that region. It will assure small communities that their priorities not only are being listened to but are being planned for.

Kieran McAnulty: Can she confirm that ratepayers in the South Wairarapa District Council and the Tararua District Council are projected to face fees of $8,690 without reform, but $1,260 with reform?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: Yes, and that’s why these reforms are so necessary. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Do any of the members asking questions from their seats want to stand up? All right.

Question No. 8—Health

8. Dr SHANE RETI (National) to the Minister of Health: What is his target, if any, for the reduction over the next 12 months in the number of people waiting more than four months for a first specialist appointment, and what specific steps, if any, will he take to achieve this?

Hon PEENI HENARE (Associate Minister of Health (Māori Health)) on behalf of the Minister of Health: I’ve been advised that under the current system, and without any change, it could have taken between three and five years to address the current waiting lists. That is why this morning it was announced a task force will systematically go through the waiting list and develop a plan to clear the backlog. This is the first opportunity we have had to address a major nationwide health problem, treating the health system as a single, nationwide health system. It is my expectation that with this approach we can clear the backlog faster than had we not taken this measure. However, I am realistic enough to know that COVID is still with us and that future possible outbreaks will continue to create challenges for our health system. Today’s announcement is every bit we can to make sure that we can continue to serve our population.

Dr Shane Reti: Why has he waited until now to accept that ballooning waiting lists are even a problem, given waiting lists have increased by thousands every single year since this Government came to power?

Hon PEENI HENARE: On behalf of the Minister: that’s exactly why when we came into Government we looked to serious health reform work, knowing full well that the system did not deliver in its entirety to our entire population. We made it quite clear that the postcode lottery doesn’t work when it looks towards servicing our health needs in this country. That’s why the health reform is important, and this morning’s announcement will make sure that we use all the levers of the new, reformed health system to deal with this issue.

Dr Shane Reti: Is announcing yet another working group really the best effort he can make for the 36,000 people waiting more than four months to see a specialist?

Hon PEENI HENARE: On behalf of the Minister: this morning’s announcement is an important announcement to make sure that not only do we look towards the short-term challenges in front of us with the waiting list but also have a plan to the mid- and long-term in front of us, and I find it rather interesting from that member when in this House last night he rubbished Māori health professionals over the past 200 years in the work that’s being put forward for the Māori Health Authority, and now he’s calling this esteemed group of health professionals just another group.

Dr Shane Reti: How many more people will be added to the waiting lists between now—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Can I just ask senior members of the National Party to let their colleague ask a question without interruption.

Dr Shane Reti: How many more people will be added to the waiting lists between now and when his working group presents its plan in another four months’ time?

Hon PEENI HENARE: On behalf of the Minister: I don’t have those figures in front of me, but what I will say is that, currently, DHBs are already working on the immediate plans to address these matters. This particular group will also provide us invaluable information and insight to make sure we have a medium- to longer-term plan.

Dr Shane Reti: How many people have been added to first specialist assessment waiting lists every year since this Government came to power?

Hon PEENI HENARE: On behalf of the Minister: I don’t have that information at hand. I’m sure if the member puts it in writing, he’ll get a fulsome answer.

Question No. 9—Police

9. GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South) to the Minister of Police: What recent reports has she seen regarding the disruption of organised crime?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister of Police): I’ve seen a report that Police will continue the success that they have had disrupting organised crime by commencing Operation Cobalt. This operation will be a major nationwide effort by Police, and will build on the significant inroads made by Operation Tauwhiro, which to date has resulted in taking 1,531 firearms off the street, arresting 1,255 people, and seizing 53 kilograms of meth. This Government will continue to support our police in their efforts to disrupt gangs and organised crime.

Ginny Andersen: What will Operation Cobalt mean for police efforts already under way, such as Tauwhiro?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: Operation Cobalt is the next phase in police effort to crack down on gangs and organised crime, and will use the insights and learnings from Operation Tauwhiro to put even more pressure on gangs. Operation Cobalt will be supported by an additional 300 organised crime staff that have been deployed since 2017, with an additional 400 to be deployed by June next year.

Ginny Andersen: What other reports has she seen regarding police efforts targeting gangs and organised crime?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: I’ve seen another report that in March this year, the police asset recovery unit seized a number of assets and bank account funds, worth a combined value of more than $7 million. This included four properties, a bank account containing $1 million, a Lamborghini Huracán, and a Ferrari. These assets belonged to a patched Mongrel Mob gang member who has been charged in relation to conspiracy to import methamphetamine, and money-laundering.

Nicole McKee: If increasing the Police budget by $450 million has resulted in a huge increase in crime, what would she expect the effect of reducing youth services funding by $10 million to be?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: I disagree with the way that member has characterised this particular issue. We have had to build the Police from the base that the National Party left us, with frozen funding and police numbers dropping. In order for us to be successful and supporting the Police, we need to give them the tools and the resources that they need to do: $450 million worth of increased funding and, by the middle of next year, 1,800 more cops.

Nicole McKee: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I did ask what the effect of reducing youth funding by $10 million would be, and she had not actually addressed that issue.

SPEAKER: Yes. Unfortunately, the member had two parts to her question. When it’s a supplementary there’s only an obligation to address one of those parts, and the first part was certainly addressed, if not answered.

Question No. 10—Social Development and Employment

10. Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: Has MSD been enforcing work-related obligations for the 176,763 jobseeker support recipients since work-related obligation failures were suspended between 23 March 2020 and 27 May 2020, and, if not, why?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister for Māori Development) on behalf of the Minister for Social Development and Employment: Yes, the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has resumed the use of work-related obligations since June 2020. Of the current number of jobseeker support recipients, 108,105 actually have work-related obligations. Others may have health conditions or disabilities that mean these obligations do not apply. As you can see from our continued low unemployment rate of 3.2 percent released today and our record-breaking levels of people going off benefit into work, this Government is successfully supporting more New Zealanders into work.

Hon Louise Upston: Can she explain why sanctions for failing to attend a work appointment in the March 2022 quarter were 67 percent lower compared to the March 2020 quarter?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: This Government has a different approach to the punitive, cruel, uncaring previous National Government, and the reality is that we don’t just apply sanctions easily, liberally. We look at what’s happening with the whānau, we look at what’s happening in the community, we look to see if there’s domestic violence happening in their whānau—is there intergenerational unemployment, is there drug use—unlike the previous National Party, who just stopped benefits at the drop of a hat.

Hon Louise Upston: Why, when unemployment is 3.2 percent and firms are crying out for staff, have 110,000 people been on the jobseeker benefit for longer than a year?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: This takes time. We inherited—[Interruption] I’m glad the Opposition support what I’m going to say. As we all know, we had an Opposition—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! No. The member will resume his seat. The members don’t want to hear the answer.

Karen Chhour: Does MSD have any mechanisms in place to detect jobseeker beneficiaries who are not truly looking for work but are just box-ticking on their benefit obligations, and, if not, why not?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Of course MSD has processes in place.

David Seymour: What are they?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: We’ve got a very good—well, have a listen, Seymour, and you might learn something—you’re so stupid. But—

SPEAKER: The member was marginal until he addressed my stupidity. Please focus on the answer, Mr Jackson.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Thanks, Mr Speaker. Again, MSD does have processes in place, and they include people who go into our communities and work with those different groups and whānau to find out what the problems are. The last thing that this Government wants is people on benefits for ever and a day. The Minister and myself have worked with people at the coalface, unlike the Opposition, who wouldn’t know some of our people if they fell over them. We’ve worked at the coalface, and the last thing we want is people on benefits for ever and a day. We want our people to find out what’s happening in whānau. We don’t want them languishing on benefits, but we want to get them skilled up so that we can have a better New Zealand for everyone.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Does the Minister think anyone on a jobseeker benefit should have to decide between having their safety net ripped out from under them or being pressured into any job, no matter how unsuitable?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Now, I think that’s a good question—I think it’s a good question—and we think the challenge is getting the balance right. We have to get the balance right in terms of this, and I respect where the member is coming from and I understand many of the problems of our people, particularly young people on benefits. We have to find a process where they’re not rorting the system, but we also don’t want to be as punitive, cruel, and ugly, and horrible as the National Party.

Hon Louise Upston: What does he say to meat-processing firms like the one I met with last week, who are having to export full carcasses because they cannot get job seekers who they will train to fill their vacancies?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: I thank the member for the question. I actually went to one of our meat-processing firms last year, because I came from the meat industry and so I do understand the problem. In fact, in my day—20 years ago, 30 years ago—there were hundreds who used to line up for jobs. Now, they can’t get some of those young people, so this is about us working actively with employers and—

Hon Members: What are you doing about it?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: What we’re doing about it is working with them actively and supporting them in terms of strategies where they can attract people from our communities. It’s not about us just punishing and being punitive with people, which is the National Party strategy. It’s about working in tandem with the community and trying to upskill them, which we’re doing through programmes like Mana in Mahi, He Poutama Rangatahi, and Māori trade training—programmes that the National Party never rolled out.

Hon Louise Upston: If the Government cannot get the 110,000 people who have been on the jobseeker benefit long term into work when there are chronic staff shortages, when will they ever be able to?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Well, the hope is that through our continual upskilling and training programmes, and our push and our support in terms of communities, our people will come through. The numbers have been terrific. We’ve seen the unemployment rates at a record low. We’ve seen the Māori unemployment rate is at an all-time low. What does that tell you? It tells you that our targeted programmes are working. It’s telling you that the people that the National Party forgot are actually getting an opportunity, and that’s what this Government is focusing on. This is a long process, and we’ve still got a few years to go yet as a Government.

Question No. 11—Housing (Māori Housing)

11. WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour—Northland) to the Associate Minister of Housing (Māori Housing): How is the Government partnering with iwi Māori to deliver new homes for whānau who need them the most?

Hon PEENI HENARE (Associate Minister of Housing (Māori Housing)): On Friday, I travelled to Taranaki to announce a new investment partnership between Government and iwi collective Ka Uruora to build up to 172 new homes for whānau who need them the most. This partnership will deliver affordable rental housing across Taranaki and around the central and upper North Island, getting whānau who need those affordable rentals into secure, warm, and dry homes quickly and on iwi-owned whenua. It is funded from the Whai Kāinga Whai Oranga kaupapa and the Government’s record $730 million commitment to accelerate Māori-led housing solutions, and represents an innovative new approach to unlocking and enabling Māori housing solutions.

Willow-Jean Prime: How does this partnership reflect the Government’s wider strategy for Māori housing?

Hon PEENI HENARE: Last year, we launched our National Māori Housing Strategy, MAIHI Ka Ora. It promised partnership, investment, and—most of all—action. Friday’s announcement sees us delivering on the promises we made in MAIHI Ka Ora and Whai Kāinga Whai Oranga to do things differently and work in partnership with Māori to deliver a better Māori housing future for our whānau. Ka Uruora were identified through the National Iwi Chairs Forum last year to partner with the Government to deliver Māori housing in their rohe, and Friday was the culmination of their engagement with Government to develop an innovative way by Māori for Māori housing solutions.

Willow-Jean Prime: What reaction has he seen from Ka Uruora about the announcement?

Hon PEENI HENARE: As I said at the event on Friday, this is a groundbreaking step that will help unlock intergenerational wealth and aspirational wealth in housing, and the partnership was accordingly well-received. Whānau engagement manager, Te Waka McLeod, also highlighted that the projects in the partnership would enable Māori housing aspirations, and getting one whānau into the housing that is right for them can have generational impacts. Ka Uruora chair, Jamie Tuuta, said that the partnership would help the iwi deliver critical, affordable housing solutions for our whānau and that it would provide an opportunity for better saving habits, but would also be able to deal with any debt and think about what’s required for that whanau to move to the next stage of the housing continuum. I’m very proud of that announcement.

Urgent Debates Declined

Parliamentary Precinct—Issuance of Trespass Notices

SPEAKER: Members, for reasons which might become obvious, I have delegated the response to an urgent debate application to the Deputy Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members, I have received a letter from David Seymour seeking to debate, under Standing Order 399, the issuance of trespass notices to a number of people who were present at the recent protest at Parliament. The member rightly notes that it is in the Speaker’s power to issue trespass notices relating to the parliamentary precinct. 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. I refer the member to Speaker’s ruling 201/6, which states that an urgent debate “is not a vehicle for addressing matters that are the responsibility of the Speaker.” In addition, Speaker Carter gave an extensive ruling on this issue on December 6 2016, which the member may find useful. The application is declined.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Point of order, Mr Speaker. Look, I find myself in a very difficult position because the letter referred not to the Speaker but to the Parliamentary Service and its security team, who are under the responsibility of the Minister for the Parliamentary Service, who is a Minister of the Crown. My letter did not refer to the Speaker. People at home don’t know that because no one else has seen the letter, but I want to put that on record because I think people deserve to know that when they hear that ruling.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just in response and further to the actual ruling, I again encourage the member to look at the ruling by Speaker Carter. As I said, he made an extensive ruling on the matter. There’s a clear difference between a Minister that has been appointed on the recommendation of the Prime Minister and sworn in by the Governor-General, and the Speaker, who has been elected by this House, who also has, for the purposes of the Public Finance Act, ministerial responsibilities in certain areas. That does not make the Speaker a member of the Government. The purpose of—[Interruption] Yeah, I’m going to ask Mr David Bennett to stop interrupting while I’m on my feet, giving a ruling; this is a really important matter, so no more. As I was saying, that does not make the Speaker of the House a member of the Government, so I encourage members to read that ruling by Speaker Carter.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave for a special one-hour debate to happen forthwith, with the allocation of times and calls in the debate to follow the ordinary general debate speaking order as per Wednesday, 5 May today.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can you run that by me again? I want to know what the—

CHRIS BISHOP: I seek leave for a special debate to take place right now on the actions of the Speaker and parliamentary security, with the allocation of calls to follow the ordinary general debate calls as would take place this Wednesday.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m going to take some advice on that. Yep, I’m not going to put that leave. That is out of order—I’m upon my feet; don’t interrupt me while I’m making this ruling. If you think about every urgent debate in this House, the Minister responsible has a right to reply. The Speaker can never reply, and so that’s actually out of order, and I’m not going to put that leave. And I’m not going to entertain any arguments about it, either.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I’m just seeking leave. The question of whether leave is granted is a question for the House. Mr Speaker, I put it to you, you should put the leave question. It’s over to the Government to deny leave—or any other member of this House, the 120 MPs. But I’m seeking leave for the House to debate a serious matter that is not allowed to be debated through the urgent debate process—and I accept that ruling as requested by Mr Seymour. I’m just seeking leave for the House to have a one-hour debate on a very serious matter.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: And the way forward—as the member has done in previous occasions—is a motion on notice.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, it’s interesting that you suggest that the member might progress things by way of a notice of motion. In the end, a notice of motion succeeds either because it comes up on the Order Paper or the House grants leave for it. Now, the point is that if the member were to put that notice of motion onto the Order Paper, it would be the same intent, the same wording, and the same desire to have a debate that would be expressed in the leave being requested of the House today. It seems to me that it is fundamentally a decision to stop the House investigating something that might be important to it—the House’s decision in the end—when, in fact, there is no reason for that to occur. The advice that’s been given is effectively counter to the decision not to accept the leave.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: My response to that and to Mr Bishop is that Mr Bishop could seek leave to debate a motion, but he cannot seek the leave for the special debate.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, I seek leave for the urgent debate I sought to take place forthwith, and, in addition—to overcome your earlier objection—for the Speaker to have a 15 minute right of reply at the end of it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No. That’s just reinterpreting the letter, the ruling, and my subsequent responses, and that’s not going to happen.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to move a motion without notice relating to the holding of an urgent debate, forthwith, relating to the Speaker and the actions of Parliamentary Service security.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that matter. Is there any objection? There is objection. It will not be.

General Debate

General Debate

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Would some honourable member care to move that the House take notice of miscellaneous business.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Life’s full of coincidences, and I so move. I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

It’s been a wonderful recess for New Zealand. I’ve been up and down the country listening to people frustrated with the direction of this Government and the direction of this country, and I want to thank the Labour Government for one thing: for driving huge crowds out to hear the ACT Party at our public meetings in our Real Change Tour. We had 500 people in Tauranga. In Pāuanui, we had 140—that’s 13 percent of the resident population of the town who were present.

Why are so many people showing up? Well, because there’s a cost of living crisis where people are squeezed at the pump, at the checkout, and at the hardware store. When they pay their rent and when they try to pay anything, they find that there’s not enough money left at the end of the week and there’s too much month left at the end of the money, and why is that? Because we’ve got a Government that is fiscally incontinent and wholly irresponsible in its expenditure—a Government that is addicted to spending that’s taking $14 billion a year more than it was just two years ago.

When people are cutting their household budgets left, right, and centre to handle the rising price of everything under this Government’s policies, can Grant Robertson find even a morsel, can he reduce tax even a cent? No—$14 billion extra in tax over the last two years, and he tells us that if we were to reduce taxation by even a few measly dollars, there’d be no schools and there’d be no hospitals, there’d be no roads, and it would be the end of civilisation as we know it. Come on! That’s why 77 percent of New Zealanders say that this Government’s not doing enough on the cost of living crisis, because they’re not doing anything effective at all.

Here’s another thing: I heard Grant Robertson say that cutting taxes wouldn’t be a good use of the Government’s resources. Well, what an interesting choice of words. This Government, under Grant Robertson and Jacinda Ardern, thinks your money is the Government’s resources. They should just take all of our money, and we’d be lucky if they let us get some of it back.

Well, it’s not just the fiscal incontinence of this Government and the cost of living crisis that Kiwis are facing; it’s crime all over the street as we find out what the consequences are of having a Government whose main focus in law and order is cuddling crims. It’s always someone else’s fault under this Government, and there’s no place for personal responsibility. People want to see law and order that puts victims at the centre, and not have three-strikes legislation removed as Labour’s clean-slate policy for the worst violent and sexual offenders in this country. What message does that send to the ram-raiders and every other criminal in this country?

Then they find over recess that this Government is stealthily trying to divide our country. I heard the Opposition’s secret weapon getting interviewed by Q+A. His name was Willie Jackson and he said, “You know, democracy has changed.” He was asked, “Is democracy one person, one vote?”—anyone can get that; we learn it at school—and he said, “No, democracy has changed.” I hope that Q+A keep interviewing Willie Jackson. In fact, I’d love to debate him, but here’s the little secret: the ninth floor won’t let him debate me, and I don’t blame their strategist.

Then we had He Puapua’s response come out, and was it consulted on with all New Zealanders who have a share in this country’s constitutional future? No, it was not. It was consulted on only with select groups of Māori, and that is exactly what is wrong with this Government’s approach. It is so exclusionary, it is divisive, and we saw it again in their response to three waters. It is so dangerous and damaging to the future of this country, which should be a modern, multi-ethnic, liberal democracy.

That’s why people came out in their hundreds to ACT Party meetings up and down this country in New Zealand over the past two weeks, because we believe that this country belongs to the people who get up in the morning and try to make tomorrow better than today through their own ingenuity and efforts. Regardless of their superficial characteristics, they all deserve one 5-millionth of the opportunity that this country has to offer. That is a future we can all be proud of. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Before I call Mr Robertson, I’d just like to address Mr Waititi and to remind him that we should not use visual aids to disturb speakers while they are speaking.

Rawiri Waititi: I was supporting him.

SPEAKER: It didn’t have that effect, Mr Waititi.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Today’s unemployment numbers are something for New Zealand to be proud of. We have the lowest rate of unemployment since the household labour force survey series began in 1986, at 3.2 percent—fewer than 100,000 people out of work; more people in work—2.826 million people in work; and wages have continued to rise—4.8 percent in the year to March. And while it is undoubtedly tough going for many New Zealanders with the cost of living rising, we have rising wages and that is a sign of strength in our economy. This economic recovery did not happen by accident. This happened because of the hard work of New Zealanders and a Government that had a plan. We always knew that the best health response would be the best economic response. We backed Kiwis to stay in jobs through the wage subsidy scheme. We supported businesses and households to stay afloat and at the same time we made sure there were opportunities to get skills. More than 170,000 New Zealanders have benefited from free apprenticeships and targeted trade training.

In each of these statistics there is a story. I recently met a woman who had been out of work for many years for a variety of reasons. She had lost confidence that she would ever get a job. When she applied for an office management accountancy role, the employer knew they might be taking a risk, but they liked her. And together, they developed a plan to get on-the-job training to be able to get her up to speed. Together, they’ve made it work and she is thriving. That is what we can do in New Zealand. Of course we need an immigration system that works to fill skill gaps, and we have and we will provide opportunities for people to come to New Zealand to do that. But we have also shown over these last two years that if we invest in people, if we help them realise their potential, then we have a workforce here at home with the capability and capacity to lift our productivity and prosperity, and that is what we’ve seen.

New Zealand is well placed to move forward and face the challenges of 2022. Not only do we have low unemployment, we’ve had 5 percent annual average growth rate. We’ve got debt that will peak at around half of Australia’s, a third of the UK’s, and a fifth of the US, and will return to surplus within five years, a year earlier than National did after the global financial crisis.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the House we’ve got a National Party that’s out of touch—reheated policies of the National Party of old, tax cuts that give thousands of dollars to those on the highest incomes while offering $2 a week to those on low and middle incomes. But wait—but wait! There is a seismic shift coming to the National Party. If they manage to win the seat of Tauranga, then true diversity is about to arrive, according to Christopher Luxon. He has told us that his National candidate has something unique and different, and it is not a subtly lighter blue suit. To quote Mr Luxon, “[Sam Uffindell will] bring something really different to our caucus and some diversity to it in that he is really well educated”. Finally, finally, we know what’s been missing all along in the National Party: someone who is really well educated. Now, here was me thinking the problem with the National caucus was that it has just two Māori members or that it only has 11 women MPs or no Pacific MPs or no Rainbow MPs. But no, according to Mr Luxon, it’s just they’re all a bit thick. That’s all it is.

No doubt Christopher Luxon will slam himself into reverse gear about that statement, just as he’s done about many other statements. National’s “Mr Gaffe man” is an Olympic-level back peddler. Do National support Matariki? Will they cancel Labour Day or any other holiday? Or was he, as he told us, just being facetious? Now, at least with Judith Collins, we knew that if we could look at her eyebrows, we could tell if she was joking. With Mr Luxon, I presume we have to look at the luminescence of his head to tell whether or not he is joking. From wanting to stop subsidising public transport to calling those on income support “bottom feeders”, to scrapping the Māori Health Authority, how do New Zealanders actually know what Christopher Luxon and the National Party stand for, when every day there is the screeching tyres of the black Mercedes in reverse gear?

The contrast could not be clearer: a National Party promoting ideas from last century, out of touch, pale and stale, up against a Labour Party focused on providing economic security, tackling the big challenges of climate, infrastructure, and health, and with a diverse, wildly talented team that I am proud to be part of.

ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Well, if I ever heard a speech that showed just how much the polls hurt, that was it from Grant Robertson. He spends half his time talking about the Opposition and attacking our leader, who’s doing a really great job, rather than talking about issues that matter to New Zealanders, the squeezed middle, who feel like they’re behind every month, every pay cycle, because they can’t afford to put the basics on the table. That is a speech that shows that they are worried.

We now know what the Prime Minister is going to be doing next week. We now know that she’s going to be giving a pre-Budget speech about immigration, another area of complete and utter failure for this Government, under an incompetent Minister who now has put the single biggest handbrake on our economy because of his incompetence, and is a cause of so much misery for so many people. Given the multitude of issues that plague our immigration department, it’s really hard to know where the Prime Minister’s going.

But I do have some suggestions for her. We have the biggest workforce shortage in 40 years and we know this is going to get worse when our bright young Kiwis start leaving New Zealand for opportunities offshore because they feel like they’re getting behind in this country, thanks to this Government. Businesses are crying out for workers. They’re closing their doors. They’re turning down contracts. We’ve got a health sector that is 4,000 workers short.

Other countries understand what to do. They know what to do. If you just take a look at Australia creating guaranteed pathways to residence in skill shortages they know they need, welcoming and simple pathways for workers; attractive conditions for students, with work rights and pathways to residence; and their borders have been open for months. If you compare and contrast that with what this Government have done, they’re doing the exact opposite: a border reopening that is taking a whole year; pathways to residence that have been closed since 2020, and goodness knows when they’re going to open again; workers that cannot apply for work visas until the middle of the year, and goodness knows when they will be granted; businesses now facing a new, compulsory, expensive, and bureaucratic process of being registered before they can even hire a migrant; a totally unexplainable cap on international students of 5,000, and a Government that is hell-bent on making it much more difficult for them to get here; and visa processing times that have blown out since 2017.

If you want to attract the best migrants to this country, what is attractive about any of that? We are being outgunned by Australia, who have more attractive conditions and simple pathways attracting workers, students, and tourists, while we languish because this Government has no clue in immigration.

Case in point, when the Prime Minister announced our border reopening at stage two, Kris Faafoi told the media that the very previously strict criteria for critical workers would be relaxed and anyone earning 1.5, the minimum wage, would be able to come into this country on a work visa. And this was going to attract 20,000 workers—20,000 workers were going to come into the country. Well, guess how many have arrived to date?

Hon Louise Upston: How many?

ERICA STANFORD: Six—six workers have arrived. And this shows the utter incompetence of this Minister and his misunderstanding of how immigration works. People want to know they have pathways to residence. And I told him this right at the beginning. These skilled migrants won’t come if you don’t provide them a pathway to residence. It’s still closed, and he says, “Oh, trust me. We’ll open it at some stage.” Well, here’s the proof in the pudding: six workers out of 20,000 have arrived—an utter failure by this Minister.

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I’m sorry to interrupt the member. I just want to say to the members down the far end, this is not a chat room, all right? So, thank you.

ERICA STANFORD: Thank you, Mr Speaker. How could the Minister have gotten this so wrong?

The second thing that he’s done to try and attract workers is open up the working holiday visa scheme. But the poor Minister of Tourism yesterday had to stand up and tell us that the only solution that he’s got to the critical workforce shortage in the tourism sector is the working holiday visa scheme. Forcing our previous biggest export earner to rely on a transient and unpredictable workforce was always a terrible policy, and, by the way, only 400 have arrived.

When the Prime Minister makes her announcement on Wednesday next week, here are the three things she needs to talk about: pathways to residence for people so that they will choose to come to this country and they will stop leaving—reopen the residence pathway to make sure that that happens; remove the handbrake on our immigration system to make sure we get the skilled workers here we need now; and, thirdly, she needs to bring forward step five of the border reopening policy so that we unlock tourists from non - visa waiver countries and finally reunite migrant families that have been apart for three years.

Here’s just one more I’ll throw in there for her: decouple work visas from employers to stop migrant exploitation. If we want the best, we need to be the best. For the past four years, under this incompetent Minister, we have been the worst and things need to change.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It has been an interesting and bumpy start to the year for New Zealand, and it is useful to reflect as we think about our recovery from COVID-19. It is useful to look back over New Zealand’s history and consider other times of economic challenge and economic difficulty for our country and how our current situation compares to those. We don’t have to actually look back that far to find a comparable time when New Zealand experienced some economic headwinds. It was during the global financial crisis (GFC). We can compare the success of the then Government in recovering the New Zealand economy from the GFC compared to the success of this Government in helping the economy to recover from what has been arguably the largest global shock that we will experience in our lifetimes. I don’t want to speak too soon, but there is no doubt that around the world COVID-19 has changed the game on just about every front.

So how are we comparing on those things? Well, unemployment is lower than it was following the global financial crisis and is at record lows. Our economic growth is significantly higher than it was as we recovered from the global financial crisis. In fact, some parts of our economy are absolutely booming. New Zealand will go back into surplus a year faster under this Government than it did under the National Government after the global financial crisis—despite the fact that the economic turmoil caused by COVID-19 was greater than the turmoil caused by the GFC—and that is down to the very sensible and prudent financial management of our Minister of Finance, the Hon Grant Robertson.

We can reflect on the last two years of the global pandemic with a great degree of pride as a country. New Zealand has one of the lowest rates of mortality from COVID-19 in the world. I’ll say that twice, because I think it’s worth repeating, because every New Zealander contributed to that: New Zealand has one of the lowest rates of mortality from COVID-19 of any country in the world. The sacrifices that we made collectively as a people were worth it.

The stories that will never be told from our COVID-19 response are the stories of all of those who are still alive because of it. Because there will always be stories of those who were disadvantaged by the response—and I don’t for one moment diminish the fact that many people’s lives have been disrupted and disrupted significantly, whether it’s the small-business owners worried about how they were going to pay the bills, whether it’s the people who have been separated from their families, or all of the other consequences that COVID-19 has brought with it. We absolutely acknowledge the huge disruption that we have encountered.

But the reality is that when people go and visit their grandparents, when they go and visit the people who they know are immunocompromised or who might be otherwise susceptible to COVID-19, they can know that those people are there in part because of our COVID-19 response. Some of them wouldn’t be if we were in the same situation as other countries around the world, where COVID-19 ripped through the more vulnerable communities, including the elderly population in particular, and many of those lives were lost. We did not experience that in New Zealand. Even now, as we deal with an Omicron outbreak, we are still experiencing lower mortality rates from that compared to many of those countries who we normally compare ourselves with. All Kiwis contributed to that success, and all New Zealanders should feel proud of it.

There are challenges ahead, and there is no doubt that inflation and the rising cost of living is having an impact on New Zealanders’ households. We have taken action already, lowering fuel tax, increasing the minimum wage, increasing benefits, and making sure that things like the winter energy payment are in place to support families who need that help the most. What this Government will not do, however, is spend a huge amount of money—billions of dollars—in giving tax cuts to those who need it the least. As a high-income earner in New Zealand, I am happy to say I am happy to be the last in the queue for any additional financial support, because I think there are other New Zealanders who need that more, and that is exactly where our priority should be.

Finally, I want to reflect on another Government policy that is making a big difference to those who do need that extra support. Earlier this week, I visited a primary school in my electorate where the kids came up and thanked me for their free and healthy school lunches. That is an example of the sort of spending the National Party has opposed that is delivering a real benefit, a real improvement in the quality of life for New Zealanders, in this case for our tamariki.

TEANAU TUIONO (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The seas are rising and so must we. For me, the alarm bells were ringing a couple of days ago when the work done by scientists hit the media that sea level rise could hit parts of Aotearoa New Zealand twice as quickly as expected, due to the movement of tectonic plates. We knew that the seas were rising right across the world as well, but because of the special nature of our whenua here with the tectonic plates, it means that we’re going to be facing that a lot quicker and a lot sooner than other folks. Wellington could expect a 30 centimetre sea level rise by 2040, a level they had not expected by 2060, along with Auckland, the Coromandel, Banks Peninsula, Hawke’s Bay, Marlborough, and Nelson. This is particularly concerning for a lot of our coastal communities. Climate change is real, climate change is here—you’ve just got to ask our whānau up there on the East Coast, they’re experiencing that right now.

Time and tides wait for no one, and procrastination is the thief of time, and we are running really, really short. Hopefully, this House has confined the climate change deniers to the conspiracy corners of the echo chambers of the various rabbit holes that they inhabit, but we also must take notice of the climate procrastinators—those that want to kick the climate can further and further down the road, those that want to relitigate and put up false solutions given the very succinct time frame that we have. Because people get easily distracted in this House—they get very, very easily distracted in this House. It’s very easy to lose focus when you have a lot of noise—we had a lot of noise outside on the Parliament lawn as well. And I have noticed that a lot of members have been distracted by Groundswell, when actually we need to be focusing on the sea swell. We need to be focusing on the rising tides and the work that needs to be done bringing together all the various interested parties, but also all of us across the Government here, across Parliament, but also with our local authorities as well.

Our local government is on the front line of this. This is impacting them as well, and I hope they are taking note, particularly those candidates that will be putting themselves up for election in the local body election—this should be front of mind for all of them. Local authorities have responsibilities to make key decisions on the use and management of land and other natural resources to avoid or mitigate impacts of natural hazards. They can also enhance community resilience through public education and local planning processes. But it’s really important that we have those Māori voices at the table—it’s really important that we have those Māori voices in the adaptation planning processes that have been rolled out by the Government as well, and it’s also important to have those at the council table. I’m relieved, and I hope many people around the country are relieved as well, that actually this House had the foresight to establish Māori wards, to actually make sure those voices are there—those voices that had those very long connections to the whenua, to the awa, to the takutai—that they have that ancestral knowledge and that connection. I think that it’s really, really important for people to focus on making sure that we continue to build those connections.

So I would say this to our people that are out there considering whether they’re going to put themselves up to step into the Māori wards—and I don’t know how many there are across the country, but there’s going to be quite a few—and I would say this to our whānau: kia kaha, kia kaha, put your hand up. There’s a lot of work to be done. Councils need to have that direction, there need to be those grassroots voices that actually push back against the climate procrastinators—people that have been dialling us back to the yesteryears, the times of nostalgia that, to be honest, have been holding us back for a very, very long time. I would also say this to our people as well: keep Te Tiriti o Waitangi as central in everything that you do—and a reminder that Te Tiriti o Waitangi is a living document, as relevant and as important today as when our ancestors signed it. And because it’s a living document, we have to consider that document in the context of the times that we live in, and we are in a climate crisis, we are in a biodiversity crisis.

E te whānau kia kaha ki te karawhiua tō ringa ki runga te whakatū mō ngā kaunihera i te mea kei te wātea mai tērā tēpu mā koutou. Ehara i te mea tērā mō koutou ki tō koutou nei kotahi heoi anō mō te whānau mō tō hapori mō te iwi, otirā te motu whānui.

[So, family, be brave to put yourself forward to stand for council as those seats at the table are available. This is not something that you do for yourself, but for the family, for your community, and tribe as well as the country in general.]

So kia kaha, get involved in your local body elections. We need to have those voices at the table, and they need to be loud, and they need to push back against the climate procrastinators and the climate deniers.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Listening to members of the Opposition, it’s evident that they’re taking a leaf from the same post - global financial crisis playbook that simply pushed our country back in some fundamental ways. Tax cuts for high-income earners at the expense of investing in health, in education, in our hospitals and our schools, and ensuring that our own people are skilled rather than immigrating people to New Zealand without thought for our own people being skilled into work, and, importantly, not investing enough in infrastructure. Not to mention the fact that they really don’t like talking about the Treaty or climate change to the degree where action must follow words.

We’re in a very different place to where we were two years ago, before COVID arrived on these shores. As we move through our response to a global pandemic, I want to acknowledge just how critical the initial judgment of putting the health of our people first as a crucial part of safeguarding our economic response. Those judgments mean that we’re in a position where high rates of vaccination mean it’s now safe to ease our COVID19 restrictions and operate under our traffic light system. All of this wouldn’t have been possible without the hard work and sacrifices of New Zealanders in our communities and across essential services; we thank you all.

Sadly, lives have been lost during this period of our COVID response, and as a direct response of coronavirus and its variants. However, comparatively, we’ve experienced the lowest numbers of cases and deaths in the OECD for the last two years. This experience has put us in the best position, now, to focus on our economic recovery plan. Our economy is now larger than pre-COVID levels. Unemployment is at a record low of 3.2 percent. Exports are up and GDP is growing. Comparable with many other countries such as Australia, the US, and the UK—our debt levels are lower than those countries. Tourism is reopening, with travellers now being welcomed to our shores, and we’re in a strong position to accelerate our economic recovery plan by putting the health of our people first while investing in critical parts of our economy, ensuring that we can recover faster than anywhere else in the world.

But we remain in challenging times. Global inflation is taking hold on every economy. For New Zealand, inflation stands at 6.9 percent compared with 8.5 percent in the US and 7 percent in the UK. Much of this is due to global factors impacting on fuel and food prices.

The impact of global inflation will bear down on Kiwis, and we acknowledge that the cost of living pressures are real and being felt at the petrol pump, at the supermarket, in the pockets of those on fixed incomes, and those that are most vulnerable. That’s why we’ve set out to address some of those urgent challenges. We’ve cut fuel prices. We’ve helped people where it matters: supporting public transport, including subsidising the cost of fares by half across the country; providing more relief with increases to Working for Families and superannuation; lifting the minimum wage; providing more lunches in schools; cheaper doctor’s visits; and continuing the winter energy payment during these cold months. We know there’s more to do, and we’ll keep going on—not just working on the immediate needs but also on our long-term future.

I’m really pleased to see the recent release of the Te Waihanga report, New Zealand Infrastructure Strategy 2022 - 2052. The signal that a more strategic approach to the challenge of funding, financing, and integrated planning of infrastructure projects will vastly improve our country landscape and further leverage growth and development objectives for the next 30 years.

On that front, it’s exactly the context for which the reform of three waters should be considered. The status quo is clunky and inefficient: 67 councils delivering water services with their own procurement pipelines—often not integrated in any way to the broader regions; no integrated planning either—are just some of the inefficiencies. And there is deferred investment over the past two decades which has meant that ratepayers have been experiencing burst pipes, aged infrastructure, especially of wastewater treatment plants, and polluted harbours and waterways.

We’re committed to ensure that we’re fixing this broken infrastructure network which is in so dire need of change. The changes that we’re making through our economic recovery plan require an active Government doing its part but ensuring that for the short and long term we’re making differences for all New Zealanders, every community, in very real ways.

RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): Well, we’ve heard about equal suffrage—one man, one vote—and the opposition to co-governance. The equal suffrage, it is clear; it’s Western democracy. Co-governance is unclear. What is it? Is it determined by the Government or does it include Māori? Where is the “co” in all of this? All of this uncertainty is driven by a fear of being undemocratic—Pākehā having less say, Māori having more say—whilst missing the opportunity to realign our nation’s obligation and promise to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The absolute fierce protection of this country’s version of democracy shows how little we have come and how far we need to go to create a more equal and equitable nation—a Tiriti-centric Aotearoa.

A globally recognised political leader once said, “Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government”—Winston Churchill, 11 November 1947. Westernised democracy is a model used to oppress minorities, including indigenous peoples all over the world. It is the tyranny of the majority. The majority should never determine the rights and privileges of others, because the proportionate majority is pursuing their needs while neglecting the needs of others. If, in fact, Western democracy was in place in 1840, Māori would have had all the say, as the Māori population was estimated to have been between 90,000 to 100,000, as opposed to European settlers, estimated at around 2,000.

The Rotorua District Council (Representation Arrangements) Bill has received a huge amount of criticism by a sector of society—many supporters of Hobson’s Pledge and groups alike that don’t want a Tiriti-centric nation. They have used equal suffrage as their war cry and have an obsession with numbers rather than equal rights as promised under Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

I turned up to my office yesterday to this book written by John Robinson. I’m quite happy to take leave from the House to table this book, because I don’t want it anymore—spreading misinformation, disinformation, and racist rhetoric that is actively designed to create huge division in our country. To make matters worse, we have parties in this House who choose to adopt this line of archaic colonial thinking, and it’s an absolute shame.

Let’s talk about Te Tiriti. Why do we refer to Te Tiriti and not the Treaty? Because Te Tiriti, the Māori version, was debated and signed by the chiefs and the Crown in 1840. Article 1 talks about the recognition of pre-existing rights and authority. It doesn’t create any new authority for Māori, as it already existed. What was agreed to was Kāwanatanga, the right of governance, and we have honoured this since 1853 on the provision that the Crown recognised the pre-existing rights of Māori.

Article 2: Māori were guaranteed the undisturbed possession of their properties, including land, forest, and fisheries, for as long as they wished to retain them. This is self-governance. This is not mono or absolute governance by the Crown over Māori but is the guarantee to self-determination and self-governance for Māori. The key to the article are the words “for as long as they wish and desire to retain them”. I pose this question to this House: where is it written in the statement where my people or where the Māori no longer have desire to retain the possession of their properties, including their lands, forest, and fisheries, and other properties?

Article 3: the Crown promised to Māori the benefit of royal protection and full citizenship. This emphasises equality. This, I believe, answers my question of what co-governance is. In the Crown law, there’s no way anyone will get away with breaching a contract and claiming that they were acting in the spirit or in the principles of a contract. What does that even mean? Like I said, the words work fine for us. It’s that we need to honour the Treaty as she lays.

Constitutional transformation is inevitable. We are in a generation where tangata whenua and tangata Tiriti are on the rise. They will create a new system for Aotearoa that is equitable, equal, just, and fair, where we can make decisions together for the betterment of this nation and of our mokopuna to come. Kia ora tātou.

Hon JAN TINETTI (Minister of Internal Affairs): I’m delighted to rise to take a call in this general debate, really to celebrate the work of our Government and that which we are doing to secure our recovery and tackle the long-term challenges that are facing New Zealanders.

We know that it has been incredibly tough for everyone in this country over the past two years, and we don’t know what the future’s going to look like over the next short while because COVID is still well amongst us. We haven’t hit the end, despite what some commentators may say, but we also know that every New Zealander can be very proud of our response as a country because it has been through the efforts of every single New Zealander that we are in the strong position that we are.

Yet again, we have proven here in New Zealand that it is possible to lead the world when it comes to our management of the global pandemic, while at the same time we are making real progress on the big challenges that face this country—challenges like climate change, challenges like child poverty and housing. We’re not putting those aside because we’re in the middle of a global pandemic; we know we have to cope with both.

But today, I want to focus on how we’re securing our recovery and delivering in the education sector, and in particular for our most vulnerable students. On Sunday, I stood alongside the Minister of Education as we made a pre-Budget announcement of $88 million specifically targeted at improving attendance and engagement in learning. We are investing in existing programmes where the evidence—and I say that again, the evidence, because they are evidence-based programmes—shows us they are working and making a real difference.

There is one programme that I am particularly passionate about, the Check & Connect mentoring programme for children or young people in years 8 to 11, which has a proven track record of improving engagement, academic performance, and retention rates—proven not only in Aotearoa but also around the globe. It’s wonderful to see this programme getting more funding to make a difference for more young people. These programmes have all received funding increases since Labour has been in office. The programmes have been around for a wee while, but most of them have laid dormant and neglected—underfunded—by the previous National Government.

Now, normally I wouldn’t pay much attention to what National has to say on education. Their track record shows that they weren’t focused on evidence. They did nothing but freeze funding and ignore expert pedagogical advice. Now, I lived and breathed those poor decisions while I was a school principal, and my pupils lived the consequences, sadly. But I did find it a little amusing when I heard the National spokesperson for education say in response to our Budget package announcement that this was “too little, too late.”

Simeon Brown: It is!

Hon JAN TINETTI: Now—and listen up, Mr Brown, because this might be an educational moment for you—clearly, National hasn’t been paying attention to what we have been doing and what we’ve been investing in, and improving and researching these programmes since we came into office in 2017. What seems to have been missed is that in the past two years, we have implemented many such programmes to help improve engagement for our young people—the $50 million COVID-19 Urgent Response Fund to help address attendance issues and support wellbeing, cultural wellbeing, and re-engagement in learning; $75.8 million for counsellors in primary and secondary schools; $67 million in Budget 2021 for attendance and engagement; the roll-out of free, healthy lunches and free period products; a targeted $15 million package for Auckland students to re-engage post the Delta outbreak; increased places in the Intensive Wraparound Service for our most at-risk students; substantial investment into a curriculum that is relevant and engaging—and that is not all.

I’d be happy to put the tonu out and offer a comprehensive briefing to the member who is the spokesperson for education for National on what we have been doing while her party was cycling through leaders. Look, we know that National don’t like investing in our kids, but we also know that on this side, we do. We also know there is no silver bullet, but the latest $88 million funding package provides a suite of targeted measures to ensure there is support in place for our students who need it most.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Well, thank you, Madam Speaker. And that is just a perfect example of a Labour Party Minister who thinks that by putting out a press release, by making announcements, you get things done. Well, actually, just saying you’re putting in $88 million into doing something doesn’t actually mean that you’re going to get better results. And the real problem with truancy in New Zealand over the past five years is that this Government’s been absent, completely absent when it comes to the issue. They have been ignoring the issue while thousands and thousands of students have not been turning up to school and that problem has only got worse. So another announcement, but, again, no delivery.

We’re now coming up to the Budget in only a few weeks’ time, and so far, what we know is two things: under this Government, spending has increased by 68 percent since they came to office—68 percent since they came to office—and the second thing we know is that in this year’s Budget we are going to have the biggest ever one yearly spend in the New Zealand Budget history—$6 billion more spending. And we hear from members on the other side, “Well, this Government, we are having absolutely no impact on inflation at all. It’s all Ukraine. It’s all America. It’s all supply chains.” It’s always someone else’s problem. Well, a 68 percent increase in Government spending and now the biggest ever increase in spending in the New Zealand Budget history is going to have an impact. The reality is it is the biggest inflation New Zealanders have faced since 1990.

And when you’re facing inflation like that, the Government needs to start actually looking at its own expenditure—getting Government expenditure under control and making sure the Government stops wasting money. This reality of this Government is that they make announcements—$10 million here; $100 million there; $88 million there; a few billion there; $29 billion for Auckland light rail—and they don’t actually care about the consequences or what’s actually getting things done.

I just want to bring to the attention of the House one incredibly clear example of this. Now, we’ve all heard about the cycle bridge across the Auckland Harbour: $51 million—$51 million—and you’d think with $51 million you better do a thing or two in this country. Well, $51 million—guess what happened? They just spent it on consultants before cancelling that project.

But, wait, there’s more. They signed a lease for an incredibly expensive office in Wynyard Quarter, downtown Auckland. For those listening at home, that is some of the most expensive real estate in New Zealand. Guess what? They signed that lease three weeks before they cancelled the project. They signed an 18-month lease and it’s still sitting there.

Here’s a picture of an empty office. [Holds up picture] That is a picture of the empty office which is down the viaduct in Auckland. That is an absolute clear example of the Government’s wasted money, cancelling projects, spending millions of dollars, not actually getting anything done, and no one’s at home. It’s just a bit like the other problem there. The Government is completely absent. And the most worrying thing is this is just one small example—$51 million here; $51 million there; $100 million for the Te Huia train, which is an absolute waste of money. You’ve got $35 million on consultants for Let’s Get Wellington Moving, where nothing’s actually been delivered. And then you’ve got the absolute growth in the bureaucracy—14,000 more bureaucrats; 14,000 more Wellington bureaucrats. And where are the outcomes?

What we heard today: another working group to try and make sure that people can get their operations done faster. That’s all we get—a working group, more bureaucrats without actually any delivery and getting things done. And what worries me most of all is that this Government doesn’t care about who’s paying the bill at the end of the day. They don’t care about who’s paying the bill at the end of the day. They think this is actually their money. Well, actually, it’s not their money; this is taxpayers’ money. It’s the taxpayers of today and it’s the taxpayers of future generations who have to foot the bill of this Government’s poor decision-making, wasted spending, and the absolute bloating of the bureaucracy that we’re seeing under Labour.

So my challenge to this Government is: respect every single dollar like it was your own. I imagine that if they did that, some of those decisions would be very, very different. And as we come into the Budget in a few weeks’ time, respect every dollar like it’s your own. This Government has got a track record of wasting taxpayers’ money.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): That was a classic National Party speech, which is, “Cut spending. Let’s think about the taxpayers of today and tomorrow,”—and I do. I think about the people who pay tax in New Zealand and every other New Zealander, and I think about the steps that we’ve taken over the past two years and the fact that we have saved thousands and thousands of lives and thousands and thousands of jobs. We’re in the position we’re in because we didn’t slash and cut spending like the National Party would. We didn’t throw open the doors to business; we supported businesses through a careful and planned approach, and we saved jobs and businesses accordingly, and our tax base was preserved. And that’s why, when we look forward now, we’re in a much better position that we ever would have been.

Cast your minds back and think. What would it have been like if the National Party had been in power and they had done what they wanted to do? We would be in a woeful, woeful position. But what really amazes me is that they seem to have forgotten history. Let’s have a bit of a history lesson. In 2015 the minimum wage was $15.75. That person would be on $630 a week. What would the cost of living problem be like? No—we’re committed to raising the incomes of those who earn the least. That’s why the minimum wage today is $21.20 an hour or $848 a week. They are $208 a week better off. That is a one-third pay increase over that period of time.

What happens every time we talk about the minimum wage? The National Party says no. What do they say about beneficiaries? Well, what we have done for beneficiaries is raise benefits to a far more reasonable income, so 110,000 beneficiaries with children will be better by an average of $175 a week. That’s what families in need really need. That’s what people facing increased costs of living need. They don’t need Louise Upston to sit in this House and say, “Why are we not sanctioning people because they haven’t turned up for a job interview? Why aren’t we taking the benefit off families who need to feed their kids?” Well, this isn’t a punitive Government, and I’ll tell you what it shows. What does a 3.2 percent unemployment rate show? It shows that our strategy is working—that by preserving the health of New Zealanders and the economy of New Zealanders, and by taking a balanced approach, more people are in jobs today than has ever been the case. We have lower unemployment than since when records started. Yet what would the National Party do?

The funny thing about the National Party is that I’m yet to hear a National Party policy that isn’t, “We wouldn’t do that.” What would the National Party do with tax? They’d cut the tax Labour put in place. They would cut the tax for the richest New Zealanders. They would cut the tax for people earning over $180,000.

Simon Watts: That’s all you can talk about.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: That’s even more than you earn, Mr Watts. What else would National do? They wouldn’t have a Matariki holiday. No, no—they wouldn’t do that. They’d cut a holiday. They wouldn’t have any more new holidays. They’d cut Labour Day—we heard that from Mr Luxon’s mouth. What would they do about the crisis in Māori health? I heard Christopher Luxon talk on The Hui, and when he was asked, “What would you do?”—no more Māori Health Authority. They wouldn’t have tailored solutions for Māori health. He was asked, “What would you do?” and there was a woeful silence. No ideas. We’d like a proposition from the Opposition. All they can say is, “We wouldn’t do that.”

What about fair pay agreements—having agreements to have our lowest-paid workers have a little more bargaining strength in the workplace so that they can settle reasonable, fair remuneration for the critical and important work they do? Well, National wouldn’t do that either. So if we think about it, on this side of the House we have a party that will grasp the nettle and make hard and considered decisions to solve the critical long-term challenges we face.

SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Last Friday, the Hon Grant Robertson and the Hon Nanaia Mahuta announced the next steps of their three waters reform, and I, like many, was hoping that this Government would read the writing on the wall and see the opposition from our local communities, and potentially listen, and announce some fundamental changes—better yet, a rethink of the entire policy. But the announcements that we heard from this Government came up with nothing in regards to the concerns that have been raised by our local communities across this country. These reforms are spin, and this Labour Government is absolutely expert at doing that. That is what they do best. They obviously haven’t got the message, so, today, I want to explain about National and our local communities, and why we oppose these reforms, and outline, importantly, what we see as the real alternative solutions to Labour’s broken reform agenda.

National has never denied the challenges we face, nor have we ever said that reform is not required in this area. The case for reform is clear; the case for Labour’s mega entities is not. Since becoming the National Party’s spokesman for local government, I’ve travelled up and down this country talking to mayors and local councils, because that’s where building effective relationships and solutions starts. But in their quest for more Wellington bureaucracy, this Labour Government has forgotten the importance of involving local communities. Every mayor and councillor I talk to highlights to me the variety of issues that they face. They all have unique challenges, but they also share an ambition to deliver the improvements for their local communities that they need: local perspectives and local commitments. A mega entity created by this Labour Government will never match that.

Gaining a local perspective also highlights the importance that everything is not broken and, for many communities, their water infrastructure is actually a point of pride within their communities, and that should be respected. They have nothing to gain from throwing everything out and starting again. This is what this Government is forcing them to do, and they already are meeting their community’s needs. Of course, there are many communities around this country that have needs and requirements. They’ve paid for their water infrastructure over generations, but the problem that they’ve got is that the best water outcomes, and management of those outcomes, comes from community involvement and community ownership. That is a bottom line, for me.

The Government’s response to this outcry from communities is to offer them token ownership around this, in the share of an asset or one share in an asset for every 50,000 people. Yesterday, the Minister told us in Entity A, Auckland would hold 35 of their 40 shares, and the other councils of north of Auckland would share the remaining five. That is not fair, and I cannot understand why this Minister can stand in this House and say that local communities’ voices are protected, because they are not. And it will come as no surprise for those that are listening that every council north of Auckland is opposed to these reforms, and Auckland will not have a bar of it. So that sends a very clear signal that they are going to be worse off under this reform process.

The only real power that those shares will provide those councils is around privatisation. None of the major parties in this House have expressed any interest in going down that route. So what is it? It is ownership in name only, and nothing else. And it’s like saying you’ll own a house but you don’t have keys to the front door, and that is the reality for many of our local communities. The greatest tragedy out there is there is a better way forward. For anyone at home that thinks it’s Labour’s way or nothing, I encourage them to read this document. It’s a document prepared by the Communities 4 Local Democracy, representing 31 councils across this country—nearly half of the community councils across this country—communities that have come together, acknowledged they’ve got problems, but brought in a solution together right here, proposed models that will address the issues that are being raised and solve those problems. Labour may not be listening, but I am, and I thank these councils for their work in this. A National-led Government will bring positive reform and change to water management and environmental protection. My message to local communities is simple: National hears your voice, and we have your back.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): May the Fourth be with you. As well as being International Firefighters Day, today is also international Star Wars Day, though, to be honest, I’m actually more of a Star Trek fan than a Star Wars fan. And particularly I’m a fan of Star Trek, the old series. And I think that’s because it’s a fundamentally optimistic show, full of the joy of discovery, the belief that we can do well, and the constant search for ways to do better.

Look, times are tough in New Zealand at the moment, and, along with my colleagues, I acknowledge that, but there are also reasons for optimism. We have received two world-leading AAA credit ratings, GDP is up 5.6 percent from a year ago, and our economic activity is higher than it was before COVID-19. Unemployment is at a record low of 3.2 percent. Wages have outpaced inflation up until very recently, and are forecast to rise above inflation again for every year after this one. Our debt will peak at about half of Australia’s, around a third of the UK’s, and a fifth of the US’s, and that’s according to the IMF’s forecast, and we’re going to get the books back into surplus in 2024-25—that’s a year faster than National did after the global financial crisis.

But what do we hear from the Opposition? Nothing but a litany of complaints, verging on scaremongering and misinformation. The “Popinjay of Epsom”, squawking from his perch, claims that taxes are too high and people would be much better off if we cut taxes, because then they’d be more free because they could make more choices. It’s hard to see how many choices can be made if you can’t get decent healthcare. It’s hard to see how many more choices can be made if your children cannot get a good education. It’s hard to see how many more choices can be made if you don’t have a warm, dry, secure home. Freedom is not just about making choices; it’s also about being enabled to live securely without constant worries about health and education and housing. It is about being secure because people have jobs, they have the social services they need. It’s because they know that they are highly regarded and valued as citizens, not just as units of production. That’s the kind of freedom we value on this side of the House. And it’s the freedom that is being secured by our recovery from COVID and by our strong economy.

Meanwhile, the official Leader of the Opposition skippity-jumps and flippity-flops from one thing to another, leaving us all guessing about what his real intentions are. One day he’s all for cancelling Labour Day, and the next day he’s backtracking. One day his deputy supports the increase in the minimum wage, the next day he backtracks. One day he thinks public transport should stand on its own two legs—although that money should be spent on roads, not footpaths—the next he mumbles that perhaps a National Government would keep on funding public transport after all. One day he’s talking about bottom feeders—clue: that’s anyone who hasn’t done quite so well in society—the next he’s “clarifying” that he means only a certain very small set of people. “Skippity-jumpity-flippity-floppity Mr Fluffy” jumbles from one gaff to the next, and we’re supposed to just write them off as newbie mistakes. They are not just mistakes; they reveal exactly the kind of leadership the National Party is offering us: jumbled, inconsistent, and walking all over the little people.

Contrast that to the leadership on this side of the House that puts people first. We led out our response to COVID by putting in place a world-leading health response, and we followed that up with a strong economic response that focused on keeping people in jobs and businesses going. And the results show for themselves. Our economic stats are going really well. We are working on helping people with the cost of living. We’re getting through the Omicron wave. We’re keeping our health and education going and making them better. We are securing our recovery and building for the future. And it’s all because of the clear, consistent, and principled leadership from our Prime Minister and her team. We’re in a good place and we’re looking forward optimistically to what we can achieve together as we explore new ways of doing things, as we seek out new opportunities and new thinking, as we boldly go to ensure that every New Zealander is valued. “Live long and prosper”, Madam Speaker.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Human Rights (Disability Assist Dogs Non-Discrimination) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): I move, That the Human Rights (Disability Assist Dogs Non-Discrimination) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Kia ora. It’s such a pleasure to be in this final stage of this member’s bill. Before I go on to the many thanks and recognitions of the people who have contributed to getting us here, I’d like to once again just briefly touch on the whakapapa of this bill, as we’ve done in other readings. I particularly want to acknowledge the submission, which I did in the second reading, of Deaf Action New Zealand, who traversed over the history and their own contribution, actually, of working with former MPs to get this legislation drafted.

This bill’s history goes back to 2015, when Murray Whittington and his dog Frodo were facing barriers to access adequate housing. The late Murray worked with Deaf Action to write to the Ministry of Social Development to see what could be done to resolve this issue. They also worked with Mojo Mathers, former Green MP and a champion of the rights of disabled people, to draft a member’s bill, which she did back then and now I’ve had the privilege to carry. So I thank the efforts of those people in that organisation, and Mojo Mathers, for paving the way for this bill to now almost become law.

The bill seeks to amend the Human Rights Act to make it really clear that discriminating against disability assist dogs is discrimination towards disabled people. We have heard aplenty throughout the process of the discrimination that disabled people face in society. The Disabled Persons Assembly very well noted that discrimination towards disabled people was a lot higher than against those that were able-bodied. I think this, to me, speaks of the many challenges that we need to yet overcome that disabled people face. This bill, I hope, will address some of that discrimination, and I hope as well that it’s a call to action for our Parliament to do far more to create a truly inclusive society.

I’d like to thank the submitters, particularly those with lived experience, who presented to Parliament and who were really clear about the challenges they faced, and the organisations who train the disability assist dogs, who, like many, reminded us that these dogs are not pets. They’re work dogs who receive extensive training and who are disciplined enough to be able to support people to enter and work in public spaces, who also support people with health conditions to alert them when they may be about to have a seizure or help them note when a fire alarm may be going off.

I also would like to thank the members of the Social Services and Community Committee, because throughout the process one of the lessons we took was the opportunities that were there to make this space far more accessible. I want to thank all members of that committee for having had such an open-minded approach and consultative approach to taking steps to make the process far more accessible. I genuinely hope that the approaches that we took are taken by other committees, because I think it does not need to be just about legislation that very explicitly impacts disabled people. I think we should be making all of our processes as accessible as possible, and I think the committee has done some really important work in allowing this to happen.

I also would like to thank the other parties for their continued support throughout the stages of the bill. I’m just so rapt that this bill has had, so far, support from all political parties, and I think this is a testament that we are in agreement that we must build a more inclusive society. I hope that that cross-party support that the bill has received so far is carried through other bits of legislation that seek to create a more just society.

I also wanted to address some of the feedback that we received not just from submitters but the broader community around the need to run a communications campaign once this bill becomes law. Some of the strong feedback that we received throughout the whole of the process was that there was a need for the broader public to be far more aware of the rights of disabled people. While this bill will enable people to go through the Human Rights Commission processes to address discrimination, ideally we would want people to know of other people’s rights so that people don’t have to go through the human rights complaints process to address injustices when they happen. So I do call on Government to look at putting in some resources to run a communications campaign so that this bill has as strong an effect as possible.

There are also thanks that I would like to give specifically to members of the Opposition for their contributions. Penny Simmonds, who gave a constructive Supplementary Order Paper (SOP)—and while I would have loved to have had more time to have debated the SOP through the select committee process, I still welcome those interventions to improve bills wherever possible. I really, again, look forward to broader reforms to ensure that the way in which dogs are trained enables people to access the services of these dogs in a way that it is just but also that ensures that dogs get trained in a way that also guarantees safety and discipline. I think these are conversations that we’ll continue to have. I know that the dynamics within organisations and the people who use their services needs to be continuously explored, and I think the Penny Simmonds SOP wanted to address some of those dynamics.

I also want to thank the New Zealand Sign Language interpreters who have been with us through most of the process. Again, I think that the need for proper interpretation in these processes doesn’t have to be restrained to bills that very explicitly talk about the rights of disabled people, and I note that there are still barriers both in terms of resourcing and in terms of access to interpreters that prevent Parliament having a completely accessible process.

In that sense, I also thank the Business Committee for being really open and negotiating the times in which we have had this bill going through. It’s been great to have an openness in ensuring that we were able to have this bill discussed in this lot to ensure interpretation. I encourage members to be mindful that interpreters may find it difficult to continue doing it after the dinner break, so I encourage people to give calls that ensure that we’re able to have full interpretation through the passage of the third reading.

I acknowledge that this bill is a really important reform, but there is so much more work to do. While we may be addressing areas in the Human Rights Act and gaps that existed there, I think there is still a need for accessible housing. I mean, while we are seeking to end discrimination, I can’t ignore that the reality is that so much of our housing remains inaccessible for disabled people, and that there are many other areas in our legislation that continue to provide inadequate support. So, again, I think this bill should, hopefully, pave the way for broader reform.

I know I extended my thanks to Mojo at the beginning, but I just want to make a special mention as well for her constant guidance and our exchanges throughout the passage of this bill to ensure that the intent that she had when she drafted this bill was carried through. She gave an amazing submission. I also note that this is the second bill that Mojo Mathers drafted that is now becoming law since she stopped being a member of Parliament, and I think that just speaks to her amazing contributions and work to identify areas that needed reform that would make for a member’s bill that would actually end up garnering the support of members across the House.

So I look forward to this bill becoming law, to a communications campaign, and to the work that needs to be done to create a truly inclusive society. Kia ora.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m excited to speak in this third reading of the Human Rights (Disability Assist Dogs Non-Discrimination) Amendment Bill, in the name of the member Ricardo Menéndez March. I want to, once again, congratulate the member for having this bill pulled from the ballot but also for having the foresight and the agreement to actually take on this bill from Mojo Mathers. I just want to acknowledge and correct the Hansard. I had said that the bill sat for five years in the ballot; actually, it was seven years—2015; bad maths on my part but I just wanted to correct the Hansard in regards to that.

This is a useful and important bill; it’s a very small bill but it’s actually a very meaningful bill. So I want to acknowledge Mojo Mathers—as the member has previously done—for her work in this area, and it must be a really nice feeling to have this bill progressed through the House and come to the final reading today. So I hope that Mojo is, in fact, participating from afar and having a celebration. I also want to acknowledge the 75 submissions that we received from interested groups and individuals and from the 20 submitters we heard orally—thank you. It’s important, I think, that even though this is a member’s bill, we’ve actually had a lot of real interest in this bill, and I think we had really good participation.

I also want to acknowledge the Social Services and Community Committee team—as the member has acknowledged. I think that we all worked very collegially. We all agreed that this was a piece of legislation that aligned with all of our values—particularly our Labour team; it aligned with our values absolutely—and we were delighted to see it come to the House and progress. We found it quite fascinating, I think, in the process of exploring how we could, in fact, make the bill better—or not, as the case has been. So I’d like to acknowledge the Ministry of Justice officials that came before us to support us. It was because it was under the Human Rights Act 1993, and therefore the Justice officials came and helped us. We really want to acknowledge and thank that team for their great contributions to us. They were very patient with us, so thank you.

Before I come to the bill, I’d also like to acknowledge some of the work that happened in the select committee process itself. The member has acknowledged this, but I think it is for the record, for Hansard, to actually acknowledge what we tried and attempted to do to support accessibility in the process and, I agree, hopefully this is a template for moving forward, and not an exception. So what I’d like to acknowledge is that, behind the scenes, our clerks worked particularly diligently to support engagement. They were really proactive, working with the Office for Disability Issues and the sign language community as well—the interpreters. I’d like to also acknowledge and appreciate the interpreters that supported us and are supporting us, indeed, today. So I’m going to try this: [Begins signing in New Zealand Sign Language] Thank you and welcome today for coming and helping us. I think one of the things that is really difficult about trying sign language is that we have the courage to do it. So I think that even though it was probably quite an average attempt, I think it’s important to try these things. I gave it a go.

So I note for Hansard the things that we did in order to support accessibility or the participation of some of the disability community but, generally, actually, our community. When we called for written submissions, we recorded a video encouraging people to submit. We used various formats to encourage participation—so that was social media and a whole pile of other formats to do that. We made sure to directly contact the disability networks and to make sure that they knew that this legislation was before the House. We enlarged the font for our written information for visually impaired people, and as someone who does need a little additional-sized font, I found it very helpful, I must say. We had all of our oral submissions translated into sign language, and we captioned and transcribed these live as they were rolling out. Then, those transcripts were also made available so that people could use those as well. And then, we also gave additional time for oral submissions—that’s important because when interpreting into another language, things slow down. So those were some of the things that we did as a select committee, and there is more that we can do—absolutely—and we welcome learning ways and talking with the community to engage better in the future.

I come now very quickly—I’ve talked quite some time—to the bill. It amends the Human Rights Act 1993, and it makes it clear that any discrimination against someone because they have a disability assist dog would be considered discrimination on the basis of disability. It’s a very simple bill but actually very meaningful. The list of prohibited grounds for discrimination, set out in the Human Rights Act, replaces “guide dog”, which was kind of a little bit too restrictive, with the broader term “disability assist dog”. When we look at that term, it’s defined within the Dog Control Act 1996, which defines a “disability assist dog”—so broadening the definition—to a dog certified by one of the organisations listed in Schedule 5.

Now, I’m just going to read out these organisations because they spend a lot of time training these dogs. These dogs are incredibly expensive because it’s two-plus years often to train these dogs. The work that they do is often incredibly important to the people who receive these dogs, but it’s often work that we don’t really recognise or see. So the organisations are: Assistance Dogs New Zealand, Hearing Dogs for Deaf People New Zealand, K9 Medical Detection New Zealand, K9 Search Medical Detection, Mobility Assistance Dogs Trust, New Zealand Epilepsy Assist Dogs Trust, Perfect Partners Assistance Dogs Trust, and the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind Inc. We all recognise—we all know—the “guide dog”, but, actually, there are many, many dogs out there under the “disability assist dog” definition that are covered now.

In short, this bill makes it clear that if a person is denied services or access because they have a disability assist dog, that person is being discriminated against on the basis of disability. I think, really, that makes perfect sense if you think about it in the context of those animals being a tool—as much as we love them and adore them as a sentient being and cute and fluffy and all of those things, they’re also a working tool for people with disabilities. It would be like, for example, people saying to someone who is in a wheelchair, “You cannot enter this shop or this restaurant because you have a wheelchair.” Those are the types of discrimination that have happened for people with dogs. I absolutely agree with the member Ricardo Menéndez about the fact that we need more education so that people understand that the disability assist dog is not just a Labrador—there’s a whole series of dogs—and we look forward to, perhaps, when the new disability ministry is stood up, looking at the matter further. I commend this bill to the House.

PENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m very pleased to be rising and speaking in support of the Human Rights (Disability Assist Dogs Non-Discrimination) Amendment Bill at this, its third reading. I also want to congratulate and thank Ricardo Menéndez March for the work he has done on this. He has been tireless in ensuring that this progresses through, but I’ve also been delighted with how generous he has been in his acknowledgment of Mojo Mathers and all the work that she did on it. Lovely that she has this enduring legacy of now two bills that have gone through since she has left Parliament. So thank you for acknowledging her so generously.

The bill is a small bill but it will make some significant improvements for our people living with disabilities who use an assist dog. The simple change first of prohibiting grounds of discrimination with a disability assist dog are incredibly important. But the other amendment—which I would have to say I am so incredibly disappointed that the MPs of the Government were so ideologically driven that they could not work collaboratively on a small change which would have broadened out this bill and made a huge difference. If there was ever a bill that could have had collaboration, it should have been this one. So shame on those members that they were not prepared to make this an even better bill for those with disabilities.

What we know is that the demand routinely exceeds supply. There are extensive waiting-lists for every existing recognised agency that trains assist dogs—and the MP who spoke before me, Angie Warren-Clark, read out that list—and so they are not able to meet the needs of all those who could benefit from and who want our support, want the support of a dog trained to mitigate their disabilities. It defies belief that the Government could think that it was appropriate to enforce that supply being able to be so constrained. Several agencies require the applicants to personally fundraise sums ranging from $5,000 to $20,000 before they can receive a training dog.

Most recognised agencies work only with specific types of disability—for example, visually impaired or loss-of-auditory impairment or loss of mobility. Some are restricted geographically, meaning individuals with rare or multiple types of impairment have no way to access a dog trained to meet their individual needs. Again, shame on those Government members who chose to vote against making that more enabling.

A disability dog that could have been trained by other than the organisations stated would have meant that our legislation would have aligned with best practice disability assist dog legislation which exists in the US, in Canada, in Australia, and in the UK. All of these have a definition which enables the disability assist dog to be defined by its role, not by its training entity. Surely that is the key factor here: that the dog should be defined by the work that they are able to do, not by the training entity. That is in no way any criticism of the training entities that are listed; it is just saying that they should not have been constrained by who trained them.

It would have opened the door to empowering people with disabilities by giving them freedom of choice and a range of options, which would best suit their needs and lifestyles instead of one-size-fits-all. Is that not so typical of this Government that they will tell people what they need; not allowing them the choice of what suits them best? I acknowledge that it was incredibly important to have consistency of training, to ensure that public confidence could always be there, that the assist dogs were genuinely well trained to assist those living with a disability.

But what this would have done would have enabled us to get the balance right of increasing the number of dogs that could have been available, trying to meet some of that unmet demand, and also given people better choice. But, again, shame on this Government that voted against a more enabling piece of legislation. It’s true that this will improve the lot of those that are finding that they have been discriminated against by having a disability assist dog. So we are of course delighted to be part of that change, but incredibly disappointed that we could not have made it even better for even more people who are having to live with those access issues and not having the assistance of a support assist dog.

For many of us, it was a revelation as to the sort of discrimination that occurs out in society for those living with a disability. So we would want to do anything that we possibly could to remove that discrimination from their lives. This will go some way—

Angie Warren-Clark: Cheer up!

PENNY SIMMONDS: But my discussions with people over the last while have been that the current situation—the current living crisis—is causing such a lot of difficulty for our people with disabilities.

I know that the other side called out, “Cheer up!” Well, that was a pretty insensitive thing to say, very similar to a previous speaker who said, “We’ve got to look after the little people.” “The little people” Labour is worried about. Well, talk about virtue signalling. That is an incredibly arrogant thing to say, when the people that are suffering the most from this cost of living crisis are those living with a disability, those who are having their lifestyle curbed and constrained by not being able to either afford to get out or have the accessibility to get out. So these sort of glib comments coming from the other side of the House will do nothing to give confidence to our disabled people who would like to think that this Government is about trying to make their life better.

So congratulations again to Ricardo Menéndez March. Well done on shepherding this through the process of Parliament, despite the very unkind support given by the Government. National is proud to be associated with making life a little better for some of our people that are living with disabilities out in society. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. The Labour Party supports the empowerment of all people. And I’m actually really disappointed this afternoon, because I thought this member’s afternoon was actually going to be collegial, was going to be us together—

Hon Member: Oh, get over yourself.

GLEN BENNETT: —as it has been—I will get over myself and I am happy to, because all the way through we worked together across the House on this piece of legislation. Unfortunately, Penny Simmonds, “shame on you” are the words that kept coming through. I wouldn’t want to say that, because I’m not that kind of person, but I think you should reflect on the fact that you dropped Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 145 very late.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! There’s too much noise coming from especially this side of the House. We shall listen to the speech that’s being given. Thank you.

GLEN BENNETT: Kia ora, Madam Speaker. For me, it really was, because we worked together all the way through, and we did not have time to consider the SOP because it was dropped very late in the piece. It would have been lovely and we may have considered it if it was in the select committee process, but, unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. And this afternoon, I feel a bit embarrassed, because I don’t want to politicise this—

Hon Members: Ha, ha!

GLEN BENNETT: —because this is actually—no—about people with disabilities today, and so I actually felt a little bit embarrassed in the previous speech, and I want to apologise for that, because we’re here today to celebrate. We’re here today to empower. We are here today to support all our whānau, particularly our disability whānau, in terms of them having better access to services, better access to housing, better access to transport, and better access to their living arrangements and their travel arrangements.

I want to go right back to Mojo Mathers, back in December 2015, when she presented this bill into the ballot and she said, “We have a long way to go to make New Zealand a fully inclusive, accessible country, where people who have disabilities can live free from discrimination. … This sort of discrimination should not be happening in a 21st century New Zealand.” I, and we as a Labour Party and as a Labour Government, 100 percent agree with that. And so we’re grateful—thank you to Ricardo Menéndez March—to them for bringing this piece of legislation, continuing in the legacy of Mojo Mathers. But also, as you talked about in the first speech, thank you for reminding us of Murray Whittington, who brought his struggle around finding housing because he had a disability assist dog and he was unable to find a place to live, because there was a no pets requirement.

So it’s been a long journey and, like I say, most of the way it’s been a collegial journey until this afternoon. But I just want to celebrate the fact that we are ensuring that we are living in the 21st century. There’s a few things, I guess, to add to that. As a Government, we are obviously a big supporter of our disability community; in fact, we’re establishing, of course, the Ministry for Disabled People this year. We’re in the process of doing that right now in terms of making sure that we derive better outcomes for our disabled people, that we lead and coordinate cross-Government strategic disability policy, that we work to deliver and transform our disability support services, and we progress work on the broader transformation of the wider disability system and of our sector. This fits into that, and my hope may have been that if this ministry had been established years earlier, this probably would have been passed a long, long time ago. But it’s here now, and I look forward to the new ministry in terms of championing the causes of one in four New Zealanders who have a disability.

Now, I was curious as we went through the process and, as the deputy chair of the Social Services and Community Committee, it was a real privilege to have a simple but effective piece of legislation that makes real change. To be part of the first reading, to be in select committee, to come to the second reading and the committee of the whole House, and now to be on the third reading, it has been an honour just to follow and track with those who use or those who support or those who champion the causes of those, particularly with disability assist dogs.

I want to go back to my first speech on this and reflect on a good friend of mine who was a past editor of the Taranaki Daily News, was a district councillor for the New Plymouth District Council, and has now retired: Lance Girling-Butcher, who has a guide dog. He told me many, many stories about the doors that were open for him because he had a guide dog, because he was blind, everything from flying with Air New Zealand, getting taxis and accessing this building, through to staying at hotels, and moving his way around Aotearoa. He was grateful and he talked to me about how grateful he was in terms of his accessibility with his guide dog in being able to access the services that we have around New Zealand. I’m really excited that this afternoon we can pass this piece of legislation into law, which means not only Lance Girling-Butcher has the opportunity and the ability to move freely around our nation but the others have that accessibility as well, and we add disability assist dogs.

Now, of course, there’s guide dogs, as I just mentioned. There’s also hearing dogs, obviously acting as people’s ears. There’s mobility dogs that help a handler with limited mobility. There’s epilepsy dogs that help a handler who has epilepsy. There’s assistance dogs that work with handlers with a variety of different conditions. And the list goes on.

Now, I’m grateful that we have registered services and providers and trainers in New Zealand, organisations that are able to provide a service that ensures that these dogs are trained to their premium to care for, to work with, to protect, and to be the eyes, the ears, the hands, and the support for people within our community.

Now, as previous speakers have spoken about, this piece of legislation just shifts a few words around or removes some words. So taking “guide dog” out and adding “disability assist dog” in. It is simple, but, as I said, it is something that is important, that is effective.

I want to thank all of our submitters who participated in the experience and Mr March this morning, even, in our select committee. We were talking about accessibility again and what can we do as the Social Services and Communities Committee to ensure that every single committee in this House, every single piece of work that goes on in this House, ensures that all people—whether they be young, whether they be old, or whether they have a disability—have access to this, the House of Representatives, that we hear all voices within our community. So watch this space. We’ll continue to work together to ensure that this House is the most accessible in the world.

So to our submitters, for many, at times, I felt a bit clunky, and struggled because we didn’t quite have it right. But I hope that on the next piece of legislation, we’ll do better; please, please bear with us. To our disability communities out there who are paying attention and want change probably often faster than we can do it, thank you for walking alongside us. Thank you for pushing us. Thank you for making sure that your legacy is that we have disability assist dogs in all parts of our community and workplaces. I also want to say thank you to those who train disability assist dogs and to those families who volunteer and—I’m not sure if the word “foster” is right—who take on disability assist dogs to prepare them and to socialise them, in terms of being in the community. I know it’s a voluntary role for many, and so we say thank you to those who serve and can ensure that these dogs are ready to go when their handlers step in.

So, finally, I just want to say thank you to this House. Thank you to all sides of the House for, almost all of the time, being as one in terms of ensuring that this piece of legislation passes into law. I look forward to seeing more of our furry four-legged friends—there’s one in the House today. Let’s hope that come next week, next month, next year, we see more of those amazing and wonderful assistants who can ensure that everyone in Aotearoa in the 21st century has access to all parts of our community. I commend this bill to the House.

TONI SEVERIN (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s my pleasure to rise on behalf of the ACT Party as the disabilities spokesperson, on the third reading of this fantastic bill, the Human Rights (Disability Assist Dogs Non-Discrimination) Amendment Bill. This bill makes a change in the Human Rights Act, changing “guide dog” to “disability assist dog”. We have had many trained dogs in the disability community. As spoken before, we have hearing dogs, we have mobility dogs, and we have epilepsy dogs. Anybody who has epilepsy can have some amazing seizures, and having a dog around them can just make a huge, huge difference.

However, there are still a few things in this that are not quite done yet. There are at least some considerations in other bills and legalisation that needs to be changed, and the Government will have to probably review these using the statutory use to change the terms like “guide dogs”, “companion dogs”, and “hearing dogs”, and to update these bills so that they are in line with the Human Rights Act.

But, also, the lovely 75 submitters—I was unfortunate not to sit on and listen to all the submissions, because I’m not on the select committee. However, I did read the transcripts and also the review that came from the committee that many still raised issues that weren’t in scope of this bill. I’d like to just point out some of those. A lot of it was also around identifying disability assist dogs. Most people see the guide dogs with their coats, but not all of them have the lovely coats that you see. For a lot of people, if they’re not educated and don’t understand what these dogs are, then, yes, they may perceive them to be a pet, which is not fair. However, unless we educate what is out there in the different forms of dogs, then how can we expect people to understand what is allowed and what’s not allowed?

But, also, the biggest thing of all, these dogs are working dogs. They are not pets—and also, us as the public, who love dogs, I’ve also got to remember, they’re out in the community doing a job. Yes, we love to pat them, but we’ve also got to realise that we have to ask the owners first. But that should go, no doubt, with any dog. But, most of all, these dogs are here to help their human, and, of course, the dogs we all know own their human, not the other way around.

Now, the biggest thing of all, also, is that we have eight great organisations that train these dogs, and great trainers out there. However, again, we have a shortage of dogs for those that need them here in New Zealand. So if there is a way down the track that we can identify more people that can train these dogs and be certified, it would be fantastic, because, you know, we have the Assistance Dogs New Zealand, hearing dogs of the Deaf people of New Zealand, K9 Medical Detection New Zealand, Canine Service Medical Detection, Mobility Assistance Dogs Trust, the New Zealand Epilepsy Assist Dog Trust, Perfect Partners Assistance Dogs Trust, and the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind Inc. I mean, these guys do a great job and have given many, many people access and a new lease on life within their community. But we always need more. So if there is a way that we can encourage more and make sure that they meet the regulations and standards, all the more to help those people in the community to become more able.

Also, the other thing that the submitters brought up was also, as I said, the education. And that’s also within identification and education. As we have spoken with rentals, a lot of people don’t allow pets in rentals because they have this perception that dogs or cats will wreck their place. But if there is a forum to educate the public or have some form of identification that their animal is there to assist them in their life, then it should make it easier. Also, we need to make sure that these people have a house to live in and also that their animals are safe within the confines of that house. So most of this—I come back to: we need to educate New Zealanders. We need to educate all New Zealanders because, as we all know, there are many different cultures, and so within those many cultures sometimes they don’t have the assist dogs that we have here in New Zealand and other parts of the world.

Now, the thing is, as we said, this bill is only just a start. There is definitely more to be done with this bill. I look forward, as the ACT spokesperson for disabilities, to seeing what will be coming through to help our people with disabilities and to make their life a lot more easier than what it is sometimes today. For the ACT Party, I would like to commend this bill to the House and I look forward to seeing what the future brings within this space. Thank you.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. I rise to support this bill but I would like to break slightly with tradition in my opening remarks, because today is a special day not only for the disability community of New Zealand and for our colleague across the House—Mr Menéndez March—but it’s also the birthday of a young man called Eli Buck in Whangārei. Eli is turning 12 today. Eli is turning 12 today under quite trying circumstances. For the second year running, he is locked in his house because of COVID. His mum has contacted me to say last year she had enough warning that she was able to organise a drive-by of his friends so that they could wave to him on his birthday. This year, things have come very fast; she has been unable to do that.

So I would like to offer this somewhat unusual birthday gift to Eli of Whangārei, because I first met Eli last Saturday, when he came to the Multicultural Whangārei forum. So this is a young man with a real interest in politics, and I thought that given that Ricardo Menéndez March is, in a sense—having come from Mexico—a member of our multi-ethnic and diverse New Zealand, the fact that Mr Menéndez March has brought this member’s bill—and here it is, being debated in New Zealand Parliament—might be of particular interest to Eli. I also know, from his mum, that Eli is a real fan of dogs. So I am hoping that this little foray into politics—if you’re watching, Eli, this one’s for you.

This is about the expansion of the right to use dogs for assistance for people with disabilities. So, with that, I would like the opportunity just to explain to our watchers at home—in particular, to Mr Eli Buck, turning 12 today in Whangārei, under trying circumstances, without the party that he was hoping for, I would like to explain to him what this bill is.

Under the Human Rights Act, as we have it now, discriminating against people on the basis of having a disability is, of course, illegal. One of the ways the Human Rights Act defines “disability”—speaking now to Eli, of course—one of the ways that that is defined is by needing a guide dog. Now, that’s great but the problem is: our assistance that we can get from dogs goes far, far beyond a guide dog for the blind.

Dogs—as Eli knows, as I know, and as many people in this House know—are extraordinary in what they can do when they are as highly trained as they can be. And so we have a range of disability dogs now available to the disability community; they include dogs that can assist people with mobility issues to pick things up or to help them navigate difficult environments. We have dogs who can help people who are hearing impaired to notice when things are happening—like phones or fire alarms or people knocking on the door. We have dogs that can anticipate some forms of medical emergencies, like a heart attack or epilepsy attack, and if they happen they can then give assistance to the person. That is absolutely crucial to enabling disabled people to live their best lives, just as the rest of us have the chance to.

But the community often doesn’t recognise the legitimacy of an assistance dog as opposed to the normal guide dog we’re used to for the blind person. So what Mr Menéndez March has done is he has brought this member’s bill to expand the definition of a “disability dog”, beyond the “guide dog”, into the “disability assistance dog”. Now, we’re lucky in this in that the Dog Control Act already defines a “disability assistance dog”—so we can just borrow the definition from that. Now—speaking for Eli—this is something we like doing in the law because it gives us a consistency. We don’t need to try and reinvent the wheel here; there’s already a definition of “disability assistance dog” we can use. That enables us to make sure that this Act is going to go into law smoothly and it’s not going to create unintended consequences.

Now, had Eli been listening a little while earlier, he would have heard our colleague across the House—Ms Kuriger—who made the comment that—

Angela Roberts: Penny Simmonds.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON: I am sorry—Penny Simmonds. You see, she didn’t show at our meetings very often, so I’m afraid I had difficulty recognising her. That is the problem. You see—speaking to Eli—Ms Simmonds wanted to bring a change to the Act; she wanted to put a little amendment in which would allow a broader range of training organisations to train the assistance dogs. In fact, one of the problems with that is she kind of didn’t define it and we have to keep these dogs pretty well trained—we need to make sure the organisations are good ones. So that was problem number one. But the basic problem is she didn’t participate in the normal democratic process by which we test whether changes to a proposed bill are good changes. We first found out about Ms Simmonds’ proposal to change this bill in the committee stage, which is a very, very, very, very late stage to be proposing quite major changes—at a point where you just can’t test them.

So, Eli, it’s part of the process, and it’s something that my colleague Mr Glen Bennett was referring to a little earlier. It’s part of the process that we really do put bills through a lot of scrutiny; we take this seriously. And we want to hear from the community; we want to give the community every opportunity to comment, because it is the community who understand where the fish-hooks and difficulties and unanticipated problems that are going to come out of bills really exist. And that’s why we want all the proposed changes to be out on the Table in time for them to be discussed by the community in the process of submissions, which is the select committee process. I hope that, one day, Eli will put in some submissions to give his lived experience.

As I said earlier, this bill is one which aligns with the Labour Party policy of enabling disabled people to live good lives. And that is clear in the fact that we are starting up a ministry for disability to coordinate this important work. It’s also clear in the significant appropriations of money that we put toward providing the support for disabled people in the last Budget. There’s one particular appropriation that I want to touch on because that was the appropriation to enable disabled candidates to stand for local and central government elections and to support them to do so. From now on, that will be with a disability assistance dog who will be able to go into any forum in this country, thank heavens—a great bill.

As someone who has, recently, mostly recovered from a temporary disability, with a broken leg, I do want to say how difficult this environment in Parliament is to negotiate. I hate to think how difficult it would be if you were permanently impaired. I, for that reason, want to read out the names of the only eight people—eight people in the history of this Parliament since 1854—who have come to this House with disabilities. Clutha Mackenzie, John A. Lee, William Downie Stewart—all veterans of the First World War, who were maimed in it. Then we have the Second World War vets: Geoffrey Sim, Leon Götz, Norman Jones. And then the more recent ones: Margaret Wilson and the mother of this bill, as acknowledged by our colleague across the aisle, Mojo Mathers.

How good will it be when this parliamentary community is fully representative of our full community, including the one in four Kiwis who are disabled? Not only will we have—and I hope it will be on this side of the House to lead it—the biggest rainbow caucus, the most women, the most diverse community here, but we will also have people who can bring their lived experience of disability to this House. And I hope when they do it, we will see and continue to make the accommodations that this House will need to make, be it a few more self-opening doors—because those things are impossible if you are mobility impaired—better seating, perhaps; and the ongoing changes and accommodations that we in the Social Services and Community Committee made sure we had for the benefit of our submitters. I commend this excellent bill to the House.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): I’m pleased to rise and speak in support of the third reading of the Human Rights (Disability Assist Dogs Non-Discrimination) Amendment Bill. I’m sad to say that the speaker who’s just resumed her seat, Dr Emily Henderson, has missed one of the fundamental parts of this piece of legislation, which is that many disabilities are invisible to the eye. There will be people in this House who have disabilities but they are not a public disability, a visible disability that you can see each and every day. It does not mean that their life is any less difficult and that they have any less barriers than others. Actually, this bill is about the invisible barriers, and that’s why this bill moves away from just guide dogs, where people who are visually impaired have guide dogs, to a range of other disabilities. So it is really unfortunate that the member who spoke before me missed the fundamental part of why this bill is so important.

I want to acknowledge the work that my colleague Penny Simmonds has done in shepherding this bill through the Parliament from the National Party’s perspective in her efforts to make sure that we are—and it’s a great bill. We’re supporting it. As always though, the committee of the whole House stage is the opportunity to seek further improvement, and I commend my colleague for doing so. As a new MP, sometimes that process can be challenging. But I want to pay tribute to Mojo Mathers, who was the first sponsor of this bill, and I commend Ricardo Menéndez March for shepherding it through its final stages. It is a significant achievement in this House to have a piece of legislation that is in your name go through all stages, and one that is well supported by the House. So I want to congratulate the member for that.

I want to just bring to life some of the challenges and why this bill was so necessary. I have a constituent whom I’ve had a number of dealings with, who has a hearing impairment, and so he has an assistance dog. He has had run-ins in the community on multiple occasions and it’s been incredibly traumatic for him and his family, because he’s not visually impaired and it’s not a guide dog that he requires; he has a hearing assist dog. I want to quote one of the articles that was put in our local paper because of people directly discriminating against him and refusing him entry to local businesses and local organisations and saying he could enter but his dog couldn’t, and they lacked any understanding of how important it was for him to have a hearing assist dog.

So I want to shout out to Roger Drower and his dog Harper. I was with him and his family recently at the Anzac service in Tokoroa, and these are his words about why it is important, “Everyone knows about guide dogs. They’ve been around forever. But hearing dogs work with people with an invisible disability. You don’t necessarily see hearing aids so people can come across as a little bit rude, but often it’s just because they haven’t heard you.” Drower said that if people have questions, all they need to do is ask. He is just one of many examples; he is trying to go about his life and enter a local cafe with his family. I think it’s fair to say now that more in the community have got to know him, and his advocacy in education about assist dogs other than guide dogs has been important. So I was really pleased when this member’s bill came before our select committee, because as we were working through it and listening to the submissions, I could hear his voice and I could hear the complaints and the struggles that he had had getting through his everyday life.

The range of disabilities that dogs can provide assistance with is so much more varied, and I’m the parent of a child with type 1 diabetes, which is, of course, classified as a disability, but it’s not one that you can physically see. There are dogs that can detect significant changes in blood glucose levels, and I remember as a parent the number of sleepless nights worried about whether or not my child would go low in the middle of the night and I wouldn’t know. The fact that we’re able to have dogs that are able to detect significant changes like this is important. As we have an increase in the number of people who have mental health challenges, dogs are often used as companions to provide companionship and support in a way that’s very definitely not visible.

The other example that I would like to bring to this House is an example of assistance dogs that I have been fortunate to see while they’re being trained. It was actually in one of our correctional facilities, one of our prisons, in New Zealand, and the prisoners, as part of their work training, were training dogs to provide assistance to people in the community. They were simple things like undoing locks, unlatching cupboard doors, being able to—not undo shoe laces—do very small tasks for a person who has a disability in their hands or low motor skills. So while we have had people in prison, they’ve been providing an important service by training some of these disability assist dogs.

I think it is really important to put on the record the very practical examples of why this bill will make an enormous difference in the lives of many New Zealanders who have, perhaps, what we would classify as invisible disabilities, and the fact that the dogs’ owners have rights that cannot be discriminated against as their rights are protected in law. And this is exactly what this bill does. It extends the name so it’s not just about guide dogs. It’s very much about moving with the times but in a very practical, sensible way. As we know, these disability assist dogs provide an invaluable service to many New Zealanders, and it enhances their ability to live life fully. I am pleased that one of the things the speaker before me did mention was enabling good lives, which is absolutely something that the previous National Government started, to ensure that many New Zealanders living with disabilities are able to be more in charge of their lives, and the assistance and the support they need comes, for many, in the form of a disability dog.

I do want to thank the members of the Social Services and Communities Committee who were involved in this. Although it looked like a straightforward piece of legislation, there’s always a few areas where we’re perhaps not fully in agreement on, which is why it’s appropriate to bring a Supplementary Order Paper in the committee stage of the bill, which, as I said, my colleague Penny Simmonds did very ably. This protection against discrimination is important. It is a necessary protection to ensure that people with disabilities can go about their lives and to ensure that they are not restricted in their movement either in housing or in public transport. It’s about accessing services in their communities and recreational activities, so they are able to go about their normal lives. And if I think about Roger, one of the things it means for him—and people like him—is the ability not to rely so significantly on his wife and children, because Harper provides him with that ability to have greater independence.

This is another piece of legislation that is supported across the Parliament. I have to say, as we approach Mother’s Day, that I do hope we have the spirit of collegiality and support across the Parliament for my three-day post-natal stay bill, which I now have support for from every party other than Labour. So come on, Labour, pay attention; we’re all working well together in this House, and if there was ever a time to support mums and babies it’s now as we approach Mother’s Day.

ANAHILA KANONGATA‘A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Kia ora, te Mana Whakawā. It’s always a privilege to stand here and contribute in the House, and today is a day for celebrations. Today is the third reading of the Human Rights (Disability Assist Dogs Non-Discrimination) Amendment Bill in the name of Ricardo Menéndez March. I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the member. There are some people who come into this House and not have a member’s bill go into law. So I want to acknowledge the member for bringing this matter to the House—shepherding it through the House. And also, acknowledge his humility in terms of acknowledging the former member Mojo Mathers who first submitted this bill in December 2015. If we count seven years from then, I think, in dog years—if I get my maths right—it’s about half a century that it’s taken for the unfortunate experiences of Murray Whittington to come to the House, and today indeed is the day to celebrate, along with every other celebration that everyone spoke about. I would also like to acknowledge the chair, Angie Warren-Clark, and the members of the Social Services and Community Committee. It’s a very collegial committee, and I want to acknowledge the speaker that has just finished, the Hon Louise Upston—she also showed leadership in terms of shepherding this through the House.

So I want to thank all 75 submitters who submitted to this very important piece of work, and also the 20-odd people and organisations that we physically heard them voice their submissions. Organisations such as the Royal New Zealand Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Inc. (SPCA), Parents of Vision Impaired (New Zealand) Inc., Animal Evac New Zealand, Blind Low Vision New Zealand, and many other submitters in those 75 submitters that had clearly identified that this was an area that we needed to look at. I want to take this opportunity, too, to thank the officials who advised us, and the parliamentary team who advised us. Because all of us who are in the Social Services and Community Committee did not have any visible—except for one member who had temporary—disabilities. So as much as we can talk about things, as much as we can talk about it and listen to people, the voices of those experienced in this area is important, and it’s vital that we speak about it.

So I stand in support of this bill. So the Labour Party support this bill because it is important. So the bill amends—as we heard from members—the Human Rights Act of 1993 to enhance protections from discrimination for people who rely on disability assist dogs. Currently, section 21of the Human Rights Act only makes references to “guide dogs” in the definition of “disability”. So in the submission of the SPCA—and I think it’s best that I quote word-for-word in one of the paragraphs, because it actually describes why this is needed: “The current wording of the Act means disabled people may experience unfair treatment because of the support they receive from a disability assist dog, unless that disability assist dog is a guide dog. For society to be fully inclusive and value disabled people as equal participants, it is imperative that the changes proposed in the Human Rights (Disability Assist Dogs Non-Discrimination) Amendment Bill are accepted. This will ensure protection for those with hearing, physical and medical impairments (in addition to those with visual impairments) who rely on the support of a disability assist dog.” I really needed to say that because we want to hear the voices of people who experience working with disability day in and day out.

I also want to take this opportunity to acknowledge those who are in the area of looking after and caring for our disability assist dogs. In the committee of the whole House, I had asked the member many times to name those eight people who train the disability assist dogs in the bill, and we’ve heard members name the eight groups today, but I think it’s important to make mention of the groups, because it is really important that we acknowledge what they do, and that none of us in this House can read and talk about it, but we don’t know what it’s like to live in there. So I just want to acknowledge the disability assist dog organisations. There are eight organisations outlined by the Schedule as being able to certify dogs: Assistance Dogs New Zealand Trust, Hearing Dogs for Deaf People New Zealand, K9 Medical Detection New Zealand, mobility assist dogs trust, New Zealand Epilepsy Assist Dog Trust, Perfect Partners Assistance Dogs Trust, and the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind.

I want to go back to the contribution by the member Penny Simmonds, of her Supplementary Order Paper (SOP). I want to make a record on this stage, I’ve had, often, people—I mean, I’m from the women’s sector, I’m from the Pacific sector, often we cry out “Nothing about us without us.” The SOP that was submitted by the member was on the day of the committee of the whole House, so we weren’t sure whether these groups were consulted, because the SOP suggested that we include other groups in terms of certifying these disability assist dogs. So I want to acknowledge the effort that the member had gone through, but I also want to acknowledge that we diligently debated that in the committee of the whole House. So I just wanted to put it on record that we did consider it, and that we did diligently provide an opportunity for those debates to happen. And I want to acknowledge the member Maureen Pugh; she really did a good job on that at the last sitting of the committee of the whole House.

So I’ll go back again just to remind us what the bill does. In terms of what the bill does, the bill amends section 21, “Prohibited grounds of discrimination”, of the Human Rights Act by replacing the words “guide dog” with “disability assist dog”. And, of course—and I’ve said this before—it broadens the category of dogs captured under this section.

As I come to the end of my speech, I want to again go back to acknowledge those who are in the field of training the dogs. I know that I don’t have the patience to do that, and I want to—as a person with not very much patience—acknowledge those who day in and day out train our disability assist dogs. And in the disability community, the Government is doing a lot of work in terms of disability issues. There is always more to do, but today I want to acknowledge our disability community. Today is a celebration, it’s the day to celebrate that this important change of words in the Act will actually make meaningful changes for our disability community.

I know that the gallery is filling up, and I want to take this opportunity—as a member based in Papakura, as a member who has had a bill passed into law—because of the help of the Hon Simon Bridges, who, when I came to him to discuss the bill in terms of judgment debt with people with disabilities, without his support that member’s bill would not have gone through the many stages of Parliament. Because at the time, it was a coalition Government, and a certain party—the other party in black—wasn’t supportive. So I just want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the Hon Simon Bridges for respecting me as a new member in the last term, coming to him to talk about judgment debtors for disability. So I just want to wish him luck in his next adventure.

But I want to come back here to congratulate the member Ricardo Menéndez March. I want to say congratulations that in your first term you have shepherded this bill. It has been seven years in the making, you’ve shepherded this bill, and I want to acknowledge everyone who has partaken and provided their voice into this exceptional piece of work to say congratulations. I commend this bill to the House.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I say thank goodness for Simon Bridges. I’ve never spoken in this House to more than two people—my mother and my wife came to my maiden speech!—so, consequently, I’m very nervous.

It’s my first opportunity to speak on this bill since its first reading, and it was actually a bill that I had quite a lot to do with in its initial stages, and certainly at the time that Mojo Mathers designed it and brought it to the House. I think it’s a special effort by her, actually, to get a bill into the House and for Ricardo Menéndez to carry it on. I guess that’s what happens in this place, because quite often we see members’ bills designed and put into the House by a member and later—some of them, two or three members later—they go through the system and come out the other end. So I think this is a very good piece of legislation.

There’s some issues I want to raise when I go through my short contribution to it, but the three main issues addressed by this bill are pretty simple. First of all it replaces “guide dog” with a “disability assist dog”, and that’s a critical part of it, because a guide dog, initially, I guess, was designed for specific purposes, but a disability assist dog can almost mean anything to anyone. And I think that’s the intention of the bill. And I’ll get on to why that is the case in a minute. So currently, dogs—as has been well addressed by the earlier discussions—often are not permitted in streets, not permitted in buildings, not permitted in all sorts of parts of our society. This bill enables that to change for a dog who’s certified as a disability assist dog, and that’s really important.

And the third issue I wanted to get on to, and one that I think’s been misrepresented by some of the Government speakers, to some extent, was, in fact, the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that was introduced to this bill by Penny Simmonds. And I need to refer to this because I think it’s going to have a long-term ramification for the bill. In the course of this bill, they’ve stated the names of the organisations able to train dogs, which I think’s a mistake in itself, because the moment you do that you’ve narrowed the scope of the bill and narrowed the ability of people to otherwise participate in that activity without this House putting the bill back through its process, and that’s no way, in my view, to pass a piece of legislation. The SOP that was introduced by Penny Simmonds and Maureen Pugh would have dealt with that, because it would have enabled those organisations to expand the range of people able to train a dog.

And if you think about those of us in rural New Zealand, most of us have trained many, many dogs, and training a disability assist dog, frankly, is very little different to training a sheep dog or any other sort of a dog. And so I think that it’s not necessarily something you need a specialist to do. So, often, we see, in the disability sector, disabled people themselves training their own dogs to do this sort of thing. And this SOP of Penny’s would have enabled all that sort of thing to happen with ease, and I think that’s the great shame of not enabling that to go through, and I’m sure that will cause some challenges in the future.

And so I think that the intention of that SOP—and whilst it might not have gone through the process, and I accept the fact that it didn’t go through the select committee process, it was well discussed in the industry and it was well discussed by a number of submissions to the bill as well. So that issue was well addressed in the course of the submission process, and a number of organisations throughout New Zealand were very cognisant of the need to expand that range of people who could train those dogs. So I think that SOP had the best intentions, and I think it is a shame it’s not included in the bill, and I’m sure it will mark us again in the future.

Simeon Brown: Keep going.

IAN McKELVIE: Thank you, Simon—Ha, ha! Simeon. I really think that this bill is worthwhile. It’s a worthy member’s bill, and it will achieve exactly what it set out to achieve within the framework that’s been put in place, but it won’t expand itself as it might have otherwise done.

So I think it’s a pretty good bill. I want to commend it to the House. I also want to congratulate again Mojo Mathers for the work she did on it and the work the Social Services and Communities Committee did on it as well, because they certainly did some good work on that.

And with that, I’ve probably extended my time this afternoon, but I do want to just pay tribute to our former leader who’s going to speak shortly in the House. And I think it’s a pretty special occasion for Parliament and for us in the National Party. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I call Kieran McAnulty—five minutes.

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour—Wairarapa): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I’m very pleased to stand in support of this bill, the Human Rights (Disability Assist Dogs Non-Discrimination) Amendment Bill. What this bill shows, I think, is the importance of members’ day, because so often on members’ day you get a bill, you sit down and you read it, you prepare to speak on it, and you think, as you’re looking through it, “How on earth was this not already law?” This one just makes sense. Not all members’ bills make sense. Some are shockers. But some, like this, are fantastic, and exactly what needs to be done.

Now, if you look at the guts of it here, what it does is change a definition. But it demonstrates the importance of words and what they mean, and the impact that a change can have on people’s lives. By adjusting a simple definition, replacing the words “guide dog” with “disability assist dog”, it’s going to make a significant difference for a large number of people.

When you think of the exact nature of the support that this change in definition will make, it’s diverse, and it depends on the dog and its owner’s needs. It’s exactly what should be recognised in law, because a change like this actually changes people’s awareness. It changes their understanding, broadens our minds a wee bit. So, often, unless we experience it ourselves or unless we know someone closely that is experiencing a hardship, it’s only natural—unless a particular exposure is made—that we may not have a very good understanding. So to make a change like this, it actually alerts us that people that have hearing difficulties can get assistance through dogs, people with severe epilepsy can get assistance through dogs. Assistance to retrieve objects for people in wheelchairs, for example; help a handler with limited mobility; interrupt undesirable behaviour like self-harm—that one there really stood out to me, because the power in the connection of humans to animals is incredibly strong.

I’ve just recently become the owner of a dog. We rescued a former greyhound—well, it’s still a greyhound, obviously, but a former racing greyhound. Now, racing’s very dear to my heart, but it’s fair to say that racing greyhounds don’t have a very good life if they’re not very good at racing, and my dog Zoi was not. It didn’t even pass trials. It wasn’t even fast enough to race. But, unfortunately, in that industry, those dogs are under the most threat, because they’re no good to their trainers. Anyway, I’m getting off the point.

The point is that my partner and I have recently got this dog, and because of recent changes we’re allowed to bring the dog to Parliament. Now, I’ve never been more popular in my life, as people come to my office to pat the dog, to walk the dog, to feed the dog, etc., etc. The point being that I can see the joy that dogs give people in their day-to-day lives. Extending the definition in this bill to allow those that are at serious risk of self-harm to get the joy and companionship of a dog I think is critically important. Also, those with epilepsy and cerebral palsy—the impact that a dog can make on people’s lives is significant. So to be able to register that in legislation today, by passing that—it’s actually hard to comprehend the number of people that will benefit from this change, a simple, definitional change.

I commend the member who put this forward in the first place, Mojo Mathers, and Ricardo Menéndez March for carrying it through. It is, indeed, a significant achievement for a member to get a member’s bill drawn and passed through all stages. I’m sure the member didn’t think that he would get this sort of crowd to witness this bill being debated today.

But now that we’ve got just a little bit of time left, I’d like to take the opportunity, since it’s here, to acknowledge the contribution of Simon Bridges to this place and wish him and his family all the very best in his next chapter.

TERISA NGOBI (Labour—Ōtaki): Thank you, Madam Speaker. As always, it’s a privilege and an honour to speak in this place of change, but certainly not only as the member for the Ōtaki electorate but as a member of the Social Services and Communities Committee where this bill was debated really well, as we’ve heard from others.

But first, before I speak to the bill, if I can also just congratulate again the member, Ricardo Menéndez March for picking up this kaupapa from Mojo Mathers and championing it through not just select committee but actually through the Whare as well. So ka pai, you, e hoa.

I’d also like to thank, of course, the officials that helped us through. I think our chair, Angie Warren-Clark, talked about Justice being very patient with us, which was great, and also I’d like to thank the submitters, one of which is here today in the gallery. So I’d like to acknowledge you, Joe Boon, for your submission but also—knowing Joe or his whānau from Levin, from the beautiful Ōtaki electorate—I’d also just like to say kia ora e hoa, and thank you for your submission, but also for your tautoko for this bill and for people with disabilities and the disability assist dogs, so kia ora to you as well.

So to speak to the bill, the chairman writes “Human Rights (Disability Dogs Non-Discrimination) Amendment Bill”—big mouthful, but, actually, it’s a simple change that’s going to make a massive change to our disability whānau. This bill is bigger than just that name change; it’s about accessibility. It’s about making sure that every New Zealander gets to live their best lives with independence and being able to access where they need to go and the tools or, in this case, the dogs that they need to be able to do that with.

Currently, under the Dog Control Act 1996 in section 75—as someone has mentioned—and also the Human Rights Act 1993 section 21, you can bring your assist dog into any place, including buses, trains, other public transport, places owned by private businesses, supermarkets, restaurants and other food outlets, shopping malls, cinemas, hotels, motels, and the like. This right is specifically protected by the Dog Control Act. But it’s also protected by the anti-discrimination laws in the Human Rights Act. Under the Human Rights Act, if you are treated differently or discriminated against because you have an assist dog, this is discrimination on the grounds of disability.

While dogs covered in these Acts need to be certified as disability assist dogs by an approved organisation—and we’ve heard some of those earlier, like the Blind Foundation, Assistance Dogs New Zealand Trust, or Hearing Dogs NZ—the terminology that is currently in the Human Rights Act needs to be amended or changed to say “disability assist dogs”, so that it covers the range of disabilities or tasks that disability assist dogs undertake. It’s not just about people with low vision or people who are blind, or people who are hearing impaired or people who are Deaf, it’s much more than that. Our disability dogs work with a whole range of physical disabilities as well as some people who experience mental health as well.

Just to talk about that, we know that for a majority of us, dogs are our pets, or family—some of us treat them as family members or our fur babies—but for people with physical disabilities and who experience mental health, these are their lifeline, and they’re not pets. These are working dogs that help to make sure that they’re safe and that they can live independent lives and that they can carry on doing what they need to do with the safety of a tool like the disability assist dog. This also includes people with epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, PTSD. Some dogs are trained to help open doors, pick up objects, pull wheelchairs, and alert to sounds. So many, many various—

Hon Member: Tell us more.

TERISA NGOBI: I know everyone wants to hear about beautiful fur babies that can do massive work as well.

Look, under the Human Rights Act 1993 and the Dog Control Act 1996, a dog who has been granted with special rights is legally entitled to public access, and this means that they can go to places that humans can go to. That is what we’re making sure of, with this change, that they can continue to do that, but it’s quite clear around the range, rather than limiting it to guide dogs or hearing dogs. We’ve heard already there’s eight organisations, so I’m not going to read those out again.

Chris Bishop: Come on—yeah, yeah, yeah, come on!

TERISA NGOBI: Are you sure you want to hear it? Really? OK, let me just do it. Let me just tell you again, I’ll let you know. So, number one, we have Assistance Dogs New Zealand Trust. Number two: Blind Low Vision NZ. Number three is K9 Medical Detection New Zealand. Number four is Hearing Dogs NZ, and then number five, we have NZ Epilepsy Assist Dog Trust. Number six is Mobility Dogs, number seven is the Perfect Partners Assistance Dogs Trust, and number eight is K9 SEARCH Detection. But, you know, I’m not just going to read those names out, because I see I’ve still got a couple of minutes before we hear from the Hon Simon Bridges, so I’m going to tell you what some of those places do. Are you ready? I won’t go through all eight—I’ll only do a few of them.

One of them is the guide dogs, from Blind Low Vision NZ. They act as the eyes, the mata, for the handlers who are visually impaired, helping with tasks such as avoiding obstacles, and crossing the road. Great work, they do great work. The hearing dogs, which are from Hearing Dogs NZ, not surprisingly, and they act as the ears, that taringa, for handlers who are Deaf or hard of hearing. They alert their handlers to sounds such as smoke detectors, doorbells, and alarms.

I’m looking at the time, Mr Speaker, and I’m thinking that’s already—

Hon Member: Hooray!

TERISA NGOBI: I know you don’t want me to stop, but I want to make sure other people can have a chat as well. So, look, this is about another example of this Government supporting people in New Zealand—all people in New Zealand—to access, and that shows in our Government standing up a ministry of disabilities. Thank you to our Minister, Carmel Sepuloni. So, more than happy to be able to support this kaupapa. Great work, Ricardo Menéndez March. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

Debate interrupted.

Speaker’s Statements

Gallery—Wearing Masks

SPEAKER: I’d just like to indicate that there are quite a few people in the gallery who are not wearing masks. It’s a requirement of being here that people wear masks. If staff can source some masks for people—I can see now just about everyone’s got one, but they do have to wear them. And they don’t wear them on their knees.

Hon Member: Unless they have an exemption.

SPEAKER: Well, generally the people make application for exemptions here, and no one has—all right? Thank you.

Valedictory Statements

Valedictory Statements

SPEAKER: In accordance with a determination of the Business Committee, I call on the learned member the Hon Simon Bridges to make his valedictory statement.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s been a privilege to be an MP representing the people of Tauranga for several terms, to have been a committee chair, a senior Minister, a senior spokesperson, leader of the National Party, and an Opposition leader. There have been highs and lows, and even the lows have provided good material I wouldn’t want to be without. Look out for National Identity 2 a couple of months before the next election in all quality bookstores near you! I’ve enjoyed helping people with complex problems from surrogacy issues to acute health conditions, to injustices over housing, ACC, and much more. I still feel humbled when I meet the parents and their children, or people who have won against the odds in getting the treatment that they deserve, say, for that rare disease, because of my team and I.

I’ve enjoyed meeting with local businesses, churches, community outreaches and clubs. I remember running late for a meeting at the Men’s Shed, on 17th Avenue, Tauranga, a while back. I raced in and asked all of the older men who were there to come together from building wooden toys, desks, bookshelves, and bird boxes for others. They did so, and then got out their packed lunches, and I ate some of what they had brought, while I also gave a little speech about Tauranga and the value of community. They were polite, but it was all a little odd. Then my phone went and Maree wanted to know why I wasn’t at the opening of the Tauranga men’s shelter, not the Men’s Shed. You live and learn in this job. I’ve also enjoyed being involved in doing real stuff: building dams, geothermal plants, roads, train stations, ultra-fast broadband, electric charging networks, and much more. Leadership on all these things mattered, but the workers and designers are of much greater value than the ribbon cutter, at the start and end of it all.

I’ve enjoyed the people and the drama. Those who’ve been grateful or even those who’ve been hateful—at least they felt something about me and politics. It’s not all about me! The times of tension, from revealing Grant’s “leaked Budget” to “train wreck” media interviews—whether with John Campbell or Susie Ferguson or others—where the commentariat have confidently pronounced my career over many a time—many a time. Well, now it is, on my—actually, probably Natalie’s, Emlyn’s, Harry’s, and Jemima’s terms. This won’t be the longest valedictory; the really good stuff, as I say, is for the next book.

I do, though, want to offer some incredibly gratuitous advice. Fourteen points for the 14 years I have spent in this place—a series of “and another”, things I feel at some level I have, in qualified terms, the right to proffer. First, to new MPs: don’t breathe through your nose, or whatever it is that Holyoake is reported to have said. I reckon the motto of the bad guy in the Highlander movie is much better, when he said, “Excuse me, I’ve got something to say: it’s better to burn out than to fade away.” And that’s partly, maybe, why I’m going when I am.

Second, and, again, to new MPs: don’t let anything ruin your sleep. It’s the most important thing, and nothing is worth it. The worst that you worry about happening rarely does happen and when it does, occasionally, who cares anyway? You’ll be fine. Many believe conspiracy theories and not what really happened these days. We can’t remotely control any of that, so they’ll probably think it’s all some elaborate hoax and not true anyway. And perspective is really important. As Natalie likes to tell me—and she wanted to take this out of the speech, by the way, but I haven’t—“Get a grip, get over yourself. Your country is smaller than Sydney, and no one knows where it is. Look at all the crazy shit Boris has gotten away with, and he’s still PM.” Like I say, “who cares?” You’ll be fine, anyway.

Third, to more senior MPs, I make this plea: please, please, let’s not be quite so poll- and focus group - driven. They will make you nice, and beige, and timid—in short, wishy- washy. And as small as our remote little islands are, its 5 million people, 26 million sheep, 10 million cows, and 100 million or so native birds deserve better. You were elected for your values, principles, character, and judgments, and to be bold in pursuit of them. If the people wanted a robot, these days they could probably buy one on the internet. As I think John Howard once told me “Good policy is almost always good politics in the end.” And as maybe David Farrar or some other pollster once told me, “Polls and focus groups don’t, or at least shouldn’t, tell you what to do. They should only ever be an aid, helping you to decide how to get to where you think is right.” Let’s, more often, do what we think is right and lead the polls and the people to where they should go for New Zealand, not follow them to a place where the breadth of opinions—those we vocalise, anyway, in this House and the press gallery—become narrower and narrower, and beiger and beiger. Nice “Beige-land” rather than New Zealand: please, no way!

Fourth, and relatedly, let’s have less small-target, short-term political tactics and more large long-term strategies, please. Big, bold battles of ideas won’t actually hurt us. And the alternative, as we are seeing in Australia right now, is contests fought on personality and “competence” that I think is truly depressing. If that’s all this place is about, what’s the point? Play your politics in Opposition timid, and you’ll necessarily govern timid, as well. I say again “Be bold”.

One more related point—fifth—independent thought and differences of opinion are actually good. I’ve sometimes thought there are two perfect political jobs in this world: that of a backbench MP in the United Kingdom. There are hundreds of them, mostly with absolutely no chance of ever being a Minister let alone the PM. And do you know what they do? They speak their minds freely and cast their vote freely. They aren’t nice and beige and timid. The other is the United States senate where, again, somehow, the whip is more relaxed. So they don’t just believe in free speech, they even practise and vote on it.

Sixth: this point about independent thinking, by the way, also applies to the press. I love you all, and Claire Trevett you’re my favourite, although your story this last weekend certainly tested that favouritism. But I do despair how narrow the viewpoints are here, as opposed to in the UK, the United States, and even Australia. More viewpoints are tolerated, actually encouraged, in their deeper media environments. Our press gallery can hunt as a pack—OK, then there’s Barry—but, basically, as a pack. And I say to you, if every one of you has the same basic position on a complex matter, you are probably all engaged in group thinking, quite probably wrong. Go spend some time in the provinces or one of our bigger cities that’s not this one to recalibrate, and get a fresh view.

Seven—while three people still like me in this room! While I’m on my friends in the press gallery, your most important job is to hold the powerful to account, and let me give you a clue: it’s the Government that has the power. Yes, the National Party has been relatively newsworthy in recent times, and you do tend to get better at holding to account the longer parties are in Government. But if the Government of the time is giving you your best talking points every single day you come to this place, maybe you’ve got the balance wrong. And, by the way, if they are good enough, they’ll more than withstand the pressure. If they are not, they will fall, over time, by the wayside. Just something to think about on your wander home this evening, he says with passive-aggressive tone.

Experts don’t know everything. When it comes to matters we must decide in Government and politics. Yes, in many, maybe even most, fields, experts can offer valuable, sometimes crucial, assistance, but it is entirely wrong, in my view, to think there is a podium of truth—some voices whose words are the definitive answer. We did away with that religious certainty centuries ago. I think they called it The Enlightenment. Politicians’ and journalists’ job, I might add, isn’t to slavishly follow experts. That’s an abdication of our responsibility as elected officials, elected to weigh and—as I have said—bring our values and principles to bear on the issues at play. Nothing in politics and Government comes down to “the science says this”; there are always wider social, economic, and normative implications as well, which we have a duty to have an opinion and a side on.

Nine, to MPs on select committees: spend less time arguing where the comma goes in a report no one will read, please, and more time debating from your principles and values for your electorates and communities.

Tenth, while on Parliament, both in terms of this House and its committees: I’ve already been a bit mean about the wishy-washiness, the beigeness, descending on politics. It’s right to say it hasn’t always been so, either in terms of the substance of debate or the characterfulness of how it was put across. When I first arrived, there were still Clarks and Cullens and Hydes and Peters as well as a host of others—including you, Mr Speaker—prepared to get up and go at it. I didn’t always agree with what was said. Sometimes MPs went too far. But they were bold and without fear or favour. They’d send shivers down your spine. Today, I fear they might be cancelled.

The reasons for our ever-growing tepidness are many: from MMP to the mainstream and social media environments. But some of your efforts, Mr Speaker, to turn this place into more of a school library than a debating chamber—respectfully—haven’t helped. My view is that over centuries, Parliaments that are in the same tradition as ours—among the roles they’ve fulfilled, such as the development of policy and laws—have also played some very primal ones that are still important, such as saying what needs to be said, or maybe what doesn’t. That lets off society’s steam like a pressure valve, at a difficult or delicate time. The jaw-jaw sometimes—even if it’s a bit hee-haw hee-haw in here—is better than war-war out there. And we’ve, sadly, seen little of that very recently. I suppose my point is that we over-sanitise this place at our and, more importantly, society’s peril.

Eleven: I’ve come to realise, I admit too late, that parliamentary reform to strengthen it against the executive is important. I say “too late” because the tragedy is that while in Government most—including me—don’t reform this place, because it suits our interests at the time. That was true for the last National Government and, respectfully, probably is for this Labour one too. I, in truth, don’t know exactly what the reforms should look like, but, when select committees are, in essence, majority rubber-stamps for Government, where everything anyone outside the Government of the day says is voted down, it’s a bit hard to say they aren’t more executive- than Parliament-led—likewise, regarding the role of the Speaker, which is so important to the tone and function of this place. I don’t see it as a panacea, but a secret ballot for Speaker—as happens in most similar Parliaments today—could help wrest things away from the Government of the day.

Twelfth, in regard to the National Party that I will have been a member of for 30 years this year: caucus colleagues—senior ones—would be wise to remember this one very important thing. As a party that believes it represents our entire nation, as is often said, National is and must be a very broad church of urban, provincial, and rural and of liberal, centrist, and conservative. We must be scrupulous to allow all these views through without too much control, let alone censorship, and seek to keep the balance, the peace, among all those values and interests without letting one dominate the other. Despite what is sometimes said, I took great pains to ensure this while I was leader, and future leaders must continue to do so also. Give primacy to too narrow a spectrum through a belief that the prevailing views in central Wellington and Auckland make up New Zealand, and National will, over time, cease to be the strongest, most representative political movement we have.

Thirteen: they say politics is Hollywood for ugly people. It’s true, politics has, at some level, an attention-getting personality factor to it. David Seymour wasn’t on Dancing with the Stars for his great rhythm and sway, and I certainly wasn’t on celebrity bake-off for my baking skills. It’s far from all glamour and glitz, however, and I do think politics is getting harder.

Fourteen: John Key got rid of our perks, and maybe he was somewhat right to. But let’s be clear, while it’s not why I am leaving, that this job done well is tough and not actually that well-remunerated for what it entails. So on MPs’ pay, let’s all remember that we need the highest-quality people here—not just the very wealthy, for whom money doesn’t matter, or those naïve enough, as I once was, to enter and crazy enough to stay in the game no matter what.

I don’t want to sound so negative. It’s been great. While there have been lows, as I say, there have also been highs, and it’s the little things that make it all worth it—like an email I received after my lonely vote just weeks ago on the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill. “Dear Simon, I have always thought you are one of the worst and most hopeless MPs in Parliament, but I do want to thank you for voting no on the conversion practices vote. For once in your career, you go it right. Yours faithfully”. High praise, and, like I say, it’s the little things that make it worth it!

I couldn’t have done this time in Parliament without the special people who’ve helped so much. It’s dangerous to name names, but I want to acknowledge my Tauranga staff over the years, Glenn Harris, Maree Brookes—the real MP for Tauranga—and Sonia Hoyes; electorate chairs the late Phil Simpson, Ron Scott, Rosemary Turner Waugh, and then Andrew von Dadelszen, Kenneth Brown, Sir Paul and Cheryl Adams, and many others. My key staff over the years in Wellington are too many amazing people to name, but I think of Cameron Oldfield, Jeanine Begg, Lucy Paul, Jamie Grey, Vanessa Rawson, Michael Fox, Kristy Martin, Stephanie Edridge, Rachel Morton, Mac Mckenna, Liam Kernaghan, and Finn Stitchbury. To everyone named and unnamed, thank you.

Of course, I thank my family: my mum, Ruth Bridges, and my inlaws, Tom and Alicia, my many, many siblings, and most of all Natalie, Emlyn, Harry, and Jemima. I’ve spent as much time away as at home over the years, and oftentimes glued to a phone or to some other very important work. I hope now that I’m home more often, you don’t get sick of me—there’s a reasonably high chance of that.

I’m proud of my whakapapa. I’m proud to be the first Māori New Zealander to lead one of the two big parties—sorry, Winston. People sometimes can’t understand my conviction in conservative politics and how I reconcile it with my forebears and the prevailing views in Māori politics today. But the reason I have opposed and continue to oppose policies like Māori wards, health authorities, and the like is because, while I deeply understand our country has quite a way to go on race, personally, I don’t want to be treated differently on the basis of it. I don’t want special help, because I’m not a victim. I am good enough in any room, whether this big one, our Cabinet, or commercial board rooms in the future, and so are all Māori.

I accept as a conservative conviction politician I’m somewhat out of favour these days—a young fogey, maybe. But politics ebbs and flows, and, as with other things, maybe views like mine will move back into vogue one day. Conservatism to me is simply an instinct or a disposition. While we shouldn’t be reactionary to changing times, we should carefully weigh the transaction costs of change. Like G.K. Chesterton said, there is usually a reason for the fence, and so before we tear it down, we want to think things through carefully.

I didn’t read other people’s valedictories before preparing these remarks, you can probably tell. The only thing I read in advance was my maiden speech from 2008. I liked it. It was a pretty good speech that may age better than this one. In it, I finished with something Tony Blair said in his valedictory to the House of Commons. Seeing as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern worked for him, and my boss for another day or two, Chris Luxon, likes his third way, I thought I’d quote it again: “to all my colleagues from different political parties. Some may belittle politics, but we who are engaged in it know that it is where people stand tall. Although I know it has many harsh contentions, it is still the arena that sets the heart beating a little faster. If it is, on occasions, the place of low skulduggery, it is more often the place for the pursuit of noble causes.”

To those who stay here as I move on know, yes, I’ve seen the skulduggery, but more often the noble causes, and I will continue watching, because I know that what you do matters. I see you standing tall, and I recognise your nobility. Keep firm hold of the baton I now let go from my grip, and run boldly and hard. Thank you.

Sitting suspended from 6.04 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Maiden Statement

Maiden Statement

SPEAKER: Order! We’re not going to do a prayer—you know, sorry. I know there’s plenty of people in the audience that would be keen on us praying more than once a day, but we’re not going to do that formally at the moment. Members, in accordance with the determination of the Business Committee, I call on Lemauga Lydia Sosene to make her maiden statement.

LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE (Labour): Ou te faatalofa atu, i le paia ma le mamalu ua aofaga potopoto i le Maota fono o le Palemene. Tulouna le paia faatafafā o le maota nei. Tulouna le afio o lau afioga, le Palemia o Aotearoa.

Tulouna rangatira kaumātua ko tangata whenua.

Tulouna kuia tuakana ko tangata whenua.

Le mamalu e, ma le paia o le aofia. Mālō e lelei, fakaalofa lahi atu, kia orana, tāloha ni, namaste, al salam alaikum, ni hao, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

I rise as a new list member of Parliament for the Labour Party. I greet you, all House of Representatives of Parliament in New Zealand. May I begin by respectfully recognising this Whare. Here in Wellington, I greet our Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, by thanking her and the Labour Government, the House of Representatives, our Māori elders, tangata whenua, our people of Aotearoa. To all members of Parliament across all political parties, I greet you respectfully in te reo, our Pasifika languages, though short but significant.

I want to reflect on my journey on how long it has taken me to get to today. I could not have been here without the support of the Labour Party. The values, the beliefs I hold dearly are akin to the values of the Labour philosophy—I am so proud to be a part of the team of the Labour parliamentary caucus. I greet you, Madam President of the New Zealand Labour Party, Clair Szabó, and your executive team.

I specifically want to thank our Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern. As a regular visitor to South Auckland, my home town, you are our friend. Many times you have come to speak to us in Tāmaki Makaurau, in our times of hardship, in our times of sorrow. Your formidable leadership, o te wahine toa, o le tamaitai toa o le motu o le Pasefika, as the daughter of New Zealand, the daughter of Niue islands, you are also the daughter of our Pasifika nations. We are truly grateful for your friendship, Prime Minister.

I was born to a young Samoan couple, Rev. Ofisa Nu‘uali‘itia and Litia Nu‘uali‘itia. My father was a graduate of Malua Theological College in Samoa. My mother was a registered nurse also from Samoa. Arriving to New Zealand at the instruction of their parents in their homeland, they joined the call of the largest wave of Pasifika migrants, because New Zealand employers needed migrant workers in the early 1950s. The Pacific nations were the closest international neighbours who beckoned to the call. Technically, the Samoans and the Tongans who stepped forward at that time needed approval to live and work in New Zealand. But the then New Zealand Government quickly approved new migrants from the Pacific to fill those positions advertised. It seemed difficult to attract the local domestic workforce. Two of those Pacific migrants were my parents.

My father hailed from paternal villages of Falefa Falevao in Upolu Samoa. His maternal side from the villages Matautu and Sapunaoa Falealili in Samoa. My mother was born to her maternal family aiga from Saasaai Savaii Samoa and her paternal father Salani in Apia Samoa. My father came out first, not long after his younger brother, Uncle Toetu Nu‘uali‘itia, joined him as they found lodgings in a boarding house in Parnell. They both found employment quickly—pulp and paper mill in Tokoroa. But life here was so different: cold winters, missing Samoa, missing their culture, missing their language. And without choice, they each adapted to the Pālagi way of life. Soon after, my father met my mother, beginning their own family.

By the time I arrived, my parents had accepted a role as the first reverend of a local church to establish the second branch of Ekalesia Fa‘apotopotoga Kerisiano Samoa (EFKS) in Ōtara. The suburb of Ōtara in the mid-60s was set up by the State offering cheaper housing located near the freezing works and production and manufacturing industries. By the 1970s, the suburb of Ōtara was a place labelled by State departments without public amenities, such as kindergartens, trees, and local parks. Young children of low-income families were missing out.

In my former role as an elected local Government member for over a decade, I know for a fact, when planning new suburbs, public infrastructure to that new community is a must, rather than a nice to have. For families, their children, and young people, public assets are much needed to grow healthy neighbourhoods for them to thrive.

My parents retired from the Ōtara EFKS, moving our family to the home they purchased in Henderson, West Auckland. But only a year later in 1973, they accepted another pastoral call: a new branch of EFKS in Papatoetoe, South Auckland. Our family was upheaved once again from West Auckland to resettle in Papatoetoe, South Auckland, for them to begin this parish with a small congregation. Papatoetoe is where my siblings, my three brothers and my sister, completed our public schooling. I recall in those days when local Labour MPs would call my father, asking him for support and his community’s support. My father was relied upon for his unofficial social worker efforts and community connections as he took every opportunity to advocate for better services for the communities he represented. You see, advocacy—that was his thing. Immigration, justice, welfare matters were just some of the topics he would raise with the leaders. I remember the many late-night phone calls and the visits from community members in the most desperate circumstances, seeking help because they had nobody else to turn to.

My father was a fluent Tongan speaker and helped his kāinga where he could. He also helped his Fijian family members—him and my mum based in Auckland. You see, that was all in the mix of his village concept. No one was ever turned away. Although our mother spoke little English, us kids—we were the interpreters. Our parents protected us by ensuring our daily needs were cared for. They both worked hard—up to three jobs weekly—and sacrificed much for us kids. But we were expected to help out. Some troubled youth from our local church families came to live with us, and my mother’s instructions were to care for them. Those were the lessons my siblings and I learnt: to care for one another, to serve our community with the best resources we had at that time.

That is why I am here today. I have served my family. I have served my community. Now I am here to serve my country. As a proud Samoan woman raised in Aukilani, New Zealand, it is my hope that I will make a lasting contribution, work hard, and strive for solutions on some of the Government’s key priorities: climate change and specifically issues of the environment, to assist in solutions to eradicate children’s poverty, focus on New Zealanders’ wellbeing in areas of mental health, and specifically women’s health. Māori and Pasifika communities are particularly vulnerable and overrepresented in some of these areas.

I am a strong believer in social justice. I want to continue to promote women into good, stable jobs. Whether it’s around the board table or leading operational teams, women have the innate natural ability to bring out key skillsets—empathy and understanding, to get the job done. Pasifika women are paid far less on the equity pay scale and work continues, forward led by race relations commissioner Saunoamaali‘i Karanina Sumeo, a proud Samoan woman based in South Auckland, and I congratulate her for this. She is up in the gallery.

The year 2020 was the year that New Zealand, like the rest of the world, was turned upside down by COVID-19 and its destructive force. No one predicted the changes it would bring to the shores of Aotearoa, changing it for ever. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and the Labour Government prepared New Zealand’s health and economic recovery response. Thank you to all the front-line workers, essential workers, health workers—you fed us, you looked after us, and that continues.

Finally, I pay tribute to my parents. They are no longer here but they are with me today in spirit. I miss you every single day, mum and dad. This is your legacy. From humble beginnings in Ōtara, South Auckland, to Wellington, I am honoured to serve New Zealanders as a member of Parliament. I know you would both be so very proud. I thank my siblings, Va‘a, Allen, David, my sister Amelia, Mark and Brian and your families, my aiga and Afoa’s aiga potopoto, my Soul Sistas, my colleagues and friends and community here tonight in the gallery and many others listening tonight to Parliament TV.

I want to especially acknowledge Vui Mark and Carol Gosche; Jessica, Jacob, and Kristian—rest in peace—and their families. They helped me start this dream. My Ekalesia Rev. Peniamina faletua Sinatala Leota and those who are here tonight; the Magele Labour team, led by local MP Aupito William Sio and faletua Jean; my Māngere-Ōtāhuhu Local Board Auckland Council colleagues; my Mount Albert Grammar School colleagues Pat Drumm, Whaea Tui G, and Simon, from the second-largest high school in Aotearoa, with 3,000 students, rangitahi. I served on there for 15 years as a school trustee, and they’re celebrating their centennial in 2022. I am the better person because all of you care so deeply about your local communities. I thank you for your manaakitanga to my journey today, to build my self-confidence, resilience to be a better leader grounded in the values and beliefs of our caring society.

I pray I will strive to make that difference for New Zealanders. I am so very proud to make history as the 11th Pasifika parliamentarian of the Labour Government 2022, the largest Pasifika caucus ever.

Lastly, to my husband, Afoataga William Sosene, and to our sons—Ioritana; daughter-in-law, Felicia, and moko, Taika; Christian and your partner, Kasidy—thank you for your patience. Thank you for your alofa. Take good care of Nana Sai and Nana Valasi. God bless you. Nō reira, faafetai tele, Soifua ma ia manuia. [Applause]

Samoan hymn

Bills

Human Rights (Disability Assist Dogs Non-Discrimination) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Debate resumed.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It’s been a very interesting, exciting, and memorable day in the House, and I’d like to get us back to business by standing to talk in this third and final reading of the Human Rights (Disability Assist Dogs Non-Discrimination) Amendment Bill tonight. I thought I would just begin by explaining that, actually, this is a very simple bill. It brings about a minor change to the legislation and it simply adjusts the wording in the Human Rights Act and replaces the reference that is in that Act from “guide dogs” to “disability assist dogs”—“DADs”, as I referred to them in the second reading.

The genesis of this bill actually goes back to 2015, when it started to be drafted, and then it gained some more prominence when Mojo Mathers was involved in this. In February 2016, there was an incident that, I guess, made us aware of the issue around the discrimination against people who have disability assist dogs. That case revolved around a man called Murray Whittington and his assist dog called Frodo. After 10 years being a tenant in a property, the property was up for sale, so he was asked to move out so the house could be sold. Unfortunately for Mr Whittington, he was unable to secure another rental property, because the advertisements, without exception, said, “No dogs.” It was “No dogs.”, full stop, and did not take account of the fact that some people with disabilities relied on their assist dogs for their life, actually—their quality of life. And so, to give Mojo Mathers her credit, she has developed this bill to get us to this point. Mr Whittington had quite some time getting himself another rental property. Basically, he was—pardon the pun—hounded out of the rental market. To my view, that was poor form.

There are several examples that I can use of people who have benefited to an extreme extent, including a young woman who relies on her disability assist dog to help her with her training. We expect her to be in the 2024 Paralympics, and she has got her dog Paddy with her, assisting in an amazing way. I think that is a fabulous example of why we need to ensure that people with dogs are not shut out of access to buildings, businesses, and activities.

I’d just like to finish my contribution by voicing my concern and my sincere disappointment that my colleague Penny Simmonds was unable to get her Supplementary Order Paper 145 accepted by the Government. I thought about it when Simon Bridges was giving his valedictory speech. He said that select committees, in the process of Parliament, should not be rubber-stamping activities, and that that should be the place where there is real debate. As we work our way through legislation in this House, and we get to the point of the committee of the whole House stage, that is the last chance we get to make amendments to any piece of legislation, and that is the point where Penny introduced her Supplementary Order Paper. Very sadly, it was voted down.

It was so simple, and it would have futureproofed this piece of legislation, because it would have taken out of the legislation the names of the eight organisations who are responsible for the training of these dogs. It would have opened it up for other trainers to be able to train dogs so that they can enter the market place and they can become disability assist dogs. The process would have been far swifter. Instead of rearing a puppy through and taking two years to train it, that could have sped it up into several months.

I think this was a lost opportunity. And, as has been mentioned earlier by my colleague Ian McKelvie, by putting the names of organisations in the legislation, if for any reason one of those organisations closes down—if it changes its name, if it ceases to exist in any way—in the way it’s written in the legislation, the legislation is then out of date. I think there could have been other ways of managing that, by putting a schedule to this bill. But, unfortunately, it failed, and we have a piece of legislation that I don’t doubt will be back to be amended again. But I do hope that when it does come back, we can insert something that gives it a lot more futureproofing. With that, I commend the bill to the House.

MARJA LUBECK (Labour): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call in the third reading of the Human Rights (Disability Assist Dogs Non-Discrimination) Amendment Bill, on such a wonderful day where we’ve have had a farewell and a welcome all in the space of a couple of hours.

My colleague Kieran McAnulty talked about this member’s bill just before the dinner break, and he said this is a member’s bill that actually makes sense. Reflecting on this—I didn’t take part in select committee deliberations nor in previous debates, but learning more about this bill and what it has gone through, it is really clear that what this bill does is modernise out-of-date language so that it helps protect basic rights of Kiwis living with a disability and helps them keep free from discrimination—those that are relying on disability assist dogs.

So as the 12th speaker in a third reading debate, a lot of material has been said. But I think it’s important that I sort of tie those trends together and talk a little bit about the history as well. So it starts, then, with the bill being drawn as a member’s bill in the name of Ricardo Menéndez March. So congratulations, Ricardo, on having that bill drawn. The bill was subsequently introduced on 8 April 2021, completed its first reading, and was then referred to the Social Services and Community Committee on 22 September 2021. I understand the select committee received a total of 75 submissions made up of 61 individuals and 14 form groups or organisations, and they heard a total of 20 of these submissions orally as well.

Now, I should also, of course, acknowledge—like many others have as well—former Green MP Mojo Mathers, who first submitted this bill to the ballot in December 2015. She has been thanked extensively and I will do this again on the record for her advocacy on the issues. I think it was Ricardo Menéndez March, who said her continued contributions—sorry, Jan Logie, in her first reading speech, ran us through the whakapapa of this bill. In her first reading speech, she spoke about Mojo Mathers drafting up the bill, and the previous speaker spoke about some of the history of that issue leading up to this bill being drafted.

I’d like to repeat the words of Jan Logie, because I think they say it really clearly. She said, “It’s a pretty simple bill that will make a small but nevertheless tangible difference.” She called it the perfect member’s bill. So it’s been clear from the debates that there is unanimous support for this bill. Of course, as Labour, we support this because it is absolutely in line with the positive change it makes according to our values. I’ve said this before, but it is really important that we make sure that we protect the basic rights of disabled New Zealanders to be able to live their lives free from discrimination.

So the bill makes that very simple but, at the same time, very effective, change—as I mentioned before—to our human rights law to help ensure that it covers a much broader range of support dogs that assist disabled New Zealanders today. So currently, as it is under the Human Rights Act, disability is a prohibited grounds of discrimination and that includes reliance on a guide dog. But while the Human Rights Act at the moment makes specific reference to guide dogs, it doesn’t define guide dogs under the clauses that relate to discrimination against disabled people. So, basically, the term that the current legislation uses is too narrow, and hence the fact that disabled New Zealanders—who are assisted by a much wider range of support dogs—need to have that reflected in the law; it’s not just guide dogs alone.

So the exact nature of the support that they’re getting is diverse. It depends on the dog and the owner’s need, and we’ve heard plenty of examples of what that can relate to. The broad range goes from helping to alert Deaf people to sounds like fire alarms and doorbells, helping people with epilepsy manage seizures, retrieving objects for people in wheelchairs, interrupting undesirable behaviour like self-harm, and providing support for New Zealanders with impairments like autism or cerebral palsy. Disability dogs, then, significantly enhance the quality of life for those they help and they can support disabled people to live much more independent lives. In some cases, as I’ve mentioned in the examples, it can even save lives. So it is also important, as we’ve heard from previous speakers, that in that aspect these dogs are much more than a pet, or a mutt as, I think, Jan Logie called it before. They play a very crucial role in these people’s lives and are very trusted and loved companions.

So then, in short, what this bill does is it amends the Human Rights Act 1993 by including the insertion—and it’s only small, but it states, “disability assist dog has the same meaning as in section 2 of the Dog Control Act 1996”. So that ensures that those who rely on the other kinds of disability assist dogs are afforded the protections that currently exist only for those who are relying on the assistance of guide dogs. The bill’s explanatory note states that the intention of the change is to make it clear that discrimination against a person because of their disability assist dog is discrimination on the basis of disability. So this particular change that we’re making here will help protect more Kiwis from discrimination under the Act.

Now, there were some particular issues mentioned in submissions—in particular, around 20 submitters explicitly supported the term “disability assist dog” as a hugely useful expansion over “guide dog”, but there were four submitters who expressed concern that people would falsely claim other dogs to be disability assist dogs. It’s important to note that the change to the definition that this particular bill is making still sets a really high standard for a dog to meet to be included under the Human Rights Act. They must be certified by one of the eight organisations that have been mentioned several times in this House in previous debates. I don’t intend to go through those eight organisations, but it is clear that it must meet specific criteria in order to be certified. And just to reassure the people that have brought up this point in submissions, it is not the case that any person will be able to claim that their animal is a disability assist dog just to try and get that kind of protection under the Act. I think that’s an important point to make.

A disability assist dog, as it’s set out in the Dog Control Act 1996, is a dog certified by those eight organisations, that I won’t go through again, as being a dog trained to assist or as a dog who is in training to assist a person with a disability. That change is needed because disability assist dogs perform and, as I said previously, provide an invaluable service to many New Zealanders living with a disability who rely on the skills of their disability assist dogs to enable their participation in society on a daily basis.

Now, trained disability service dogs are able to perform a wide variety of skills depending on the particular disability of their owner, and that can range from retrieving objects for people in wheelchairs and, I think I mentioned before, alerting those with a hearing loss to noises—alarm clocks or door bells, fire alarms, kitchen timers. So they are really important skills that could potentially save lives as well. These are just a few examples I’ve mentioned here in which disability assist dogs play a critical role in enabling many New Zealanders to fully participate in society and, as I said before, that purpose is quite different from the function of an everyday domestic animal or pet.

I think, lastly, I just want to acknowledge those who submitted on this bill but also the Social Services and Community Committee, superbly chaired by Angie Warren-Clark, officials from the Ministry of Justice, and we also have a special acknowledgment to the Office of the Clerk here in Parliament, because they worked very carefully to ensure that accessibility for those that came to submit. I think it was a really important part of the process, and very thoughtful for that committee to ensure that that was done in the way they did it.

This bill is building a more inclusive and more accessible society for all people and I again commend it to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National): I move, That the Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

This bill ushers in a new era of strengthened protections for current and prospective apartment owners. It gives a big green light to every New Zealander who may in the past have hesitated to buy an apartment, having heard horror stories, but will in future be able to do so with an enhanced foundation of rights and protections. I am determined to see more New Zealanders in homeownership, and I believe the modernisation of this Act is an important step towards that goal.

This bill has had many parents, and I must begin this speech by particularly acknowledging my former National Party colleague and MP for Auckland Central the Hon Nikki Kaye, whose tireless work led to the initial drafting of this bill and its introduction as a member’s bill. Nikki worked with dozens of stakeholders, who gave generously of their time and expertise, to help fix an Act that has caused problems and heartache for too many people. Nikki listened to those stories from so many people in her electorate, and she took action. I want to also acknowledge the way in which this bill has been improved. I am grateful to all MPs across Parliament and across parties who have supported this reform in a constructive and collaborative way, including Associate Minister of Housing Poto Williams, who made her officials available and has supported the progress of this legislation. This bill was hugely improved by the select committee process, and its passage is, I think, a great example of what MPs can achieve across parties when we work to a common purpose.

So what does this bill do? It ensures a fit for purpose disclosure regime for those considering purchase of a unit title dwelling. Too often, I have heard people trying to enter the homeownership market say to me, “I’d like to look at an apartment, it’s more affordable, but I just worry whether I’ll really know what’s going on with the building.” Well, the changes we are making in the House tonight will ensure that prospective buyers face a far more comprehensive disclosure regime, and have their rights to information about the building in which they buy an apartment or a unit title much more clearly defined in law. My message to those of you out there who’ve thought about buying an apartment is, tonight, this bill should give you confidence to do so. This is your green light.

The bill also strengthens body corporate governance arrangements. It recognises that a body corporate is managing what is, for most people, their most significant asset, their home. And so it is vitally important that we ensure that the governance of the buildings in which those homes are located is done to professional standards. Simple things, like requiring bodies corporate to keep records; allowing electronic and remote voting—hello, it’s 2022!—clarifying the power of body corporate committees; and requiring committee members to abide by a code of conduct that makes it clear that when you are managing a body corporate, you are doing so in the best interests of those whose property is held in that body corporate and you are doing so with certain knowledge of the law that it is you are meant to be implementing and that you strive at all times to do so with integrity. These seem basic things, but, until tonight, they haven’t been spelt out clearly in our law, and it is a very good step forward that they now will be.

I am sure that many of the people living in a unit title today will now be able to have confidence that it will be governed properly. But I am most excited for the people, in the future, who can go into a unit title appointment knowing the body corporate stuff’s going to be OK. There are standards and if people don’t meet them, there is a law there to ensure its enforcement.

The bill increases the standards for body corporate managers. These are often incredibly powerful individuals who are managing multimillion-dollar assets on behalf of people and in trust. It requires that body corporate managers have to comply with a code of conduct so that they don’t put their personal interests ahead of those of the people whose assets they are managing, and so that where they have conflicts of interest, those are properly disclosed, and so that the people providing them the power to manage their property can have confidence that they are being required to do so in a right and proper manner.

The bill ensures that unit title developments adequately plan for and fund long-term maintenance plans. It adds in a requirement that bodies corporate have to produce a long-term maintenance plan that includes detailed cost estimations for the first 10 years and high-level projections for the 20 years after that, so that going in to purchase an apartment, you can know what is the condition of this building today, how much work is going to be required on it in the future, and what costs might I expect to face. It requires the creation of long-term maintenance funds for large and medium developments, but does, I think, strike a good balance by allowing people to opt out if they decide that that is not the way they wish their assets to be managed.

Finally, the bill strengthens the dispute resolution process so that where things do go wrong—and while I am saying this is ushering in a wonderful new era, I acknowledge where there are human beings, there can be conflict—there is now a much-better mechanism for dispute resolution allowing the Tenancy Tribunal to help with unit title disputes and reducing the fees that are charged when they do so.

This bill, I have no doubt, will reduce many of the horror stories that have resulted from outdated legislation that has, to date, put off many people choosing an apartment. The bill should be a strong antidote to that. As we consider the challenges that New Zealand faces—and I would put to this House that incredibly high levels of rents, incredibly vast, reducing rates of homeownership, and increasingly unaffordable housing are some of those significant challenges—it is incumbent upon us to think of ways to solve it. And I think it is clear to all of us that one of the ways we can strengthen the rungs on the ladder of property ownership is to ensure there are more affordable options for buyers as they enter that market. It is likely in future that more New Zealanders will choose to purchase an apartment, will choose to purchase a unit title, and it’s appropriate that we’re modernising the law to ensure they can do so with confidence.

I want to note that it’s very important that we monitor the impact of this bill in practice. I acknowledge those submitters and stakeholders who would have liked to have seen a few more things done or done a little bit differently. I thank all of those who have acknowledged that it’s better that we do this now, than leave it forever to get it perfect. I commend this House for not allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good. But I would also note that I will be one of the many people monitoring the implementation of this bill in practice to ensure it meets the goals of this House.

I hope that this bill will unlock another avenue to homeownership for the many New Zealanders who currently miss out on that. I acknowledge there is much more that this House can and should do to support those goals, but I am certain that if we go out and tell New Zealanders what we’ve managed to achieve across the Parliament with this bill, we can give more people confidence to look with fresh eyes at the apartment or unit title option.

I want to finish by once again acknowledging Nikki Kaye. This really is for you, Nikki, and I will acknowledge that your follower in the seat of Auckland Central, Chlöe Swarbrick, has carried your legacy on with pride in this regard and has been a good advocate for these changes, acknowledging the needs of her constituents. I want to acknowledge Joanna Pidgeon, who first explained what this was all about to me, and Tim Jones. Many people created this bill. Thank you to all of you who have made it possible. I commend it to the House.

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

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing)): The Government supports the passage of the Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Bill and, once again, I’d like to say congratulations to the member Nicola Willis for getting the bill to this final stage—pretty cool, isn’t it? Especially one with this level of complexity. A rare achievement for a member’s bill. I would also like to say thank you to all the other members of this House from every party that have worked on this bill to make it as good as it can be; studying, critiquing, and debating it, both in this Chamber and at select committee.

The bill provides solutions to many longstanding issues within the exiting Unit Titles Act (UTA), such as lack of disclosure before purchase, and lack of mention of body corporate managers, who have become a prominent feature of the unit title sector. It will provide the guarantees and certainty that New Zealanders want when purchasing a unit title property to live in, and will help make medium- and high-density living a safer and more appealing option for people. Requiring pre-purchase disclosure will improve transparency in the buying process by increasing the amount of information that must be disclosed to buyers, allowing them to make informed decisions. The bill requires that any weathertightness issues or whether the building is earthquake-prone be disclosed to the buyer before purchase. Alongside adding pre-purchase disclosure, the bill maintains the requirement in the current UTA for pre-settlement disclosure, allowing for any new information that has come to light between pre-purchase and settlement to also be disclosed.

The bill recognises the need for flexibility in managing unit title developments, particularly those of different sizes. Therefore, it makes a distinction between small unit title developments, being those of less than 10 principal units; and large unit title developments, those of more than 10 principal units. Small developments typically have fewer complex building systems than larger ones, and typically less common property, like lifts and hallways. As such, smaller developments have the same level of requirements in terms of maintenance and long-term planning that larger developments have.

This bill will mean that body corporate managers, and the significant role they play in the unit title sector of the property market, will finally be recognised in law, and aims to increase their level of professionalism by providing a code of conduct for them to abide by. By default, the bodies corporate of large developments are required to employ a body corporate manager. However, they do have the option of opting out with a special resolution if they feel comfortable managing their own affairs.

The bill strengthens the requirement for long-term maintenance plans in large developments by adding a further 20 years of high-level cost projections to the existing 10 years of detail cost estimations. This means that buyers can anticipate any upcoming major maintenance costs when deciding whether to buy an apartment. The bill requires the bodies corporate of large developments to establish a long-term maintenance fund by default, but, if they choose to, they may opt out of this requirement with a special resolution; however, they must also review this decision annually, and if they decide to establish one after all, they can do so with another special resolution. The body corporate also decides the level of funding and how their long-term maintenance plans will be funding—whether they fund repairs years in advance or at the time the money is required.

The bill makes it simpler and cheaper to take disputes to the tribunal, increasing access to redress and justice. It reduces the fees to file a dispute, and increases the jurisdiction of tribunal from $50,000 to $100,000. This brings the UTA in line with changes made to the Residential Tenancies Act last year, and means more cases will be able to go to the Disputes Tribunal rather than the District Court, making access to justice faster and cheaper for applicants.

After much deliberation, we elected not to include any limits on how many proxy votes a person could hold. This is because, for some, a proxy vote was their only way to make their voice heard in the body corporate democratic process. Owners often give their vote to building managers, for example, because they may not know anyone else that they feel they can give their vote to. Therefore, limiting the amount of proxy votes a person, such as a building manager, can hold carried a risk of restricting owners’ voices in their bodies corporate. Reflecting changes we have seen in the way we work and live these last two years, the bill makes permanent the current but temporary COVID-19 provision that allows for online body corporate meeting attendance, which has become far more common than just a couple of years ago.

I’d like to take a moment to thank all submitters—apartment owners, bodies corporate, body corporate managers, and retirement villagers that have been involved in various stages of the bill’s progression. A big thank you to the Finance and Expenditure Committee—

Chlöe Swarbrick: Great committee.

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: —for its careful consideration of the bill—great committee—and the amendments it has recommended based on the advice of officials and submitters. I’d also like to thank the officials who have worked on the policy and legislation process. I’d like to thank the committee of the whole House for their consideration of the bill. But last and certainly not least, I’d like to thank the members who created this bill, and their tireless efforts in pushing it across the finish line; the former member the Hon Nikki Kaye who first entered the bill before passing the mantle on to the Hon Judith Collins, and then on to Nicola Willis, who has led us to this point, here and now. This bill will ensure that people will be able to purchase apartments in New Zealand with a renewed sense of certainty. Madam Speaker, I recommend the bill to the House.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a pleasure to be talking on the Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Bill in this final reading. It’s always an exciting time when we see members’ bills coming through to fruition. I, first of all, congratulate Nicola Willis for seeing it through. But, as the Minister just noted, it has had a long gestation, stretching back to, actually, the Hon Dr Nick Smith when he was the Minister for Building and Construction, and then, of course, through to Nikki Kaye, member for Auckland Central, Judith Collins, as noted, and where we are today. So, what a great outcome.

But it has taken a long time—it has taken a long time. Including about a year through the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Great committee.

ANDREW BAYLY: Yes, I hear the current member for Auckland Central, , saying “Great committee.” Yes, we did work diligently to get to a good outcome, and I think we did. I think we did in the main. As Nicola Willis said, not everything is perfect. We may have issues with this bill that some people, obviously, think there are parts of it that are not right or would like to have gone further. But at least now we have amended the 2010 tenancy bill, which this basically fits under—the Unit Titles Act, and updates it to make it much clearer about the arrangements.

I think back, I bought an apartment in Wellington a few years ago, and I was particularly concerned about the seismic issues. I remember asking the real estate agent for details on it. I’ve got to say that the response from the agent was a little less than forthcoming, and it took quite some time to be able to actually assess the seismic rating of the building. In fact, it was good in the end. But that information should have been made available. That’s the type of thing that is captured in this bill.

It requires, as we’ve heard before, long-term maintenance plans, detailed for the first 10 years and then stretching over 30 years. But going into an apartment building where you’ve got multiple tenant—many of whom are renters; many of whom, the apartments are owned by people, investors, both locally and offshore ones—to be able to get a grip of what you are entering into, what sort of liabilities, as well as what the asset is you’re trying to buy, is absolutely vitally important.

One of the things I found fascinating during the process is that in New Zealand, we’ve, obviously, got homeownership rates of just over 50 percent, which, unfortunately, are declining, but apartments only represent about 6 percent of the way that people live. When you compare that, which I found fascinating, with even places—Australia’s 10 percent; America, the home of houses and cars, apartments is about 14 percent, so, much higher than us, more than double. But the one I did find, Canada, is 32 percent of all the housing market. Of course, we’ve heard those appalling stories about housing costs in places like Vancouver.

So apartments are a small share but we need to help and be able to assist people to be able to get into homeownership. With the move to living in towns around nodes, this is the way we need to get people into their first home, and particularly apartments because they’re cheaper and they’re convenient for many younger people, particularly before they start having children. So that’s why this bill is so essential.

I think it’s great that we’ve landed at a place that we actually think this is going to help us. I think it generally will help the market. There are, as I said, some changes that we made in select committee. I think the first one was to still require information to be provided to purchasers. They may have committed to buying a building or an apartment but there’ll be a time delay before settlement, and that can be quite a long period of time, it could be up to a year in some cases, but, more likely, a few months. So there is a requirement for a pre-settlement disclosure to the potential buyer of that property so that they’re well aware of that.

Conversely, or relatedly, we allowed sellers to delegate providing information to prospective purchasers, and it could be done through a real estate agent. My real estate agent that I talked about, he would now have the requirement to actually provide the information—or to a lawyer or to an engineer or some other person. So I think those are really important ingredients to this bill.

So I just want to congratulate everyone involved in this bill, particularly the sponsors and the people behind that, the committee members—it was a pleasure working with you—the officials. Obviously, I’d like to commend this bill to the House.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Madam Speaker, thank you [Drops glasses]—just organising myself in these COVID times. First of all, look, yes, congratulations to Nicola Willis for getting this bill this far. Look, it was never going to be an easy bill, not only because it’s technical but also because, as has been pointed out, an asset like an apartment is frequently the most important asset that a person has.

And, of course, by definition, with apartments and many unit titles, people are living very close together, and some conflicts with those kinds of interactions are inevitable. And we certainly heard a range of views in select committee from interest groups and from people who had been disappointed in conflicts and some pretty bitter experiences, but I think, despite the fact that people have gone away and aren’t happy with where we’ve landed, as a House of Representatives we’ve done a pretty good job at looking very carefully at all of those broad views and trying to strike the best balance. And, as Mr Bayly said—and I don’t often agree with him, but I think getting the right balance here and having a sound framework for unit titles is really, really important, so that not only can people have confidence personally when they buy it but financers and the like can have confidence as well, and the transactional costs of getting into apartment dwelling are sufficiently low and proportionate to the risks that are borne.

So, look, I think this has become a really good bill. And, look, I absolutely want to endorse the views that the select committee and all the members on the select committee worked really hard and brought their own experiences, whether it be from provincial towns which have different kinds of bodies corporate, to inner-city MPs who talk about much more dense apartment dwelling. And also Poto Williams put and committed considerable resources to this bill, and I think she’s done a great job, and her officials, in again making sure that the opportunity was taken not only to do those things which the member in charge identified as wanting but also making sure that all those other—what may appear small tidy-ups, advantage was taken of that. So we actually have a much more modern framework for unit title developments now, whether that be the recognition of the risks of conflicts of interest, which probably was there anyway in the sense that it would have been dealt with, but at least it’s overt that people have to turn their mind to questions like that. Body corporate managers have to think about it and so on, and I think that is a really, really good thing.

Of course, dragging it into the 21st century, in terms of electronic and audiovisual meetings and voting and so on—making it so much easier for body corporate members to participate in what is a kind of democratic process; having influence on decision making that is proportionate to their ownership interests, but with that backstop that the majority cannot tyrannise the minority in body corporate by those oppression provisions that are in there as well; and also the whole idea—had a really good discussion, actually, around long-term maintenance and what it means, and the fact that if you’re the owner of a large apartment building, you do have to look out 30 years to think about what those costs are going to be, and you can’t simply kick the can down the road, as some Governments have, and defer maintenance forever; you’ve got to recognise that work’s going to have to be done in a regular and scheduled way. But a good discussion because we can’t predict exactly when the roof or the cladding or whatever has to be repaired, and the idea that you have a medium-term, detailed maintenance plan and long-term, much more generalised maintenance plan as well. So that was good.

And also that whole information exchange or disclosure that goes on at the front-end of the contract—absolutely critical to make sure that all relevant information that the purchaser needs is provided at the very earliest opportunity. And, of course, this is no longer folders upon folders of photocopied information, and that’s really transformed the expectations that we can have. It’s no longer onerous to say we want body corporate minutes going back several years or building reports going back several years, because any competent body corporate manager will have all of those files stored electronically, and it’s pretty much a click and drag into some kind of pen drive or Google or Dropbox or whatever you like. And, indeed, many of us will have engaged in a process similar to that when we’ve purchased properties ourselves, so that’s a really good thing.

Of course, making sure that earthquake status—whether the building is earthquake-prone and whether it’s had weathertightness issues. Now, these buildings may still be a good buy, and there’s maybe no reason not to buy them, but information is critical: that people know what they’re getting into and there’s not an opportunity by sleight of hand to deceive an incoming purchaser of what’s going on.

And, of course, the other really important part of this bill was the recognition of body corporate managers. And the fact of the matter is that this is an emerging profession, and it’s one that may well need more scrutiny in the future, but, at the same time, we need to encourage bodies corporate to use professional managers because the task can be complex. Running meetings can be complex, resolving disputes can be complex, and having a schedule of maintenance is of critical importance that, if it’s not well managed, can lead to a real loss of significant value in the future. So recognising body corporate managers and, in larger developments, requiring bodies corporate to either have one or to explicitly opt out of having one is a really good innovation there as well. I think that’s going to really help a lot of people. And certainly I have seen in a previous life, bodies corporate that weren’t well managed, and they were managed by the body corporate members in a rather amateurish way. And whilst you can’t blame them for not doing the job, because they’re, essentially, volunteers doing a very complex task, it did lead to some significant complications.

Of course, the other thing that’s really important here is the increased role of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and the powers of the tribunal so that there can be a degree of compulsion to make sure that bodies corporate do what they’re required to do. And I think that is really important. And to give the chief executive of MBIE the power to, essentially, intervene if body corps are being mismanaged or if individuals’ rights and interests are being entirely ignored and allowing MBIE, essentially, or the chief executive of MBIE, to be a party to proceedings and to pursue them and prosecute them on an owners’ behalf, I think that’s a really good innovation, because there are going to be a lot of body corporate owners—and the retirement village - style complex is a really good example, where they may well need someone to stand in their shoes because they haven’t got the resources or the wherewithal to get up and do that themselves. So I think that’s really good.

So, in conclusion, congratulations to members who have contributed to this. Congratulations to Nicola Willis for pushing it through. It is really important that we have an effective market for unit titles, whether they be less dense retirement village - style or, in fact, the dense apartment-style ones, I think this has struck the balance between one-size-fits-all and having some rules which are opt in and opt out depending on whether you’re a smaller or larger unit title development. So I’ll be keeping a close eye on this. I think there’s some regulations underlying it which we can tweak, and it’s always good to be able to do that and keep up to date in that sense, but, overall, a very, very good and innovative improvement to unit title law. I commend it to the House.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. What a great day—or a great evening, as the case may be. I just want to start my contribution tonight by acknowledging Nicola Willis. It has been—if I may, Madam Speaker, speaking through you—a genuine pleasure to work with you on this, Nicola, and your collaborative efforts to improve this legislation and work through trying to find that political consensus. I also, of course, want to acknowledge the Hon Judith Collins, who also helped to shepherd this through, and, of course, my forebear in Auckland Central, the Hon Nikki Kaye, for the years of work that she actually did in working with those in the sector and with constituents in putting forward a draft piece of law which I think, through the parliamentary process, has ended up being improved massively.

I also want to acknowledge the wonderful members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee (FEC)—great committee—particularly, also, needing to acknowledge the Minister the Hon Poto Williams. Enabling us to have her officials in front of FEC allowed us to really chew over a number of quite complicated and nuanced details. Whilst I’ll get to, later, some still outstanding things that I hope that future legislators can work on, I think that what we’ve come to—as in the words of the sponsoring member, we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and what we have tonight is something very, very good.

In question time today, Minister Poto Williams referred to the fact that in March 2022, we saw 2,172 town houses, flats, and units consented, as well as 616 apartments. That is a trend that we are seeing more and more of, and, as many have acknowledged, when the Unit Titles Act was originally put into effect, nearly 15 years ago now, the kind of world that we are living in now wasn’t quite fathomed. There’s a need to evolve the legislative background that those who live in apartment blocks and town houses and units that have unit titles are working to.

To that effect, it probably would make sense to offer some of my perspective and how I come to this personally, because politics is personal, not just in that we reflect, obviously, the wants and the needs and the desires and the concerns of our constituents, but also in that we bring our own personal experiences into this place. So it might surprise some in the Chamber to know that I am not the only elected member in my family. Late last year, my partner was elected to our body corp, on—wait for it—an online meeting, no less: exactly the kind of thing that this bill is going to be making a permanent feature of our unit titles legislation, going on from, obviously, those interim measures put in place under COVID legislation.

This is huge for Auckland Central, not just because of more denser dwellings coming online as a result of those consents that I alluded to before but also because right now there are 40,000 people living in Auckland’s city centre alone in those apartments and town houses and denser dwellings, myself being one of them. This law, as many who have already contributed before me stated in detail, makes big changes to disclosure regimes, to record-keeping, and institutes a code of conduct for body corp managers—as well as enabling those online meetings in perpetuity. It is a lot of work for a member’s bill, and, again, I just need to acknowledge that in that lot of work I think we’ve done a really good job. But there is, of course, ongoing into the future, as other members have noted, more mahi to do and more monitoring to do in terms of how this plays out in the real world in practice.

I believe that all of us in this place—as, actually, the sponsoring member has mentioned that she, obviously, took this originally from the Hon Nikki Kaye, and then through the Hon Judith Collins, and now to Nicola Willis—that all of us in Parliament are part of a long line of people who have come before us, and there’ll be a long line of people after us. To that effect, it would be remiss of me to neglect to mention the things that I want to put breadcrumbs, if you will, on Hansard—as we’ve peppered throughout the select committee documents—of information that I want to leave for future legislators to deal with. Unfortunately, as I alluded to before, there are a few niggly things that we weren’t quite able to build political consensus around. Much like I won’t stop banging on about the fact that had we listened to the Justice and Electoral Committee in 2008, we would have regulated property managers under the Real Estate Agents Act amendments—and now, 15 years later, we’re looking to do just that, when we’re not quite sure if there’s 2,000 or 7,000 of them in the country—I am hoping that some incredibly earnest future MP will pick up the points that I am about to make.

So that stuff, those points that I want to make, those unresolved issues that I have alluded to, are around limitations for proxy votes. As I’ve stated in other contributions to debates in this House and also in the select committee report, I do not believe that having an online system of voting is yet going to get us to that place where we are going to be able to deal with some of the issues that we see in, particularly, the unequal access to information around who holds unit titles, and therefore the kind of lobbying that is able to occur around the kind of aggregation of proxy votes in certain people’s hands to push for certain outcomes inside of bodies corporate. Therefore, that issue around limitations to proxy votes, I believe, still stands. That is, of course, also something echoed by a number of brilliant people who I’m soon to acknowledge, who continued to talk to me about it over the months that we have taken to progress this legislation.

I also, secondly, just want to point out that I still do believe, very strongly, that, whilst we have made massive strides with a code of conduct for body corporate managers, there is going to be need, eventually, for a legislated professional body for body corporate managers. That, of course, is the kind of thing that was actually originally outlined in the bill as it came to the House, but was removed through that select committee process, with one dissenting, annoying, or rogue, as the case may be, MP in the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

But tonight, the progress that we are making is huge. Much like the sponsoring member, Nicola Willis, mentioned, I, too, want to acknowledge the Body Corporate Chairs’ Group, Tim Jones, and Joanna Pidgeon. They are phenomenal, know this stuff inside and out, and have been a brilliant resource for us parliamentarians. I also need to acknowledge the Auckland City Centre Residents’ Group, particularly Noelene and Adam.

In summation, let’s build more apartments, let’s live more sustainably, and let’s live happily ever after. But in a more realistic term, as the MP for Auckland Central and as a happy apartment dweller, I commend this bill to the House.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): It’s a pleasure to speak on this third reading of a bill that, in many ways, goes towards cleaning up what was a bit of a cowboy’s territory, with unit titles. I certainly wouldn’t have recommended to any of my family members to buy one prior to this legislation because, although there are good apartment developments, it was just too difficult to know the good from the bad. It was cowboy territory and, in fact, Labour inherited that situation and, in our manifesto, we said that we would review and modernise the Unit Titles Act 2010.

There is still some work to do on it but this bill does go a long way to cleaning that up, and so I’d really like to congratulate the sponsoring member, Nicola Willis, for being able to get what has been acknowledged tonight as being a complex bill, as a member’s bill, through this far. Also, to acknowledge the work done by various committee member and—given that everybody’s being very congratulatory—I’d like to congratulate my colleague Helen White who, as an Auckland-based MP, did a lot of work listening to people there, travelling to Auckland to listen to submissions, and made some really good points to the select committee around the need to be able to deal with those who represent vendors and purchasers, not just the actual parties themselves, so that was really useful to us.

When I look at the characteristics of where this bill has got to, it has really been around strengthening information, strengthening governance, and then a really long select committee process to grapple with the competing rights, and how we balance those to make sure that vendors were protected by the caveat emptor principle—that buyers do need to beware and do their due diligence—but also that purchasers were protected by having enough information, adequate disclosures, correct information, and being able to make decisions in a timely way if that information wasn’t forthcoming or wasn’t correct.

As Dr Duncan Webb, our very competent chair said, we think we did strike that balance, and that meant really going through with a fine-tooth comb, clause by clause, looking at all the little bits of this rather large member’s bill, to make sure that we got that balance right. And what we’re hoping it will do is just get rid of the stress of uncertainty, of in-fighting within bodies corporate—get rid of that situation where people have purchased leaky buildings, where perhaps the vendors have known that there was a defect with their building, and the purchaser has been unable to do anything about that, and ended up in years and years of litigation, which is incredibly painful. And I know of families like that in my own electorate, in Taieri; this is not just an Auckland Central problem. There are families in my own electorate who say that their lives have been ruined by being in one of these leaky-home experiences.

So the bill that we have before us tonight, it’s been acknowledged is good, it’s not perfect, and there is still more work to do. But what it does do is increase the transparency for prospective buyers, and it gets the balance right. The specific areas that it changes are the proportionate utility costs; it introduces a code of conduct for body corporate committees; and we’ve heard about the long-term maintenance plan. I hope I never have to hear that word as many times as I have over the last eight months: “long-term maintenance plan” was a bit of a mantra for all of us, and reminds us of those very long and involved select committee hearings. It requires sellers to disclose information about a unit to potential buyers, and it prevents bodies corporate from entering service agreements for longer than 24 months.

Many of the changes created by this bill seek to implement recommendations from a 2016 review of the unit title regime, and I think it is to the Minister’s credit—Poto Williams—that she was able to see the value of bringing that work plan into the scope of the member’s bill so that we could actually facilitate this and enable more people to have more certainty so we could get more New Zealanders into apartments, to help address the housing crisis that we inherited. It makes the governance of apartment buildings stronger and more accountable, and it strengthens the dispute resolution process, as I have mentioned.

I’d just like to turn to Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 144, which deals with some of the details that I’ve mentioned around further information—for example, we’ve got clause 37 which sets out the requirements for the documents to be provided in the pre-contract disclosure statement. Other members of this House tonight have talked about there needing to be more disclosure, but what does that actually look like? The select committee made the following additions—we wanted these disclosed in standard contracts—so weathertightness issues that had not been remedied; significant defects in the land; confirming the 12-month period of the financial year; details of the maintenance the body corporate has to carry out in the next year; the balance of every fund or bank account, which is actually critical information, if one thinks about it, because if there’s a bank account balance in deficit, that would send a red flag to a prospective purchaser; a copy of the long-term maintenance plan; and an explanation of terms used in the Unit Titles Act and terms relating to property matters. And that’s really just about governance, and making sure that purchasers do have the information they need, including legal information, to be able to decipher what they are getting in front of them, and what is relevant and material to the purchase that they’re going to make.

Another amendment in the SOP is about whether the vendor or the body corporate is involved in litigation—whether there are any proceedings initiated by the body corporate or intending to be initiated; whether there is any written claim by the body corporate against a third party that has not been resolved. We had some discussion about this at select committee, just trying to make sure that, again, this was about getting the balance right, that appropriate and material disclosures are made to purchasers that could have an impact on their decision to purchase and that they have full and complete information available to them; and that there would be no ugly surprises—that was a really important one that we did discuss at some length.

Dr Duncan Webb has also referred to powers to investigate, and the involvement of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), and there was some discussion about this because that calls into question rights around search and surveillance, and aligning the powers that MBIE might have with other pieces of legislation to make sure that the balance of the competing rights was appropriate for the situation. Again, we think we got that balance right, and the SOP inserted section 202B in clause 21E, where it gives the chief executive, or someone authorised by them, the power to enter the unit title, to inspect it either with the consent of the body corporate or authorised by an order of the tribunal. And that was really where they felt that there was sufficient evidence or cause to believe that inadequate information had been provided, pursuant to an investigation, or to a purchaser, and that there needed to be some investigation taken to check the veracity of that information. So we looked at that very carefully. We wondered whether there could be implications around search and surveillance, around entering property and so on, and we feel satisfied that we made the right call on that and that the existing provisions align with other search and surveillance provisions in other similar legislation.

Just in my remaining couple of minutes—apart from just once again congratulating Nicola Willis for bringing this piece of work to the Finance and Expenditure Committee, and shepherding it to this point—we did do a lot of work on it. I think I might have said it was panel beaten at the last one; that’s probably not very generous. It was a complex bill, and it’s great to see it come this far. But also just to put it into context of what this Government is doing to make sure that we are getting more New Zealanders into homes, because this legislation will certainly go a long way towards getting people into apartments. We have also removed tax advantages for property speculators, we’re replacing the Resource Management Act, and it’s important to recognise that, because those would have played on the mind of the Minister as she decided to bring this forward into her work plan for her officials to be able to expedite the process that the member has been able to use to make sure we get this into the House.

So, once again, congratulations, Nicola Willis, congratulations to all the members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, who put so much effort in, and thank you to the officials for bearing with us. It’s a great, not a perfect, piece of legislation, and I really look forward to seeing lots of New Zealanders buying apartments. I commend it to the House.

BROOKE VAN VELDEN (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise tonight on behalf of the ACT Party in support of the third reading of the Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Bill.

Many people in New Zealand already live in body corporate arrangements, but the number of people who do is increasing as we are seeing more apartment buildings and unit titles popping up all over across New Zealand. More unit titles are not just being used for short-term student accommodation but they are being used for long-term rentals and long-term family units in residential developments. More and more people, of course, are finding themselves delving into the depths of bodies corporate, many for the first time as first-home buyers being very hopeful that this new apartment that they are going to look at could be the place that they settle down and start their family. And they’re taking it very seriously and looking through all of the body corporate minutes and figuring out what on earth are long-term maintenance plans and how they are supposed to interact and get on with their neighbours in a structured, rules-based way that the body corporate sets out.

Around 150,000 New Zealanders live in apartments—that will grow, over time, because we expect, over the next 20 years, that’s going to double. So more and more people will be finding themselves delving into these pages and figuring out those intricate relationships between people who are renting and people who have bought their apartment unit, and those conflicts that may arise between neighbours living in very tight confines next to each other.

The minutes of bodies corporate can be a wonderful treasure trove of information. You can see in the pages the types of scraps that come up between neighbours when they’re talking about what sort of pets people are allowed to have, what type of colour the carpets and the curtains might be allowed to be—you can see the relationships between people in the minutes of meetings and who wants to put in an electric vehicle charger and who doesn’t. There’s all sorts of hilarious stories and anecdotes that you can find when you’re going through a new purchase of an apartment.

But there are also very serious things. One of the most serious is, of course, the long-term maintenance fund. This bill goes some way to help solve that problem of information where people ultimately will be buying and selling apartments. People who are buying will be wanting more information about what they’re buying into, and people who are selling will be wanting access and making sure that they have all of that information available to then be able to sell their apartment to people who are asking for the information.

So this bill improves the governance arrangements of body corporate units for the existing owners, for the new owners—for disclosure—and it strengthens the dispute resolutions that ultimately come about when people are living in close quarters next to each other. Information gathering is a difficult exercise. The Finance and Expenditure Committee’s (FEC) report showed that it is harder to access information in a body corp than you would find in a normal stand-alone home—a good example was accessing ventilation systems; that’s just not something that you can easily do when you’re in an apartment building versus when you’re in a stand-alone home. So having access to that information through the body corp is extremely important. But as a member of a body corporate, you’re also liable for shared obligations that you wouldn’t be if you were living in a stand-alone home, for things like repair upgrades that everybody needs to agree to. So the integration of that system and the integrity of the system relies on access to good information and the relationships between the buyer and the seller.

I don’t believe anybody truly buys into an apartment and thinks that they’re not going to be transparent, or thinks that the body corporate is not going to be transparent and pass along information. But we do know that it is possible for people to buy into what they think is a very, very well-run body corporate, only for people over time to move in and out of the dwellings, the membership of the body corporate changes, and things can fall through the cracks. People might not keep proper minutes. And before you know it, in 20 years’ time, you’re going to sell and there isn’t the information that’s needed to actually adequately address the issues of people’s future risks and future concerns. Things may not have been maintained, and it becomes very hard to sell. So it’s in people’s interests when they’re selling and they’re buying that they understand the relationships and they understand that the body corporate is well-managed.

Another really important point is that we also want to make rules that don’t impose too much burden or cost on people. It’s very important that, as Parliament, we’re here to fix people’s issues and not impose too much cost when we’re doing that as well. One area that I think FEC did well on was the long-term maintenance plans. They said that they empathised with submitters’ concerns and agreed that it would be difficult to account for future unknowns, such as inflation or new technologies, when changing the long-term maintenance plans from around 10 years to 30 years. And they landed on a middle ground, where the body corporate would have a long-term, detailed cost estimate for 10 years, but they would—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Can I ask the members on my left just to keep the volume down. Thank you.

BROOKE VAN VELDEN: —thank you, Madam Speaker—allow for projections of 30 years, rather than asking for a detailed cost estimate for the 30 years. I think that was a good middle ground, because we do know that we want people to have access to information so they know what they’re buying, but, at the same time, not imposing such an unnecessary burden that the benefits of this change to the law would be outweighed by too much cost. So this is about fixing those issues and establishing a good framework for buyers, for sellers, and for dispute resolution.

And I did just want to very briefly touch on a point that my colleague Chlöe Swarbrick touched on, which was about the online ability to now join into your body corporate. And I cannot wait, being a member of a body corporate myself, to be able to be here in Parliament and joining into my meetings that I cannot do so when I’m in another city. So to all my fellow body corporate members, I look forward to seeing you on screen. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

ANNA LORCK (Labour—Tukituki): Thank you, Madam Speaker. As a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee—

Andrew Bayly: A very good member.

ANNA LORCK: —thank you, Mr Bayly; calling me a good member of this committee—I need to say that when I first looked at the Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Bill that had been pulled out of the biscuit tin under Nicola Willis’ name, I started to think, “Oh, this is going to be a city bill—this is going to be a city bill.” Because—

Chris Bishop: A city bill?

ANNA LORCK: A city bill.

Chris Bishop: Silly or city?

ANNA LORCK: City—an urban bill.

Chris Bishop: Oh, got it.

ANNA LORCK: —coming from a provincial region as the member of Parliament for Tukituki, I had to think, “How many apartments and bodies corporate do we have in Hastings?” I was thinking to myself, “I wonder if there’ll be anything that comes up of interest to the people of Hastings.” And it was to my pleasure that I then received a submission from the Frimley Lifestyle Village complex, right in the heart of the Tukituki electorate in Hastings. They came and saw me, as well, to talk me through some of the complications that they could see with the initial draft of the bill under Nicola Willis’ name. They asked me, as the local MP and also as a member of the select committee, to take note of their submission. They were concerned that because they were a small complex, and of a single storey, that some of the recommendations and suggestions in the bill wouldn’t necessarily support them as a smaller group. So we worked through some of these issues in the select committee, and through this I would like to say that it was actually thanks to the contribution of the Frimley Lifestyle Village complex that we now have an opt out section in the bill. This means that for those of a medium and large complex, while they need to consider having a professional body corporate manager, should they choose, by special resolution, that they would be able to do as they see fit themselves. Now, it’s these very important parts of this bill that I think make a difference for everyone.

Looking forward, though, and when I think about what we’ve heard today, some of the things that I’m excited about is that in Hastings we are going to start seeing apartments being built. As you may be aware, Mr Speaker, I live in an area where the plains land is rich for growing horticulture and apples. We want to protect our plains land; we want to protect the land from being built on. So we need to look at how we can have denser housing in the city and we need to make sure that it can be affordable for the future. These are the words that I’ve actually heard today in this House being spoken about. A message that’s been sent that affordable apartment living is going to be part of our future. When I look out to the next decade in Hastings, I can see apartments being built. I can see affordable housing where the absolutely delightful people will be enjoying living in the areas of Hastings, building up—building up, not building out. And, as we know, that is how we can protect our future generations for plains land.

They’re the things that I think we will look back on and take credit for. And there’s been a lot of credit being taken in the House tonight over how well we’ve been able to work together—

Andrew Bayly: That’s right.

ANNA LORCK: —hasn’t there, Mr Bayly? Mr Bayly mentioned how collegial things have been in making sure that we can work together. What a difference it can make at select committee; what a difference it can make when we do work together.

Now, these professional standards are going to be making sure that when people go into investing in these unit titles—and maybe one or two or three storeys up—they know that when they go to have a look at buying a property, unlike how Mr Bayly spoke when he bought an apartment and there wasn’t much information available, now we’re going to have a full disclosure of all of that information that you need as part of this Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Bill.

Alongside that, we’re also going to see a very important modernisation of bringing people together to be able to have their meetings. This is, of course, by Zoom. Being able to Zoom in and being able to have a vote—that’s going to make a difference because people have been concerned that if they haven’t been there, they haven’t been able to have their say. While we’ve had proxy voting, this means that whether you’re in the room or whether you’re out of the room, you can Zoom in and you can have a vote. That’s going to make a big difference for people and being able to make sure that they feel that their voice is being heard. Zooming in—as we heard from the Green Party member today, her partner is now a member of a body corporate, on the board and an elected member, and now that person can actually Zoom in and make a contribution.

So, in summing up, having been through the select committee process and thinking this was going to be for urban housing, for MPs in the cities, and I can understand those that live in Auckland and live in Wellington; but to know that this is actually going to make a difference for the regions—for the regions—in how we build more apartments, more affordable apartments for our future generations to have a brighter, more sustainable future, that is why I as a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee have been pleased to be part of this. I would like to acknowledge all of those who have worked so collegially; we’ve, almost, heard from many of them and we will hear from more tonight.

But thank you, Mr Speaker, for this opportunity to speak. Thank you to my colleagues. Thank you to the Frimley Lifestyle Village for making a contribution, for showing this House that, even in the regions, when you make a submission you will have an opportunity to be heard. I encourage people to continue do so because that’s how we can all make better bills here—today and for the future. As we’ve heard, there may well be more that can be done on this bill as we work through it but the workload, including—I must add—I even got a trip to Auckland out of it where I went from the region, flew from the Napier airport, and I flew up to Auckland, and—and—I got to listen to a whole lot of submissions from Auckland. What an experience that was.

One day, we might actually see a whole lot of submissions being said in Hastings. That would be a fantastic thing to do. We could bring people in and hold a meeting there, because when there’s lots of submissions and an important issue that needs to be done, that’s what we can do as we make laws and make better bills. For that, and the collegiality especially—especially—from the Opposition tonight, they’ve just been so gracious in actually acknowledging all the hard work that their fellow Labour Party members have done on the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I commend this to the House.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Who knew that the Finance and Expenditure Committee under the Labour Party leadership was such a land of opportunity? Well, that was pretty staggering, wasn’t it? I, however, can be counted on to be a little more brief.

So this bill has its fruition or its birth, let’s say, from the work of the Hon Nick Smith in his review of the Unit Titles Act. Nikki Kaye, our colleague at the time, picked it up. She brought me into it because I was the housing spokesman, and I thought it was a very important bill, having worked with bodies corporate as a lawyer for 20-odd years before I came to Parliament. It’s a really important thing to deal with some of the issues that those who buy into bodies corporate, and those who take on the, actually, often onerous job of being on the body corporate committee, or being the chair of the body corporate, do need to have some extra help. I mean, any bill that we deal with these days is going to be one which needs to be updated from time to time. There’s been quite a lot said tonight, possibly significantly more than needed to be, about the fact that we can now have Zoom meetings. Well, under the Unit Titles Act, it is really important to note that, in another 20 years, there will be something else. In another 10 years, there’ll be something else. Technology is moving so fast that when we look at these sorts of provisions in the bill, we need to understand that they themselves may not stand the test of time, simply because the times will move on.

I think it’s very heartening to hear that in the provincial area serviced in the Tukituki electorate, there is a retirement village and they have felt that it is really important that this bill gets sorted. It just shows you just how much people are moving more towards a slightly more communal style of living when it comes to apartments or retirement villages, and we should be acknowledging that and accepting that, for many people, the quarter-acre section, or let’s say the eighth of an acre section, is no longer going to be required or actually necessary for people, and they really don’t want to be bothered with mowing lawns all day or having the biggest garden in the street. So it is going to be important that we fix up the legislation from time to time.

I have heard one of the Labour members talk a significantly long time tonight about how this was a bill that was a Labour Party promise to sort out the Unit Titles Act; trouble is, they didn’t. It was actually Nikki Kaye and myself who went to see the Hon Phil Twyford, who was, at the time, the Minister. Nikki put it together, working with other people in the Auckland Central area electorate, doing an extraordinarily good job getting the legislation through, and the select committee worked very hard on it for a very, very long time.

I’ve often thought that there’s that saying, I think it’s the Mainland cheese ad, about how good things take time. I thought we could say possibly tonight that good legislation takes several mothers, and it also requires a lot of time and effort to try and get it right. This bill should have been able to be adopted by the Government, but it wasn’t. They did not want to do it, but at least they didn’t actually stop it. And that is a good thing. I think it is good that all parties in the House are supporting this legislation. It’s the sort of thing that our constituents would expect us to do, and the Hon Nikki Kaye should be very proud of this legacy of hers.

It was good to hear such good comments from Chlöe Swarbrick, the current MP in Auckland Central, and it just shows the sort of cooperative attitude we expect. It was also particularly good to hear Nicola Willis speak as the housing spokesperson, but also as our MP based in Wellington Central, with Wellington Central and Auckland Central surely having some of the most—certainly the greatest numbers—of buildings affected by the Unit Titles Act. Anyway, I commend this bill to the House.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s my privilege to take a short call on the Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. This member’s bill proposes to introduce proportionate utility costs and a code of conduct for body corporate committees, enact requirements for a long-term maintenance plan and a yearly audit of those plans for complexes larger than 10 units, require sellers to disclose information about a unit to potential buyers, and prevent bodies corporate from entering service agreements for longer than 24 months.

As the MP for Northcote, it’s my obligation, responsibility, and something that I’m very proud of—the number of houses that are being built in my community—and it’s something that I take very, very seriously. What I know is that there is no simple silver bullet to solving our housing crisis, and I acknowledge this evening that this is yet another piece of collaborative work between Labour and National to address the crisis that is in front of people and the many, many people—particularly in Tāmaki-makau-rau—that do not have a home, that want a home, and that also want to own a home.

Can I acknowledge the people that have contributed to where this piece of legislation has got to this evening. Nicola Willis, I acknowledge you this evening for the work that you’ve done, as well as your colleagues the Hon Judith Collins and the Hon Nikki Kaye for the work that they have done on this piece of legislation historically.

What’s important in this bill, too, is that Labour supports the reform of the Unit Titles Act. This member’s bill will make some changes that we would like to see. When I think about Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland, it’s home to one-third of the population of Aotearoa New Zealand: 1.7 million people. I’ve had the honour, a few times, to make a cameo appearance to join my Finance and Expenditure Committee (FEC) colleagues. They only invite me here in Wellington; they came to Auckland and didn’t extend the invite for me on that one. When I heard the Auckland Council submission to FEC, they acknowledged that over the next 30 years, the population base that we experience could increase by another 700,000-odd people. Now I see that it my backyard in Northcote, and I look across the way to my colleague and National MP for North Shore, Simon Watts, and it is important that we continue to work collaboratively on ensuring that people are able to have warm, dry housing and roofs over their heads and over their families’ heads.

But what stands out for me in this particular piece of legislation, and as we see an increasing supply of housing available on the North Shore, is that we ensure that people understand what they’re signing up to and that when they are buying their first home—and Northcote may be an example, whether it be part of our programme of work or part of private developments that are booming in my community—they have the opportunity to contribute to bodies corporate, to unit titles, and that they are able to know that they have a safe structure that is wrapped around them and that they can contribute adequately in that governance framework around them.

What this bill does: the Unit Titles Act 2010 provides a framework for ownership and management of properties that are divided into unit titles. It stipulates that together the unit owners from a body corporate, which owns the shared property and manages the unit title development on behalf of unit owners. The body corporate must elect a chairperson. It may also elect a committee or may hire a body corporate manager to manage the body corporate affairs.

It’s important that we get good governance in place and that governance and contribution by people that own those particular properties—so that they are able to contribute. As the Hon Judith Collins said, she loves a good Zoom. So it’s great that people can do that now under this piece of legislation. I commend this bill to the House.

HELEN WHITE (Labour): I’m pleased to take a call on the Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I’m particularly pleased to do it because I am based in a big city and we do have real problems at the moment with the structures of bodies corporate and the gravitas behind them. It is a situation where I looked at this, coming in, and it was already on the table. I looked at it as somebody who knew Nikki Kaye and had actually been in campaigns with her. I could see that it was an issue that really meant a lot to anybody who was based in a big city, because we were seeing real issues in that area, and a lot of stress. It was something that was difficult to avoid. It was something that I thought about in terms of my own position, which is that I own a stand-alone house. I was thinking about how, in New Zealand, we have these houses that are actually really very secure. We have the Torrens system, we have fee simples, and we have some structures that make these ways of owning things particularly attractive to people—in fact, including probably too many investors, because they’re simple structures.

What we have to do is we need to build a new system which is actually going to be much better in terms of city living. It’s going to mean that we have a better environment because people are not moving around from work to home. It means that they will be able to bring up their children in a community. We will be able to rethink the way we live, and it will be a really good thing. But the building blocks of that are things like this bill and being able to actually be secure when we make those investments.

I think about the people that I know, many of them could not afford to buy a fee simple house in the same area, but they could afford an apartment. That’s the most precious thing, because that’s the first money they’ve got, that’s the first asset; it may be the only one. So it’s really important that those structures are sound. So Nikki Kaye, I absolutely congratulate for having brought this in as a member’s bill, and Nicola Willis, I absolutely thank you for pursuing it and doing the work that you’ve done on this bill, along with Judith Collins.

I know that one of the people I found was very supportive of this in my own caucus when we were talking about it, whether it would be something we would adopt or try and do something new in was actually Grant Robertson, who was very, very supportive of it. I think, again, it’s because in big cities we have these problems and we see them.

I also want to acknowledge Anna Lorck’s contribution about other areas, because that’s something I definitely learnt through the process. We had a lot of rural spaces that were changing the way that they were used, and some of those were also things that were really important in terms of the balance in the revisit of this bill that took place. One of those was—I remember hearing from a submitter that was a little retirement set of houses that was in Thames. They were not wealthy people. They were not going to necessarily be able to afford a professional body corporate manager. They needed a simple structure, but they were actually quite big. Now they have an option. They don’t have a lot of maintenance, they have rooves, etc., but they have another option. What we do have is some good rules of thumb and a real cultural change, and that cultural change will mean that we now can have things like professional managers knowing what their obligations are, and, actually, those people living in those apartments also knowing what to expect of the body corporate manager.

We have new rules for things like body corporate committees, where they too will know what they’re expected to do. One of the really good things, I think, about that was that we put a lot of codes and inter-regulations so that you could actually move with the times a little bit. Now, I’m not sure that we will have got everything right, because I think this is a movable feast. I think that we are changing the way we live significantly. In the next little while, we will probably need to continue this journey. There are other structures out there. There are bodies corporates, but there are also people who buy their apartments in companies. There are all sorts of other ways. There are people who do not have a body corporate. I want to make sure that we see this for what it is—it’s a really, really good start in revisiting the law, but we need to make sure that we are all watching.

One of the things that happened in the select committee was, I think, we all did that very well. We worked cooperatively, we changed what was actually—I think I described it in an earlier debate as “stone soup”. We started with one set of rules, we looked at the submissions, we listened to lots of people and their experiences, and we built something that had a lot of components that were different. It was not a normal member’s bill in that way, but it was an utter good-faith process. We ended up with something which is a really good starting point for that building. But it’s not over, and I think those of us who are privileged enough to be on the select committee learnt what we need to do.

This issue—I’ve think I’ve talked to Nicola Willis about this—I don’t actually see it as a political issue in some ways. Yes, it’s very political in the way that it affects people’s lives, but, in a lot of ways, it’s apolitical. This is the new common ground. This is why Labour and National were able to come to an agreement over intensification, because this is our reality. We have to face things, like climate change, together. We cannot afford to be petty about this. We need to get in the middle and sort these issues out, and they are apolitical as far as that goes. So I look forward to that.

This absolutely complements the work that we have been doing with regard to building new houses—lots of new houses—and it complements the record number of consents, and it complements the intensification plans, which are going to allow people to go up six storeys around our train station. They’re also going to allow buildings that are connected in our inner-city suburbs, for example, in all our tier 1 councils. So this is a really important time to have done this work.

I want to just take a little bit of an issue here with the Hon Judith Collins’ suggestion that this was never on the work plan for Labour—it absolutely was. What, actually, Labour did at that stage was face a crisis all over the housing sector, and what it did was prioritise rental laws. Rental laws are incredibly important; they are another big piece of the puzzle because there’s a whole lot of people out there who can’t get on the property ladder and haven’t been able to for a very long time. Hopefully, we can make that possible in methods like this and in building a whole lot more houses and bringing on supply and actually just changing the way we build and we build up. Hopefully, that’s possible, but we are also dealing with a situation where things like rental are really important. We needed it to be warm and dry. I’ll never apologise for prioritising that, but I do see this as a very important piece of the puzzle, and I am very pleased it happened.

I just haven’t spent a lot of time talking about the detail in this. So I just want to give a couple of instances of what my favourites are. I think the actual nuance about large and small and the distinctions that have been made throughout the bill are really good. I think the issue about the cost of, for example, long-term maintenance plans and what those maintenance plans look like is very interesting. We’ve gone to a situation where we’ve tried to fit size into the equation, where we’ve talked about things like, actually, if you detail your plan to 10 years and, then, you go to 30 with a less detailed plan, you’re doing your job. I think we have a very interesting disclosure list, and, again, it was because people took the time and cared in the select committee. We ended up with a list of things you actually really do need—not just a list of “nice to haves”, not an onerous list; a good list of things that you will get when you are buying an apartment. That will make things a lot clearer for you.

And I think we got the issue about remote voting right. That changed the opinion with regard to proxies. Proxies are an interesting phenomenon, and, yes, we’ve all heard terrible stories about proxies being misused. But if you can remote vote, then you can actually participate, and I think that’s the better solution—that people start to seriously think, when they move into an apartment, that they’re not abandoning things, that they’re getting involved and being part of their community. I commend this bill to the House.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I don’t want to take my full time, because I’m eager for the bill to pass into law, but I do just want to make a few acknowledgments. The first is to acknowledge the bill’s sponsor, Nicola Willis, for her passage of this bill—I think it’s going to pass unanimously through the Parliament, and that’s a great thing—but also the Hon Nikki Kaye and the Hon Judith Collins for all their work done in the past. I remember Nikki Kaye coming to talk to me about this issue, it would have been in 2015 or 2016, and I remember thinking to myself at the time, “Gee, that is a tricky one to take on. I’ll be intrigued to see how that goes.” And then it became even more difficult when National moved into Opposition, because it’s harder to get bills through the Parliament in Opposition, obviously.

In that vein, I would like to sincerely say thank you to the Government for recognising that there’s a legitimate issue here and that this was a bill that was advanced in good faith to improve the law for many people. It would have been really easy for the Minister of Housing and the Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing), Poto Williams, who has responsibility for this particular issue, to just say, “Ah, well, we’ll do it eventually, and get around to it.” But when a bill, a legislative vehicle, is before the House, I actually think it’s incumbent upon politicians to take advantage of that.

It’s really great that Minister Williams made the officials available, I understand from other contributions—and I see Helen White nodding her head vigorously—that the officials did a lot of work on, again, that’s something that the Minister doesn’t have to do, but, of course, it makes it far easier for, particularly, a technical bill like this one to have its passage through the select committee. So that is a good thing. It’s a really good thing, and it’s Parliament working at its best, so I want to acknowledge the Minister for that, and also the previous Minister of Housing—I see he’s in the House—Phil Twyford, as well.

Helen White, in her contribution, made reference to the framework and the architecture and the Torrens title—I haven’t heard the phrase “Torrens title” since my property law days across the road at Victoria University of Wellington. Maybe it bodes well for the future that I scraped an A-, although I haven’t heard the phrase “Torrens title” for so long. But, of course, she’s right, and we do enjoy a very good framework for property law in this country, and this is another contribution to it.

There are bills that come before the Parliament that people regard as boring, but that are fundamental to the way in which we live our lives, and this is one of them. Many more New Zealanders in the future will live in apartments and unit title properties. It’s just that straightforward. That is the way of the future for New Zealand. The MP for Tukituki expressed some amazement at the future of apartment living in Havelock North and Hastings, but, I tell you, there’s going to be apartments in Hastings. There’s going to be apartments in Havelock North. They might not be the size and the scale of Wellington Central and Auckland Central and Lower Hutt and Christchurch Central, but there’ll be unit titles in those places. There are already, and there will be more in the future, because we’ve got to go up in our cities and we’ve got to go out, and part of that is apartment living. So it’s incumbent upon us, as a Parliament, to get the legislative framework right.

It’s things like the Property Law Act, the Unit Titles Act that we’re talking about, the Land Transfer Act. All of these things we take for granted as being effective and being efficient, but when they go wrong, chaos is created. Too often in the Parliament, we underappreciate the importance of stability, of a legal framework that allows people to make decisions and allows people to plan their lives, knowing that the law will be enforced efficiently and effectively and that there is a clear and simple—or as simple as possible—legal framework for people to operate under. That, in and of itself, is a massive contributor to New Zealand’s prosperity, and too often we forget that.

Countries that don’t have stable rule-of-law systems, particularly rule-of-law systems based around the stability of private property rights—countries that don’t have that suffer. They suffer because people can’t plan properly, they can’t make decisions properly, they can’t rely on decisions that they’ve made being enforced properly and agreements that they’ve entered into with other people being enforced properly, and that leads to a lack of encouragement and incentive to invest and to try to create the prosperity that we all want. So it’s very important that we get the underlying legal framework of property law in this country right, and this bill makes a significant contribution to that. I take Helen White’s point that it is not the be-all and end-all, and we will return to it, no doubt, as a Parliament.

Finally—I said I wouldn’t take very much time, but, as is usual, I have taken quite a bit—I want to say that my personal view is that apartment living is fantastic. My first house was an apartment, or my first property was an apartment, and for many younger—I’m no longer young, but for many younger New Zealanders, people my age and below—I said to my wife the other day, “I’m 38. I’m no longer in my mid-30s. I think I’m in my late 30s.”

Nicola Willis: Definitely.

CHRIS BISHOP: “Definitely,” says Nicola Willis, who’s definitely older than me.

Hon Members: Oh!

CHRIS BISHOP: Oh, sorry—sorry, deputy leader! But for those of us my age and below, many people will buy apartments for their first home. It’s how I got into my first property, and it will be the same. Chlöe Swarbrick has made a very good contribution to this bill, as well. I want to acknowledge her efforts, as well, as the MP for Auckland Central. She knows that many of her constituents live in unit titles and live in apartments, and they deserve better protection and better laws that govern the property that they live in. For many people—in fact, for almost everyone who buys an apartment and a property—it will be their biggest investment that they ever make, and it’s important that we get their legal framework correct.

So apartment living is the way. It’s part of the future of housing in New Zealand. It’s not the answer for everything, and it’s not the answer for everyone, but it is part of the mix. We’ve got to get that legal framework right. I’m really pleased this bill is passing into law unanimously, because we’ve got consensus around it, and I commend the bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s very nice to see that there’s much conviviality and agreement in the House tonight. I wonder whether it’s something to do with the two speeches we heard earlier on, where our new colleague Lemauga Lydia Sosene arrived with a very interesting journey that I think anyone who heard it would understand that probably inspired us as to why we came into this place—and I certainly felt that. And the outgoing Hon Simon Bridges, once again, reflecting on his time here, also, I’m sure, left us all with much to think about—about what we have and intend and should contribute here. So perhaps I’ll put the influence of those two speakers down to the, shall we say, peace that’s apparently obviously broken out as we stand here.

Going back to the legislation, and, again, I should start by congratulating the member who has taken this on the journey, which, like much good legislation—as I think the Hon Judith Collins said—like a good cheese or a good wine, sometimes takes time to mature. But in reflecting that, I can’t help but think how the timing of this legislation is so important because property and what is happening around homeownership has never been really more topical.

I just reflect on the things that are influencing new homeowners or existing homeowners today. In fact, all those issues that we’re going to have to deal with as a Parliament now and into the quite immediate future are really incorporated in this—just something as basic as building costs. Now, anyone who was around in the early 1980s will know some pretty dodgy buildings came out of that time—when there was a lot of buildings being built with very little regulation and by some fairly dodgy characters. The result of that was that a lot of people got badly burnt, and that was at a time when, basically, there were shortcuts taken and there wasn’t enough oversight. I just fear that right now, with our building costs, that, again, I would like to think that there has been some cleaning up of the industry. I just hope there’s not going to be shortcuts taken now to mitigate those building costs that will result in some of those new owners—of apartments, in particular, and even in stand-alone buildings—being impacted in future.

So, again, this is a piece of legislation that those who are going to be buying, certainly—I then reflect on what happened during the period where we end up with the leaky buildings or the watertight homes issue. Once again, it was just not only the people who built those homes and bought them, it was those who subsequently bought them down the track who also ended up with a lot of cost, without any of the necessary oversight, any of the necessary defences that we see appear in this bill—something as basic as being able to actually check and demand some building inspections and, more importantly, some of the previous records.

We’ve talked climate change, as well, and we still don’t really know the impact that that’s going to have on current buildings. The obvious one we are talking about is the forced retreat; those who are on the coast. But also, there’s going to be a lot of change in higher, more extreme weather events, which are going to certainly put pressure on any deficiencies in the building industry that occur now—once again, particularly accentuated in a high-rise building, where the costs of those new coming in, in fact, may get some nasty surprises.

That’s where this piece of legislation, around the body corp—now, most people will have a body corp story. I just today was speaking to someone when I indicated I’ll be speaking on this bill tonight and talking about it, said, well, their own one was where they bought into what they thought was a stand-alone building. Obviously, they realised through the process it was a body corp; didn’t understand the full implications of it until they were required to start paying for the lift and the air conditioning in the attached building. That was as much their responsibility as it was for those who were on the 15th floor of that said building. So these are the type of things that can happen. They’re good anecdotes to run across this legislation, the template across this legislation, to just understand whether we have got it right. All the speakers said this may well be a living, breathing piece of legislation that will have to be amended at some stage as the world we’re in moves on, but it does give a good basis for that.

Interesting, too, previous speakers have talked about it’s not only Auckland and Wellington, that apartments are moving into the provinces. It’s not only because people have to live in those high-rises—and I note the previous speaker, Chris Bishop, talked about the desirability of living in apartments. Although, he won’t mind me making the personal comment, given the comment he made to the member sitting next to him that, I understand, he’s due to have a child. I wonder that when he’s on his third child, he’ll feel the same way about living in an apartment in downtown Wellington without somewhere to kick them out at night when they’re misbehaving, but, again, he might like to discuss that with the member next to him who may have similar thoughts on that very thing herself.

But what I am finding in my own electorate where there traditionally had been no need—I’m talking about the Ōhāriu electorate here, where the stand-alone property was the norm. There were a few developers that I got into a discussion with over the years, and they decided they’d put their toe in the water, if you like, and start building, probably not a particularly popular move with some of the existing people in those developments. What they suddenly found is a toe-in-the-water exercise where they were building side-by-sides, one-down two-ups, and the necessity for some sort of body corp or shared arrangement, they suddenly couldn’t build enough of them. This is not talking downtown Wellington; this is talking on the hillsides of Newlands and Churton Park. What that showed—it certainly showed those developers—that there is actually a demand for those areas. That although we have a generation that grew up with the quarter-acre pavlova paradise—of which I would say that I’m probably one, and even yourself, Mr Speaker, may have been another one, especially owning half of the Manawatū—that they probably did have room to roam at that time.

But I think that what we’re going to see, with—again, I’ll throw another matter or another factor that is of constant interest in this House, which, of course, is the matter of rising fuel costs, where people are wanting to not travel the big distances, certainly not in the motor car, that they do. That, again, will mean that people will more likely change their own living habits. I look at something like a shopping centre in my own electorate which is now likely to be not just a shopping centre but also include accommodation arrangements at the same time.

So, again, these are all things that are happening, and once again it behoves us as a Parliament to not only recognise those changes, not only to join those changes up in our legislation but also to make sure that those who do come after us do have some of those protections, because I would not like to be in my dotage—some time away I’d like to think—where I was sitting down thinking that in my time in the House, we did allow things to happen, like the leaky homes, that we did set the environment and didn’t actually do anything about it, because I know there will be those, probably even in this House, but certainly those listening tonight, who will know the impact of not getting it right in the building, because, after all, housing is what it is about. If we can get the housing right, then so much else that ails our society, I think, we can get right. Again, I go back to the legislation—it is likely that that housing will be more likely to be intense housing, it will be shared space, will be shared responsibilities. So, again, it is important that legislation like this does give protection for those people.

So as the last speaker on this bill, I know much of the technical side of the bill has been addressed by previous speakers. I note that there are many lawyers in the House who probably made livings out of these areas, and I’m sure many will be rubbing their hands should they leave here and need to resume their careers—it’s probably going to be a more lucrative area to be done, but we just hope with this legislation we may have taken away some of the need for legal intervention later. So as the final speaker on this bill, and having been on the Finance and Expenditure Committee that has taken it through the House—which has enabled myself and my other members of this committee to learn much about it—I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Local Government (Pecuniary Interests Register) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): I call the former Deputy Mayor of Palmerston North City.

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): I move, That the Local Government (Pecuniary Interests Register) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

It’s a pleasure to rise in support of this third reading of a bill that I believe will improve the opportunity for transparency and accountability in local government, not because I have seen a wholesale problem within the sector, but purely because there is a clear need for a consistent bottom line in terms of what is required to be disclosed for publicly elected decision-makers. And whilst on the subject of local government, can I acknowledge my newest colleague, Lemauga Lydia Sosene, who delivered her maiden statement this evening and is a very welcome addition to the Pacific and general Labour caucus with her background in local government. It’s wonderful to have someone from that space moving into the team.

In my previous role within the sector, I actually thought there was a legal requirement to disclose interests on an annual basis. That’s what Palmerston North City Council expected. But of course, when I arrived here in this place at Parliament, I soon learnt that that was not the case. And talking with elected members who do disclose interests regularly, as recently as last week, some of them also have been actually unaware that the requirement to do so is not actually a given. So this bill will correct that.

At third reading, I think it’s important to acknowledge the process that this bill has been through over the previous 10 months. As you know, it was introduced to the House and it went to the Governance and Administration Committee. And at the start of this process, it was certainly my hope that the Parliament would hear from individuals and organisations but also from unitary and local territorial authorities themselves, and the select committee did: 23 submissions in total. Those submissions, as we know, have been really helpful because they have, in my view, improved the workability of the bill.

Can I thank, again, members of that committee. Sir, can I thank you. As the chair of the select committee and as a former colleague within the local government sector yourself, you are acutely aware of the practicalities of some of the issues that were discussed and raised. I think that it was sage that the select committee was able to hear from the parliamentary registrar but also from the Privacy Commissioner, as the importance of the information before councils and how that would be collected and retained was obviously very important.

But I also want to thank my Labour caucus colleagues, Rachel Boyack, Naisi Chen, and Dr Deborah Russell, who have worked with me at all stages of the bill. Given that that select committee consists of five—there’s one I haven’t mentioned. So to avoid isolation, the Hon Michael Woodhouse, can I thank you also for your work in committee. I want to also again just acknowledge the staff that have been involved throughout this process from the select committee to the advisers with the Department of Internal Affairs and the Parliamentary Counsel Office for their understanding of the changes, and also my own staff here in the parliamentary precinct and my electorate office back home. As I have previously mentioned, I think the select committee has done a sterling job at reworking this bill into a better shape than when it received it. I think that’s something that we all hope to achieve. When the select committee process is working well, we end up with some good stuff coming out of it.

This bill is not about putting people off standing for office within local government. And while that was a view that may have been expressed by some at the first reading, reason has prevailed and the bill before us, I think, strikes a very good balance between the requirement to disclose interests alongside that of maintaining a level of personal privacy. It’s certainly my view that those who are elected to public office can expect to forego some degree of privacy, but they should not be expected to forego all aspects of their privacy, and some of the changes certainly do cover that. A change in particular around what would be publicly available would be a summary of the information rather than the register itself. That also takes into account the importance of personal safety issues that was raised as part of the committee of the whole House stage. Where the bill has eventually landed, I think, is again a good balance between transparency but also the views that have been expressed by the Privacy Commissioner and the initial view expressed by the Attorney-General on the initial vet of the bill.

I do want to touch on some of the specific changes that are now evident in the bill since its introduction. The first is the application of the bill has been extended to also cover members of local boards and community boards. That’s really important in the view of the Governance and Administration Committee because some of the decisions that are made by local board members—that purely relates to the Auckland region—are in many situations financially significant, more so then some decisions of a financial nature that are taken by some local territorials elsewhere in the country.

I have to say I found the committee of the whole House stage very helpful to tease out some of the issues, to deal with some of the questions that have been raised, and hopefully to provide some clarity for the House. I know that as part of that stage Mr Mooney and Mr Watts both raised questions around the nature of appointed members and whether they should be included in that. Many of those individuals sit on finance and audit committees of an independent nature and an independent lens. But again, where the select committee landed with that was, essentially, not to include them because of the existing provisions that are available to councils to mitigate and address any of those concerns that may be evident.

I am also aware that through the committee of the whole House process the ACT Party sought to broaden the applicability of this bill to essentially include directors of council-controlled organisations and council-controlled trading organisations, things like airport boards, culture and heritage facilities, and the like, but also further to include chief executives and council staff. As part of the committee process, that was ruled out of scope, which is appropriate in my view, because the bill is trying to capture elected members, not all decision makers per se.

One of the changes that was made at the committee of the whole House was an amendment to make it absolutely clear that any interest declared under this bill is not automatically declared under or registered as a pecuniary interest under the Local Authorities (Members’ Interests) Act (LAMIA). Likewise, that any interest declared under LAMIA are not automatically captured by this bill. So I do thank the committee of the whole House for making that change, which gives effect to the direction that the select committee did indicate. But also, in short, I guess, it’s two separate pieces of legislation, two separate obligations on elected members to declare.

I want to just briefly touch on some of the other changes that will now be required within a member’s return. We’ve talked previously in the House about the change to that control threshold from 5 percent in the company to 10 percent. That is consistent with other legislation in the local government sector. The location of property being general rather than specific, again that aligns itself with some of the personal safety concerns that have been expressed through this process, and also no requirement to disclose business or company interests which are via an investment through a managed investment scheme consistent with the approach taken by the Parliament. The gifts threshold still remains at $500 but there is a change to capture any cumulative donations from a singular individual or entity. I think what has been helpful is the select committee have recommended and the committee has agreed or accepted a definition of “family member”, which is now defined—which will include a spouse, partner, parent, grandparent, child, stepchild, foster child, grandchild, or sibling. That’s consistent with the parliamentary approach.

Finally, I want to thank colleagues from across the House who have been very complimentary as this bill has progressed. I want to acknowledge the local government spokespersons from all parties, including the Leader of the Opposition, who in the early stages engaged with me to indicate support from the Opposition for the bill. But it’s slightly surreal that we’ve got to this point in the process on the whim of luck and a DEKA biscuit tin as our starting point. But I’m certainly thankful that the element of luck and the biscuit tin has delivered an opportunity to provide consistency, transparency, and accountability within the local government sector. But I’m also thankful that this bill has progressed through all stages up to this point with the unanimous support of the House, and while that does happen from time to time and may be a rarity—although I do note that the previous two members’ bills on the Order Paper today have passed by unanimous support of the House. It’s important that we note that because it signals that the Parliament’s intention is very clear, and that’s this: that the need for consistency, transparency, and accountability for all elected members is an absolute expectation when they approach their decision-making duties. But also that there is a minimum standard for disclosing that information for the public to have confidence in that decision-making process. Again, can I thank the House. While we’re probably not going to complete the third reading this evening, I am delighted to commend the third reading of this bill in my name to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I wish to acknowledge Tangi Utikere for his opening address in regards to the third reading of the Local Government (Pecuniary Interests Register) Amendment Bill. As has been noted by the previous member, the National Party supports this bill and we are pleased to see that its passage is progressed through this House and, as we heard before, in 10 months, which is actually, in contrast to the bill before that, a reasonably short amount of time in the context of this House, but an important passage all the same. Because as the local government spokesperson for National, I have been on the road over the past number of months visiting multiple district councils and aspects of local government across this country, and I have been very impressed by the competency and quality and enthusiasm of members of our local government community, those elected officials that play such an integral role in terms of supporting action and change within their local communities. They often do so, as has been reflected, wearing multiple hats in terms of the roles they play across what are often small communities, but ones with significant energy and aspiration. So I want to reflect on those individuals.

Why this is important in terms of this third reading is that this bill at its heart will take us a small way in terms of improving the transparency in local government. That’s really important from a trust and confidence perspective for our communities in terms of those democratically elected officials. As I said, in a number of our communities, the gap between our community members and those officials is reasonably small. Obviously, when you move to our much larger cities such as Auckland, that gap broadens quite considerably and I think that acknowledges some of the challenges that we have around connectivity in local government. But this bill will improve the transparency in regards to registration of potential interests that may give rise to conflict, and I think this is a very standard procedure in the private sector. As we’ve heard before from the prior member, Tangi Utikere, it is also an aspect that a number of councils have already taken on board or have done in advance of this, but this will ensure that that application is consistent.

I want to, lastly, just recognise that building a culture of transparency of which this bill will support in local government is very important. It’s very important because I think, as a number of speakers who have experience in different roles within local government have acknowledged, local government plays a crucial role in this country in terms of the delivery of both infrastructure, social services, and economic outcomes. So having an element of—or increasing the culture of—transparency within local government is something that we should in this House support. I hope that it encourages other people within our communities who have skills, experience, and background that would bring value to our local communities to consider standing for the local government elections, which are happening later this year. We need a significant number of strong individuals to put their hand up for those roles, and I am hopeful that what we are doing here this evening, as we’ve heard, is not going to place any barrier in terms of that process, and actually enhance that and make it, in a small way in terms of the culture, a more attractive place to be.

So that is where I will leave it. I am happy on behalf of the National Party to commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): I call another member with close association to a former Deputy Mayor of Palmerston North—Rachel Boyack. Ha, ha!

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you. May I begin by acknowledging the member in charge of the bill, my class of 2020 colleague and former intermediate school colleague Tangi Utikere. I also want to acknowledge you in particular, Mr Speaker, as chair of our committee. I do hope that at some point you may be able to take a call on this bill. I do come to this particular bill having been the daughter of a former Deputy Mayor of Palmerston North City—a role also held by Mr Utikere—who will be visiting this House tomorrow, so we might have to ensure that he gets an opportunity to say hello to you.

These pieces of law are important, and I just want to acknowledge as well all the members of the Governance and Administration Committee—a big acknowledgment to the officials who provided advice and support as this bill has gone through the House, particularly as we did make quite a significant number of changes to the bill, and their advice and support throughout all stages was very helpful.

Like my colleague Mr Utikere has already stated, I want to thank the submitters who came to the committee, particularly those who helped guide us through some of the changes we made that led to a more pragmatic bill, I believe, and piece of law, in terms of ensuring that we got the balance right in some areas. I’ll talk about a couple of those further on in my contribution.

This bill will likely become law in time for the upcoming local body elections, which are being held in October this year. I’ll just acknowledge the comments from the previous speaker, Mr Simon Watts, about how important it is for people to put themselves forward for local body elections. For those watching this late at night, I do encourage people to consider standing for local government. They are important roles. That means that this bill, while it will take effect in law, will actually take effect in practice a few months after—120 days after—the election in October. So we will see the effect of it quite shortly—in less than a year. Following that, the committee decided that the members would follow a similar process to those of us elected here to Parliament—that those interests would be declared on an annual basis following that. I’m really looking forward to seeing the bill have its practical effect very shortly, and it’s good to see that happening.

The bill specifically amends the Local Government Act to require local authorities to maintain and publish a register of pecuniary interests for members of those authorities. I do just want to make a quick note about the distinction between this register that we are introducing through this law and the process which is already outlined and followed under the Local Authorities (Members’ Interests) Act (LAMIA). The interaction between these two pieces of law—we had discussion throughout the select committee process, but towards the end of that process we did have some further conversation. One of the challenges often for the public—and sometimes for members of elected authorities—is actually understanding how those two things interrelate and the fact that you have a register which declares your interest. An interest may be on the register but may not actually apply when it comes to making a decision, and then there may be an interest that is registered as a conflict for the purpose of decision making under LAMIA but isn’t actually on your register of pecuniary interests. That will probably bear out—I’m going to suggest that there’ll probably be some questions from members as we go through this.

One of the things I’m really pleased about is that we will have support from the likes of the Department of Internal Affairs to support the local government sector in the development of these registers, because there will probably be some questions, and that’s not a bad thing. It’s actually important. I know that for us, as members, when we’re making our declarations of interest, we will often have questions about exactly how we do that. So, in my view, it’s a good thing.

There are, I believe, four objectives that we will be achieving through the introduction of this bill. The first, which has been noted already tonight, is improving transparency and accountability within the sector. I would want to note, however—particularly after some of the comments from ACT member Simon Court during the committee stage—that this bill hasn’t come about because of any specific concern that’s been raised, and I think it’s really important we put on record that this is not because the sector has been brought into any disrepute.

This is just about consistency, which is my second point. It’s about consistency across the sector, whereby we have a lot of local government authorities that already use a register, but they are inconsistent across the country.

Thirdly, the third piece it achieves, in my view, is some further alignment with central government, which I believe is helpful, in that there are expectations of us as members of Parliament that we declare our interests, and so should there be for local government.

Finally, I’ll talk to a particular change that we made which I think illustrates this well. It is the importance of getting some balance and some pragmatism in the bill. We did hear from some submitters that there would be concern if we, for example, published every single client of, say, a lawyer or an accountant or a consultant, and that if we were to publish every single one of those clients, that would actually be reaching far too deeply into the information that was relevant to that member, and I just want to talk about that piece specifically, which is around how the bill will focus on people’s employment.

I just want to make a comment around that, because one of the challenges in local government—and I’ll put this on record—is that members of local authorities are paid very poorly, in my view. Certainly, in some of the larger centres—if we look at Auckland and maybe Wellington—the remuneration is a livable income. It might not be very high, but it is livable. But in my electorate of Nelson, where I have two councils, the Nelson City Council and the Tasman District Council, many of our councillors are paid between $40,000 and $50,000 a year. Given that these roles are becoming more and more complex with greater expectations placed on people in those roles, the amount of difficult and at times hateful correspondence that those members receive, and often without having any form of staffing support, it’s my view that we do have a job to do which—I know that the Minister of Local Government has her review of local government. We do have a job to do to lift the profile of local government, and one of the challenges is that many people who stand for a local government role do actually hold another job. Unless they are retired or are independently wealthy, it’s very difficult for people to be able to support themselves in a local government role if that is their only form of income.

So that was one of the reasons we felt, as a committee, quite strongly that it wouldn’t be appropriate to list every individual client that a person may have. Having said that, if a member had a client of a large organisation that was seeking funding from the council, or where a decision was being made that was relevant to the council, then that could potentially form a pecuniary interest, or it could come into the decision-making process under LAMIA.

So that was just one of many changes, and I hope other members make comment on some of the other changes we made to the bill that were very good. On that note, it’s a pleasure to take the final, my final call—not “the final call”—on this bill and commend it to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): Oh, I call the former Mayor of Westland, Maureen Pugh.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Mr “Old Grey Mayor”. Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I too stand in support of the Local Government (Pecuniary Interests Register) Amendment Bill in its third and final reading tonight. We’re getting through some of these members’ bills at a good pace. This is a piece of legislation that has made its way into this House. I can see it being another burden on local government and our local government councillors. There have been systems in place for many years that create openness and transparency, and to have to legislate to get those systems in place, when in fact local government is probably more accountable to its ratepayers than central government is because people live in those communities.

And in the conflict of interest that people have to sign up to in local government, they have to declare an interest that is no greater than that of the general public. So the interest register now that they’re being asked to sign up to is delving into the personal assets of local councillors in a way that’s never happened before, and I do have concerns that it will end up being Big Brother looking over the shoulder of our local government councillors. And this seems to me to be a bit of an overreach—not unexpected from this Government, but I certainly hope that with this particular bill the Government will walk the talk and actually comply with these rules themselves that they expect local government to sign up to, and maybe even perhaps have their own returns sent in on time, which would be a novel thing.

Our local government colleagues are out there on the coalface of our communities, delivering the services that most of us take for granted. They do a fabulous job, and they are in the spotlight of their local communities, and most are known personally to the people that they represent. And to think that they need this type of legislation to make them accountable is a bit of joke.

However, in the interests of openness and transparency, the National Party is supporting this, because there is no strong argument not to, but the reality is that there are other ways of ensuring that there is openness and transparency. They can declare their interests. There is a requirement to set up good templates within councils, which most have done. And those that haven’t, there would have been easier ways of ensuring that they were compliant with that requirement that they have no interest greater than that of the general public. But in the meantime, this is going through and I commend it to the House.

NAISI CHEN (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise in this House tonight—perhaps, for today, to be the final speaker on this bill. However, I just wanted to put on record that this is a necessary bill, this is a wonderful bill to increase the transparency in our local government, and this is a bill that not only our party but I personally wholeheartedly support.

Can I start by thanking the select committee, which you are chair of, for going through the process of scrutinising this bill, of many in-depth conversations that we’ve had on little issues or big issues, but every single detail, I think—we’ve been able to work collegially in our select committee to be able to really present to the House a wonderful bill. It was wonderful to start with but I think we’ve really made it better, in terms of all the conversations we had and nulling out all of the details and actually exploring all of the possibilities and what the ramifications are if we were to, for instance, legislate in one way, plan A versus plan B. So, Mr Speaker, thank you for that, and thank you especially to the member who is the sponsor of this bill, my colleague Tangi Utikere, for his guidance and for his support throughout this whole entire process.

I think Mr Utikere has appeared on almost every single select committee meeting, as an old friend coming back, while we were considering this bill and had offered his insights as deputy mayor, previously, of his city, but also as a member of Parliament, and just supporting us and asking questions to the officials in the most insightful manner that I can see.

I just want to allude to a couple of issues that I found to be really important and things that I think, as our select committee, I was really proud that we were able to make those changes. Now for the first one is expanding the scope to local boards. As we all know, local boards play a very, very important part in our local democracy, whether that be in Auckland—I know in Christchurch they call it a community board. Those people are really very grassroots, in the community every day. They also have huge responsibilities in terms of grant giving and in terms of budgets as well.

For instance, our local board in the Botany electorate, Howick Local Board—and a shout-out to Adele and her team, the chair Adele White. They look after, for instance, all of our traffic implementation, so the crossings; in terms of our parks, our skate parks, our playgrounds—and I know that we’ll be opening a few new playgrounds in the Botany electorate, so that’s something I’m really looking forward to going back to.

But those are really, really important funding decisions. I also know that the local board there funds, for instance—we have this youth centre in the middle of the Botany town centre, in our mall, and that is available for all our rangitahi to be able to gather and to be able to hang out, a place, a space for them to hang out, a youth space. But also for instance, our Santa Parade, as well—that, by the way, is the second-largest in the Southern Hemisphere. We have a very, very big Santa Parade in Howick as well. So those events are all funded by our local board, and so I think it’s really important that we include their pecuniary interests as well. So we’ve brought that into the folds of this legislation, and I think that just makes sure that our local democracy—no matter on what level—is just as transparent as the other. So that’s a part that I thought we had made really meaningful changes.

We also—I think, just in context of what is happening or what we’re about to go into, into the local government elections, in terms of the address identifier for the properties that these local members own, I remember us talking and mulling over what description, or what level of description, would suffice in terms of getting that balance right. So it’s protecting the privacy of a particular elected politician versus having enough transparency about their pecuniary interest, about their financial and their ownership over, especially, real property. So I remember us really trying to make sure that we find the correct balance—it’s a little bit like the Goldilocks in terms of finding it just right. I think by having that broad—usually by suburb—definition, and I think largely we followed the House in terms of Parliament and the way that we register our own pecuniary interests. I think that’s where we’ve landed, and I do think that is the right thing. But I just want everyone who’s listening—everyone who reads Hansard—to know that we actually did really debate both ends of the spectrum just to make sure that this is exactly what is right in terms of getting that balance.

Can I just finally end on many thanks. I just want to start with Sir Maarten Wevers for coming into the select committee and offering his insight. I think from the beginning—in terms of this whole, entire process—obviously, he has had so much experience in dealing with Parliament’s pecuniary interest register that he was able to offer so much insight into this bill at hand. Could I thank all of the submitters to the select committee, as well. During that process, we heard from many local representatives—mayors of cities, and councillors, and obviously their peak body as well. Thank you for your contribution to this whole bill.

Finally, can I just end on where I started as to thank the member who has sponsored the bill—and congratulations to him, as well. As a fellow class of 2020 new MP coming into the House, it’s great to see another fellow 2020 MP colleague being able to have his member’s bill—something that I know he’s hugely passionate about—to be able to soon, hopefully, be passed in this House as well.

This bill will increase transparency in our local authorities. This bill will strengthen public trust as well and confidence in our decision-making machinery in local government. So I think this is a really important bill that we need to really be serious about in terms of, we know the benefit that it’ll bring for our democracy. Like I said, as we look at the bigger context of going into the local elections this year, I think this bill will be so important that we get that balance just right, but more importantly, that we inspire more faith in our locally elected—in all our elected—representatives, whether that be in central government or in local government. And so, on that note, I commend the bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): Members, this debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.