Tuesday, 17 May 2022

TUESDAY, 17 MAY 2022

TUESDAY, 17 MAY 2022

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

KARAKIA/PRAYERS

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

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 Hannah Blumhardt requesting that the House call on the Government to ban single-use disposable food and drink serviceware, and use waste legislation and targeted investment to require and support the implementation of accessible, reusable alternative systems instead

petition of Sunday Blessings requesting that the House implement legislative and policy reforms to recognise that adequate food supply is a fundamental human right.

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

CLERK: Ministry for the Environment, response to the Climate Change Commission’s advice on setting emissions budgets.

SPEAKER: That paper is published under the authority of the House. Select Committee reports have been delivered for presentation.

CLERK:

Reports of the Health Committee on the petition of Angela Meyer and the petition of Renate Schutte

report of the Justice Committee on the Three Strikes Legislation Repeal Bill

reports of the Petitions Committee on the petitions of Alexandra Johnston, Annalice Rayner, and Meridy Boyd-Clark

report of the Regulations Review Committee on the Complaint about Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008.

SPEAKER: The bill is set down for second reading. The report of the Regulations Review Committee is set down for consideration.

Ministerial Statements

Climate Change Response Act 2002—Statutory Emissions Reduction Plan

Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister of Climate Change): I wish to make a ministerial statement relating to the emissions reduction plan. Yesterday the Government released Te hau mārohi ki anamata: Towards a productive, sustainable and inclusive economy. This is Aotearoa New Zealand’s first statutory emissions reduction plan under the Climate Change Response Act 2002 as amended by the zero carbon bill in 2019. As a result of the amendment, the Climate Change Response Act has as its purpose to provide a framework by which New Zealand can develop and implement clear and stable change policies that (1) contribute to the global effort under the Paris agreement to limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and (2) allow New Zealand to prepare for and adapt to the effects of climate change.

The zero carbon amendment bill passed unanimously, which is a great credit to parliamentarians across the House. That bipartisan accord means that New Zealanders do now enjoy a sense of certainty and predictability about the overall framework that guides climate policy over the coming decades. That includes the commitment to the 1.5 degree temperature threshold and the long-term emissions reductions targets to 2050. Following the House’s strong bipartisan endorsement last week, this also now includes the first three emissions budgets that act as stepping stones towards those 2050 targets. In total, there will be six emissions budgets and emissions reductions plans to take us out to 2050. Each budget will act as a stepping stone to lower emissions and each plan will include the necessary policies and strategies to meet that budget.

Our first emissions budget requires us to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by a further 11.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent over the course of the next four years. Our strategy to achieve this and to lay the groundwork for the second and third emissions budgets is based on five principles. It starts with what we need to do to play our part in a worldwide effort to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius so that current and future generations are protected from the floods, fires, droughts, and storms of a changing climate. That flows into our Tiriti o Waitangi commitments and empowering Māori to respond to the particular risks and opportunities for Māori and the Māori economy alongside an equitable transition that brings everyone with us and leaves no one behind, and working with nature to solve the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis together. Those considerations then drive the ultimate outcome, which is a productive, sustainable, and inclusive economy that works for everyone.

The challenge that we have in front of us is as urgent and as important as it has ever been. The science tells us that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels gives us the best chance of avoiding the worst effects. As temperatures have already risen more than 1 degree, we must act now to prevent further atmospheric warming and the catastrophes that accompany it.

I acknowledge that all parties in this Parliament have different policy prescriptions for reaching our shared goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. But now that we have a plan, the task for our Government is to make that happen and the task for all of us in this House is to make the next plan even better. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you, Mr Speaker. In reply to the statement from the Minister, I want to reiterate, on behalf of the National Party, that we are proud as a party of our record on climate change. It was National that signed us up to the Paris Agreement, and it was National in Government that ratified that decision on behalf of all New Zealanders. And National proudly supported the zero carbon legislation, that, as the Minister said, was passed without dissent in this Parliament. That’s important because that unanimity provides New Zealanders with the certainty they need in the years that will come, in the decades that will follow, as we traverse our way towards net zero 2050, that no matter which Government is in Government, what political strife or colour that Government, the direction is set.

As is right and proper in a functioning democracy, parties can, should, and will debate the detail of how to achieve those objectives and that goal. That’s right and proper, and, so, yesterday’s plan was really, in many respects, just a plan about a plan, because so many of the initiatives—the nearly 300 initiatives that were announced yesterday—were either working groups initiatives that had already been announced or were in train or were just bullet-point statements saying, “We’re going to think about a plan on this sort of thing.” And, so, all that mush really was an underwhelming plan that a Government has had two years—two years—to bring to this Parliament and to the people of New Zealand. So while we think that there were parts of the emission reduction plan that were worthy and credible, there are some very poor examples of taxpayers’ money being spent for little or no result.

And at a time when we are in a cost of living crisis, every single dollar of taxpayer money should be spent carefully, wisely, and with a clear focus on outcomes and results from that dollar spent, on behalf of New Zealanders. Because the plain reality is that at the moment New Zealanders are paying somewhere between 17c and 19c per litre in their petrol price on the contribution to the emissions trading scheme (ETS), and in this plan nearly $750 million of the nearly $4 billion spending that was announced yesterday is going to corporate welfare. So those people in the squeezed middle—those New Zealanders, those hard-working New Zealanders, who are contributing to the ETS funding that funds this plan, through their petrol pump price—they will be subsidising large corporates to take actions that those corporates should actually already be taking, to do things that businesses, as responsible corporate citizens, should be doing in their role as responsible corporate citizens. And it’s not right that taxpayer dollars should be subsidising the removal of old-fashioned fossil-fuel boilers from businesses like Fonterra or, indeed, Heineken and DB Breweries. That’s wrong, and we oppose that part of the plan.

But an area that we do support relates to issues around agriculture, because there is a good lump of money invested in this plan to support further research and development and science around how to crack the biogenic methane conundrum that confronts us as a nation. And why that’s important is because if we can, as a small nation at the bottom of the South Pacific, crack the biogenic methane conundrum, we will be doing not only New Zealand a huge favour but we will be doing the world a favour—the planet, the globe—because every country that has agricultural production is grappling with exactly the same issue.

So we will wait with interest to see how this Government actually starts to implement these plans that they have in place. We’re not sure that there is any appetite amongst hard-working New Zealanders, who are paying a huge increase in the cost of living at the moment—we’re not sure that they have confidence this Government can deliver, because this Government has an appalling record on delivery. Making grand statements—the bold emotional statements—they are good at that. They are addicted to spending—$3 billion in this plan will be spent—but New Zealanders do not have faith in this Government to deliver the results that they have committed to, and the Minister said in his closing lines in his statement, “The task is for our Government to make it happen.” Well, New Zealanders doubt that this Government will happen. He said the task is for all of us to make the next plan better.

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member’s time has expired. [Interruption] No, there were no questions there.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s true that New Zealand has to do its bit on climate change. That’s why ACT says we’re already on our way. The emissions trading scheme (ETS) is sufficient. It puts a price on carbon: $76 a tonne is the latest price. What that means is that if you operate a truck or if you drive a car, or say you drive a really, really big truck—a truck and trailer—and you haul logs or you haul rock and you’ve put 500 litres of diesel in the truck, you’ve paid $100 towards reducing your emissions. You’ve offset your emissions under the emissions trading scheme. There’s never been a better incentive to reduce emissions, save fuel, and save energy than the cost of paying for carbon under the emissions trading scheme.

That’s why the ACT Party says that none of the policies adopted by this Government or proposed by Minister Shaw are necessary. They’re completely unnecessary. The emissions trading scheme is enough.

The other problem with the policies proposed by the Minister is that not only is it unnecessary but what he’s proposing to do with his emissions reduction plan is interfere with productive sectors of the economy like transport, like freight. There’s a proposal in there to get involved in buying trucks for the trucking industry. Well—

Hon Michael Wood: They love it.

SIMON COURT: Minister Wood over there, he suggests that the industry loves it. But the problem is that every time a Government stands up and says, “I’ve put my hand into a taxpayer’s pocket to give to another taxpayer.”, they’re undermining the very reasons that New Zealanders get out of bed in the morning to go to work, and that’s the difference between the ACT Party and every other party in this Parliament which supported the zero carbon Act. ACT would not support the zero carbon Act because it’s completely unnecessary policy.

Chlöe Swarbrick: That’s because you didn’t turn up.

SIMON COURT: We do not support initiatives—Ms Swarbrick—to get involved in people’s businesses by subsidising boilers, by buying trucks for people, or, recently, as the energy Minister, Megan Woods, announced, to buy electric ferries for Auckland Council to compete with another fantastic, longstanding ferry operator, Fullers, who have just bought their own electric hybrid ferry.

Not only is none of this necessary—not only is none of this necessary—but they haven’t even bothered to ask themselves whether this is the least-cost way to achieve emissions reduction. All they’re interested in is “Is there a photo op?”—is there a photo op? That’s why ACT says that it’s not necessary.

The ACT Party says that New Zealanders deserve better. We looked at the “cash for clunkers scheme”. It is 32 million bucks for a trial. The Minister admitted today that he doesn’t know how it’s going to work or how much people are going to get paid, but we’ve worked it out: 2,500 vehicles, $32 million—that’s $12,800 per vehicle. Well, I tried to work out today how much does it cost to scrap a car, so I picked up the phone and I rang a few cash for scrap guys. They said, “Well, mister, if we have to travel a long way, maybe we’ll only give you 100 bucks, but we wouldn’t give you any more than $400.”, and yet the Minister proposes to shell out $12,800 of taxpayer money buying used cars so that he can get a photo op next to a crusher or a shredder, and he won’t be the first Minister in this House to do that.

So what does the ACT Party say? Well, we’ve actually got some really simple solutions. Actually, we think solving climate change is simple. That’s not what the Minister of Climate Change thinks. Here’s how. Here’s a challenge to the other members of this House—here’s a challenge to you. What the ACT Party says is: would you sit for four days a week and reduce your sitting time by 25 percent and, therefore, reduce your flights? Would you put your money and your bums where your mouths are, because that’s what ACT is asking you to do?

The other thing we’d do is give New Zealanders a tax refund from the revenues under the emissions trading scheme equivalent to $1,000 per household so that Kiwi families, who are facing a cost of living crisis, can decide how they want to spend the money that they’ve paid to already offset emissions every time they fill up. That’s what the ACT Party would do: a carbon tax refund from ETS revenues.

We’d also say, “Look, if you’re a New Zealand business and you want to mitigate your emissions, you don’t necessarily have to do it here in New Zealand, where it might be expensive, where land is expensive, and where people are telling you, ‘You’re not allowed to plant a tree here or there.’ Why can’t you go and plant some trees in the rainforest in a country that’s been deforested, where entire species have been wiped out? Why can’t you go and replant the rainforest”—

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

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): Yesterday was a landmark day for New Zealand because we released a plan that delivers the greatest opportunity that we have had in decades. Not only will we, finally, tackle climate change but we have the opportunity to build our resilience as an economy and to truly transform ourselves into a productive, sustainable economy with well-paid jobs. Yesterday was also the day the rubber hit the road, where parties were asked to show their true colours in relation to where they stand on climate change. We heard from the National Party’s spokesperson on climate change that it was the National Party that signed up to our nationally determined contribution in Paris in 2015. Yes, they did, but there was zero plan for how we would meet the targets that were signed up to. Instead, there was a plan to buy emissions trading credits on an international market.

But our Government and I are pleased that we did that largely with the support of all the parties in this House. When we got into Government, we set about putting a plan in place that started with setting up an independent Climate Commission that would use the science to tell us what we needed to do in terms of reducing our emissions. From there, we had carbon budgets that were produced. Again, I really appreciate the cross-party support that we have received on those, and we did have just about all of the parties in this House say, “These Budgets are well thought out. The science stands behind them. These are things that we need to do to meet our obligations—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: What, more meetings?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: —in terms of reducing our emissions.” So I thank the National Party, Gerry Brownlee, for your support on signing up to those budgets.

But, if you sign up to the budgets, you’ve got to have a plan for how to reduce the emissions. What we produced yesterday is a plan to reduce by 2025 the first of the emissions reduction budgets—11.5 megatons to be taken out of our economy. This is in the plan. So, if the Opposition is going to tell us, “It’s just plans; it’s just plans to have plans.”, that simply is not true. The Opposition spokesperson told us that it is right and proper for us to debate; I couldn’t agree more. I want us to debate what the National Party’s alternative budgets or plans look like. What are they going to do to remove 11.5 megatons of carbon from our economy over the next four years? They need to put the detail on the table and tell us what they would do differently. It is simply lazy rhetoric to call it corporate welfare. It is a party not standing by what it has signed up to when it will not accept the difficult things that we have to do as a country to truly meet our carbon budgets.

We do need to spend carefully and wisely, and we do need to look at the outcomes. So let’s look at some of the initiatives that were not only announced in our emissions reduction plans but were funded through the Climate Emergency Response Fund yesterday. If we look at the Decarbonising Industry Fund, just for example, Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry, then we can have a look at what that fund has already been doing in its first iteration: $68 million of Crown investment that has leveraged $117 million of expenditure from the private sector and is set to remove enough carbon that is the equivalent to 134,000 cars by the time that has rolled out. I want to know the details of what National are going to put in place instead of doing that, because they have said that that is wrong. So let’s have a debate—it is right and proper—but that involves the Opposition coming up with an alternative and us having a real debate, not just lazy political rhetoric.

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): Tēnā koe e te Pīka. First of all, I want to commend the Government for moving towards making some of the steps that they have, and there are some policies that, actually, we do support and are grateful that you adopted them. There are some things, also, as you know, that we have been very vocal on, and that is the fact that you have lacked ambition. In our mind, as tangata whenua, there are some things that we would like to seek clarity on and, in fact, critique.

You say in enabling equitable transition for Māori led by Māori—which I think we say, “by Māori for Māori”—the plan includes Māori and Government working together. That is Te Tiriti. That is what Te Tiriti articles 2 and 3 already propose; so that’s not new. Develop a Māori climate strategy and action plan: that again is in Te Tiriti, in articles 2 and 3, our rights and interests. Ensure the right funding and resourcing for community action, kaupapa Māori, tangata Māori, actions and solution: it’s really great, but we’ve consistently called to this Government to fund the support to transition to regenerative agriculture, but nowhere in this have we seen this. In fact, what you’ve done is gone far beyond giving a free pass to agriculture, who now they are subsidising their inaction on methane to the tune of $710 million. Crazy.

So let’s get on with this and understand why we need a new research centre. To knowledge, we actually have one. We know that works. Price methane immediately. Phase out nitrogen fertilisers. Cut herd sizes. I know it all sounds very radical, but we could just get on with this.

Under this Government’s plan, farmers won’t pay anything into the emissions trading scheme (ETS), but will take hundreds of millions of dollars out of the ETS, subsidising their continued pollution. This is exactly what an unjust, unequal, and ineffective transition looks like. Absolute shame.

There is so much that you could have done that we haven’t seen. I think one of the other things is that nowhere in the area does the plan have the level of ambition in clearing this in transport, with Government failing to prioritise free and accessible public transport. Where is the detail for grassroots, low-income whānau to be able to support and transition into electric vehicles? Nowhere. In fact, we saw this last week with the same with forestry. There is nothing here that takes into consideration the state of tangata whenua, the cost of living, and the strain that our people are enduring because of this Government’s inaction to address poverty and to address equities in the climate space. Disappointing.

However—and we were really interested to see that Greenpeace were supporting the same call as Te Paati Māori; I guess this is the bonus of being tangata whenua active kaitiaki.

So I really do want to ask that we have something a little bit more ambitious, something that targets, something that’s really into action now and not into action further down the line, and actually impress that this Government be more bold in what it is that it’s saying it’s going to do, and stop placating the medium voters. Kia ora koutou katoa.

Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister of Climate Change): Yeah, thank you, Mr Speaker. It is with great pleasure that I rise to exercise right of reply. So I’d just like to start by addressing some of the concerns raised by Scott Simpson in his address before. I’ve always found it slightly confusing that the National Party are against corporate welfare for industry but for it when it comes for agriculture. So I’m looking forward to hearing what their alternatives are there. He criticised the strategies, and the policies, and decisions that have yet to be made, and the actions that are in the emissions reduction plan. There are 300 different actions, policies, and strategies in the emissions reduction plan, which is precisely 300 more than we’ve heard from the National Party over the last several years.

I completely agree that it is within the—in fact, the remit of Parliamentary democracy is to test the quality of the decisions that the Government and its agencies are making, and I welcome that. But, as the Hon Dr Woods said, if you’re going to sign up to the targets, you have to have an alternate plan if you don’t agree with this one. So far, we haven’t seen anything.

The ACT Party is now proposing climate change policies so that they can pretend that they’re not climate deniers whilst also pretending that they are. So one of my favourite policies that they’ve proposed is the idea that you can reduce emissions in line with 1.5 degrees by changing the parliamentary sitting calendar, which is, perhaps, the least credible idea I have ever heard anyone ever propose for how you could cut emissions and reduce the chances of catastrophic climate change. But at least they’re in the game. At least they’re in the game and proposing ideas, which is more than we have actually yet heard from the National Party over the course of this debate.

I do want to thank Te Paati Māori for their stance and being one of the voices for actually going further and faster than we have yet done as a country. And I want to assure the member for Te Paati Māori that, actually, the plan does address the concerns that she’s talking about, and I’m very happy to sit down with her at some length on that. It’s not job done. The plan by itself will not cut emissions; that is the job that we have yet to do, but at least, we are now in the game.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Prime Minister

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

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of the Prime Minister: Yes, particularly the emissions reductions plan released yesterday. The plan sets out a work programme that meets the Climate Commission’s independent emission reductions targets and supports our transition to a high-wage, low-emissions economy that provides greater economic security. The plan is backed by a $2.9 billion investment to fund the next steps in our emissions reductions work, the largest investment in climate initiatives ever made. New Zealand trades on its environmental reputation; it’s the key to the ongoing security of our primary exports and tourism—two of our main export earners. Reducing our reliance on fossil fuels will also shield households from the volatility of international price hikes while reducing transport and energy bills. The plan sets out practical ways to cut power, transport, and other costs, and ensures that the early heavy lifting is done by the Government in partnership with business, and seeks to take the pressure off Kiwis by providing choices and options for tackling climate change.

Christopher Luxon: Does she believe Kiwis paying 17c per litre at the pump because of the emissions trading scheme (ETS) should be subsidising large corporates to the tune of $650 million to “reduce their exposure to carbon price risk”, when the entire point of the ETS is to deliver a price signal so businesses make those investments themselves?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: On behalf of the Prime Minister, what I believe is that it’s really interesting to hear the National Party advocating for higher costs on businesses and higher costs on Kiwis by doing absolutely nothing. There has always been a place in New Zealand politics for business and Government working together—for example, Air New Zealand being provided $18,000 from the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority to support filters in their Auckland Airport lounge during the period around 2014, 2015, 2016.

Christopher Luxon: Does she accept that the Government is creating a perverse incentive for businesses who now know that if they just delay action, the Government will turn up with more taxpayer money to bail them out?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No, because the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry fund that the member seems to be so obsessed with and getting so wrong actually requires businesses to contribute. It actually means that they are contributing up to 50 percent of the costs and it means that we’re actually supporting businesses to get on with the job of decarbonising. Sure, we could take the National Party’s approach and sit on our hands; on this side of the House, we want to support New Zealanders, including businesses, to decarbonise.

Christopher Luxon: Why did the emissions reduction plan include policies like changes to NCEA, income insurance, or merging polytechnics? How will these changes reduce our emissions?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I think that betrays the complete lack of understanding of the complexity of the issue of climate change. If the member doesn’t understand that climate change is going to mean that New Zealanders need to change jobs, move into high-wage jobs, be supported to do that through an education system—that New Zealanders might actually lose their jobs through climate change and be supported by an income insurance scheme, it just shows how out of touch the National Party is on the significance of this issue.

Christopher Luxon: Is she concerned by reports that the majority of actions listed in the emissions reduction plan are actually plans to make future plans; and does she think announcing a series of working groups will be enough for New Zealand to achieve our ambitious emissions targets?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I believe that these plans—and this is backed up by the science of the climate budgets—will mean that we can meet the goals of our zero carbon Act. There are a range of initiatives that are happening now and things we need to investigate. Mr Simpson just got up and said that we need to be working around methane inhibitors—that would be investigating it, Mr Luxon, that would be researching it. That would be making sure that we actually do the work now so we can implement this into the future. This is a plan for the here and now and for the next 15 years.

Christopher Luxon: What is her response to the Employers and Manufacturers Association (EMA) CE who said, “It’s not unreasonable for the business sector to expect the Government to make policy in a more coherent way”?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I would say to the EMA, and to others, get on board with a Government that has got a plan to make sure we meet our emissions reduction plans. And, actually, the reaction from businesses has been strong, because they know that when the Government partners with them, we do well. In fact, a former senior businessman said, “companies [here] should be part of [actually] strengthening the place, working alongside Government, working alongside community leaders to do that.” I suggest to the Leader of the Opposition he talks to Christopher Luxon circa 2019.

Christopher Luxon: Does she accept that Kiwis expect more from their Government than just spending announcements; they actually want a Government that can get things done and deliver better outcomes?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What New Zealanders expect is a Government that actually takes climate change seriously, that steps up with a plan, rather than an Opposition who have not put out one idea about how to make sure we actually deal with one of the most serious challenges facing our planet.

Question No.2—Finance

2. Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has he seen on the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Mr Speaker, kia ora anō. Westpac’s latest economic review has noted that the health-led response to the pandemic has resulted in a resilient economy, with economic output tracking close to where Westpac’s economists thought it would have been, had the pandemic not occurred. They said, “That’s a striking result given the loss of international tourist dollars and the sharp downturn in population growth.” They also say, in recent years, that households’ disposable incomes have risen by around 5 percent a year, outpacing increases in the cost of living. There has also been a rise in household saving rates; combined, that is providing households with a buffer from the factors that are crimping their discretionary spending. While 2022 will undoubtedly be a tough one around the world, due to the hard work of businesses and the actions of the Government, New Zealand finds itself in a strong economic and financial position to deal with the ongoing challenges that are thrown at us.

Dr Duncan Webb: What reports has he seen on the resilience of the economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Activity in the manufacturing and services sectors is continuing to expand. The seasonally adjusted BNZ-Business NZ Performance of Manufacturing Index for April was 51.2, down 2.5 points from the previous month. New orders, however, remain positive, while production contracted mildly due to staff absenteeism from the Omicron outbreak. Activity levels in the services sector remained steady in April, with the seasonally adjusted BNZ-Business NZ Performance of Service Index at 51.4, down 0.1 points from March. Again, new orders and sales remain positive, as the easing of restrictions boosted sectors such as the cultural, recreational, accommodation, cafe, and restaurant sectors.

Dr Duncan Webb: What other reports has he seen on the economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Statistics New Zealand reported last week that food prices had edged up 0.1 percent in April compared with March, and are down 2.7 percent from January. On an annual basis, food price growth moderated from 7.6 percent in the March year, to 6.4 percent in the previous year. That is a similar drop from 7.9 percent in the year to July 2011 to 6.6 percent in the August 2011 year. While food prices remain elevated, it is important that the Government gets alongside New Zealanders and supports them through this, as we have done through our 1 April changes that have lifted main benefits, student allowances, superannuation, and also the introduction of the winter energy payment from 1 May.

Question No. 3—Finance

3. BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by all his Government’s statements and policies in relation to the Budget?

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

Brooke van Velden: What will be different about this Budget compared to the Budgets delivered over the past four years, over which time countries including Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and Lithuania overtook New Zealand in productivity per hour worked?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What this Budget will do is carry on the work that the Government has done to strike a careful balance by investing in services, investing in the long-term drivers of productivity such as skills, and making sure that we get better transport networks. But what we’ll also do is make sure that we have one of the lowest debt levels in the OECD, that we’ll make sure that we continue one of the lowest unemployment levels in the OECD, and make sure that New Zealanders have a Government that looks after the future as well as the here and now.

Brooke van Velden: What will be different in this Budget compared with the last four Budgets delivered, where Israel and Estonia attracted more than twice as much foreign investment per capita?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: This Budget will continue the Government’s approach of making sure that we invest in New Zealanders and support them through a range of strong public services. This includes making sure that we lift the minimum wage, making sure that we provide for the winter energy payment; this is making sure that we support all New Zealanders, especially those from vulnerable communities—all things that would be undermined by the ACT Party’s policies, which the National Party are yet to rule out.

Brooke van Velden: How will this Budget be different from the last four, during which time the median Australian wage increased $6,600 faster than the median New Zealand wage?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: One thing that will be different as this Budget goes through is that the Fair Pay Agreements legislation that the Government has introduced, mirroring what happens in Australia, will be passing through, and that will lead to a lift in wages—something everyone in this House, I’m sure, would support.

Brooke van Velden: How will this Budget tackle the cost of living crisis—if the Government believes there is a cost of living crisis—for those who pay tax but do not receive a benefit or tax credit from the Government?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The member will have to wait until Thursday to see exactly what the Government is doing in this Budget, but what I can say is, for example, when it comes to a sector like the supermarket sector, where New Zealanders are paying too much—where New Zealanders of all incomes are paying too much—that’s why we set up the Commerce Commission inquiry and it’s why we’ll be responding swiftly to its recommendations.

Question No. 4—Finance

4. NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by his statement that “The Government is investing in New Zealand’s economic security by ensuring climate change funding moves away from short-term piecemeal responses”; if so, can he commit that every dollar of the $2.9 billion in spending committed in the Climate Emergency Response Fund for emissions reductions will deliver maximum value for taxpayers’ money?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Yes, I do stand by my statement, and, in fact, I went on to say, “Increasingly businesses and households are facing the costs of inaction. We’re ensuring the early heavy lifting is being done by the Government in partnership with large businesses as we deliver the reductions needed to meet our targets. Our climate investments will take pressure off Kiwis by providing choices and options for tackling climate change.” In answer to the second part of the question, the Government is committed to achieving the goals of the emissions reduction plan with actions and investment over a number of Budgets, including this one. And, as with all spending that the Government engages in, we’re focused on getting value for money for those investments.

Nicola Willis: Will he confirm the statement made in this Budget document, which states that the $678 million Government Investment in the Decarbonising Industry fund will “help businesses cut energy costs, allowing them to become more profitable off the back of their climate action.”, and does he think Kiwis struggling with a cost of living crisis would agree that a priority for climate action should be making businesses more profitable?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: It’s an interesting day in the House when the National Party opposes profit, but we’ll carry on from there! This plan is an integrated plan, and part of that is making sure we get to the sources of the things that are polluting in New Zealand. Industrial heat is a big part of that. We could sit on our hands, wait for the carbon price to climb up over $100, over $180, before the emissions trading scheme would do what the member thinks it would do, or we could partner with business, making sure that we actually do see initiatives come forward. Minister Woods has already indicated today, in the ministerial statement, just how much private sector funding got crowded in by the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry fund. That will carry on in the future.

Nicola Willis: Why has the Government allocated $18 million to develop an energy strategy framework and road map, and what exactly will that money pay for that can’t be done by the 5,300 people already working at the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Firstly, the climate commission advised the Government to do such a strategy. Secondly, if the member doesn’t understand the potential of the hydrogen economy for New Zealand, I can’t really help her. We need an energy strategy that actually works for the next 20, 30, and 50 years, and that’s what we’ll deliver.

Nicola Willis: Does he stand by his decision to allocate $16 million “to fund a programme to co-design an equitable transition plan”, and why can’t some of the 648 staff at the Ministry for the Environment do that work with existing funding?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Again, this betrays the fact that the National Party simply don’t understand the significance of climate change. There are going to be huge shifts in the kinds of jobs that New Zealanders do and the impact on households. The National Party doesn’t seem to think we should have a fair and equitable transition to climate change. I probably shouldn’t be surprised by that.

Nicola Willis: In light of his spirited defence of millions being spent on strategies and plans, can he tell the House how many additional public servants, if any, he anticipates will be hired to work on commitments funded from the Climate Emergency Response Fund?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: This fund and this plan are designed to make sure that New Zealand’s GDP lifts in the future. It’s designed to make sure that we have a transition that supports New Zealanders. It will mean New Zealanders will be better off. What will make New Zealanders worse off is inaction and absolutely no plan by the National Party. That will increase costs on households.

Nicola Willis: Well, can he explain how action 3.3.1 in the Government’s emissions reduction plan to “develop an income insurance scheme”—that is, introducing what is sometimes described as a “jobs tax”—will reduce—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will rephrase her question.

Nicola Willis: Can he explain how action 3.3.1 in the Government’s emissions reduction plan to “develop an income insurance scheme” will reduce greenhouse gas emissions?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I know, on the National Party’s side of the House, it’s 1950, but actually, over on this side of the House, we understand that, when you have a climate transition, people will change jobs and they actually need to be supported when they lose their jobs. The New Zealand Income Insurance Scheme will do that. The National Party can live in the 1950s for as long as they like.

Question No. 5—Energy and Resources

5. ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour) to the Minister of Energy and Resources: What action is the Government taking to accelerate the decarbonisation of New Zealand’s industrial and manufacturing businesses?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): Yesterday, the Government announced significant new investment to supercharge the decarbonisation of industrial and manufacturing businesses as part of the landmark emissions reduction plan. Emissions from our energy and industry sectors make up 27 percent of New Zealand’s total emissions. So that is why we’re investing $650 million over four years to massively increase funding to the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry (GIDI) fund. This investment will slash emissions and accelerate the move to a renewable electricity system. Over the first three rounds of GIDI, $69 million in funding has been invested, which has unlocked $117 million in private sector investment. This will be replicated in the expanded GIDI programme, with the potential to unleash hundreds of millions of dollars in private sector investment while reducing emissions—1.6 million tonnes in the emissions budget period 2022 to 2025; 9.5 million tonnes, 2025 to 2030; and an additional 7.4 million tonnes from 2030 to 2035.

SPEAKER: Before I have the supplementary, I’m just going to remind people in the gallery that it’s a requirement that you wear masks in the gallery. They’re not necklaces. Thank you.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: How will the Government’s expanded decarbonisation fund differ from the existing programme?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: The first iteration of GIDI has been a success, having helped accelerate 53 major industrial decarbonisation projects estimated to save 7.46 million tonnes of carbon, equivalent to taking 134,800 cars off the road. It was previously targeted to medium and large businesses and focused on process heat decarbonisation. This will continue to be covered, but GIDI 2.0 will now also support small to medium businesses to upgrade to more energy efficient equipment. The funding will go beyond industrial process heat use by supporting replacement of inefficient industrial and commercial equipment and decarbonising commercial space and water heating. Another focus will be on investing in fuel supply infrastructure to enable switching to low emission fuels. This new fund will open in June, allowing businesses to apply for contestable funding.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: How does GIDI support the Government’s goal of decarbonising industry and further accelerating preparations for a sustainable, more resilient future?

SPEAKER: Order! Which member was that? Well, the member will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Nicola Willis: I stand, withdraw, and apologise.

SPEAKER: No, the member will—the member knows how to do it. She’s been around these buildings for a very long time and she is running the risk of now quite a serious punishment for her party, rather than a minor one.

Nicola Willis: I withdraw and apologise.

SPEAKER: Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki will have the supplementary again.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: How does GIDI support the Government’s goal of decarbonising industry and further accelerating preparations for a sustainable, more resilient future?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: As the Prime Minister said yesterday, we cannot leave the issue of climate change until it is too late to fix. We can’t opt out of the effects of climate change so we can’t opt out of taking action. Rather than sitting idle, we know we must take action to slash emissions and futureproof our energy system. Our actions over the past four and a half years have bent the curve of New Zealand’s emissions trajectory, and programmes like GIDI are vital to meeting the emissions budget all parties in Parliament support.

Question No. 6—Climate Change

6. Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel) to the Minister of Climate Change: Does he stand by all his statements and actions?

Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister of Climate Change): Yes. In particular, I stand by the actions I have taken to secure bipartisan support for clear and stable climate change policies that contribute to the global effort under the Paris Agreement to limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. I would like to acknowledge that member’s, and his party’s, support for the framework enshrined in the zero carbon Act as well as the first three emissions budgets. That bipartisan accord means that New Zealanders can now enjoy a sense of certainty and predictability about the direction of climate change policy over the coming decades.

Hon Scott Simpson: Does he agree with journalist Henry Cooke, who says, of the 284 actions in the Government’s emission-reduction plan, 158 are plans to make other plans, and, if not, what is the correct number?

Hon JAMES SHAW: As I said before, the emissions reduction plan contains approximately 300 strategies, policies, and actions to guide us towards a low-emissions future, which, as I said before, is about 300 more than we’ve heard from the National Party.

Hon Scott Simpson: Does he stand by his statement “Ah, well, I’d need to ask the Minister of Transport that, um, but, um, you know”, after he was asked about income brackets for cars, what car age, and the availability of subsidy for the car scrappage scheme announced yesterday?

Hon JAMES SHAW: I stand by all my statements.

Hon Scott Simpson: Does he agree with the Minister of Transport, who, according to RNZ, when asked about the details of the Government’s scrappage scheme, said, “Ask the climate Minister.”, and does he stand by his statement, “Ah, well, I’d need to ask the Minister of Transport that”?

Hon JAMES SHAW: I didn’t hear that report.

Hon Chris Hipkins: If, as some have suggested, no further plans and strategies are required, has he seen any concrete proposals for how to achieve the emissions reductions New Zealand requires?

Hon JAMES SHAW: At the moment, the emissions reduction plan that is going to be tabled in this House this week is the only plan that I’ve seen from anybody other than the ACT Party, which have the least credible plan to reduce emissions that I have ever seen in my entire life.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Does he stand by his statement “There are those who will be worried that these emissions budgets do not go far enough.”—I’m one of them—and, if so, how can he have confidence that the budgets in his emissions reduction plan will meet our international emissions reduction commitments?

Hon JAMES SHAW: Yes I do. One of the reasons why we set up the climate change—in fact, the primary reason why we set up the Climate Change Commission is because there is a broad spectrum of opinion about how fast and how far we should be going as a country. I am someone who has a great sense of urgency about the crisis that faces us. I think that we should be going far faster and far further than we have over the course of the preceding three or four decades that climate change has been in the political domain. But the point of the Climate Change Commission is to provide an independent, expert-led body to provide advice to this House and to the Government of the day about the stepping-stone emissions budgets that get us down to our long-term targets to 2050. That body includes people like James Renwick, who’s one of the leading climate scientists in this country, he’s an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change lead author, and if you don’t take my word for it, you can take his word for it. And if you don’t take his word for it, the question is: whose word are you going to take for it, on what basis are you making your decisions? That was the basis upon which we set up the Climate Change Commission.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: How can he have confidence in his plan, when it subsidises the continued inaction of the agricultural sector on methane to the tune of $710 million taken out of the emissions trading scheme (ETS), when they are still paying nothing into the ETS and given that annual methane emissions make up 42.7 percent of our gross emissions?

Hon JAMES SHAW: Well, I’ve said any number of times that I’ve been quite frustrated at the extremely slow pace of change in the agricultural sector. The industrial sector and transport sector are moving far faster by comparison. Having said that, there are a number of parties and a number of environmental NGOs that campaigned on a platform in the last election of setting up support for farmers to be able to roll out emissions reductions practices, techniques, tools, and technologies on their farms. That is what the commitment of funding does in the emissions reduction plan. It doesn’t actually go as fast as some, such as Greenpeace, would have liked, who are proposing that we put a billion dollars into that. So it doesn’t kind of meet the requirement of them in that sense, but the whole point of this is not to replicate what we’ve already got, which is a number of research and science institutes, but to take the changes in on-farm practice, and the technologies that have already been developed, and to ensure that those are rolled out to the maximum extent possible around farms in New Zealand.

Hon Scott Simpson: Does the Minister agree with the James Shaw mentioned by journalist Henry Cooke, who has tweeted today, “James Shaw tells me that yes, if the Greens held the balance of power he would have delivered a different Emissions Reduction Plan yesterday.”, and how can New Zealanders be sure that the plan released yesterday was his real, actual plan?

Hon JAMES SHAW: I am the James Shaw.

Question No. 7—Education

7. MARJA LUBECK (Labour) to the Minister of Education: What is the Government doing to support New Zealand’s international education sector to reconnect to the world?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): New Zealand is fully reopening to international students, and the Government is committed to helping to reinvigorate and strengthen the sector. We are currently in the process of refreshing the International Education Strategy to recognise that we are in a very different position to the one we were in in 2018, and as our borders reopen, that sector is going to need more support to come back even stronger than before. So we want to work with international education providers to build that new future, focused on the delivery of more high-value and innovative international education offerings for our domestic and international students onshore, offshore, in person, and online.

Marja Lubeck: What policy decisions has the Government made recently that impact upon international education?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: There are 5,000 places for students to come to New Zealand right now, and from 31 July, all international students who meet the entry criteria can enrol to study here. It’s time to show the world that New Zealand is open for education and we welcome students back. The criteria for international student visas has been adjusted to help to ensure that these students are getting value for their money and that those who are staying on in New Zealand are helping us to fill skill gaps and are contributing to the New Zealand economy. The Government’s also confirmed that international fee-paying students under year 9 will be able to continue to enrol at New Zealand schools.

Marja Lubeck: Why did the Government consider it was important to take these actions at this time?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: There’s no question that our international education sector has done it tough for the last few years. Bringing forward our reopening to international students shows this Government’s strong commitment to them and to the rebuild of a high-quality, world-class New Zealand international education sector. Prior to the pandemic, international education was worth several billion dollars to our country. The early reopening will be seen as great news for our universities, our polytechnics and wānanga, for our schools, our English language schools, and for our private training providers.

Question No. 8—Immigration

8. ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays) to the Minister of Immigration: How long does it currently take for 90 percent of visitor visas to be processed compared to December 2017, and is he confident that Immigration New Zealand will meet its visa processing targets?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Immigration): In December 2017, our borders were open under pre-COVID settings and Immigration New Zealand were processing 90 percent of visas in 22 days. In March of 2020 the New Zealand border was closed to keep people safe and, therefore, offshore visitor visa applications were halted. Immigration systems processing capacity pivoted to processing the critical purpose visas that we needed to keep our businesses and services running, and while that process is labour intensive, those visas have been processed in an average of 12 days. The result of that reprioritisation meant that as of April of 2022, 50 percent of visitor visas are approved in 15 days, 75 percent in 33 days, and 90 percent in 71 days. As we reconnect with the world, the critical purpose visa will be a thing of the past, meaning those processing resources can be pivoted and prioritised back to the likes of visitor visas. I have sought and received assurances from Immigration New Zealand around processing times and I will watch this closely.

Erica Stanford: How can he rely on the new online visa processing system to guarantee faster processing times when just 51 of the 77,000 phase 2 resident visa 2021 visa applications that use this new system have been processed in seven weeks, a rate of one a day?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: As I’ve said, I’ve sought assurances and have been given assurances by Immigration New Zealand staff that we can make sure that our process capacity will meet expectations.

Erica Stanford: Can he explain why, despite having an extra 500 additional staff at Immigration New Zealand compared to 2017, every single visa category takes longer to process?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I would challenge some of the numbers that the member has mentioned there. I’d also pointed out in my primary answer that we’ve had products like a critical purpose visa, which are a lot more labour intensive in terms of processing than traditional visitor visas, and that’s why when we no longer have to process those types of visas we’ll have more resources available when our borders reopen to do the likes of visitor visas.

Erica Stanford: How is his agency delivering value for money for taxpayers when compared to 2017 he’s hired an additional 500 staff yet 100 fewer staff are actually processing visas, according to his answers to written questions?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: We’ve also closed offshore offices to make sure that we can move processing here onshore, and, again, while the border has been closed, we have been making sure the—

Chris Bishop: It’s a shambles!

SPEAKER: Order!

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Calm down.

SPEAKER: Maybe I do need to, but I don’t need the Minister’s help with that suggestion.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: For the member’s interest, then, we have processed about 30,000 critical purpose visas over the last two years to make sure crucial workers can come through at a time when our border has been closed.

Dr James McDowall: How can families waiting for visas have any confidence that new visa processing targets will be met when almost all visa types have had processing delays since 2020; can he explain to New Zealanders how—and I quote—“getting grumpy” with Immigration New Zealand speeds up visa processing?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Well, usually when I get grumpy, things change—not that you want to find out. Can I assure the member, again, from my primary answer, that when we pivot and prioritise as our border reopens, those resources will be able to be used for the traditional types of visas that I think the member is speaking about.

Erica Stanford: When will processing times return to the levels they were in 2017?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Well, as I mentioned in my primary answer, once we have the resources available to us to make sure the likes of traditional visas can be used—to process those visas. When the border reopens on 31 July and when our accredited employer work visa is up and running, those resources—which have over the last two years made sure that 30,000 critical workers can come across the border—will be prioritised and pivoted to the traditional visas that we were having pre-COVID.

Question No. 9—Health

JAN LOGIE (Green): [Interruption] Thank you, Mr Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Health and asks—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I’m sorry. I’ve just got someone who is going to withdraw and apologise on my left and add to the problems of the National Party.

Simeon Brown: I withdraw and apologise.

9. JAN LOGIE (Green) to the Minister of Health: What actions, if any, is he going to take to address the pay and employment concerns of care workers and allied health workers?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): Homecare and support workers and allied health workers are two quite different groups of health workers whose current situations are also very different. With regard to care and support workers, the main terms and conditions of employment for care and support workers is set out in legislation: the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Act 2017. Ironically, given its title, the legislation does not provide for pay equity claims to be made, and, in fact, is not a pay equity settlement at all; the opposite is the case. The legislation prohibits a pay equity claim to be made for these workers until after 30 June this year; 30 June is also when parts of the legislation providing for minimum rates of pay and training obligations self-repeal. To address this, I’ve been working with unions, employers, and officials to reach an interim arrangement that would increase and protect current pay rates and training obligations and set up a process to achieve what these workers have been fighting for for more than 10 years: pay equity. I last met with unions and employers on Friday.

With regard to the allied health workforce, these workers have been negotiating for a long time to renew their collective employment agreement. They also have a pay equity claim that has not been progressed since it was lodged in 2018. There is presently an offer on the table for renewal of their collective agreement that would increase base pay rates for these workers by $5,700 a year—for most workers, because for some actually the increase would be higher—and would also provide a lump sum payment of $2,500. Late last year, the union sought to add new claims for their collective agreement to effectively get pay equity benefits in advance of an actual pay equity agreement.

One of the challenges with this group of workers is that across the roughly 10,000 of them, there are about 70 different occupations; anything from a trainee technician earning just above the minimum wage to a medical physicist on about $155,000 a year. The average base pay for this group of workers, to the extent that an average is meaningful, is about $80,000. The problem with the pay equity claim, which is about addressing sex-based discrimination and remuneration is that some, if not many, of these workers may not see much difference in their pay. It’s for this reason that the district health boards rejected the claim earlier this year for a $12,000 lump sum payment for all workers in anticipation of the pay equity claim being settled. I continue to urge the union and employers to work on trying to reach a fair and principled agreement. The member will be aware that under the Public Service Act, as well as the Cabinet Manual, employers in the public sector must manage employment matters independently of Ministers.

Jan Logie: Why did the Ministry of Health pull back from an offer to allied health workers that would have been consistent with findings from the Employment Relations Authority facilitator and that we are told by unions would have addressed the concerns of this essential workforce?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The offer contained a provision in it, which was the commencement date for the implementation of agreed pay equity rates of pay, that was contrary to an Employment Court decision handed down earlier this year that said that matters relating to pay equity claims should not be conflated with collective agreements.

Jan Logie: So is the Minister saying if that clause was removed an agreement would be made?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The member is asking a hypothetical question. The matter is a matter between the unions and employers and, indeed, the officials who are supporting them. But there was a point at which the Employment Relations Authority made a recommendation that was contrary to a piece of law handed down by the Employment Court earlier this year.

Jan Logie: Why did his Labour Government not make a plan to at least maintain the value of the settlement for caregivers—initially negotiated by a National Government—when they have known for years that this legislation will expire by 1 July?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: There is a plan. The plan involved working with the unions and employers to preserve and protect the benefits of the legislation enacted in 2017—with a modest increment—so that the real work of getting a pay equity agreement, which is what these workers have been seeking for 10 years now, can get under way.

Jan Logie: Why has Cabinet only mandated enough money to offer care workers covered by the Care and Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlement Act an increase of less than 70c an hour for 18 months when an increase of around $7 an hour is needed to maintain the value of that historic deal following the Kristine Bartlett case?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: If the member is referring to a historic deal as one that prevents them from getting a pay equity deal, that is a very interesting proposition from the Green Party. I stand by the actions of this Government to protect the interests of these workers: to get them an interim arrangement so they can get on with doing what they and their forebears have been fighting for for more than 10 years and that is a pay equity agreement.

Jan Logie: Does the Minister stand by his comment that “I get very disturbed when I [hear] the stories, and there have been a lot of them, of nurses and other clinicians finishing their shifts absolutely exhausted, and finding it really hard to go back to work the next day.”, and if so, will he ensure allied health and care workers get the pay increases they deserve so that the health system might be in a decent position to transition on 1 July?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: If the member thinks that in order to honour the underlying principles of pay equity and the Equal Pay Act means that we pool together 10,000 workers of such disparate arrangements and pay levels, that some for whom it cannot be established are subject to sex-based discrimination should get the same proportionate benefits as those on very low incomes who clearly are the victims of sex-based discrimination, then what she actually stands for is undermining pay equity principles, and we’re not going to do that.

Question No. 10—Agriculture

10. KIERAN McANULTY (Labour—Wairarapa) to the Minister of Agriculture: How is the Government supporting agriculture to meet its obligations under the Emissions Reduction Plan?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Minister of Agriculture): We announced, yesterday, an ambitious plan that will see Government working in partnership with New Zealand’s farmers and growers to meet emissions reduction targets in the agricultural sector while continuing to ensure New Zealand’s economic security. We’ve committed over $380 million to work alongside industry and our farmers and growers to accelerate emissions reduction and mitigation. In partnership with the ministry, we’ll establish a Centre for Climate Action on Agricultural Emissions to accelerate product development, getting tools and technology to farmers faster.

I’ll be working with Minister Shaw to implement the recommendations from the He Waka Eke Noa partnership. This will make us the first country in the world to price agricultural emissions. I’ll be working with Minister Whaitiri and our significant Māori agribusiness sector to promote tikanga-based solutions on-farm, and I’ll be working with Minister Nash to make sure we have the right tree in the right place, for the right reasons. I’m proud of this comprehensive plan that will ensure that our farmers and growers remain the best in the world and the best for the world.

Kieran McAnulty: What is the anticipated impact of the initiatives in the emissions reduction plan on emissions in the agriculture sector?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: The initiatives in the emissions reduction plan will meet the emissions reduction target, set by the Climate Change Commission, of 10 percent by 2030 and set us up to reduce our emissions by between 24 and 47 percent by 2050. The other important impact of these initiatives is ensuring that our farmers and growers can meet the increasing demands from global customers and access incentives provided by financial institutions. For example, Tesco plc is now requiring its suppliers to disclose their current greenhouse gas emissions and establish a net-zero ambition by the end of 2022. Nestlé is committed to halving its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, which will see it prioritise partnerships with those who have reduced their emissions and improved sustainability. Last week, one of the major New Zealand banks launched a loan product rewarding farmers for hitting climate, environmental, and social targets. The signals are clear and the time to act is now.

Kieran McAnulty: Does the Government have the support of industry to meet agriculture’s obligations in the emissions reduction plan?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: Yes. This plan has strong support from the primary sector. In particular, we’re pleased that partners from across the agricultural sector are in active discussions with us on a joint venture as part of the new Centre for Climate Action, including Fonterra, ANZCO, Ravensdown, Silverfern Farms, Ngāi Tahu Holdings, and the Livestock Improvement Corporation. This is a true partnership between Government, industry, and our rural communities to achieve our emissions reduction targets and continue to have a sustainable, profitable primary sector that has been critical to New Zealand’s economic success, and will be into the future. This is the first year that we will have surpassed $50 billion in export earnings—a credit to them and the partnership that we will continue to develop.

Kieran McAnulty: What examples has he seen of leadership in reducing agricultural emissions?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: I’ve been on to farms up and down this country—in the Wairarapa, to note one of them—where farmers are getting out and doing all they can, at the moment, to put the right tree in the right place, to reduce their impact on the environment. With the new partnership arrangements, we’ll accelerate that activity. I want to thank and acknowledge all those farmers who are playing their part already, and I hope that they’ll get out and spread the good news and help others to join the club.

Mark Cameron: Does the Minister stand by his Government’s statement in the first emissions reduction plan that “The most promising methane mitigation technologies are several years away from use.”; and, if so, how will his Government reduce agricultural methane emissions to meet climate change standards without slashing the national herd size?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: The Centre for Climate Action on Agricultural Emissions is the very body that will accelerate those technologies. We have some that are in the pipeline; ensuring they get out to farmers is what we are intending to do. There are numerous examples of that. One of them is the technology from Europe he might be referring to—it’s used in housed farming systems, fed to animals many times a day; we can’t apply that directly here in New Zealand. We have to ensure that those technologies, when applied here, don’t impact on our food safety or on our international reputation.

Question No. 11—Police

11. Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa) to the Minister of Police: Does she stand by her statement, “in terms of what I am delivering as Police Minister … our people feel safer”; if so, why?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister of Police): Yes, I stand by my statement, and I stand by this Government’s track record of delivering for our police, including a record $562 million for Police through Budget 2022, the largest ever deployment of additional police officers—1,423 more since 2017—and the nationwide roll-out of the tactical response model, in which we will see a doubling of the current tactical training for our front-line police, will boost their intelligence capabilities, and will see the deployment of double-crewed tactical dog teams. This Government will continue to back our police by giving them the resource and tools they need to keep themselves and our communities safe.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Why had the Minister not visited any shop owners or victims of shops subjected to ram raids or robberies before her Newshub Nation interview a few days ago?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: I have been working alongside Retail New Zealand, the peak body that supports small and large retailers across this country, and I’ve been working with them to ensure that we get the programme in place that they need. It’s been a very difficult time for our small retailers, so we need to make sure that we can support them to continue to operate safely.

Hon Mark Mitchell: How will a seven-person retail crime unit, bollards, and planter boxes stop a 7-tonne excavator from smashing through a shop front?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: What will help is our small to medium sized retailers knowing that their Government is supporting them by putting the measures in place to ensure that they can continue to operate safely. The excavator was an exceptional matter, and that was not the five-, six-, seven-, eight-, and 10-year-olds that were involved in stealing cars and ram-raiding dairies for lollies and ice cream.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Did Cabinet make a decision yesterday on her paper proposed as a solution to tackle ram raids, and, if so, are we waiting for her to arrange a suitable photo opportunity to reveal that plan?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: I think that’s absolutely appalling, when we’re here to support our small and medium sized retailers. Cabinet did make a decision—it was not on my paper; it was on the Minister of Justice’s paper—to support the funding of the programme, which will be rolled out as soon as the police have finalised some details. This is a Government that has responded to the need. The police are at the end of this problem, and they are going to act and act successfully for our retailers.

Rawiri Waititi: What evidence has she seen to suggest “in terms of what I am delivering as Police Minister … our people feel safer” from white-collar gangs, whose crime is costing Aotearoa $4 billion in tax evasion and fraud, as opposed to the estimated $1 billion in the impact of ram raids and retail crime, and where’s the equivalent programmes like Operation Tauwhiro and Operation Cobalt to target white-collar gang crimes?

SPEAKER: Any one of those five questions.

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: People tell me more police and more visibility equals them feeling safer. We are delivering more staff, more resources, better training, better intel, better deployment, and it is working. When the district commander out at Counties Manukau tells me that the tactical response model on pilot there has meant that they have had a reduction in temporary carriage orders and that their team feels safer, I know that we are on the right track.

Question No. 12—Transport

12. NAISI CHEN (Labour) to the Minister of Transport: How is the Government supporting Kiwi families to transition to low-emission transport alternatives?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): Yesterday, the Government announced that we are investing into the transport sector from the Climate Emergency Response Fund to support Kiwi families to transition to low-emission transport alternatives, like public transport and cycling, and also to accelerate the equitable uptake of cleaner vehicles. While the Clean Car Discount scheme has supported the rapid uptake of over 15,000 electric and hybrid vehicles since it was launched last year, we know that for many families, the cost of switching to a cleaner vehicle can still be expensive. That’s why we’re implementing the Clean Car Upgrade. Starting with an initial trial of up to 2,500 vehicles, the programme will provide targeted assistance to low- and middle-income households to help them shift to lower-emission alternatives in exchange for scrapping their old vehicles. It will reduce emissions and reduce costs for our low-income households.

Naisi Chen: What other initiatives are included in the Clean Car Upgrade that will support families to transition to low-emissions transport alternatives?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: The Clean Car Upgrade builds off the successful Clean Car Discount scheme, which is now seeing 20 to 25 percent of new vehicles coming into New Zealand being low- or zero-emission vehicles and includes the two top-selling vehicles under the discount being priced under $18,000. As well as a scrappage scheme, which I’ve already mentioned, for low- and middle-income households, we’re also funding a trial of a social leasing scheme to support low-income families to lease a safe, low-emission vehicle from a community organisation. The trial will build on the work of groups like the Ākina Foundation in Manukau and is expected to operate from early 2023 in three communities to test its effectiveness across New Zealand. This is about our commitment to reducing emissions but also about having an inclusive transition that includes all New Zealanders.

Naisi Chen: What is the projected impact on emissions of the Clean Car Upgrade?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Transport is one of New Zealand’s largest sources of emissions, accounting for 17 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, but it’s also an area where we can make a difference quickly. The transport initiatives we’re investing in through the Climate Emergency Response Fund are expected to reduce carbon emissions equivalent to taking 181,000 cars off the road between now and 2035. The Emissions Reduction Plan has set the targets, and it shows that the path towards a more sustainable transport sector is achievable. On this side of the House, we’ve set up the plan, and we have the policies in place to deliver on it.

covid-19 orders

Approval

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

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Amendment Order (No 3) 2022

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Vaccinations) Amendment Order (No 3) 2022

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Protection Framework) Amendment Order (No 5) 2022

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Protection Framework and Vaccinations) Amendment Order 2022

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Amendment Order (No 4) 2022

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Self-Isolation Requirements and Permitted Work) Amendment Order (No 3) 2022

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Protection Framework) Amendment Order (No 6) 2022.

I think the Parliament is now well acquainted with the process of approving orders made under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act. As the Minister responsible for that Act, I sign orders that implement the Government’s decisions when it comes to COVID-19 restrictions and policies or the removal thereof. They then come into immediate effect, or almost immediate effect, and then the Parliament has to approve those by motion in the House within 90 days. Today’s motion approves seven orders that come into force on various dates or that came into force on various dates between 23 March and 14 April.

As normal, I want to, as I have been, congratulate and thank the Regulations Review Committee for their thorough and diligent scrutiny of them. I’m pleased to say that this particular block of orders did not raise any concerns from the Regulations Review Committee, and I actually think that that is a marker of success in the sense that we have worked very collaboratively with the Regulations Review Committee to take on board the feedback they’ve given us throughout the process of putting these orders in place, to try and make the law as easy as possible to follow and to try and iron out inconsistencies or any issues of technicality that the committee has raised. So I thank them for their ongoing work. I think that that process has worked very well, and should a future Government find itself in a position where a similar legislative provision is required, I’d encourage them, whenever that may be, to continue to follow this approach.

Some of these orders that we are confirming today have helped us to take pretty big strides in reconnecting New Zealand with the rest of the world. We’ve removed many of the restrictions that have been in place over the last two years. One of the orders that we’re confirming today moved New Zealand from the red to the orange sittings in the COVID-19 Protection Framework. Another helped us to introduce the new traveller declaration system that requires people travelling to New Zealand to make a declaration and to have a traveller pass before they arrive here. The order also removed vaccination requirements for arrivals from the Ukraine to be vaccinated and have a pre-departure test, recognising that those coming to New Zealand from the Ukraine at the moment would possibly find it very difficult to comply with that requirement.

Another one of the orders removed the requirement for certain persons to be vaccinated, something that has been the subject of a lot of discussion. It removed vaccination certificate rules, it removed outdoor capacity limits, but it did retain the requirement for a number of workers to wear medical-grade face coverings and it extended the face covering requirements to workers at indoor events, requiring certain workers to wear medical-grade masks. Those are the ones that we typically call the medical-grade masks—they’re the paper ones that have a blue outer, which people should also be familiar with. It requires people to wear those at an orange setting.

Other orders before the House today made minor changes to rules for managed isolation and quarantine, vaccination combinations, vaccination requirements for travellers from some Pacific countries, and changes to the red setting which no longer apply. The Health Committee is currently considering another notice of motion which is relevant to this one, which would extend the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020 for a further six months.

I’ll be appearing before the Health Committee tomorrow in order to answer questions on that and other aspects of the COVID-19 response. I note that this will be my 10th appearance before the Health Committee on COVID-19 measures, and, in passing, I do note that so far over the last year, Ministers have made 126 appearances before select committees to discuss whatever matters those committees have wished to raise with them. A lot of those appearances have, of course, canvassed COVID-19 measures. I do note that that is somewhat of a contrast to the 39 appearances made by National Ministers in the last full year that they were in Government in 2016.

It is my intention, or my hope, that I won’t have to bring many more of these motions to the House for approval. We do need to recognise, however, that the global pandemic still continues and that things continue to be unpredictable. The COVID-19 Public Health Response Act has underpinned our ability to respond quickly as new events have emerged and as the situation has required that. It has allowed us to emerge from the early stages of the pandemic with a strong economy, record low rates of unemployment, and a number of businesses still operating that might not otherwise had they not been able to be supported in the way that we have.

We still don’t know what’s around the corner, so we’ve still got a little bit of water to flow under the bridge yet, but I am feeling relatively confident that we won’t see the speed of change and the rapid nature of the orders process that we saw in earlier phases of the pandemic, and that things should be a little more predictable from here forward. And so I commend this particular motion to the House.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I start where the Minister for COVID-19 Response ended, which is echoing what he said in relation to fewer orders, hopefully, coming to the Regulations Review Committee and then, ultimately, to the House. I haven’t spent much time on the Regulations Review Committee recently, but I think I’m right in saying—on behalf of Chris Penk, the very erstwhile chair of the committee and the very hard working member—that fewer orders would be a good thing, so they can get back to the extremely tricky task of examining the vires-ness of all the various complaints that they get. It’s a very important committee, and I know from my brief spell on the committee last year—and the start of this year, actually—that they have been doing a very good job and working very hard. Some of the meetings have gone on for a very long time because there’s so many of these orders, so I agree with Mr Hipkins that it would be good to see fewer orders. I also want to say thank you to him for his appearances before the Health Committee.

He noted in his contribution that he’s appeared before the committee 10 times in the last two years, which sounds good, but, when you think about the billions of dollars we’ve spent, the extraordinary powers that the Parliament has given to the Government—wartime-esque powers, the power to compel vaccination for people to participate in everyday life—frankly, I think, 10 appearances is on the small side and it would have been helpful to see more appearances.

The other point I’d make, given he raised it in his speech, is that—

Willow-Jean Prime: There was another committee.

CHRIS BISHOP: What’s that?

Willow-Jean Prime: There was another committee, remember?

CHRIS BISHOP: Oh yeah, there’s been other committees, but the problem—and this is the point I was going to go on to make—is that of course it’s not just the Minister who has to account, it’s also the officials. And there have been repeated occasions when committees—plural—have tried to get senior officials in who have been stymied by the Labour majority. So given he raises that point, I do just note, in rebuttal, that it has been deeply and immensely frustrating to be stymied at examining senior officials responsible for vast swathes of public expenditure and who have enormous power in the system—to not be able to ask basic questions of the officials. The fact that the last National Government wasn’t crash hot at this either is not rebuttal to why the Government should not be better. It’s just a point.

Thirdly, we do welcome many of the orders made that we are approving today, because they represent the liberalisation of our response to COVID. The Minister noted the various amendments that have a liberalising effect, that have a freeing-up effect—so vaccination requirements, the removal of vaccine passes. I think most New Zealanders welcome these moves. Just a note, or just a comment, in relation to vaccination requirements to enter New Zealand: I am a person who has been quite vexed by the slowness with which the Government has moved, particularly when it comes to unvaccinated, permanent residents. We had this peculiar incident a few weeks or so ago, when the Government kind of randomly put up online, on a Friday night, that unvaccinated New Zealand citizens would no longer have to go into managed isolation and quarantine. It seemed to take everyone by surprise—there was no ministerial press release, there was no announcement even on social media channels. It just kind of appeared on the website. It’s a pretty significant change, nothing really to come of that, so that was pretty strange.

Then, of course, that raised the issue of, well, what about permanent residents? What about other visa category holders? And, actually, there was quite a degree of confusion out there amongst Kiwis, amongst those people offshore and here in New Zealand. I was contacted by a number of people, including one person who got all the way to the airport who thought they were going to be allowed on a plane back to New Zealand—she was unvaccinated—only to be told that she couldn’t come, because the rules were just so unclear. One person said one thing and health officials said another thing, the immigration official said another thing and the website said another thing altogether. So it was a pretty, to be honest, pretty awful experience for a few people. We now have clarity in that unvaccinated permanent residents are allowed to enter New Zealand, which is a good thing, but it has taken a long time to get to that point. I, for one, will be investigating exactly how long it took and whether or not the restrictions on those people was proportionate to the risk that they provided to the New Zealand people here who are vaccinated. Frankly, I find it hard to believe that they were such a risk that we couldn’t liberalise the rules in relation to unvaccinated permanent residents earlier than we did.

In relation to travel declarations that the orders we’re approving introduce, the travel declaration system, I’ve had a lot of email correspondence about it—I don’t know if other members have—particularly from seniors. It is quite a cumbersome process to go through. I’ve passed this on to the Minister, so he’s aware of what I’m saying. I think it could be possible to design an easier system. The other thing is that the spreading of the information out into the public domain, as to what the exact rules are, I think could be better as well. To share a personal story, I rocked up at Brisbane Airport last Thursday to come back to New Zealand, to be told by a Qantas staff member that I needed to show that I was vaccinated—which of course I am, but of course that’s not the law. I’m a New Zealand citizen; I can enter New Zealand without showing an international vaccination pass. I was duly told by the staff member that unless I showed it, I was not going to be allowed on the plane. You know, I’m not one to argue in those circumstances. I didn’t want to, you know. I did say to her, “That’s not the rules.” And she said, “Well, you need to take that up with the Government.” So at that point I didn’t say anything further, although I was tempted. I duly showed my pass. But, anyway, I just tell that point in passing. It has nothing to do with me. But there was a gentleman behind me who had a similar experience, who was very confused about life. So we need greater dissemination of exactly how the rules work.

The other thing I would say is the time has come, in our view, in the National Party, to get rid of pre-departure testing to New Zealand, all of which is given effect to by these orders as well. The benefits of pre-departure testing to New Zealand now are so nugatory as to be pointless, in our view. I would be very interested, and I’m intending to take this up with the Minister tomorrow when he appears before the committee—I would be very interested in as to what the public health advice is in relation to a pre-departure test.

Now, it’s quite interesting, because when the National Party proposed pre-departure testing—members with medium-long memories will remember—the Labour Party told us in 2020 that they were pointless; that they didn’t work; that, you know, they didn’t add any protective mechanisms to New Zealand’s elimination approach; and that they were a dumb idea. Then they sort of had an about-face and introduced them, which was great. And so they made sense at the start of the pandemic, because we had an elimination strategy—so, clearly, trying to minimise the number of people who have COVID and get on a plane is a good thing. That’s all fine. But we don’t have an elimination strategy anymore. We have a suppression strategy—for want of any other phrase—and COVID is running through the community and it’s running through the community in Australia as well. So this idea that you have to go and get a negative rapid antigen test or a PCR within 24 or 48 hours before getting on a plane and coming to New Zealand—our view, in the National Party, is that the benefits do not justify the enormous cost and hassle that they provide. It does have a real impact on people. You sort of say, “Oh well, you just have to go and get a test.” But, of course, that does have a real impact on people. It does inhibit people’s desire to travel, and it does inhibit people’s desire to travel to New Zealand as well.

You just think about it in realistic terms: a family of four wants to come to New Zealand for a holiday, they’ve got to go and get negative rapid antigen tests. I think the last—well, I had to get one the other day, it was A$60. You know, it’s A$250 just before you even get on a plane. So it does have a real cost. And, of course, then there’s the hassle of actually having to go and get the test in the first place. Again, made sense at the start of the pandemic. It made sense up until very recently that we want to minimise the number of people with COVID entering New Zealand. But Australia has abolished pre-departure tests for New Zealanders—well, for everyone—entering Australia. You no longer have to have a negative pre-departure test to enter Australia. Our view is we should do the same. I know the Government has signalled they’re looking at it, but they should really get on with it. The costs vastly outweigh the benefits of pre-departure testing. Time to get rid of it.

But I’ve made my contribution. We will be supporting these motions, and thanks to the Regulations Review Committee for their hard work.

TEANAU TUIONO (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Nine hundred and eighty-six—986—that’s the number of COVID deaths that we have now registered in Aotearoa New Zealand. That’s a lot of people. The seven-day rolling average of reported deaths is 16, so we could be heading towards the thousand mark this week. Each of those people were mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunties, uncles, and, in some cases, children—children.

When we hear this talk about getting back to normal, I honestly don’t know what that looks like. What does that even mean? I think normal left the building years ago. I am becoming more and more concerned with this House becoming desensitised to the deaths of people in Aotearoa New Zealand from COVID. You go to the news sites and it barely registers—it barely registers. I was just reflecting on that with the revelation of a senior data analyst at the Ministry of Education—an email got leaked, and that senior data analyst at the Ministry of Education said that the Government is asleep at the wheel—the Government is asleep at the wheel with COVID. And it feels like, to me, the National Party are singing them lullabies to make sure they continue to sleep.

There were a lot of positive gains within the first 18 months of the pandemic, and I do want to acknowledge the work of the Government in keeping us safe and all of that work that was put together and the team of 5 million and, you know, together but apart—and all that kind of stuff, as well. But where has it gone? Where is the team of 5 million? Where is that strategy which put at the centre of it our immunocompromised whānau, our disabled whānau, and learnt the lessons that needed to be learnt about engaging with Māori and Pasifika leadership and how to best access them to help support them to do the best things for their health needs?

This first Omicron wave has brought close to 900-plus deaths, and we are getting right up there. And, unfortunately, there is no end in sight, and we have continued to loosen protections. For our unvaccinated tamariki, for our immunocompromised, for our elderly, this means that they either face significant danger or have to remove themselves from large parts of society. I don’t know how it is for other members, but people who have immunocompromised whānau or disabled whānau will have real concerns about the approach, or non-approach, that the Government is taking, and the types of reflections that that places on them, and they have been getting in contact with me.

I also want to reflect on the health experts who have been calling for stronger protections to give us that line of sight in terms of what we can do. And I look at this also as a parent, as someone that has to take their kids to schools. The school my kids are at has been open and closed because of COVID. Just think of that as a parent who might possibly have a child in the primary school setting, another kid in a secondary school setting, possibly another one in the early childhood education setting—you’ve got three different settings. So what does that mean? And the burden that we place on teachers and school community leaders as well—being a teacher and being an educator is really tough, particularly in the middle of a pandemic, but now we’re expecting them to be healthcare workers as well—healthcare workers.

It’s important to also acknowledge our healthcare workers. We did have some strong questioning from Jan Logie around the support for our allied health workers—support they deserved, funding they deserved, pay and conditions that they deserve—because at the forefront of all of this, at that front line, are our healthcare workers, who have been doing everything that they can to keep us safe. When I meet with them, some of them are tired, tired and unappreciated, and so it is really important that we, as a House, really rethink and refocus on what we’re doing with our response to COVID and this pandemic.

Some of those experts have been calling for better ventilation. I mean, if we can’t have these other things, these other protections, which seem to be falling by the wayside as we get back to normal—whatever that is—then at least we can get ventilation sorted. Some of the things that we have been calling for are to improve air quality in schools and ensure this is properly monitored, because relying on open windows in the middle of winter is just not good enough. It makes our tamariki more vulnerable to things like the flu, and other winter-related illnesses as well. It’s also important that we ensure that there are ventilation standards in the building code, making sure that they’re fit for purpose. When we look at the building code, if we don’t think that it is strong enough, let’s strengthen it. Let’s strengthen it and make sure that we get those air standards and that ventilation sorted, not only for our schools but all the buildings that we gather at.

We should also continue to make sure, and to do what we can to make sure, that there are free N95 masks, or equivalent masks, for all schools as well. The schools are really at the forefront of all of this. And, of course, making sure that we work alongside Māori and Pasifika leadership in everything that we’re doing with COVID. There were some lessons learnt through the pandemic. We must continue to double-down and support those efforts, as with people, moving forward. Also, we need to have that deeper work and that support around what does it mean to have long COVID. What does that mean for people going back to work? What does that mean for families? What does that mean for communities?

I would like to end by saying that we do need to get back to that focus. We need to focus back on the collective, back on the team of 5 million, and to ensure that we keep at the centre of our attention our immunocompromised whānau, our disabled whānau, listening to the leadership of Māori and Pasifika health leaders as well, and not getting distracted by the noise. Because one of the things that I’ve noticed, as we’ve talked about this in more controversial time periods, is there’s often a lot of noise: we have the lemmings on the Parliament lawn with their conspiracy theories, we’ve had businesses banging the drum, and while all of that noise was happening we were incredibly distracted. This House was distracted from who we should have been focusing on, who we should now rethink about and continue to put our focus on, to make sure that when we move together, we move together as communities, that we move together as a society, that we move together as a people, as a part of that team of 5 million.

So, unfortunately, the Greens will not be supporting this motion. Thank you.

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I’ll make my contribution a brief one; I was going to say “a small one”—it might be small, as well as brief. I do want to acknowledge various other speakers on this bill. We’ve had Mr Hipkins and Mr Bishop, and now we’ve got Mr Penk, so it does beg the question of what a collective noun of Chris-es might be—almost a “parliament”; not fully, but we’re working on it on this side of the House and the other one! But, actually, I do want to reiterate, only briefly, the points made around the National Party policy position on these, which is to support the motion to the extent that it reflects the Government liberalising rules around COVID-19 restrictions. I won’t rehearse all those arguments.

But just by way of further illustration of the point that Mr Bishop had made, I understand from another member of this side of the House that he and his family, recently, some five packs between them, incurred $750, no less. I didn’t actually ask him if it was Australian or New Zealand, but, in any case, a fair price to pay for obtaining the necessary test to be certain of being able to board a flight back to New Zealand. I note that for many that would be prohibitive. So that’s a disappointment. It sounds as though there was some element of price gouging on behalf of the—

Todd Muller: Hear, hear!

CHRIS PENK: —provider of the tests—Mr Muller, behind me, says, “Hear, hear!” He has personal knowledge in the matter, perhaps. I didn’t actually ask his permission to associate his name with the story, but, in any case, all the same, I think it does illustrate that regulations that are unworkable will have unintended consequences such as that.

Mr Hipkins spoke already about the process. I think it was gracious of the Minister to acknowledge the interplay between the legislature and executive—namely, the Regulations Review Committee making recommendations—

Rachel Brooking: Great committee.

CHRIS PENK: —as the relevant Minister. I hear “great committee” from my colleague on that committee—deputy chair, no less—Rachel Brooking. I was actually minded to acknowledge the whole committee for the extremely hard work that they’ve undertaken over this period of time. I see also Toni Severin in the House, and various others who have graced us with their presence as substitutes. Actually, I do want to take the slightly unusual step—and I hope that I’m not out of order, Mr Speaker—of acknowledging the excellent advice that we’ve had from everyone associated with the committee. The legislative counsel have been magnificent. The slightly unusual bit, I suppose, is that I acknowledge by name Linda McIver, who is no longer working with the committee. Others who have also served and remain on board indeed also provide excellent advice.

But I think that the point the Minister made about the fact that there are fewer occasions for the Regulations Review Committee to write to the Government about concerns that we have with the order reflects the excellence of the advice that we’ve received, because that, in turn, has allowed us not only to rely on that advice in itself but also to trust, very much, the providers of that advice. So we’ve leaned on that very heavily, and I have no hesitation in acknowledging that.

Of course—it feels a bit like the foreward to a book—the responsibility of any errors, omissions, anomalies, and so on, of course belongs to the committee, not the advisers. That’s the nature of the lines of responsibility, I suppose. But to the extent that we’ve been able to provide a useful service to the House and, perhaps, if I may, to New Zealand more generally, that reflects the support we’ve enjoyed.

Of course, the other point further to that made by Mr Hipkins around the fact that there have been fewer occasions for our recommendation of possible changes does indeed reflect that he has listened, the Government has listened, as well as we have spoken—but also, of course, the iterative nature of what we’ve been doing.

So some months into this process—indeed, some years, I suppose I can say, after at least a couple of them—and a number of amendments to the various orders, we’ve all gotten a bit more used to it and the trajectory is good, I think: just sort of straying back into that policy side of things that the committee doesn’t dwell on but, from the National Party perspective, as I say, is our view. So I join with Mr Bishop, on this side, and say that we support the Government’s motion in this space to confirm these orders today.

TONI SEVERIN (ACT): I rise on behalf of the ACT Party to actually oppose these amendments, even though they are freeing us up a bit. But we’ve been calling for this for some time now. All these orders are a catch-up with what’s already been put into our society, and still most people are catching up with them as well and understanding these lovely orders. There is still much confusion out there.

Also, we were calling way, way early for the Government to stop putting all these orders out when it wasn’t needed, for a long time now, and we still have some orders that are still very confusing and unfair. Like if a nurse now—if she has got COVID but is unable to have her booster for three months, she is unable to work. However, she has had COVID but she has her other vaccinations. So there’s still some irregularities around certain orders that are still floating out there, which need to be looked at, because we need our nurses, we need our hospital staff. And I also assume that that would also go for many teachers, because some people were unable to get their vaccinations until a little bit later on.

Now that COVID and Omicron is in the community, many of us have caught it, many of our family and loved ones have caught it. No one wants to see deaths from any viruses. We have many viruses out there; this is just one of a few. It is new; however, we have to make aware that we cannot just look at COVID. We are going into the flu season. There will be viruses coming in. So most people, as we all have, have what we call personal protective equipment, which is what our masks are. So if people feel unsafe, then please make sure you are wearing them a lot more.

In, actually, I think, nine orders that the Regulations Review Committee, which I’m on, has put through to be motioned on, one of them was around—here we go—an exception to face-covering rules in events and gatherings held outside. Again, though, that is optional. I was at an event on the weekend where people could choose or not choose to wear a mask. The majority did not. However, those that feel unsafe, they wear the masks. And I think that’s what we have to start to get used to within this community. If you feel at risk, if you are uncertain, wear a mask.

Also, we have other orders here that, yes, it is freeing us up, but some of them have been very confusing. And I would like to thank, like my fellow colleague Chris Penk, who is the chair of the Regulations Review Committee, our lovely legislative counsel, who have been going through these orders and assisting us with the understanding on some of them, and also writing to the Hon Christopher Hipkins on areas where there were things that were not quite clear. I am a layman; I am not a lawyer. So if I found that hard to understand, I would hate to think how many other people out there understand some basic rules and regulations, and how confusing that could get for a lot of people that have to live by these COVID orders that are constantly coming out at us. I assume that we have more to go over this coming Wednesday, when I sit in a Regulations Review Committee this Wednesday.

But it’s great that we are getting fewer coming through. That means there’s less rules and regulations that this Government is putting up on us. Yes, we are freeing up. The biggest thing of all is also still these isolation rules. You can be in a family household, and one will come down with COVID. You are perfectly fine until about six days later, and then you come down with COVID. That means you’re in isolation for two weeks. However, if I had known three days earlier, and I still was negative, I would have loved to have been able to get out of isolation. So, yes, as many other people that are occurring this—that productivity might actually be better when you’re stuck at home. However, it does not.

So, on behalf of the ACT Party, we oppose these motions once again, and we have been doing so, I think, for quite a few months now. And we will continue to, until we can get things under control. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

A party vote was called for on the question, That this House approve the following orders made under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020: COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Amendment Order (No 3) 2022, COVID-19 Public Health Response (Vaccinations) Amendment Order (No 3) 2022, COVID-19 Public Health Response (Protection Framework) Amendment Order (No 5) 2022, COVID-19 Public Health Response (Protection Framework and Vaccinations) Amendment Order 2022, COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Amendment Order (No 4) 2022, COVID-19 Public Health Response (Self-Isolation Requirements and Permitted Work) Amendment Order (No 3) 2022, and the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Protection Framework) Amendment Order (No 6) 2022.

Ayes 97

New Zealand Labour 65; New Zealand National 32.

Noes 22

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

Motion agreed to.

Orders approved.

Bills

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

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 11 May.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The ACT Party supports any improvement in the regulatory system of Government. That’s why we support the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Hazardous Substances Assessments) Amendment Bill, because it will make it easier for the Government agency—the Environmental Protection Agency—to assess chemicals, to assess products that are used on-farm, on roads, in factories, to assess them for safety, and to confirm that they are suitable for use in New Zealand. But the ACT Party must draw attention to the fact that this piece of legislation, which was crafted in the early 2000s in response to the dire threat of genetically modified organisms taking over and merging with other organisms and taking over the food production and maybe even taking over human beings—who knew?—is well out of date and long overdue for an upgrade.

But, of course, the reason it was so top-heavy and so complex to start with was because so many of the issues that concerned people about the environment and human health were not well understood by the activists and those who shouted the loudest at the time. In fact, there were a number of books written about the GE corn that was going to infect all the other corn and cause all kinds of problems with crops. That never happened. The other problem that this legislation was intended to address, of course, was the legacy of toxic chemicals produced in those decades after World War II, which included DDT, pentachlorophenol, 2,4,5-Trichlorophenoxyacetic Acid, Lindane, and Chlordane. They might have been used to treat timber or even to treat food, and, of course, what we know is that they were toxic to humans, toxic to future generations, as well as to plants and animals. Now, all of those chemicals have been banned and removed from use as far as practical, and, of course, there are much better controls now on how they’re used.

So what we’re left with, actually, is a piece of legislation that looked back to the problems of the 1980s and 1990s, when those highly toxic chemicals were still in use, and attempted to regulate them out of existence so they didn’t pose a threat to human health. But, by the time this legislation was passed in the early 2000s, new generations of much safer products for use in food production and agriculture and animal welfare, around the factory, and even on the roads to control weeds and other noxious materials where people drive and walk—that generation of chemicals that have been produced in the past 20-odd years is far less harmful, yet the legislation still looks backwards 20, 30, 40 years. So it’s good it’s being reformed, and it’ll be a much simpler pathway to get these hazardous substances classified so that we have a much better understanding of their risk and whether they are in fact hazardous or whether they’re safe to use with adequate precautions.

Now, I’ve had the great pleasure of spending weeks and months wearing full chemical and biological protective equipment including masks and respirators, and I didn’t do that for fun, maybe like some other members of this House; I did it for work. And what I want to tell the members of this House and people who might be watching is that actually, even though these substances may be harmful if used incorrectly, New Zealand is fortunate in that we have a good health and safety culture, we understand risks, and we get on with the job. The problem for people like the onion growers of New Zealand is in fact that they have applied for much safer chemicals that they want to use in food production than are currently allowed in New Zealand. They told us on the Environment Committee that in fact, some of the chemicals that they’re allowed to use in New Zealand are banned in other jurisdictions, like the European Union. They’ve had applications with the Environmental Protection Agency for reassessment for years and years and years without them being reviewed and without getting a decision. That’s putting their access to markets at risk, it’s also putting the health of people who consume products at risk, and it makes it much more difficult for the onion growers, for example, to deliver a product that they can be confident in to consumers.

So it’s good there’ll be an easier pathway. One of the reasons there’ll be easier pathway is because it provides a much more limited opportunity for people who are environmental activists or have a bee in their bonnet about something to oppose the use of particular substances on essentially an ideological basis. There are some people who say, “We can kill all the pests and weeds simply with steam or with a bit of lemon juice, or there must be some natural remedy we can use.” Well, the problem is that in an environment like New Zealand, there are a whole lot of pest and weed species introduced, actually, for which there is no natural remedy. Those weed species are out of place in New Zealand and can only be controlled with chemical control.

But one of the things the committee heard, which is of great concern, is not only are substances that might be used in the factory or on the farm or on the roads to kill weeds excessively regulated and hard to get permission to use but there’s a whole other class of things that this bill deals with that were, actually, not up for reform and discussion, and that is what this bill calls “new organisms”. Now, at the time the bill was passed, genetic modification and genetic engineering were seen as an enormous bogeyman. There were books written about it, there were documentaries done about it, and people thought that a genetically engineered sweetcorn was going to start marching from the fields into town and do all kinds of damage. Of course it never happened; it was a load of nonsense.

What we do know is that the use of gene-editing technology has the potential to deliver medical treatments that are currently unavailable in New Zealand. We heard from the Malaghan Institute, who told us that some of the gene-edited treatments for aggressive cancers that are available as of right in Australia and that save hundreds of lives every year are not available in New Zealand because of the regressive, backward-looking laws that mean we can’t use a genetic technology outside of the laboratory in New Zealand. And this law, the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, is the main reason why we can’t do it.

So what submitters told the committee is, “Actually, it’s good you’re reforming this bit about on-farm chemicals and the sprays we use to kill weeds along the State highway, but actually, New Zealand needs you to focus on the really tough subject of reforming the laws around genetic modification and gene editing so we can have access to better medical treatments.”, and then, if we extrapolate from that, so we can have access to pest-control technology that currently is limited to dumping bucket loads of sodium monofluoroacetate, or 1080 as some people might recognise it, on to forests, on to farmland all over New Zealand—a poison that’s used in that way nowhere else in the world but which our Government, our Department of Conservation, and other agencies claim is the be-all and end-all and the only thing saving our forests from possums, and yet it’s quite clear that there are technologies available right now in terms of gene editing that should be up for discussion and that should be available in New Zealand.

And, then, we think about on-farm methane emissions. Well, I visited the Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC) last year, and what they told us was that they found the gene to reduce methane emissions from cattle. So as I mentioned before in the House, actually solving climate emissions is quite easy. It doesn’t need 300 recommendations and strategies. The technology is available right now, but because of this legislation, which is unfortunately not up for debate today, it’s not available in New Zealand. What the LIC told us was, “If you had to take the gene for low methane, tasty meat, woolly sheep, animals that were resistant to pests, and, actually, animals that would have a better lifetime welfare, you would need access to gene-editing technology.”

So ACT will support this bill, and we will also be asking this Government: when are they going to bring legislation to the House to actually reform the thing that New Zealand farmers and families and businesses need most and people who need medical treatment?

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. Always an honour and a privilege to make a contribution in the House—yes, very briefly today on the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Hazardous Substances Assessments) Amendment Bill. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Minister, the Hon David Parker. We always appreciate it when he visits the select committee—the way he conducts himself and he allows us to have our opinions raised. So I want to acknowledge the Minister on his leadership.

As the Minister has said, this bill improves the way chemicals are assessed or reassessed by the Environmental Protection Authority. I would like to acknowledge also the chairwomanship of the chair, Eugenie Sage. She always does a really great job and involves us all making great inputs. As we’ve heard from members, about the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act (HASNO Act) 1996, can I remind the House that the purpose of HASNO Act 1996 is to protect the environment and the health and safety of people and communities by preventing or managing the adverse effects of hazardous substances and new organisms.

I want to acknowledge the 28 interested groups and individuals who made submissions but I acknowledge the submission made by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. He did make seven key points in his submission, but I’d like to conclude by acknowledging that he did make key points on new provisions to be published. What the bill does is it will provide efficiency and speed of assessments and reassessments of hazardous substances. The bill will also improve transparency, in particular, by requiring the Environmental Protection Authority to publish a work plan for assessments. I commend this bill to the House. Mālō.

PENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m very pleased to rise and speak in support of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Hazardous Substances Assessments) Amendment Bill. This bill, of course, has been to the Environment Committee and they have come back with a number of very sensible amendments to it. The purpose of the bill is a very worthwhile objective: to improve the assessment and reassessment of hazardous substances by the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA). The EPA, of course, is the regulator of some 150,000 hazardous substances, so it’s not an insignificant role by any means that the EPA undertakes.

National supports this bill because it’s a very sensible bill. It’s looking for efficiency. It’s looking to save time. It’s looking to save money. It’s looking to reduce duplication, and to produce better outcomes. Those listening could be forgiven for thinking the Labour Government has turned over a new leaf, because being sensible, looking for efficiencies, saving time and money, and looking for better outcomes has not been a feature of this Labour Government. But before we get overly excited about this turning over of a leaf, I should mention that it actually was the EPA that initiated these changes and initiated this bill. The EPA understood that it’s in everyone’s best interests that our hazard classifications are accurate and up to date. The EPA realised that to simplify the process to update the hazard classification of substances and the corresponding controls based on information from international regulators was a good thing to do. The EPA realised that they should try and gain greater efficiency to our assessment and reassessment processes for hazardous substances.

National understands entirely the rationale that it does seem to be a practical solution, a practical proposal, in this legislation to do all those things. We know that in other jurisdictions where information has been gathered, where money and resources have been spent and where we align with and recognise their scientific credibility, it makes absolute sense not to duplicate the work that has already been done but, rather, to contextualise it and to cut out some of the duplicated process here in New Zealand. This bill has somewhat unkindly been dubbed dull but worthy, and so with that I commend this bill to the House.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): This bill is all about efficiency and, as other speakers have said, is about improving the chemical assessment processes by the Environmental Protection Authority. The hazardous substances are classified in that way, looking at their properties but also looking at the level of hazard that they entail. I’m told there are 3,500 individual approvals currently before the authority.

What this legislation is really doing is saying that there is good data out there, and where that data can be verified, and where there are good international comparatives, let’s efficiently use that information to make some quick assessments so that resources can be put appropriately into investigating the areas that might require more examination—where perhaps there is less data available, where there are conflicting stories around that data, or perhaps where there is different scientific analysis of the data.

So it’s a bill that’s about efficiency; it’s also one that enables us to move as the science moves. It enables the authority to take into account latest scientific data. So it’s a good piece of legislation. It’s a good way of getting the best out of taxpayer money, and it’s also going to contribute to the wellbeing of New Zealanders, because obviously we don’t want New Zealanders exposed unnecessarily to hazard from hazardous substances. So I commend it to the House.

TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): “Dull but boring” is what the MP for Coromandel said about this bill, and there is an element of truth about it. But the Environmental Protection Authority did bring it before the committee, they did talk to us about how there are lengthy and very costly processes involved in the assessment and reassessment of chemicals. This amendment is about making sure that we’re not having to reinvent the wheel every single time, that we can actually rely on those international regulators, that obviously they’ve got similar systems to us that we can compare, but also that they have information that we can readily access. And “we” being the EPA—the Environmental Protection Authority. They do a great job. We hope that passing this bill, and the support that it’s getting around this House, is going to enable them to be able to get on with the job of assessing and reassessing those substances. And we heard at the committee that in some of those instances, some of the chemicals that they’re reassessing are actually better, safer chemicals than the ones that we’ve got at the moment. So we need to streamline that process. They talked to us about the lengthy delays; hopefully, this is going to do away that. I commend it to the House.

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a great delight to be standing up here speaking on this bill.

Hon Scott Simpson: An unexpected delight.

TODD MULLER: An unexpected delight, and I’m sure David Bennett will be listening intensely.

Look, I’m only going to speak for a few minutes. Clearly, this has a lot of support around the House. The Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) has a critical role again, ensuring that science is applied to challenging hazardous organisms and that it is done in a way that gives the community confidence but also allows appropriate chemicals to be used. If there are—as there are—global regulators with significant repute who have gone through a process of assessment in a way that the EPA feels comfortable with, then we should be able to use that data in a more efficient way to reach, one would assume, pretty similar outcomes. So the efficiency that is embedded in this is positive from the National Party perspective.

It has taken, of course, far too long for this to be prioritised up, frankly, a pretty thin Order Paper and for it to meander its way through select committee, and now, of course, we have to endure Government speeches all speaking in earnest support of it. But, frankly, this is the sort of thing that a Government could put a shoulder to the wheel and get progressed far quicker than has been the case. Not this Government, of course; that Government takes over in October next year.

But we do support it, and, I guess, a parting comment is that one does hope that as the EPA brings these new, efficient processes to its deliberations, it remains focused on ensuring that science and the truth that is inherent in science and data informs its decisions and that it doesn’t get captured by the democratisation of science that appears on most Facebook feeds that come across my path—or they certainly did when I was the climate change spokesperson—that seem to suggest that we’re all experts in our own lunchtime when it comes to interpreting science. The EPA have a critical role in ensuring that chemicals and other hazardous substances are effectively monitored but can be used in certain circumstances, and science and data must sit at the core of their deliberations. This bill will, one would hope, make those deliberations just that much more efficient. I commend the bill to the House.

LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE (Labour): I rise in the House, and thank you for the time to make a contribution to speak to the bill. I want to thank Minister Parker for his summary last week and chair the Hon Eugene Sage for the Environment Committee. I do want to thank the staff involved in drafting and putting together the amendments, and my appreciation to the members of the committee and all the submitters that took the time to put forward their thoughts, raising concerns through submissions to be considered on elements of the bill.

As I have just joined the Environment Committee recently, I’ve been reading quickly to understand the purpose of the bill and why it is important to have a much clearer position on the proposed legislation to help clarify and empower those involved in the work.

The bill makes improvements to the Act in the three main categories: (1) enabling the Environmental Protection Authority, otherwise known as the EPA, to make better use of information from international regulators; (2) making other improvements to the reassessment process; and (3) to make technical amendments.

The amendments proposed are needed in this bill to enable and allow these changes. The Environmental Protection Authority, otherwise known as the EPA, is the regulator responsible for making decisions on whether to approve new hazardous controls and new organisms, and to manage the risks and safeguard our people in the environment from approved hazardous substances. This transition allows the Government a fair and equitable process, as we must think forward in the future of our people and prioritise this bill. The current system is time-consuming and resource intensive and not fit for purpose. The amendments will improve a simplified process.

To conclude, the bill will improve the efficiency and speed up the measures of assessment and reassessment of hazardous substances, and, in particular, the EPA will be able to publish a work plan for reassessments to increase transparency and improve the wellbeing of New Zealanders. I commend this bill to the House.

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

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Maritime Powers Bill

Third Reading

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Foreign Affairs): I present a legislative statement on the Maritime Powers Bill. I move that the Maritime Powers Bill be now read a third time.

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

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: I move, That the Maritime Powers Bill be now read a third time.

The bill is designed to close gaps in New Zealand’s domestic law which create uncertainty when enforcing our criminal law in international waters, being the oceans and seas beyond 12 nautical miles from our coast, including our exclusive economic zone. Addressing these gaps and keeping our maritime enforcement secure is critical to Aotearoa New Zealand’s national security and prosperity. We are an island nation with an extensive maritime domain. Once upon a time, our geographic isolation may have provided protection from maritime security threats; today, transnational organised crime, including smuggling people, illicit drugs, arms, and wildlife by sea, is increasing. This threatens our health and wellbeing and threatens our security and livelihoods. The Maritime Powers Bill is designed to ensure that New Zealand can respond to these threats, providing a clear statutory basis for New Zealand to enforce New Zealand’s criminal law in international waters.

Because the bill covers a range of offending, include drug trafficking and wildlife smuggling, it provides powers to Police, Customs officers, the New Zealand Defence Force, Department of Conservation rangers, warranted officers, and endangered species officers. This recognises the importance of including agencies with particular technical expertise in operations pursuant to this law. The bill is consistent with existing New Zealand law in this respect. All of these agencies already have comparable powers in New Zealand’s territorial sea.

The bill does not require warrants for the exercise of enforcement powers. This is also consistent with the approach of existing domestic legislation which confers comparable powers in international waters that are able to be exercised without warrant, including the Fisheries Act, the Maritime Crimes Act, and the Customs and Excise Act. It also recognises that exercising enforcement powers in the maritime environment, often at considerable distance from New Zealand, is complex and entails specific risks and challenges in relation to safety of life at sea, the preservation of evidence, and the identification of vessels. It also requires warrants for foreign ships would not be compatible with international law.

Now, while the bill does not require warrants, it includes a number of important safeguard measures to ensure that its powers are exercised in a fair, reasonable, and proportionate way that is consistent with our human rights obligations. The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act applies to the exercise of any powers in this bill. Consistent with the Search and Surveillance Act, the bill provides a clear, evidential threshold, before any powers in the bill can be exercised, of reasonable grounds, to suspect offending, and reasonable grounds to believe there is evidence of offending. The powers in the bill may only be used for serious criminal offences, which are those punishable by imprisonment for life or two or more years. The bill requires enforcement officers to report on the use of any maritime powers to the Commissioner of Police or chief executive of the relevant agency, and the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

In line with existing New Zealand law, the bill requires the consent of the Attorney-General to bring proceedings in relation to the extra territorial offences created by clause 34 of the bill. But it allows enforcement powers to be exercised before such consent is received. This is an important balance. In the operation pursuant to the bill, it may be necessary to urgently arrest a person and remand them in custody before the Attorney-General’s consent is received—for example, if a person is a flight risk or a danger to the public.

The bill also deals with the limited range of situations where, pursuant to international law, the consent of the flag State is not required to exercise enforcement powers in respect of a foreign ship. One of those is where a ship reasonably is suspected of committing an offence within New Zealand’s maritime zones is pursued without interruption. Consistent with international law, the bill recognises that New Zealand can use the ship and/or an aircraft to pursue an offending vessel in such a scenario.

Finally, the bill includes specific provisions allowing a medical practitioner to conduct an internal search of a person in specific and very limited circumstances where a person is prepared to permit such a search. In doing so, the bill does not impact or constrain the ability of a medical practitioner to respond to any medical emergency, in accordance with their professional and ethical obligations. This ultimately means that the care and wellbeing of an individual is paramount in the consideration of a medical practitioner undertaking their task under the Act.

I would like to thank the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, also, for your detailed consideration of this bill and for the technical amendments that the committee has recommended, which have improved the bill significantly. I’d also like to thank the organisations and individuals who submitted on the bill, as well as the officials that were involved in developing those changes, including Anais Kedgley Laidlaw, and Sophie Ironside from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and also Jacqueline Derby from the Parliamentary Counsel Office. Thank you all very much for your professional and thoughtful advice to the committee.

The bill is a positive development which will better secure our extensive maritime domain from increasing threats, in a fair, reasonable, and proportionate way that is consistent with international law and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. This will support the wellbeing of our communities and advance our security and shared prosperity. On that basis, I commend the bill to the House.

Nō reira tēnā koutou katoa i roto i ngā mahi nunui o te komiti motuhake otirā ngā mahi o te Whare.

[Therefore I acknowledge you all with respect to the significant work of the special committee and the work carried out in the House.]

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you, Madam Speaker, and it’s a great pleasure to rise and say a few words on the Maritime Powers Bill this afternoon, at our third reading. And can I acknowledge, at the outset, the considered response from the Minister in her legislative statement outlining, I think, a fair assessment of the points of contention that existed around the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee as they reflected on the detail of this bill. I did not sit in the committee but have had conversations with those who have, and it became very clear that there was pretty strong support around the table for the changes that were suggested in the first reading, particularly creating a jurisdiction over any ship in international or foreign waters and allowing, essentially, New Zealand to apply its territorial law in its exclusive economic zone. Where it became pretty easy to agree was the role of enforcement officers such as police and customs officers. Where it became more difficult was in the space of the Department of Conservation rangers and endangered species officers.

So, as I’m sure a number of my colleagues will talk to in more detail shortly, the National Party members on that committee sought assurances, essentially on the use of those powers, from officials, and there were a number of technical amendments that were made. And I think it is useful just to reflect on some of the Minister’s very explicit comments in the legislative statement with respect to safeguards—that they need to be fair and reasonable and proportional—that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act needed to apply, as you would expect; that there needed to be a clear evidential threshold for any action from New Zealand law enforcement authorities in this context; that there needed to be, at its core, a test of reasonableness; and what was important for us is that there was a transparent obligation on enforcement agencies around the use of their powers in terms of reporting each time that they did to relevant individuals, such as the Commissioner of Police and, of course, the consent of the Attorney-General should any further action, in terms of those arrests, be pursued.

So, overall, we are in a position now to support this. It clearly provides an opportunity for our law enforcement agents to protect New Zealand’s interests in our exclusive economic zone more effectively. Of course, this is just one part of the story. The other part is the actual technical capacity of law enforcement to actually be out in the appropriately spec’d vessels to be able to keep pace with and actually apprehend those that they have concerns about, and that is the part of this which is a critical test of the Government—their commitment to ensuring that, actually, there is the appropriate personnel and vessel capability to be able to ensure that these powers can actually be applied in any meaningful sense. So I look forward, of course, to the contributions of other colleagues who sat through the committee to, perhaps, speak in more detail of those technical amendments that give us the comfort, now, to support this legislation at the third reading stage. Thank you.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): It is a pleasure to take a call on this as a member of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee who did sit through the submissions on this bill. And I can tell this House and you, Madam Speaker, that we shared the same interest in looking at the powers around search, stopping, seizure, detaining without warrant, and also, actually, the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I think there was a deal of consensus on the select committee about wanting to get assurances on those elements, and I can assure you that we are in agreement that those assurances are there and that the legislation is safe in those respects.

So just recapping really about what this legislation is, which is about ensuring that New Zealand can act to disrupt criminal activity before it reaches our shores. Looking at the other legislation where powers to stop, search, seize, and detain are present, that is the Maritime Crimes Act, Customs and Excise Act, Fisheries Act, Wildlife Act, Trade in Endangered Species Act, and in particular the Customs and Excise Act Schedule 5A that went through this House in 2018. So that’s an example of recent legislation where detaining and so on without warrant has been found to be acceptable, and it recognises that there are risks at sea around personal safety, around particularly the presentation of evidence and the ability of somebody on board a ship to be able to simply throw it overboard and get rid of the evidence. Also what was told to us in the select committee was that in these types of situations often it’s not just one enforcement agency that’s acting; it can be several in concert, and that’s what we would expect.

In terms of the oversight, the courts will play a significant role as well in oversight, because these powers will be used, presumably, to prosecute cases, and so the enforcement agencies will want to get that right. They are not cheap operations to execute, and they will want to ensure that their evidence is accepted. Also, all the enforcement officers who use these powers will be required to report to the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

So on that note, I can assure you that we shared a similar concern for human rights for making sure that the legislation is within what is acceptable when warrants are not required. We feel very strongly that this piece of legislation does meet that threshold, and therefore I commend it to the House.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): This bill is supported by the National Party. As the previous speaker Ingrid Leary said, the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee was pretty much in unison when it came to the questions that were raised by the bill, but also in accepting and promoting the intent of it.

The committee, of course, very ably chaired by the Hon Jenny Salesa, a member who has quite clearly got an interest in New Zealand’s maritime jurisdiction because of her heritage and commitment to the Pacific. But it is a committee that generally tries to work as cooperatively as possible. Look, the idea that New Zealand should have a law that enables us to extend our laws extra-territorially into the Pacific is something that on hindsight and in consideration of the process we’ve been through, seems so very obvious. The previous two speakers and the Minister herself have mentioned a number of things that were of concern to us, and I don’t necessarily want to go through all of those again. We had an exhaustive committee stage for the bill here in the House over the past couple of weeks, and the Minister answered certainly all the questions that I had asked. And while there’ll be a couple of things we might disagree on, the general principles of the bill are very sound.

The bit that we are most concerned about, and I’ll state it again, is the extension of arrest powers to rangers, Department of Conversation (DOC) officers and various other people who are not necessarily sworn law enforcement officers in New Zealand. Now, it was pointed out that there are—within the Acts that those various rangers and DOC officers will be familiar with, there is New Zealand law that could well be being breached on the territorial sea, the extra-territorial sea, the open sea. And it’s therefore important to have someone there who is able to exercise a degree of knowledge, I guess, of the crime that’s being committed. It is worth noting that those authorities stop the moment the person gets back on to the terra firma here in New Zealand and then it is taken over by police, quite obviously.

The other bit that was a little bit confusing for a start was the idea that if our enforcement agencies were in pursuit of perhaps a vessel that was engaged in any range of activity that would be a breach of New Zealand law, before it could be boarded or stopped then the permission of the flagged State or the State whose flag was being flown on that ship would need to be granted. I think the answer to that is that it indicates simply the extent to which there is international cooperation, to ensure that there is a high degree of sound policing directed at illegal activities on the sea. Some of that would be straight piracy, drug movements, people movements, endangered species movements. When I said piracy, I mean also all range of illicit goods that could be involved in that sort of activity, as well as, of course, the drug trade.

So the select committee did look at every aspect that looked to be a little bit different around this bill and came to the conclusion that it was good legislation for New Zealand to have. It lines up with other countries, it enables that international cooperation and for New Zealand to do its bit on what is one of the biggest territorial seas—and therefore surrounded by extra-territorial sea—of any country in the world. As I said at the start, we support this bill.

IBRAHIM OMER (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Maritime Powers Bill in its third reading. The Labour Party has a proud history of promoting independent foreign policy, with a focus on multilateralism, human rights, and international rule of law. This is clearly set in our manifesto. And these values are then consolidated.

We are living in the era of globalisation, where people and goods move around quite easily, and this often causes a lot of damage and poses a significant threat to the national security of the nations. New Zealand is not immune to this. So we are a trading nation with a significant growing marine economy and a domestic market increasingly reliant on the connectivity that the sea provides for global supply and the value change through the shipping routes.

Therefore, this bill will allow New Zealand to respond to criminal activities on our shores and our oceans and beyond the New Zealand territory, including our exclusive economic zone, such as, for example, the smuggling of people, illicit drugs and arms, wildlife trafficking, including trafficking of our taonga, which is our native reptiles, and human trafficking. We see from the police reports that millions of dollars of drugs are being seized from criminals. So this bill couldn’t come in the right time. So to be able to do their job, obviously our law enforcement agencies such as police, the New Zealand Defence Force, and Customs need the proper tools to be able to do their job properly and to protect our maritime territory.

So the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee received seven submissions on the bill, including one from the Privacy Commissioner and the New Zealand Law Society and the New Zealand Council of Civil Liberties as well. The four submitters expressed their support for the bill through their evidence. So obviously this bill is consistent with our rights and obligations under the international law, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and international human rights obligations. So I’d like to thank the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee for the good work that they have done scrutinising this bill, and I’d like to thank the Minister for bringing this bill into the House. It’s a good bill. I commend it to the House.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green) (remote): Thank you, Madam Speaker. And thank you for being chair of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee that heard this, by the way. We don’t often get legislation come through the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, so I think it’s obvious the excitement that we all had going forward.

This bill is one that seeks to address some important issues, or to address some important problems, that we see happen on the high seas. I think most New Zealanders would actually be surprised but should know that New Zealand is responsible for monitoring a fifth of the world’s oceans. So it makes sense that we would want to have the right tools to identify serious criminal activity, and to give them to our people who are responsible for that monitoring, to address them appropriately.

So we monitor a fifth of the world’s oceans for environmental degradation, for disaster relief, and criminal activities like what this bill seeks to address. The types of activities—and everyone has referred to them—are serious: it’s people trafficking, it’s human slavery, and—for the Green Party, obviously, very importantly—the trafficking of rare species. Illegal trafficking of either New Zealand’s taonga species or other rare and endangered species into New Zealand for profit. We know that drug trafficking in an uncontrolled way is happening increasingly and that’s a huge problem for our small island nation, as well as for the island nations in our Pacific community.

But it’s not enough, in terms of lawmaking, to identify a problem and to seek to stop it—that is the criminal justice system, by the way. There’s an agreement by society, more or less, that things like murder, violent offending, and property crimes are bad. But the way that we address them—in applying the rule of law, in applying a sanctions regime, in applying a search and surveillance regime that abides by our other values and upholds the rule of law—is a different thing altogether. That’s where this bill fails.

So, yes, we did hear from the Law Society. We heard from naval law experts. We heard from experts who supported the spirit of this bill but did raise serious issues with the way it sought to address them in terms of the search powers. So this bill replicates the search and surveillance powers of the Search and Surveillance Act. That was a law that came in under the previous National Government. We’ve now had years and years of looking at the way that the warrantless search powers in that law have, in practice, been used to degrade our right to be free from arbitrary search and seizure. They’ve been replicated in the Misuse of Drugs Act and in the Arms Act. Similarly, the courts have found that it has meant that without judicial oversight, without an obligation to seek a warrant, lo and behold, there is more chance that the basic New Zealand Bill of Rights Act rights—rights to be free from unlawful search and seizure, and unreasonable search and seizure—will be degraded.

Now, this bill actually goes further than that in that it doesn’t allow, in any circumstances, for there to be judicial oversight of searches. So whilst the police have to exercise the power to search without a warrant in cases where there isn’t time to seek one, this bill specifically excludes even that possibility. This was pointed out to us repeatedly by the Law Society, and by a naval legal expert that came long and said there are actually a lot of types of circumstances on the high seas where you can know that you’re going to want to search a vessel, and it is always best practice to be able to say there will be accountability, and oversight, and rule of law when that is about to happen. This bill excludes that.

So, yes, the ministry that put it together says that it abides by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. But we know that, in practice, these types of search powers do lessen the likelihood of compliance with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act rights, and, in this case, even beyond that. We don’t have a case for even applying judicial oversight or abiding by rights if there is time and capacity to do so. As the Hon Gerry Brownlee has pointed out, it even extends the powers to groups of people who are not normally using search and surveillance powers. So, again, the risk is multiplied.

I think, as lawmakers, we have a responsibility here to identify serious problems and endeavour to address them. But to have a knee-jerk reaction that weakens the rule of law, weakens our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act in practice, is not good lawmaking. So, for those reasons, the Green Party will not be supporting this bill. Thank you.

BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of the third reading of the Maritime Powers Bill. The purpose of this bill is to put in place clear powers for the enforcement of New Zealand’s laws in international waters, and we need to be quite clear about what this law is not doing. We’re not expanding our laws or creating new criminal offences. We’re simply allowing the New Zealand Government and the police and our enforcement agencies the ability to enforce our laws in international waters. It’s about ensuring that we have the power to enforce our current laws, not create new ones. I think that’s an important point to make.

This bill, though, as we see when we look through it, provides a range of mechanisms to help with the enforcement of New Zealand’s laws in international waters by allowing things like search and surveillance of a ship, requiring a ship to stop, boarding the ship, and searching the ship for a person that might be suspected to have broken the law in New Zealand or broken the law in our international waters, and we’re able to detain that ship and arrest a person. I think that’s very important, and it’s quite striking that we haven’t had this clearly written out in law before. I think it points to a real issue that we are seeing in New Zealand, which is that we have far too much criminal activity and not enough enforcement to stop criminal activity.

It doesn’t matter where I go in New Zealand—I am met with people in our communities who say that we need healthier and safer communities, and we need to have a stronger enforcement of our laws. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a woman in Auckland Central who says that she’s moving out of town because she doesn’t feel safe there because it’s not safe on the streets, or whether it’s people saying they don’t feel safe even walking around their neighbourhoods at night, because they know that there are so many people on meth and they just don’t feel safe. We need to have safer communities and that means enforcing the law, letting people know that they can be safe because the police will be there for them. The same thing needs to apply to criminal activity when it’s coming to New Zealand, because we have to ask a very obvious question: where are all those illegal firearms coming from? Where is all that meth that’s being dealt on our streets coming from? Well, part of it is coming from ships entering New Zealand waters and distributing those goods into our communities and making them less safe.

We want to have healthier communities that are thriving, and that means taking illegal firearms out of the hands of gangs—because that’s where they end up—and taking meth away from the gangs—because that’s where it goes. Those illegal firearms and those drugs on the streets destroy our communities. So we have to stop it where we see it, and having these laws in place allows us to keep those illegal firearms and that meth off our streets. It also means that where an offence has been committed in New Zealand and the ship leaves our waters, we have the ability to enforce those laws, find that ship, find the people who have made our communities less safe, detain them, and search the ship for other illegal activity that might have been occurring there. That’s a very, very important law to pass, because it will make our communities safer. We want fewer illegal guns on the street and we want less meth in our communities and in the hands of our children.

I think it’s really important in particular when it comes to drug smuggling, migrant smuggling, firearms trafficking and wildlife smuggling, because we are an island nation—these goods have to come from somewhere, and most of our transport is shipping routes. We need to have the ability to extend our criminal jurisdiction outside of New Zealand waters and into our international waters. That’s already recognised in the law, and this bill passing will solidify that in the law.

We already have some bespoke laws—things like the Fisheries Act, the Maritime Crimes Act, and the Customs and Excise Act, where we accept that our criminal law needs to go into those international waters. But what this bill does is recognise that we need to have simple laws that all New Zealanders can read and understand instead of having separated provisions within different parts of law. This makes it all it one place and it makes it easier so that when you end up in a situation, for example, where you have a ship that you know has broken the law and is leaving our waters and you have a search warrant for a particular good—you might think it’s for drug smuggling and you end up on that ship and you realise that they have illegal firearms—it allows you the privilege to go for a search and seizure for both of those goods, not just the drugs. So it allows for that ability to search and seize on a range of issues—not just wildlife, not just people smuggling, not just guns. It’s very important to have it bespoke, set down in the law, and enforceable in our New Zealand laws. So I commend this bill to the House because I believe it will make our communities safer. We’ll have fewer illegal firearms on our streets, and we’ll have less meth in our community.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. In some human rights circles when we talk about the law of the sea, we talk about the law in the shadows. The reality is that it’s the law in the shadows because in many parts of the world, that’s where human rights abuses often occur. We read about it when in 2018 Greenpeace published a report about those employed on fishing vessels off the coast of Taiwan. And the truth is that the shadows exist here in New Zealand as well, because we simply lack the ability to exercise all our enforcement powers at sea.

I do think that a lot of people assume that offences don’t happen in New Zealand’s waters, but in my first reading speech on this bill, I referenced the case of the Shin Ji and Oyang, where crew members alleged in New Zealand courts that they were subject to physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, and that they were subject to inhumane treatment. That case led to the passing of the fisheries amendment Act in 2014, and changes to our courts’ jurisdiction over crew members of foreign vessels. And there are other examples of serious offences occurring at sea. I note that in 2020, the Ministry for Primary Industries conducted a report into the treatment of observers—those with observer status—and the potential unlawful conduct against them.

So we know this is a gap, we know this is an issue, and I would like to thank the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee for their work. I understand that there were a modest number of submissions in relation to this bill, but they contain some meat to them, including the New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties’ submission and the New Zealand Law Society submission, both of which concerned the treatment of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. And where I land is similar to where the select committee landed in regards to those New Zealand Bill of Rights Act issues—that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act governs its own application into other pieces of legislation, so there is no need for it to explicitly be there, and by doing so, it would call into question the applications of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act to other pieces of legislation as well.

So just, again, I say that I do believe this is a critical bill. It is wonderful to see it after its substantial journey through the House, and being, hopefully, passed today. I commend this bill to the House.

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

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the National Party to support the Maritime Powers Bill. The Maritime Powers Bill provides New Zealand law enforcement agencies with powers to enforce New Zealand’s criminal law in international waters, the oceans and seas beyond New Zealand’s territorial sea, including New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone. The bill does this in a manner that will be consistent with New Zealand’s rights and obligations under international law, in particular the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and international human rights law.

It reflects the fundamental importance of maritime security for New Zealand as an island nation with an extensive maritime domain. New Zealand has the fourth-largest exclusive economic zone in the world, covering a little over 4 million square kilometres, approximately 15 times the land area of New Zealand itself. New Zealand also has rights to an area of the continental shelf beyond our exclusive economic zone, covering approximately 1.7 million square kilometres. So it’s a very significant area, and then, of course, New Zealand has responsibilities further out in terms of the Pacific.

The Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand is also responsible for coordinating all major maritime and aviation search and rescue missions within New Zealand search and rescue regions, which is one of the world’s largest at 30 million square kilometres, extending from the mid Tasman Sea, halfway to Chile, and from the South Pole almost up to the Equator. So New Zealand has a very big role to play in the world’s maritime environment.

This bill provides powers to respond to a range of criminal offending against New Zealand law in international waters, including offences that take place on board a New Zealand vessel in international waters, offences that take place on board a foreign vessel in international waters, and situations where an alleged offender or evidence of criminal offending is located on a New Zealand or foreign vessel in international waters. The bill does not create any new substantive offences or expand the jurisdiction of any existing offences. It only creates powers exercisable in respect of serious criminal offending against New Zealand law, which the bill defines as offences “punishable by 2 or more years’ imprisonment”. This threshold reflects that the bill is intended to respond to serious criminal offending at sea, particularly transnational organised crime.

The bill provides powers to enforcement officers who are defined as constables, customs officers, members of the armed forces, Department of Conservation rangers, and Endangered Species Officers. This will enable the powers to be used to address a range of offending, including trafficking of humans, drugs, arms, and wildlife.

It is important to know that New Zealand has adequate powers to enforce our criminal law in a constantly evolving and increasingly challenging maritime security environment as resources become more and more important, and particularly food security, to the world.

There is a concern the National Party has with this bill in that it proposed to give powers of arrest, search, and seizure to rangers and conservation and endangered species officers, which are the same as those given to police and customs officers. This is an expansion of powers that National-led Governments have resisted in the past. The National Party members of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee sought assurance on the use of those powers, and were assured that they will be limited and used judiciously. National will continue to scrutinise the use of these powers as the bill comes into force.

I’d note, as the MP for Southland, I can tell the House about some exciting work coming straight out of Alexandra and Central Otago from the Xerra Earth Observation Institute, which is pertinent to this conversation this afternoon. Xerra is building science-based software using satellite data to help tackle some of the challenges involved in maritime security. The Starboard Maritime Intelligence programme helps the analysts and decision makers by detecting non-reporting dark vessels. This software can provide valuable insight into illegal fishing practices, identify potential COVID-19 transmission vectors by vessel history analysis, and identify biosecurity threats before they even enter New Zealand waters. Xerra’s work in this area recently earned them the top honours in the latest New Zealand Biosecurity Awards and is only the beginning of how this technology can benefit New Zealand.

This is an example of some of the great work that is being done in New Zealand, and even in this case in Central Otago, which is a reasonably long way away from the ocean, but I can say, even for my electorate, the ocean is very important. It covers a huge area, but I have a significant part of the Catlins and a very significant part of Fiordland in my electorate and we are deeply interested in what happens both on our coastlines and also what happens further afield, and want to ensure the security of our resources and also ensure that harmful substances and other things are not brought into our country. So this is a positive bill. It is one that I am pleased to support as it’s sensible.

RACHEL BROOKING (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take this short call on the Maritime Powers Bill. What an afternoon it’s been. With the different speeches today, we’ve heard from the Minister—she used the phrase “pursue offending vessel”—and then we heard from Vanushi Walters about the “law in the shadows”, and then, just now, we’ve heard from Joseph Mooney about “non-reporting dark vessels”.

This is an interesting topic about enforcing criminal law on international waters. This is described in the purpose in clause 3 to “(a) provide clear powers for the enforcement of New Zealand’s criminal law in international waters; and (b) uphold New Zealand’s rights and obligations under international law, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, consistent with international human rights”. So this law applies to both New Zealand boats in international waters and international boats within waters where New Zealand has jurisdiction.

An interesting feature of this bill is that the consent of the Attorney-General is needed for prosecution. We’ve heard that the bill is consistent with both international law and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

It’s always pleasing to speak on a bill where the select committee has been unanimous in its changes to the bill. So, for those reasons, I’d like to commend this bill, this new law that enables the enforcement of existing laws, to the House.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I loved the analogies around the House that my colleague Rachel Brooking mentioned this afternoon, in particular to the Maritime Powers Bill that we are discussing this afternoon.

What has become most apparent to me this afternoon is how much what happens out on our waters impacts our lives here in New Zealand, here on land. But this particular bill that we’re discussing talks about the provision to New Zealand law enforcement agencies of powers to enforce elements of New Zealand’s criminal law in international waters. And what’s very, very important in that, it stands out to me that it provides powers to respond to a range of criminal offending in international waters and some of those dark things that we mentioned earlier on are such things as the offences that take place on board a New Zealand - flagged vessel in international waters and the offences that take place on board a foreign-flagged vessel or Stateless vessel in international waters, for which New Zealand has extraterritorial jurisdiction, and situations where an alleged offender or evidence of criminal offending is located on a New Zealand, foreign, or Stateless vessel in international waters. Those things, obviously, are very, very important to the protection of people in this country and our local communities.

We have a proud tradition of an independent foreign policy with a focus on promoting multilateralism, human rights, and the international rule of law. And can I take a moment just to acknowledge the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, the Minister who is responsible for this particular bill, and to extend my gratitude for the thorough work that has been done by the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. I commend this bill to the House.

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I have enjoyed all the speeches that we’ve had this afternoon on this topic, and also at previous different stages. We’ve had some excellent speeches in the first reading, second reading, and so on, not all of which were by me, but some of which may have been by me. That’s for others to say, but I do share the enthusiasm of others in this House for the subject. If you’ll indulge me for a moment, Madam Speaker, if you can imagine to yourself a Venn diagram with three overlapping circles: one is maritime things, another is parliamentary process, and another is law enforcement and sort of legal processes in general. This bill’s right at the intersection of those, so you can understand my excitement. And I can tell that it’s shared by many who are still awake!

So the Maritime Powers Bill does important things that others have already referred to. Lest we fail to appreciate its significance, I think we’ve had really good comments made on both sides of the House, actually, about the seriousness from the shadowy existence of misconduct and, indeed, the abuse of conduct that can take place beyond the horizon. That which is out of sight should not be out of mind for our law enforcement agencies, or indeed us as a Parliament, which is why it’s important to legislate in this space.

The way that the bill operates has been well traversed. At previous stages we’ve heard about the different “zones”, for want of a better phrase, to encapsulate it all in terms of New Zealand’s territorial waters, exclusive economic zone, and even—actually, as the very learned colleague and friend of mine, Joseph Mooney, pointed out—the continental shelf delineation as well, and New Zealand’s rights and responsibilities extend even out that far. And, of course, if the exclusive economic zone is to be exclusive in anything more than just name, then it’s important that New Zealand has the ability to enforce that exclusivity. And, of course, there are offences that may be conducted, I suppose, but obviously we seek to deter those or at least to detect them, and then to enforce the laws in so far as they may have been breached. And it’s by allowing our law enforcement officers the ability to carry out searches, seizures, and so forth that that will enable that to be so.

Others have talked about the extent to which this provides powers to what are described as enforcement officers. And Joseph Mooney has highlighted, I think, pretty well the National Party’s concerns—I think it’s fair to characterise our concerns as such—but also noting that we paid heed to the discussions at select committee and advice of officials and so on to seek assurance in relation actually more so to the warrantless search aspect; that this is a power that will not be abused. And, of course, you will expect, no doubt, Madam Speaker, that we will be carefully scrutinising the way in which the powers are exercised going forward.

The bill also has a number of different provisions that make it clear that to some extent the law remains the same. So the offences themselves remain the same. There isn’t expanded jurisdiction in the case of what we would regard as criminal or unacceptable behaviour. So the expansion of jurisdiction is actually more so clarifying that the offences that currently exist can be regarded as such even in new territory. I use the word territory perhaps a bit loosely, because traditionally it refers to land. Indeed, that’s the etymology of territory, of course. But as others have pointed out, New Zealand is highly reliant on that which comes from the sea and goes out, actually, from our nation via the sea offshore as well. And, of course, we should be interested and concerned with what happens on the sea, whether or not it’s directly connected with our own trading interests, for example.

And so I think that probably says enough from the National Party’s perspective. So on that basis, we commend the bill to the House.

MARJA LUBECK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be the 12th speaker in the third reading debate of the Maritime Powers Bill. First of all, of course—as the person bringing all the threads of the previous speakers together—I’d like to acknowledge the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, who received seven submissions on this bill, including from the Privacy Commissioner, the New Zealand Law Society, and the New Zealand Council of Civil Liberties. We heard my colleague Vanushi Walters discuss some of those human rights and New Zealand Bill of Rights Act aspects that the committee considered in those submissions.

I wasn’t a member of this committee but it’s obvious that, from the previous speeches, the whole committee has done a very good job in addressing some of the concerns and coming to a good consensus on this bill. As my colleague Chris Penk, the previous speaker, already said, the details of this bill have been well traversed, and then he went over them all again—ha, ha!—which I won’t do because I think it’s been pretty obvious that the core of this bill, really, is that it’s very important that New Zealand is able to respond to those criminal activities that have been spoken about with regards to smuggling of people; and illicit drugs, arms, and wildlife trafficking. And my colleague Vanushi Walters mentioned the “law in the shadows” which is the first time I heard that term used.

So that is exactly what this bill achieves. At the same time, it adopts a very well-established clear standards of criminal procedure from New Zealand law. So as the Minister already said, this bill and the way that it’s drafted is fair, reasonable, and proportionate. Therefore, I commend it to the House. Thank you.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Maritime Powers Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 109

New Zealand Labour 65; New Zealand National 32; ACT New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Noes 10

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Electricity Industry Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs) on behalf of the Minister of Energy and Resources: I present a legislative statement on the Electricity Industry Amendment Bill.

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

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I move, That the Electricity Industry Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

The bill will implement a number of the recommendations from the 2019 electricity crisis review. It will support the Government’s efforts to adopt the right regulatory and market settings for an electricity system that supports a low-carbon economy. The bill will promote competition and innovation in emerging distributed energy markets, such as by allowing the Electricity Authority to amend, extend, or revoke arm’s length requirements between distributors and affiliated businesses. The bill will reduce industry costs through enabling the Electricity Authority to regulate more standardised distribution access agreements. The bill will also protect the interests of small consumers through providing clearer powers for the Electricity Authority to regulate how retailers deal with medically-dependent and vulnerable consumers, such as for non-payment of their electricity bill.

The bill has four main purposes, which are informed by its sponsor, the Hon Dr Megan Woods: to provide for the establishment of a small electricity consumer advocacy agency and enable the levy on industry participants to recover the Government’s costs relating to small electricity consumer advocacy. To remove ambiguity in the ability of the Electricity Authority to amend the Electricity Industry Participation Code 2010, the code for the purposes of protecting household and small business consumers. Thirdly, provide more regulatory agility to promote competition in evolving contestable markets by shifting from the Act to the code a number of existing provisions relating to a distributor’s involvement in regeneration or retailing activities. And fourthly, ensure that the code can regulate distribution access terms and conditions, as it already does in relation to Transpower.

Following the bill’s first reading in September, it was referred to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee where it was, I’m told, extensively examined. The committee tabled its report on 22 March and it falls to me to thank the committee for its work. It received 41 written submissions and heard 18 oral submissions, and those submissions have resulted in a small number of amendments to the bill which were unanimously recommended by the committee. While some minor and technical amendments have also been proposed, in this contribution I’ll discuss the main amendments which the committee has recommended.

First, it’s recommended that the bill be amended to enable the Electricity Authority to share information with overseas regulators, in particular the Australian Securities and Investment Commission. That’s because ASIC, as it’s known, regulates the Australian Securities Exchange, ASX, on which New Zealand electricity futures contracts are commonly traded. The amendments include appropriate safeguards on the use of information, including compulsorily acquired information, ensuring that it may not be used by an overseas regulator to incriminate the person who provided the information. This amendment will also enable the Electricity Authority to share information with New Zealand’s gas industry co-regulator, the Gas Industry Company. The electricity and gas industries are closely related, and information obtained by one regulator could be valuable for the exercise of functions by the other.

Secondly, the committee recommended that the time-limited backstop power given to the Minister of Energy and Resources in the bill be brought forward by one year to help lessen any potential regulatory uncertainty. This backstop power would allow the Minister to amend the code in relation to specified matters if the Minister is not satisfied with how the code addresses the specified matters. It is recommended that the period during which the backstop power may be exercised would now be not earlier than one year after and not later than three years after the date of enactment.

Third, it’s been recommended that the bill be amended to clarify the ability to define a new industry participant. This would allow regulations to identify any persons, not limited to industry service providers, as industry participants where their activities or roles in the electricity industry are material to the Electricity Authority’s objectives. That will ensure that the code would apply to new industry participants and help to continue to promote competition in evolving contestable markets.

Finally, a number of amendments resulting from a review of the electricity compliance framework have also been recommended. This review was recommended by the 2019 Electricity Price Review to bring the compliance framework and related enforcement regulations up to date with best practice. This review was completed by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment last year and resulted in a number of proposed changes to the Act, as well as other proposed changes to the Electricity Industry (Enforcement) Regulations 2010. The amendments recommended are: to increase the maximum penalty for a code breach from $200,000 to $2 million; allow an additional $10,000 penalty for each day that a breach continues; give the rulings panel discretion to award costs whether or not it determines a breach has occurred; and clarify that code breaches resulting from a series of closely related events are treated as a single breach subject to a single penalty rather than separate breaches subject to multiple penalties.

During the select committee phase, some submitters did raise opposing views to certain provisions in the bill, in particular, the additional consumer protection objective for the Electricity Authority and moving aspects of Part 3 of the Act into the code. While these views were examined in detail by the committee, I believe it is worth noting them again—and I’ll note again that the committee was unanimous in its recommendations that it did make. Some submitters suggested that the additional consumer protection objective for the Electricity Authority would be unnecessary and should be limited to a consumer protection function only. However, analysis conducted during the drafting process concluded that it is prudent to also change the objective, due to the risk that a consumer protection rule might be considered inconsistent with the existing objective. I note the select committee’s report did not recommend any amendments to this provision in the bill as drafted, and I agree with this decision.

Protecting small consumers is intended to be a relevant consideration for a relatively small portion of the Electricity Authority’s work. It is expected to come into play only when the Electricity Authority is considering the conduct of retailers and other participants that deal directly with small consumers, where there is an imbalance of power in those relationships that can result in adverse outcomes for small consumers. I also note some submitters were concerned about moving elements of Part 3 of the Act into the code, which will enable the Electricity Authority to revoke or amend the existing business restrictions that apply when distributors are involved in generation or retailing. Submitters viewed that such intrusions on commercial freedom and property rights are generally a matter for primary legislation rather than delegated legislation. The select committee’s report did not recommend any material amendments to this provision. I believe this is the correct recommendation as technology advances are increasingly, and will continue to, blur the boundary between distributors and retailers.

The Electricity Authority needs to be able to develop rules in the code. A secondary legislative instrument that can respond if distributors use their monopoly position deliberately or inadvertently to deter competitors from entering the market for such products and services, or disadvantage those already in the market. This will help ensure that consumers can benefit from new products and services that offer high quality, lower cost, or more choice enabled by these emerging technologies and consumers.

In closing, this bill will ensure the electricity regulatory system is more future-fit in light of significant changes occurring in the industry. I look forward to an enthusiastic and enlightening debate and I commend this bill to the House.

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

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, I’m sure we’ll be able to deliver for the Minister, who has just retaken his seat. The Electricity Industry Amendment Bill does have some good features to it. It has some bad features to it. On the basis of those features, we will be voting against it. The bill—it does what the Labour Party do quite well—adds in more bureaucracy, and we have, in particular, the establishment of an Electricity Consumer Agency to represent small businesses and private consumers. We already have a Commerce Commission. We have other mechanisms to deal with those sorts of issues, and we fail to see why we would need another agency to represent those people. It is true that we have had some issues in the past with people who have serious illnesses and have had their electricity turned off inadvertently by a lines company unaware that there was an issue in that particular household. But that’s largely been dealt with, but still it is good to have those things dealt with in a proper way.

In fact, we see, if we graph the access to energy and GDP, they track one another almost identically—as does the increase in life expectancy. So electricity and the access to energy is absolutely essential in a modern world and—I note in the Minister’s opening statement, he said—in a low-carbon economy, which seems to be in every speech, just about, being given these days. It is important, but what’s more important in the energy trilemma is, actually, energy security and, then, secondly, energy affordability, and, I think, then, going to the renewable aspect as the last leg of the stool. Unfortunately, if you take one of those legs away or put too much emphasis on one, a three-legged stool does work a lot better than a two-legged one. Unfortunately, we’re having a lot of focus these days on a one-legged stool, and the other two legs have been forgotten. And we only have to look to the UK to see the issues that this bill brings up as potential issues for us to face here, and that is that as electricity prices go through the roof, energy security for people becomes at risk, and people have to make a decision either to heat or to eat, and that is a huge issue in the Northern Hemisphere as we speak.

One of the other things that really concerns the National Party is the fact that the Minister has the power to change the code under a set criteria in the bill, and I think that’s really of great concern to the National Party. It’s a massive overreach, really, because the Minister is going to take the role of the Electricity Authority, for whom, actually, that is their job and their role. They live this every day, and yet the Minister and/or some of her officials in her office, or whoever happens to be the Minister at the time, will have the power to make those decisions, and I would argue the Electricity Authority is far better placed to know that. Certainly, if we leave those sorts of decisions in the hands of a Minister, that is the road to disaster.

Barbara Kuriger: Particularly this Minister.

STUART SMITH: Well, I couldn’t possibly comment on that. I think it’s akin to giving the Minister of Finance the power to say, “I don’t like the official cash rate that the Reserve Bank of New Zealand have just set. I’m going to change it. I’m going to make it whatever the number is.” We don’t do that, and yet that’s exactly the power we are giving to the Minister within this bill, and that is why we oppose this bill. It’s actually not needed. It’s not necessary. It’s an overreach, and I think this particular Minister has a view of doing this sort of thing all the time; this is a bit of a track record on this—

Barbara Kuriger: Overreach.

STUART SMITH: —and it’s not good. It is overreach. It’s something I’m very concerned about, and I’m sure other speakers will be as well.

I would like to just list some of the reasons that under new section 44B: “[The] Minister may amend [the] Code to include specified matters … including provisions for any matter specified in subsection (2) if the Minister—(a) considers that the Code’s provisions for the specified matter are not satisfactory; and (b) is satisfied that the amendment will further the Authority’s objectives in section 15.” Well, how is the Minister better placed to do that than the Electricity Authority? I don’t know. We’ve got a former Minister of Energy, who’s going to speak later in this debate, from the National Party, and he’s a very good Minister of Energy, and I’m sure he’ll be able to bring—I’m not casting aspersions on any Minister, but I doubt any Minister has the wisdom to be all over this in the way that the Authority would be, and don’t think they have the right to do that. I think, further on in 44B (3): “The Minister may amend the Code under this section as if the Minister were the Authority, and sections 38 to 40 apply accordingly, with any necessary modifications.” I mean, it says it all. Why have an authority if you’ve got a Minister that knows it all? There’s no need for it. I just think—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Back to the future.

STUART SMITH: Yeah, it is back to the future. I’m reliably informed this used to be the way things were done and that’s part of the reason we have an Electricity Authority these days.

So I won’t delay this anymore. We do not support the bill, on the basis that I’ve outlined, and I think that the Government would do well to learn from this debate in this era and not try these sorts of things in the future.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on this piece of legislation at the second reading. I’d like to acknowledge the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, of which I am the chair, for the work that they’ve done on this piece of legislation. I’d like to acknowledge the Minister, the Hon Dr Megan Woods, for bringing this bill to the House, the staff—who work tirelessly in this place, with a lot of that work unseen, and I’d like to acknowledge them—and the submitters who submitted on this bill.

Minister Dr David Clark, in his opening speech on behalf of the Minister, outlined some of the submissions that came forward and some of the changes that the committee made. The Minister highlighted that those changes were made unanimously within the committee, and I confirm that that was the case. There was unanimous support for those changes across all parties.

In 2019, the Electricity Price Review found that smaller consumers struggled to make their voices heard and influence the electricity sector. Obstacles included the sector’s complexity, consumers’ lack of resources, and cultural differences and language barriers.

We have a relatively small country here, and with small countries and small markets there can often be a move towards anti-competitive behaviour. I believe that it is the Government’s role to ensure that we have competition in all of our markets, and one of those markets is the electricity sector. As a Government, it behoves us to ensure that that competition is there. Our view is that this piece of legislation brings more competition to the electricity sector, and that will ensure that consumers benefit, ultimately, from that competition.

I’m not going to take too much more time, but I will just touch on the aspect around technological advances. The Minister mentioned it in his speech, and this bill highlights the need for more adaptive regulation as emerging technologies arise.

All sectors have emerging technologies, and the electricity sector has a number of emerging technologies. It’s important that we can adapt to those technologies, and this bill will give the authority greater flexibility to respond quickly, if necessary, to develop rules that can respond if existing participants use monopoly or market power deliberately or inadvertently to deter competitors from entering the market for such products and services, or to disadvantage those within their market.

So that just highlights one example of the importance of having that competition in the market. It is the Government’s role to ensure that competition remains, and, basically, this bill ensures that the competition does remain. Thank you.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): This bill is nothing more than window dressing to give credence to a failed review by the Minister. It’s unbelievable. The Minister went out some years ago and said, “We’ll have a review of electricity pricing.” There was a big noise made about how prices were too high, etc.; they may well have been, but there will always be some reason in a market system as to why a price goes up and why a price should come down. But there is nothing in this bill that would make any of that any more compelling than exists at the moment.

I think it’s important to recognise the history. This bill has been in place for 12 years. Over the 10 years prior to that, New Zealand had five electricity crises years; years where everyone was asked to conserve electricity because our supply was starting to run out. The extraordinary thing was, watching it then from Opposition, was that, actually, the faceplate capacity for generating electricity never changed; what changed was: each year that the available supply of energy for conversion into electricity energy was artificially manipulated, and so there had to be some change to the system. That 2010 Act did make that change; prior to that Act, we had a thing called the Electricity Commission that was put in place by the Helen Clark Labour Government. It was an attempt to try and get a few more rules around distribution, etc., but it did not go far enough and it did not deal with the single problem that you’ve got: that electricity is an immediate medium. It can be put into a battery, certainly, and stored to some extent as usable energy, but, by and large, once it goes down the line, it needs to be used. The question always is: how is someone who is distributing or generating able to be paid for the work that they’ve done to get that energy conversion so that that electrical energy is available to the economy? Now, that does mean that you will have an enormous number of rules, an enormous number of algorithms, an enormous number of nodes and distribution points, take-off points—you could go through all of the acronyms you like that this industry is so full of, but they are all important because they simply are about getting the electricity supply to where it needs to be.

I have to say that since these changes were made in 2010, New Zealand has not had an electricity crisis. We have not had a dry-year shortage of electricity. We haven’t had the sort of runaway pricing that we were experiencing for 12 years prior to this bill coming in. That is quite indisputable.

What we’ve got here is a Minister who decided that she could take on the electricity industry and sort out things for the consumer, make it a lot better, and all we’ve got is these few recommendations to come out of that very expensive review, many of which simply confirm the powers that the Electricity Authority currently has.

The bits that are alarming in here are that we’re apparently going to establish yet another consumer advocacy body—there are heaps of them out there; we’re setting up another one—and it’s going to be paid for by consumers. Now, the other side of the House will say, “No, no; it’s going to be paid for by the electricity producers and distributors.” Well, who do they on-charge to? Consumers. So here we have an effort from the Minister to drop the power price by increasing it. Now, that just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

Then there is this issue of the so-called codes or the rules under which all of the distributors and generators work being subject to change by the Minister. Well, let me tell the House that, prior to this Act, that is what happened. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) would take some rule recommendations—and they were daily almost—from the Electricity Commission, they would have a look at them themselves, and then they’d bring them to the Minister and say, “Minister, you need to sign these into some kind of action.” One of the interesting things I found was that in asking for an explanation in what those rules did, very few people at MBIE could ever tell you. So there was a need to have a body that was specialist in this regard. That’s why the authority was set up. I think that taking this back from the authority is a retrograde step—very retrograde.

Then, of course, there’s the issue, as just stated by Jamie Strange, the chairman of the committee that considered the bill, saying that this is going to enable greater competition. Well, how? How? Anybody can become an electricity distributor in this country if they want to. Anyone can become a retailer of electricity. They can buy that product on the market, they can buy it on the forward market, they can buy it on the futures market, and they can market it or sell it to whoever is prepared to buy it off them. The price will always be set by what is, effectively, the price of the day; often, averaged over a period of time. There will be ability to take out long-term hedges. All that exists now; it’s not going to change because of these very minor proposals in this bill. I still can’t work out exactly what it is that would give anyone confidence that this is going to increase competition.

So, beyond this second reading, there will be a committee stage, and the Minister is going to have to explain to the House, and therefore to the country, how some of these very cosmetic changes, alongside the very significant change of taking power or authority off the Electricity Authority back into the Minister’s office, is in any way going to benefit consumers. The reality is that electricity demand is going to increase in this country. We do need to have a greater effort on conservation—that doesn’t mean not using it; it means using it better—and also, of course, new generation as well. We know that new generation is just a nightmare for anybody wanting to bring it on stream at the moment through the Resource Management Act. Let’s be very clear: the Southern Lakes scheme would never get built in today’s age—never get built. Yet it is the thing that so many people on the other side of the House go about crowing about because we’re at 80 percent renewable. We’re actually at less renewable now than we were in 2017.

Then, of course, there is the big question that’s not answered in this bill: why is New Zealand importing coal to burn for electricity production? Why are we doing that? Why does the great climate-change-is-the-issue-of-our-generation Government allow that to happen? They’re all over there, mumbling into their masks saying, “It’s not happening—it’s not happening.” Well, go and have a look at the massive stockpile that exists at Huntly.

Stuart Smith: 800,000.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Go and find out—my colleague here says that it’s 800,000 tonnes; call that a million. It’s a huge amount. Ask yourself: why is it that we’ve practically destroyed a transition fuel—gas—in this country, so that we can import coal from Indonesia? It’s great for the Indonesians; not good for us. Unbelievable—unbelievable.

So there’s no need to take the full time allocation on this! We’ll certainly be taking a lot of time in the committee stage, because this is, as I said before, what you might describe as a vanity bill. It’s the sort of bill that a Minister comes up with when the actual results from an expensive review don’t show up anything of any great significance. So it’s a bit like Minister Faafoi today, saying that when he gets grumpy, things happen; well, in this case, obviously, the energy Minister got a bit grumpy, saying “Well, you know, I said we’re having a review, I said we’re going to drop the price. We’ve got to do something.” So the officials have scurried back and they’ve come up with this bill. It’s taken up a lot of the House’s time, it’s got a huge amount of promise if you listen to speeches that have been made today, but it won’t make one bit of difference to the price that consumers pay for electricity, beyond the additional cost they’ll face in paying for their own advocacy group. That’s what the Minister’s supposed to do; not have some greater-good group over there paid an enormous fortune to give that advice.

So this is not a bill that we’ll support. It is a bill we’ll try and make a little bit better through the committee process. I look forward to that.

NAISI CHEN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s pretty disappointing to hear the last two contributions from the other side of the House, especially from two members, Gerry Brownlee and Stuart Smith, who don’t sit on the great Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee that is ably chaired by Jamie Strange. And I do want to acknowledge our chairperson on that select committee, and I want to acknowledge the collegial nature in which we work in that select committee, trying to make each bill that comes through our select committee better. I am absolutely proud of the changes that we’ve made to this bill to make sure that we are looking after all of the consumers within our electricity market.

There is one thing that I do agree with the Hon Gerry Brownlee: he’s saying that history is important, and I do want to go back to 2018. Back then when the Minister of Energy and Resources had commissioned the independent review of New Zealand’s electricity market, the electricity price review, the EPR, and they had come back to us with the following recommendations that I want to reiterate to the House. They suggested, amongst other things, the Electricity Authority’s work on transmission pricing, the new Interim Climate Change Committee’s work on how to reach 100 percent renewable electricity by 2035, and the Productivity Commission’s low-emissions economy inquiry. So they had to consider all of those things in there, and then they came back with the actual recommendations to establish an interim Consumer Advocacy Council and a permanent council within 18 months, and we’re going to do that through this bill, to ensure regulators listen to consumers, and to define energy hardship.

I’m proud to take a call in a week where we’ve just released our climate action plan and our emission targets. This bill will be another step in terms of us achieving that low emission economy that we, actually, on this side of the House, have ambitions for and that we will deliver. So, on that note, I commend this bill to the House.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Thank you. I find myself, at short notice, taking a call on the Electricity Industry Amendment Bill and regret that I wasn’t on the select committee that was considering the bill.

I think it’s been interesting, the National Party contributions, because of course it was Max Bradford’s changes to the whole sector in the 1990s which created quite significant problems. Then, of course, it was its partial privatisation of State-owned enterprises like Meridian that also led to Meridian now making super-profits. So in terms of National, I’d also encourage them to actually read the climate plan, because, like the previous speaker, the emissions reduction plan and the initiatives that are outlined there are all about taking us to 100 percent renewable energy. Some of the key initiatives in the emissions reduction plan are to improve business and household energy efficiency, to ensure that our electricity system is ready to meet future needs, to ensure that we are investing much more in renewables; it’s been that failure under the previous National Government to have a strategy like that which is why we still depend on coal for part of the baseload generation for Huntly.

So this bill is part of ensuring that we have more power for consumers, that the Minister, if she doesn’t think the industry is operating satisfactorily can intervene on the side of consumers and ensure that there is fairness there, that things are more affordable. It’s also about ensuring that we do make those moves to invest in renewables, because one of the current failures is the lack of a strategy in the past for that. We’ve had the big players dominating, investing to meet their commercial imperatives, rather than to benefit Aotearoa nationally, in terms of ensuring that we’ve got adequate electricity generation to take us through some of those dry years and to ensure that we’re investing more in renewables.

There are so many opportunities to do that. It is soul-destroying to see the plethora of new homes which are springing up in areas like Selwyn, around Rolleston, and how few of them have solar panels on their roofs, despite the abundant sunshine in Aotearoa, with things like this Government’s proposed changes to the building code to make it easier for people to put in place solar panels—and it’s that whole strategy which is where we need to go. So this bill is a part of that puzzle.

It’s all about rebalancing away from the big corporates to allow the Minister to actually act on behalf of consumers and smaller players. It’s to ensure, too, that we get much more distributed generation. The number of times that small communities, such as the Blueskin Bay community, have sought to have small wind generation and been frustrated—not only by the Resource Management Act but also by how that power gets fed into the grid.

So this bill is about the sort of changes we need to implement the emissions reduction plan. It’s about being on the side of consumers and households, ensuring we don’t have energy poverty, that electricity is more affordable, and it is really about moving to that zero emissions target that the climate plan, with its chapter on energy, does really reinforce with all of the initiatives that are set out there. I would commend some of the speakers in the National Party to actually read it. Kia ora.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, the ACT Party comes to the House this evening energised to talk about the benefits of regulatory reform. While we support this bill in principle and will vote for it, there is some stuff that you could expect we find unnecessary because the ACT Party is all about targeting legislation and regulation to solve real problems. There are real problems which the regulator and agencies identified, such as allowing provisions for distributors of electricity—we call them lines companies in Kiwiland; the lines that carry the electricity from the substation to your house are the distributors—to be involved in generational retailing. That’s a significant problem that for many years, particularly in smaller communities where they might have a local hydro power station—for example, like down on the West Coast of the South Island or up in Northland, where they have geothermal resources and are in places in remote communities which can rely on solar or renewables, if they want to distribute that electricity to householders, each one of those has to have an individual installation control point number that that identifies the householder.

Now it all sounds very complex; it is overly complex, and what the ACT Party hopes is that by moving the regulation of stuff like that—who gets to carry the electricity from the power station to your house, and should they be allowed to generate electricity and send it down the lines at the same time—if we can move that from the regulation to a code, it should be much simpler for people to get on with actually building generation, delivering affordable energy to people’s homes. The ACT Party agrees that it’s a good idea that the access arrangements for generators and retailers, the regulation of distribution, actually—that there are easy pathways for people who want to produce energy and deliver it to their customers.

But there are some parts of this legislation we don’t agree with. We just don’t think there’s a need for a small consumer advocacy agency. I mean, there’s been no real case made for that through the committee stage that hasn’t been addressed by all of the stakeholders in the industry. This is an industry which has accepted in the past that it hasn’t had good processes to give customers a good customer experience. But they pointed out that hundreds of thousands of customers a year change service provider to look for cheaper rates, better deals, packages that include not just electricity but gas and fibre telecommunications; in fact, that this could be one of the most flexible, customer-friendly electricity markets in the world at the retail level. Yet, there’s nothing this Government and the Labour Party—abetted by their not entirely necessary Green Party supporters here on my left—like more than to create regulations and agencies so they can say, “We’re looking after people; we’re compassionate about their needs. Even though they maybe didn’t get the deal they thought they were from their electricity company and they can ring up another company and change providers just like that, we’re going to set up an agency to look into that and meddle in that relationship between the customer and the provider.” The ACT Party says it’s just not necessary.

But there are some things that are missed from this current Government’s policy. If the stated intention of this legislation is to amend the Electricity Industry Participation Code for the purpose of protecting household and small business customers in relation to relation to their supply, it’s not entirely clear that household and small business customers are at risk of being cut off, unless it’s because of their economic situation. That’s something which this Government, through their tax and spend and tax more and spend more policies, have certainly contributed to an increase in the cost of living and to a wage spiral and a price spiral. That’s called inflation and it’s a terrible situation that this country finds itself in, which is largely at the feet of this Government. This bill doesn’t solve that problem, although it claims to be protecting household and small-business consumers in relation to their electricity supply.

There’s another problem it doesn’t solve, because if we really wanted to make electricity more affordable, to give more choice and to make the system of supply and distribution more efficient, what ACT would say is the Government needs to get right out of it as far as possible. That’s why in our alternative budget, we propose to sell off 49 percent of the State-owned electricity companies that are currently amongst the worst performing companies in New Zealand. They have billions and billions and billions of dollars’ worth of assets and they return a fraction of their value—a fraction of their value—to the Government.

What that means is, for Labour MPs who never studied economics, who never went to university to study something that actually is human behaviour—if we have incentives, this is what people will do. They wouldn’t necessarily understand that by accepting lower dividends and poorer performance from wholly owned State generators, what they’re doing is they’re asking taxpayers, including my kids who work at low-paid jobs to save a bit of money in between lectures, to subsidise the poor performance of these companies, rather than saying, “Well, look, actually, is there private sector funding—hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars circulating around the world—which could invest in public infrastructure like electricity? Maybe that would free up some Government capital to build things.” Like, we’ve just heard that the Lower Hutt hospital’s going to have to be evacuated because of seismic issues. I mean, imagine. It could free up funds through privatising State-owned electricity generators to build things like hospitals or even complete the scope of works for the Dunedin Hospital.

So what the ACT Party says is this electricity amendment bill does improve things around the fringes. It delegates powers from regulation to a code of practice. ACT thinks that’s a good idea. But what it doesn’t do—what it doesn’t do—is fundamentally change the playing field, which would make energy and electricity more affordable for consumers, for farmers, and for people who live in remote communities who are already having to pay high costs to connect. That’s because it actually doesn’t deliver what New Zealanders need. In the midst of a cost of living crisis, there’s an opportunity to craft legislation that enables a healthy economy and thriving communities. This legislation only goes a fraction of the way towards unlocking the potential that New Zealand has.

So ACT will support this bill, but when we have an opportunity, if the New Zealand people think that we should be part of a future Government, there will be aspects of this legislation that will need to be looked at to see whether they’re actually delivering what the Government says it is, and if they’re not, we’ll repeal it. We’ll repeal it.

Hon Dr David Clark: Sell it off! Going once, going twice!

SIMON COURT: To respond to Minister David Clark, who suggests that ACT will propose and deliver the partial sale of additional State electricity generators, yes we will, if we have the opportunity to be part of the next Government. We will free up billions and billions of dollars to spend on assets that New Zealanders need us to, like hospitals and schools—vital infrastructure—and we’ll reduce taxes to give New Zealanders a tax break. Thank you.

Vanushi Walters: Can we have some more policy announcements?

SIMON COURT: The Government members have offered me an opportunity to deliver some more policy announcements. That’s all in our alternative budget. But of course, this is the final reading of the Electricity Industry Amendment Bill so we’ll stick to the rules, and what we’ll say is: ACT will be back for the next one, energised as ever.

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

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

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Thank you so much. Before I start, I just want to acknowledge International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia. It’s lovely to be in a Parliament and be in a country where we can commemorate those things and have our flags proudly flying on the forecourt of Parliament. So thank you to this Parliament and to this nation for your support.

But, as this piece of legislation is moving through this evening, it’s been interesting to see the jabs and the gibes, and the to-ing and fro-ing, and a bit of challenge, a bit of fight going on—and that was just between the ACT Party and the National Party on this. They seem to have some little things going on there with each other. So it’s been blissful to watch and to experience this evening.

But this piece of legislation, the Electricity Industry Amendment Bill, is something that, obviously, I was part of—the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee—and it was challenging listening to many of the submissions that were made. A couple of times across the floor this evening, it was talked about—why is there a need for a strengthening in the consumer voice; what’s the point of doing that? When at select committee the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services and when the Salvation Army that comes in and says we need to do this, that we need to make sure that checks and balances are in place to protect consumers, then I think this piece of legislation is fit for purpose.

I’m glad that, as we move forwards to the future—and, of course, technologies are changing, as has been said already in this space. I come from the sunniest city—in the country—of New Plymouth.

Hon Member: Oh no you don’t.

GLEN BENNETT: I do. As I get around my sunny city, I think of the needs, in terms of solar and investment in solar, and ensuring the wind and offshore wind, and what is coming—what is already here but what is coming. So I’m glad to support the fact that we’re providing an effective regulatory framework for the electricity industry. And we need to work on—

Hon Members: Regulatory.

GLEN BENNETT: —English was never my best subject. But I support this legislation, and I commend it to the House.

SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the National Party and as the member of Parliament for the North Shore on the Electricity Industry Amendment Bill second reading. I must say, listening to the contributions from prior speakers—and very brief many of them have been—I wanted to spend a little bit of time that I have just giving you a little bit of context in regards to where we stand on this bill.

National oppose this bill. I think it’s important to articulate our reasons why we have taken that position, but I think, as we have heard this evening from the Hon Gerry Brownlee before, in terms of the context, that this legislation is built on what would be referred to as a failed review by the Minister. In effect, legislation in this bill is taking us back to the future in regards to where we were pre-2010 and the legislation that was put in place. In effect, this bill will provide unprecedented powers to the Minister over and above the Electricity Authority that is in place to provide oversight in terms of that system. The challenge always, in regards to when the Minister, or any Minister, has the ability to come in and start interfering and overriding in regards to an independent body, is that poor decisions get made.

We’ve been pretty consistent throughout that our view is that the way in which this bill has been amended is going to not lead to the outcomes that are required. National strongly believe that consumers, particularly small businesses and households, should be able to achieve affordable energy costs. It’s critically important in terms of productivity and for economic growth in terms of our industry across the country. But, as we’ve said, giving the Minister the power to be able to set up and, in effect, establish more bureaucracy, while completely aligned in terms of the “modus operatus” of this Labour Government, does not derive value in terms of the people of this country in regards to more red tape, more compliance, and more bureaucracy, and, as a result, more cost on those businesses. Of course, as we know, more cost on business flows through to consumers.

I think one of the aspects of this bill—it was mentioned before—was, I think, clause 11 around the establishment of a consumer agency. Generally, obviously, consumer voice and the input of consumers in terms of co-design and that—I mean, that’s all sensible stuff. But the reality here is another layer of bureaucracy, which will simply only add cost in terms of the consumers around affordable energy. And that’s really disappointing, because Kiwis across this country, particularly the squeezed middle at the moment are really struggling under the burden of cost and the inflationary impacts that have resulted as a result, primarily, of, basically, a Government that is just out of control in regards to its spending and doesn’t seem to have any ability to be able to rein that in. That is a great shame, because what we also don’t hear about is the growing debt in this country, and the fact that my kids and future generations are going to have to repay that at some point. But let’s get back to the legislation, because I can hear the Labours on the other side of the House. They’re getting all a bit boisterous, because they don’t like me critiquing their performance, but, I’ll tell you what, there’s not many that actually are, other than on this side of the House, critiquing their performance.

But the reality of this bill is it’s another example of Government overreach—overreach in terms of a sector that has a number of players within it. As we said, we’ve already got an entity in regards to the Electricity Authority that provides and was put in place as a result of the existing legislation to be able to provide oversight in terms of that sector. And that regulatory independence, which is so critically important from an independent body, does not exist when a Minister starts to dabble in regards to decision making. It is going to be compromised. Compromising the independence of an independent regulator has a significant implication on all aspects of our country, but, in particular, as I’ve said, when you get that conflict, in effect, in play, then that, most of the time, ends in failure and ends in added costs.

I wanted to also refer to new section 44B in clause 19, which is in regards to where the Minister can basically amend the code and go over the top of the Electricity Authority at whim in terms of making changes and stuff like that. So that really takes out any of the independence from that regulatory body. It basically takes away any certainty in terms of that independence, and that is a significant concern, as well, in regards to this. So National strongly oppose this bill.

ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): It’s my pleasure this evening to take a short call and reflect on how this is going to improve the energy market and look after the little people. It’s wonderful to take an opportunity to shout out to the mighty little Lines Company in the King Country. And what they do when they discover that there’s a household that’s struggling to pay their bill, they wrap around that household, and they check in on them, and they find out what’s going on. And they support that household because it’s a really, really good indicator that you’ve got a household that’s struggling if they can’t pay their bills. But not all of the players and not all of the participants in the market, in the energy market, are like that.

I’m really pleased to see that this will strengthen the consumer voice. It’s going to clarify their regulatory powers with regards to the little guy. Those of us who, especially, live in quite isolated communities, we’re quite used to the power going out. We’ve got our good stock of candles, and we’ve got our transistor radios with our batteries in them all set to go. So, you know, we’re really aware of how important it is that the little guy gets looked after in this situation.

It was great to hear from the other side of the House, from ACT, that they supported this bill. I was really excited, and then to hear them say but they didn’t like the bit where we actually looked after the consumer. And the thing about electricity, it isn’t just about the market and efficiency. This is really important stuff and it’s failing. So we need to support everyone who’s involved to do the right thing.

It isn’t just about consumers; it is about communities. And because of this, this bill will help more of the companies to be like The Lines Company. And as a result, I’m very pleased to commend this bill to the House.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a short call on the Electricity Industry Amendment Bill, and I’d like to start by giving a little shout-out to a distributer in my region as well: Network Tasman. I must admit that it covers part of my colleague Damien O’Connor’s electorate in West Coast - Tasman and a little bit of mine in Nelson, but, actually, some of us in Nelson are just past the boundary of Network Tasman and we are a little bit jealous, not able to be part of the small distributor of Network Tasman. They do an amazing job, and one of the things they do is give rebates to customers regularly—which I miss out on—and regularly contribute into our community organisations. So it’s an opportunity to give a little shout-out to them, because as the former speaker, my colleague here, Angela Roberts, noted, this bill is around approving competition, particularly for smaller operators in this industry and new entrants as well, to ensure that they can get a fair go.

There are a couple of things in the select committee report I wanted to point to, with the first being that the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee did, in my view, an outstanding job. I’d just like to note the work of the chair, Jamie Strange, and other members on that committee.

One of the changes was around ensuring that the Act appropriately reflected the definition of an “industry participant” so that it wasn’t limited as to who may end up potentially having a penalty if they breach the code. The other was around improving some of the enforcement provisions, including increasing the maximum penalty from $200,000 to $2 million, and having penalties as well when people are playing a bit and are playing for time, so that those people would have an extra penalty for every day that a breach continued. So there were some really good changes the select committee made, and I just want to acknowledge the work that they did.

This is a great bill. It’s concerning to hear that the ACT Party wants to sell off our power assets again, and it will interesting to hear whether National supports that or not, but we sure don’t on this side of the House. So I commend this bill to the House.

MELISSA LEE (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a great pleasure to rise to speak on this Electricity Industry Amendment Bill in the second reading. As the last speaker from the National side, I feel obliged to reiterate some of the comments that my colleagues have actually very aptly made prior to the dinner break. Sometimes when you’re debating in the House, when someone makes a great contribution, you wish you could actually, like you do in an email, cut and paste. I wish I could actually cut and paste Gerry Brownlee’s speech for mine and pretend that it was mine, because he was so very articulate giving the historical facts that actually led to this legislation and the electricity price review that happened in 2018.

I was listening to Stuart Smith, who very clearly at the outset said, “There are many things in this bill that we actually agree with, but there are things that we do not agree with and that is the reason why we actually opposing this bill.” National strongly believes that—although some of the members opposite have tried to actually insinuate that we don’t support the idea of consumers and small businesses and households being able to get affordable energy and actually making sure that the cost is actually reduced for them, this bill doesn’t actually provide that. And as the Hon Gerry Brownlee aptly said, the competition actually exists in New Zealand for small businesses to actually enter the electricity market. This bill doesn’t actually make it more possible or easier for them, I do not believe, especially during this current economic environment where there is a huge cost of living crisis—and even during the COVID lockdown, many families had to make decisions, make choices as to how they spent their time. For example, for the internet, were they able to work or would they actually provide that option for their children to study? It was a very difficult choice for them. And in this particular instance, there are families with very small margins where there are costs: going to the supermarket the cost of food is actually so expensive, and rising costs of mortgages, and now they’re going to have to think about how they’re going to reduce their costs or how they’re going to meet the cost of electricity.

Luckily, as some members have actually said, we no longer have experience of—you know, years ago when we used to have no electricity and we were actually not allowed to do certain power days. I was actually just watching the news over the dinner break and there was a story about the announcement of a Government subsidy for people to move to electric vehicles (EVs). That led me to think: does this bill actually make people buy more EVs? How are we going to generate more electricity for everyone who owns EVs to charge them at the same time? It actually seems like we can’t do that, especially now that we’re moving into winter. And as I walked into the Chamber, I was going, “Oh, it’s a bit cold. Maybe we need to turn up the heat in this Chamber.” I’m not sure if they purposefully keep this Chamber temperature down to actually keep members a little bit more alert—I’m not so sure—but it seems a little cold today. And I’m just wondering, are we trying to save power charges for Parliament by not actually heating up this Chamber?

But it just makes me wonder whether this bill will actually change any of the behaviour. We definitely support any notion that supports consumers, businesses, and households to actually achieve affordable energy costs in their businesses and in their households. But, you know, this is, as Simon Watts just finished off saying, actually a power grab by the Minister. And the establishment of a new consumer entity—it just seems a bit ridiculous that we already have so many agencies that look after consumer rights, including the Commerce Commission, the consumer protection agencies. So why do we need another agency? It just seems like another bureaucracy after bureaucracy, and that although it says it’s going to be paid with the levies from the businesses, the businesses will often charge the levies that they will have to pay. And who will end up paying for those levies that this agency will be run by? It will be the consumers who will actually pay through the increase in their electricity charges. That is one of the reasons why I do not support this bill.

I look forward to the committee stages where we can actually ask the Minister more questions and, hopefully, make some improvements to this bill.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and it’s good to be the final speaker on this particular bill, the Electricity Industry Amendment Bill. I go back to listening to the last speaker and the last National speaker, who I share the North Shore with. As you’re driving north on the motorway of Auckland across the North Shore, on the left-hand side is hope, optimism, and action, and on the right-hand side is negativity, status quo, and normality, and that’s what I’m hearing in the House tonight. What I hear from the Opposition is no-action National. They are opposing this particular bill for no particular reason.

What this bill does is it is about ensuring that our electricity is set up for our future—our future generations—and we know in a huge city like Tāmaki-makau-rau that we have to plan now in order to deliver for our future generations. I want to know, based on Mr Watts says, when is it a power grab from the Minister, when this bill is about fairness for the electricity sector and, most of all, for consumers? That is not a power grab; that is enabling people to have their say. They are the consumer, and they deserve that particular right. This bill is about fairness, it’s about ensuring that people get a better say, and it’s about preparing for the future. So without further ado, positively, optimistically, and passionately, I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Electricity Industry Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 87

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

Noes 32

New Zealand National 32.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Data and Statistics Bill

Second Reading

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Statistics): I present a legislative statement on the Data and Statistics Bill.

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

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I move, That the Data and Statistics Bill be now read a second time.

This bill replaces the Statistics Act 1975 with a modern framework. Some colleagues asked whether it’s time, but it is time. It supports a well-functioning data and statistics system that enables the best use of Government-held data while ensuring that people’s private and confidential information is kept safe. At first reading, the bill did receive cross-party support, acknowledging that quality data and statistics are crucial to every decision the Government makes in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Members also noted the importance of people having trust in the Government to protect their data appropriately, and trust is absolutely crucial to an effective statistics system. We build trust through a system that promotes universal participation and representation in statistics, is transparent about how people’s data is used, and protects both personal and commercially sensitive data. The Governance and Administration Committee has now considered the bill and reported back to the House with recommended changes that strengthen and clarify the bill’s provisions. I acknowledge the valuable and important contribution made by members of that committee to the bill’s progress in the House.

Before I outline the key things raised in submissions and how the bill responds to those, one thing I do want to do is to be very clear about what the bill does and does not do. So while the Data and Statistics Bill reflects significant changes in the operating environment since the Statistics Act passed into law in 1975, like the Act it replaces, it only allows for data to be collected for producing official statistics and research. It also maintains the Act’s confidentiality and privacy requirements. So, to be very clear, the bill does not expand the scope of information-gathering powers across Government, nor does it give Stats New Zealand sole control over the data collected across Government.

So what it has changed is that the bill provides for greater leadership of the official statistics system, in which increasingly there is work done across Government to produce statistics, enhance leadership, enhance quality of statistical data, and promote best practices around its collection, management, and use. The bill also provides for safer and more transparent access to data for research purposes in the public interest through its research access framework.

Administrative data is recognised and accepted internationally as a critical source for official statistics. An interesting reflection as that up until—I think it’s around the 1950s, in fact—most of the statistics produced in New Zealand were from administrative data. So in a way, it’s carrying on a very proud tradition. Surveys only became a popular method of collection around, I think, the middle of last century.

When I speak about administrative data, I’m talking about data collected in the day-to-day activities of public sector agencies, businesses, and community groups. The result of this means New Zealanders ultimately, if we use administrative data, spend less time filling in surveys about their lives and more time living them.

That’s not a radical departure from how Stats New Zealand operated in the past, as I have said. What the bill does, though, is it gives the Government Statistician power to collect administrative data, and that will enable the Government Statistician to produce more timely and granular statistics with less burden on people, businesses, and communities. There are appropriate exceptions to this power—for instance, where it’s expressly prevented by other legislation—so the Government Statistician is guided by that other legislation as well.

While the bill gives clarity on the use of administrative data, I think it’s fair to say that surveys will continue to play a very important role for collecting some types of information that we simply can’t collect other ways; we simply can’t know without asking people. One other significant change I want to touch on is the bill enables the next census to be either held in 2023 or 2024. The census is one of our most important, significant sources of data, providing us with an official count of people and dwellings every five years.

Statistics New Zealand has been very clear that they think they are very well positioned to deliver the census in 2023. But notwithstanding that readiness, the external environment—we’ve noted, in recent years—has a tendency to change rapidly with the ever-evolving COVID-19 pandemic. So I think it’s right to have taken a decision to allow for flexibility of timing on the next census in the event that it’s happening, should it need to be delayed for some reason or other.

So let me say, though, to be clear to the House, contrary to what some members on the other side of the House have seemingly convinced themselves, it is my preference that the census goes ahead as planned in 2023. I can’t blame those Opposition spokespeople that have spoken to this, though. The flexibility we’re implementing here is good governance practice—something perhaps not familiar to those on the other side of the House.

Previous decisions to delay a census—for example, following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake—required the House to rush through retrospective changes to legislation. So amending the bill at this stage is the most efficient way of making sure that we incorporate any flexibility that’s needed in a timely way without disrupting the design and delivery phases of the 2023 census—and that, as I say, I hope goes ahead as planned.

Other approaches considered in that context, including safeguarding future censuses by building a more enduring contingency flexibility into the bill, would require significant and complex policy work. This is simply an easy tidy-up to do now. A decision on the 2023 census, though, will be made in July this year, and ultimately we will prioritise ensuring that it’s made in a timely fashion and made in the best interests of collecting that data effectively.

The committee received 36 submissions on the bill, touching on many different aspects, but there were three themes that developed that were prominent: the importance of representation, the need for sufficient accountability and transparency, and safe access to data. Official statistics have to be representative of all communities: iwi, hapu, tangata moana, the disabled community, migrants, youth, the rainbow community—all of these communities need to see themselves reflected in the data and statistics that we collect. New consultation requirements will help ensure the needs of diverse communities are recognised and help fill the gaps in the data that Government has traditionally collected.

The other thing the bill recognises is that effective engagement leads to better outcomes for Māori, for iwi, for hapu, and for the Government. The bill requires the Statistician to engage effectively with Māori on census, the data and statistics programme, and the development of data standards. So that is a new aspect to this bill that was not in the previous Act. The bill itself is designed to work alongside other legislation that supports accountability and transparency, including the Public Service Act, and the Official Information Act, and also, I note, the Privacy Act. Transparency is also required.

New requirements for the Statistician to publish information about access to data for research will allow the public to see that the data provided to Stats New Zealand is used safely and used in the public interest, and that it contributes to the wider wellbeing of community and society. If the Government Statistician delegates functions to people who are not employees of Stats New Zealand, the Statistician must publish information about their delegations, including what informed the Statistician’s decision. So there’ll be a degree of transparency there, and any failure by the person who has received that delegation also carries a level of accountability for the Government Statistician. So the Statistician will be motivated to be careful and cautious about considering any possible delegations of those powers.

The bill provides a higher level of protection on data collected for the purposes of official statistics and research under the bill, imposing strong, non-negotiable confidentiality requirements on Stats New Zealand and researchers who are seeking access to it. That means that people who are supplying data can be very confident that it will be used in a way that they can trust by Statistics New Zealand. That actually goes beyond the powers that are laid down in the Privacy Act.

So this is about making sure that the data that people provide is safe, that it is accessed safely, as that is a core function. I do thank the committee for their work, thank the members of the public who provided submissions, and commend this bill to the House.

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

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) (remote): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak on this bill. There’s a bit to unpack, not just in the Governance and Administration Committee deliberations but in what the Minister has just told us, so I’ll attempt to do that in the time available.

There’s no doubt that the statistics legislation that we have does need updating. I’m not a fan of repealing and replacing just because it is of a certain age. But the case for making changes to our statistics legislation is pretty easy to make. If you look back to 1975 we had no internet, no email, and no cellphones. We were living a fairly homogenous existence in nuclear families, and we probably didn’t put any energy to the views of tangata whenua over the collection and storage of information. So we’ve come a long way since then, and to some degree this bill is actually giving legislative effect to current practice.

But as the Governance and Administration Committee found out as they were going through their deliberations on this bill, it is a technical bill, and we certainly relied very much on officials and submitters. I’m very grateful to them, and I thank them for their thoughtful submissions. They came from former Statisticians, from the Privacy Commissioner, from civil libertarians, and from iwi. So we had a very broad range of views within which to pore over those technical elements. I’m going to focus on two particular issues: one of privacy; and then, as the Minister has touched on, the potential for a delay in census 2023.

So there’s two matters in privacy that I just want to touch on. The first is clause 39, where there was an amendment to clause 39 to effectively give a legal ability for Statistics New Zealand to publish data in a form that may identify an organisation, but there’s little that we could do about that. The select committee spent quite a bit of time interrogating officials as to why this was necessary and what circumstances might exist for this to occur. As the select committee report points out, they used the example of a community with, perhaps for example, one aged care facility where simply identifying data related to aged care would inevitably identify the organisation that was being talked about or being referred to. I think most committee members were, in the end, accepting of the need for this amendment, albeit that members on both sides of the table expressed a hope that that was as far as it goes.

I want to draw the House’s attention back to the comments that the Minister has just made, that the bill does not expand the power of the State to collate data and statistics. I hope he’s right. There were submitters that didn’t agree with that assessment of what the bill does, and that the bill, perhaps, gives the State more power than it needs to collect data. I’m somewhere in the middle of that discussion, but we need to keep a weather eye on whether or not this does go beyond the powers that are appropriate in the circumstances.

The second element of the privacy issue that I want to raise is a very thoughtful submission from the Privacy Commissioner. Now, I’m sure, like all parliamentary colleagues, I have a very high degree of trust and confidence in the Privacy Commissioner, and when she provides advice we need to listen carefully. Albeit in supporting the bill, she nevertheless came up with a number of recommendations for the bill to be improved. We didn’t make many of them, and so it was important to the committee that we were confident that the Privacy Commissioner was satisfied overall with the response to their submission. We were advised by officials that notwithstanding that only minor changes were made based on the recommendations of the commissioner’s office, they were broadly satisfied with where Statistics New Zealand officials have got to. I hope that’s right. I think it’s really important that we listen carefully to the privacy elements. We’re in a very, very unusual environment where people are fiercely protective of their privacy but paradoxically have no problem in open-source social media, for example, revealing quite a bit about their lives. But nevertheless, they still have a right to privacy, particularly when it comes to the State collection of information.

Now, I want to turn to the other matter that the Minister raised, and that is of census 2023. He managed to gild the lily and have a slap at the previous Government all at once. Flexibility is only good Government practice if it’s got the protections around it. Where he described “rushing through retrospective changes to delay census in 2011”, that is a rewrite of history, of course, because the Canterbury earthquakes occurred, I think somewhere less than two weeks out from the census.

Hon Dr David Clark: Guilty conscience. I didn’t say that.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: It wasn’t retrospective, in any event; we passed legislation under urgency, but it wasn’t retrospective. I mean, actually, the Minister, I think, just said “I didn’t say that.” Well, he needs to go back and read his own Hansard. So this started—well, it started for us as a question to the Minister on 16 February when he appeared before the committee, and I asked him “Would it be necessary to amend primary legislation if it was decided that a delay to census 2023 was necessary?” And his reply was almost theoretical. He said something like “I suspect we would. Yes, that’s my understanding.” Well, actually, he understood a heck of a lot more than he was letting the committee know, because documents now indicate that they had been working on an amendment to this bill for months, initially as a Supplementary Order Paper, and then some official probably had a eureka moment when they realised that because the bill was still before the committee, a simple amendment to it to allow a delay was possible, and that’s what we have before us.

Now, the Minister has also admitted that a decision would be made in July. And my question to him, which I will examine in the committee of the whole House, is why July? And why, if Statistics New Zealand are so well prepared, would it be necessary to make the decision seven months or eight months out from the due date? Because we can’t predict what will happen. At this stage it’s eminently possible, given the way COVID is tracking, to be able to hold the census in March next year; if nothing changes, why are we going to make a decision to delay the census for a whole year eight months out from it? Now, the shape the bill is coming back to the House in has that very broad amendment. Now, I’m not averse, the National Party is not averse, to an amendment to the bill to allow the delay. But I think the way clause 34 is currently rewritten is far too broad. There needs to be a reason for the delay. So I will be moving an amendment to the bill at the committee of the whole House to specify the conditions that will need to exist in order for a delay to occur. They will include things like a national state of emergency, a major pandemic—such as we’ve got very recent experience in—and civil unrest, and something else.

The Minister should make that decision, not the chief statistician, and he should make it only after consultation with the public. One of the reasons that shouldn’t be used, but which currently could be, is political expediency—the risk that the Government will oversee yet another debacle, the like of which we saw in 2018, six months out from a general election, that produces the sort of political embarrassment that this Cabinet will want to avoid, which I believe is why they are going to make the decision in July or August rather than wait until much closer to the time. So I don’t think that’s good enough. I certainly think it’s consistent with the track record. I think it’s laughable for the Minister to describe their good governance practice given what they oversaw in 2018. So this amendment is not well written, and we’ll be seeking to amend it.

We will continue to support this legislation, but we believe much tighter constraints and parameters should be brought around the Minister’s ability to delay next year’s census. With that, we’ll continue to support the bill. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the Data and Statistics Bill. I just want to begin just by noting that this is a comprehensive rewrite of the Act, which has meant a big piece of work for the committee. And on that note, I just want to thank other members of the committee, the officials, and submitters—and, as the previous speaker noted, a particular thank you to the Privacy Commissioner, who gave some very helpful advice.

But I do just want to comment on the changes around the census—just to correct the record here around what actually did happen in select committee—because the former speaker, a member of that committee, the Hon Michael Woodhouse, did raise questions around what would happen for Census 2023, and as a result of that, we now have this amendment in the bill to ensure that we have the flexibility required if we need to delay the census. And we came to a pragmatic, flexible amendment to the bill, just noting that the committee, in its deliberations on a number of matters, including this bill, has had the delivery of Census 2023 at the forefront of its mind, including an assurance that we have the resources to deliver on census so that we don’t end up with the challenges that came about last time, due to funding cuts made to the delivery of census by the previous Government, that we inherited. It’s important to put that on record because one of the reasons for the importance of this bill is to ensure that we are able to deliver on census, that the census collects the appropriate data that we need.

One further comment I just want to make is around the recognition of Māori data and Māori statistics in this bill, which is an incredible step forward for us, and we heard from a number of Māori Statisticians who made very important and useful contributions. So this bill is a very, very useful one for the delivery of the census and many other parts of our statistics framework, and on that note, I commend the bill to the House.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be talking on the Data and Statistics Bill, second reading. I wasn’t on the Governance and Administration Committee, although I did hold this shadow portfolio last year and had the pleasure of meeting Mark Sowden and his team, who at that stage was as relatively new CEO of Statistics New Zealand. I thought the direction he was taking the organisation, after the previous disaster, was very helpful and, hopefully, will lead to a better outcome. And, of course, this bill, as we’ve heard, helps move statistic collection and production of data into the 21st century, if I may say, in terms of how we go about collecting data and how it can be used.

There are a few issues with the bill, and I think the Hon Michael Woodhouse has certainly covered off his Supplementary Order Paper 156, which raises the question of why on earth should Statistics New Zealand be allowed to contemplate either holding the election in 2023 or 2024, especially when a decision will be made, literally, in July, which is not that far away. So it raises sort of the most fundamental questions—and I know Minister Clark talked about the potential impact of COVID and all that sort of stuff. Normally, you would not give unfettered power to people or organisations. I think Mr Michael Woodhouse’s Supplementary Order Paper is actually good, because it actually lists some specific criteria that might be used in determining whether or not to delay Statistics New Zealand’s census, and, of course, he talks about a national state of emergency, an unreasonable level of risk to the public health and safety—so that could be a COVID reason—an unreasonable level of risk to the health and safety of staff employed by Stats New Zealand, or civil unrest. Those are four clear areas where, if they were to occur, that would be a legitimate reason to delay it. But just to say, “Well, we’re just going to make our decision and we could delay it, technically, theoretically, for any other reason, for any reason.”, then that is a very unusual power to grant any organisation.

The bill obviously picks up Te Tiriti o Waitangi requirements, and particularly a way of engaging with Māori, which is perfectly understandable. But, of course, I think we should also recognise that the number of different ethnic groups in New Zealand is very, very considerable, and there is also an absolute need that our other minority communities are also adequately looked after, adequately catered for, adequately addressed in terms of their language and the way that they want to be engaged with, which is quite likely to be different from what Māori might want or even Pacific Island communities. So I think the importance of the way that statistics are collected is important, but also there’s a need for recognition that there are multiple ethnic groups and they are also just as important in New Zealand.

The issue around the secrecy of the data and how this data is collected and stored is, obviously, a very, very important aspect. This bill replaces the 1975 Statistics Act statutory declaration of secrecy with a more modern, as they say, fit for purpose certificate of confidentiality. But it does still continue the two statutory obligations mentioned about just making sure that if data is collected, it is protected, and individuals and organisations are not unnecessarily identified—although, of course, in the bill it specifically enables certain entities or individuals to be named, as the Minister’s covered off in his opening address. That is a very, very important element of data and how it’s used, because it does give rise to a wider issue, which is how this data might be used.

Of course, the collection of data is set out in clause 22, and one of the aspects I find slightly interesting, just having a quick look through the bill, is for what purpose might data be used, either by Stats New Zealand or by another entity. In clause 22, it says that “Data may be collected by the Statistician under this Act—… (c) if the Statistician considers the data is necessary or desirable to enable the Statistician to produce official statistics, or desirable for research under Part 5,”, and then it lists those provisions.

I think this gives rise to how data might be used, and I’ll give you a case in point. David Parker’s on a witch hunt for high-paying New Zealanders and wanting to understand what they’re doing with their tax structures, and he has commenced an investigation through IRD to find out the personal tax position of many wealthier New Zealanders. The question I have is whether data that may be collected by the Statistician could be used by another Government entity, such as the IRD. And I give that as an example because, during the committee of the whole House stage, I think it’s very, very important that we do ascertain whether in fact we do not allow people to use information, particularly where it’s a Government-sponsored investigation, it’s a ministerial investigation, conducted by the IRD—to use another entity to provide that information. Certainly I think that’s something we need to get, certainly from the Minister: that it will not, cannot, and should not occur under those arrangements.

I think that’s all I want to say on the bill at the moment. I’m looking forward to other contributions on it. But, obviously, it is a welcome update to the Act, and, hopefully, we’re going to lead to much more timely, relevant statistics. I think the issue around the type of research undertaken and the type of information provided by Stats New Zealand is also critical to making sure that we are getting the right sort of stats, the stuff in the data and the information that people really want to use. So on that note, I’m looking forward to hearing what other people have to say.

NAISI CHEN (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s quite a shame that the member who’s just resumed his seat, Andrew Bayly, does not sit on the great Governance and Administration Committee, like you yourself do. We’re chaired by a really great chairperson, as well. I think if he did, then maybe, perhaps, he would be a little bit more familiar with the details of this bill.

Happy New Zealand Techweek. This week, I was very privileged to have time to go and attend one of the sessions at New Zealand Techweek, and that session was called “AI in healthcare: what do medics really think?” During that panel session I heard a lot about how AI is now incorporated into our healthcare system, including during COVID times, where each patient who had registered that they were COVID positive was given a risk number in the system to determine the types of healthcare that they would be getting. For instance, if you had a precondition like diabetes, you would be getting a call from your family doctor. You’d be getting extra support. Or, for instance, if you were immunocompromised, you’d be getting a particular type of medicine sent to your house or through your pharmacy.

I just wanted to use that story because I thought that it’s a really good way of illustrating the importance of updating our data and statistics legislation. Data right now is everywhere within our lives. I talked about, in the first reading—that was the week that Facebook had just announced the “metaverse”. So we are in a different time, where we need to modernise the way that we govern statistics and data.

During the panel session, someone asked one of the panel about whether we had any other overseas comparisons that we could have in terms of how we governed data, the way that we used AI in medical scenarios. The panellists all replied with “Not really.” Actually, in fact, they used the example of kidney failure after a kidney transplant. So far, the only technology overseas available to us is identifying people as either black or white. You guys can probably imagine that that was from, I think it was, a Canadian company that had particularly developed that software. Now, why I talk about that story is because New Zealand data sovereignty and information about our indigenous people is really important and unique to New Zealand. This will be a world-leading project that we will embark on through this bill. That’s why I commend this bill to the House.

Dr ELIZABETH KEREKERE (Green): E te Māngai, kia ora. I rise on behalf of the Green Party, on this International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and Transphobia, in support of the Data and Statistics Bill, which was largely developed by the Hon James Shaw as the Minister of Statistics last term.

Many thanks to the Governance and Administration Committee for your work on this bill—you get all the best bits. This is also a very impressive turn-around from the report being presented to the House to us actually speaking on it. There are several other bills I wish would come in so quickly.

We welcome the repeal and replacement of the Statistics Act 1975. This bill brings it up to date in this digital age and it ensures that the collection, production, and dissemination of New Zealand’s statistics are in line with the best international principles and practices.

I’ll focus this short call mainly on kaupapa Māori. We note that the purpose of this bill is “to recognise and respect the Crown’s responsibility to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi by providing for the interests of Māori” in data, statistics, and research. This is largely addressed in clause 14, which outlines the duties of the Statistician relating to this, but I want to point out the submission by Te Kāhui Raraunga, the Data Iwi Leaders Group. They have a mana ōrite agreement with Stats New Zealand, and were invited to be part of developing this bill, but only after the release of the Cabinet papers that set the parameters for it. In its submission, Te Kāhui Raraunga raised several concerns about how this bill met its own goals and its own aspirations in terms of the Treaty. So let’s just think about that for a minute: the organisation representing iwi and Māori data interests, with which Stats New Zealand has a formal agreement, was not able to get its point into the draft bill in its area of expertise and had to make its own submission.

So I just want to reiterate some of the points that they made, which include that the bill should incorporate a general Te Tiriti provision—which is there in clause 14—but that it is also consistent with the other reforms that are happening across health and other parts of our legislation programme, and it should recognise the special relationship that Māori have with data as a taonga. A big thing I think that’s missing from this is that if you’re talking about the Treaty, you are talking about the relationship of the Crown with iwi and with hapū, and that isn’t mentioned in this bill. It’s all about “Māori”. So we need that generic Māori data, but there’s a lot of data which must be iwi-specific. All of those great provisions which have been beefed up through the select committee process around engagement with and consulting with is all very specific to Māori, and so it’s no wonder that the iwi leaders forum is wanting us to be more specific about those connections to iwi and hapū.

They went even further than that, though. They’re suggesting a Māori co-governance type of model and the establishment of a Chief Māori Data Steward. So I think these are very good ideas and not very dramatic at all.

But, generally, we reiterate our support for the explicit clarification of the Statistician’s professional independence. The quality of the data is paramount, and we support the specific provisions accounting for the anonymisation of data for public release and the frameworks of scrutiny to make sure that we create very, very safe mechanisms for sharing of data between Government agencies.

We have had concerns raised with us by some of the members of our party but also other members of the community that the quality of the survey work done by other agencies is no longer approved by the Minister of Statistics, and there is a risk when people are expected to rise to the standard of Stats New Zealand but Stats New Zealand are not actually checking that they have, because the data across agencies should be consistent and it should be of the highest quality. All of this goes into our research projects, it goes into the cases that are made, and it goes into our Budget, and that data has to be sound. We have to trust that it is good.

Privacy is always a big issue for us, and it’s very much so for the State collection and use of data. For that ethical data environment, transparency requirements are crucial, but especially when data is not anonymised and we know who has said what. It is even more important that those people have given consent, whether that’s an individual or whether that’s an organisation.

We note National’s concern in their differing opinion that was raised in the select committee report, regarding the need to give specific reasons to delay the next census. We’re pleased to see that Supplementary Order Paper coming through from the Minister to address that, so we really, really would have supported that.

In that next census—hopefully, in 2023—for the first time, the Government will finally gather detailed data on takatāpui, trans, intersex, and non-binary people, and we hope this data will come into the same safe and ethical data environment that is provided by our takatāpui, trans, non-binary, and intersex researchers in our community and our universities who have carried this responsibility so far. I want to shout out to some of the projects that I’m aware of, and I know that there are more, but Counting Ourselves, Identify, the trans perinatal project, and the Manalagi Pasifika rainbow research project. We have relied on their work and the work of the Human Rights Commission in the absence of this data, so I’m very, very excited that now we’ll start towards some real core numbers.

Finally, we note that key organisations like Te Kāhui Raraunga, the Privacy Commissioner, and the New Zealand Statistical Association are all very broadly supportive of this bill. Given the select committee did not address all of the issues through this process, we consider they all will have a role to play moving forward in the implementation of this legislation. So, nō reira, we commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

DAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Mr Speaker, the fact that you’re also on the committee means you’re statistically very important to this bill, and it is a very important bill to get right. It’s one of, I think, Dr Clark’s most important jobs, this and the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act. And I rise on behalf of ACT to talk about the power that’s been vested in the Government Statistician post this introduction. It is a bill to replace something that is 46 years old and statistically itself is requiring an update.

I like the Australian approach that they took. It takes a more robust approach with their recent Data Availability and Transparency Act, and I think it places limits on data sharing across the different domains of Government. It is a better solution, and that is what the ACT Party always seeks to find in public policy around the world. It better articulates the principles and checks and balances that one would expect in this area. Sharing Government data is a very important issue for the people of New Zealand. Indeed, the law itself, although needing a refresh, the direction of travel the Ministers and the officials want to take is in the right direction.

This bill is not a BMW Government limo; it’s a solid Toyota Corolla, probably needing a few rip-outs of its engine and side doors to just get it finally right. But left to mature as a public sector tool, it could be very useful. So we also believe that there should be a review undertaken of this after three years. And we believe that overcoming cultural resistance for all the 5.127 million New Zealanders is vitally important to get right from being a born child with a birth certificate through to someone who’s got spina bifida and wants to have their files shared with them.

So there is a question mark over the costs of bringing these systems together. I don’t see anywhere a cost-benefit analysis, which the ACT Party would like to ask the Minister in the next section on: what is the Government Statistician going to need to make this happen? What is the IT spend that’s needed to integrate this? Maybe we’ll hear this in the Budget on Thursday, but I suspect it’s a significant amount of money to bring researchers and statisticians into a place where they can actually, with permission from the public, match up data that is relevant.

The other aspect is we’ve looked at the timeliness of reporting. Nothing must stop, as an example in the business world, the Performance of Manufacturing Index and Performance of Services Index statistics coming through in a timely fashion. We’ve heard that 76 percent of our GDP gets reported by Statistics New Zealand and we’ve seen with the Auditor-General’s workload, with regard to COVID, that once something big hits, then the statistics bundle can just fall out or people can start to get overworked in departments or stressed. That’s a worldwide benchmark and it affects our credit rating as a country.

If you look at health, Mr Mooney did discuss in his electorate the need for quality statistics around the DHBs and beds. As we’ve seen in the last iteration, we haven’t managed post-pandemic to get that right, and it’s causing us problems now, actually costing what should be savings in the healthcare system. If you look at 50,000 women across New Zealand who are now waiting with breast cancer scares to get a mammogram or to get access to drugs from Pharmac or an integration of all that health, it’s a very serious piece of data collection which has failed. So we need to take an approach that if somebody is the Government Statistician, they really need to modernise their approaches to collecting data for the good of the nation and for something that, even though it’s digital, needs to provide quality outputs.

The one area that I am disturbed about is just the punishments, and the punishment in this for individuals has quadrupled with a fine of $2,000 for failing a census return. But it removes the duty of the Statistician, the Government Statistician, to provide you with a census form. So if you’re disabled and you fail to complete this form or digitally you can’t get online or you’ve got mental and physical issues actually being able to complete this, you are going to get fined $2,000. Now, ultimately that’s not the New Zealand way, it’s not the Kiwi way, and I’d like the advisers to have a look at that punishment regime. Fifteen grand for organisations, that’s a different story, but as individuals we don’t expect to get punished for data release and also not being able to do something. Fortunately, we have a social contract with individuals and with regards to the census that needs to be as transparent as possible.

Just to finish on a lighter note, we all remember the code in the census that tracked the Jedi population. On this side of the House, we are the carriers of light and 1 percent of the population was recorded as being Jedi. So I hope the Statistician still keeps his sense of humour when he’s working.

Over the process here, if we’re going to ask people to tell us once and then it gets integrated across various Government departments, I think the cost of that system hasn’t been thought out. I stand to be corrected by the committee and the Minister. Even though this is a statistics bill, I think it is one of the most important Acts that David Clark will ever do. He’ll be judged by it and he’ll be judged by how this sticks around the area, and we need better data to make better decisions as a Government. Now is the time to actually define what it is we’re going to be doing in some schedule that manages the workload, costs it out, and also gives us confidence that we’ve not just got a set of words here and a policy that doesn’t actually deliver the final outcomes that we’re seeking for the next 50 years.

We will support to build to the next stage and we would like to really get people to think that this is a very important task and we’ve got to get this bill right. Thank you.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to take the opportunity to take a call. On the Star Wars theme, may the Force be with the Minister as he works hard to shepherd this bill through the House. Actually, I myself explored the final frontiers of Tauranga, collecting census data in the early 2000s. It’s a memory that stuck with me, going house to house—first of all, giving out census documents and then, later on, going and retrieving them, and, at various times, working very closely with families to ensure that they completed their forms. There is a lot of work that takes place on the ground in terms of collecting census documents and other forms of data, which, as the previous member said, are incredibly important for our country.

Mr Speaker, I’d like to acknowledge the Governance and Administration Committee, a committee that I’ve recently joined and was warmly welcomed by yourself as the chair, and the other members. I’d like to thank all of those who made a submission to this piece of legislation.

I’m going to keep my contribution fairly short. We have canvassed this bill quite well. I’ll just touch on a couple of quick things. The first one is that this bill replaces the Statistics Act of 1975 with modern, fit for purpose data and statistics legislation. The reality is that much of the legislation that passes through this House is updating legislation which, over the course of time, is no longer quite fit for purpose, as our society evolves. So, look, it’s important for this to come through, and I sense we have broad support across the House, which is good. The second aspect is just that it considers and provides for Māori interests in this data and statistics, and I think that’s a very positive thing, moving forward.

Excellent piece of legislation. I commend it to the House. Thank you.

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I shall take a short call on this, the Data and Statistics Bill. Others on this side of the House have already indicated that we support it and have given a much better account than I’ll probably be able to manage. I wasn’t present at the select committee process, but I’ve had the ability to read its report and it seems very thorough and it seems to me that our colleagues on the Governance and Administration Committee have done a good job of identifying a number of changes that would be usefully made. So I thought I would provide some of my observations about that, and also a couple more general points, which I’ll start off with.

First, as others have said—actually, it might have been Damien Smith in his contribution, talking about the allocation of resources, and this is one of the important reasons that the data is collected. In the case of a census, it might not be obvious to those who haven’t thought about these things from the point of view of the policy maker, or executive Government allocating resources on the basis of per head of population, but manipulated—and I don’t mean that in the ugly sense, but the data being used in a way that makes sense. Of course, we need to know where people are and some key basic details about them as well, and so, of course, it’s a highly important exercise for that, and not merely a matter of interest to obtain statistical data.

The other reason that it’s so important to get these matters right is that this goes to the relationship between the citizen and the State. The citizen is compelled to provide certain information about themselves, which is fair enough in this case, providing that the data is used appropriately. But, of course, that’s a heavy caveat, and it’s been pleasing to hear that the select committee has taken seriously the submission of the Privacy Commissioner and noted certain ways in which it’s appropriate for the data to be able to move between different agencies—and in one case, actually not a Government agency so much as the courts. So I will just speak to that briefly, wearing my hat as National’s court spokesperson.

I think it’s positive that the select committee has thought to propose an amendment to exclude courts from being what is described as an “organisation” in the bill. All things being equal, an organisation is some sort of arm of Government—and I’m using a phrase deliberately away from agency because courts are different in their nature—and the confidentiality that should attach to court proceedings is preserved by making it clear that whereas other agencies or organisations would be required on request to provide data, that doesn’t apply to the courts. And I think that’s right, partly for the reason that I’ve mentioned around confidentiality, but also at a more theoretical level it’s a separation of the powers of the judicial branch of Government and that of the executive.

On a similar note, but slightly different, I think they’ve also made a really sensible suggestion regarding the Chief Ombudsman and the Office of the Auditor-General and also Offices of Parliament, whereby those different actors are not required necessarily to provide data. That’s recognising the difference between Parliament and the executive but it does, nevertheless—it will be the case I think, you know, if the select committee recommendation is taken seriously, that authorisation would be needed if the data was to be used for the production of official statistics. So again, bit of a safeguard and certainly the right questions have obviously been asked. So that’s very positive.

I think the suggestion about the functions of the Government Statistician that the select committee has made in clause 13, and that’s concerning the Statistician—capital “S”, that’s the person performing that particular role—to be permitted to collect data but also to manage data. And I think that reflects that there are a couple of different main ways in which such a person can interact with the data: there’s obviously the collection, but there’s also the management thereof. We’ve famously heard, and it’s a truism, but true none the less, that there’s lies, damned lies, and statistics. Those who are cynical about politics I suppose might come up with a different version of that in relation to Government announcements and press releases. But anyway, that’s for such cynics to say and wouldn’t be anything that I would introduce to the House here, of course, especially on such a bipartisan bill as this.

As I say, the committee’s done a good job and we look forward to hearing further discussion at the committee of the whole House stage and beyond.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s my honour this evening to speak on the Data and Statistics Bill. And can I acknowledge the Minister the Hon Dr David Clark for the work that he has done in this particular piece of legislation, and also the Governance and Administration Committee for hearing submissions and working through this particular legislation to bring it before us this evening.

I think quite fondly of our growth as a country and the use of data in informing the decisions that we make strategically for our total population across Aotearoa; for our communities, no matter where you come from. And I think to areas that I’ve been involved in where data has been vital in making good decisions and to achieve better outcomes. I think to health and I think to the COVID response, and the work that we had to all do to get out on the streets, to get people vaccinated, right down to the views that we could get in my own city, in Tāmaki-makau-rau, around where people were living, what numbers were living in particular areas so that our DHBs, our health workforce, could get out there, use their resources, their volunteers, to engage with those people to promote good health.

Similarly in tertiary education, I’ve had the benefit of understanding better student profiles to understand their learning needs and to work with academic staff to bring in curriculum and learning methodologies to engage learners and their families to achieve graduation and educational achievement.

And lastly, as you know, Mr Speaker, I hail from the mighty Mōkai Pātea. And we’re going through a settlement process of our own where we’ve had to build a profile of our own whānau of where they live across Aotearoa and across the world. As a very small iwi, we’ve been able to engage and identify with those particular people.

This bill replaces the Statistics Act of 1975 with a modern, fit for purpose data and statistics legislation. It’s important that this piece of legislation moves forward. So without further ado, to enable and continue the good work, can I commend this bill to the House.

HARETE HIPANGO (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I acknowledge you in the Chair this evening because it’s well-known by members in the House, but perhaps not the public, that you presided as chair of the Governance and Administration Committee over the consideration and deliberation of this bill, which is the Data and Statistics Bill.

I stand for the second reading as a member of the National Party, but also in my Māori development spokesperson role and Whānau Ora role. There’s been some reference in the House in the debates this evening about COVID-19 and the importance of the collection of data for the roll-out of the vaccination into communities.

I think what’s important in relation to this bill, data and statistics—it’s about the collection of information and that with the collection of information, members would be entrusting and having a sense of trust in those who are seeking this information. That was evident—and I refer to my Whānau Ora spokesperson role—during the COVID-19 vaccination roll-out. Why is that relevant? The relevance of this is that a lot of our Māori communities entrusted the Government with information, but, regrettably, the Government didn’t trust our communities to empower and enable them with information to target the very communities—the vulnerable communities—who are most in need. Our people entrusted the Government with information, but the Government chose not to trust our people at critical, crucial times for the delivery of that vaccination programme.

This bill, Data and Statistics Bill, is very much premised on trust. The National Party supports this bill because the purpose of it is to update the principal Act—it needs updating. The Statistics Act 1975 was at a time when statistics was produced in hard copy, the old pen and paper—my generation. Now, we’re fast-tracking through to the innovation of technology and the speedy collection, but also the utilisation—the appropriate utilisation and delivery of that. I’ve talked about how significant and relevant that was for part of the COVID-19 response in our vulnerable communities.

So in my Māori development lens—again, I didn’t serve on the select committee, as you well know, having been the presiding chair, and I certainly acknowledge those members who did preside over this. The bill was referred to the committee on 9 November 2021, and then the Minister of Statistics, the Hon Dr David Clark, provided the first oral submission on the bill on 16 February of this year. There were some 40 submissions considered, with 19 oral submissions heard by the select committee.

In the House, this evening there’s been mention—and again I allude to my Māori development spokesperson responsibility and role—of the significant provision and cognisance of Māori participation, engagement, and uptake in the Crown-Māori relationship, as has been recognised within particular clauses of the bill relating to the Treaty of Waitangi and Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

The first time that I was really confronted and exposed to the importance of data sovereignty, and in a Māori lens, was when I was attending a Whānau Ora hui up in Tāmaki-makau-rau—Auckland—about three years ago. There was a particular session on the importance of Māori data and information and who was to be entrusted and empowered with the collection, with the holding, and with the utilisation of that information. This bill attempts to address that in part.

In the House tonight, member from the Green Party Dr Elizabeth Kerekere made mention that within the clauses of the bill of reference to the Treaty of Waitangi and the relationship between Crown and Māori, there’s only mention of Māori as opposed to hapū and iwi. That’s really interesting, because when I presided on another select committee—the Social Services and Community Committee—when we’re dealing with the Oranga Tamariki proposed legislation, that has come up in debate and it arises in this House yet again. I sit on the Māori Affairs Committee and we deal with these matters on a regular weekly basis when the House is sitting. It’s interesting that that has been raised, it has been addressed within this bill, and, to my lens, it highlights that there are inconsistencies in legislation that’s being proposed to this House in terms of that level of engagement with Māori, with hapū, with iwi, and the responsibility that the Crown has in that relationship.

So in clause 4 of this bill, there is some inconsistency across the board in terms of Government bills and legislation. This bill talks about engagement with Māori, but it also specifically in terms of particular organisations that are to be engaged with it, references whānau, hapū, or iwi—that’s under clause 6, “Interpretation”. And then, again, there is a reference at clause—and I’m not familiar with the bill, it was a cursory glance through this. I don’t sit on the select committee, but had this been brought to my attention—that there is a particular provision within the bill that does make mention only in a very small aspect and manner to hapū and iwi.

So it just again highlights that there is some anomaly in terms of what is outlined in the bill and how it’s going to be interpreted and applied. It’s really important, and I raise that as an issue for due consideration before this comes to the House for the third reading, to get a level of consistency so that there’s not going to be the anomaly, there’s not going to be the confusion, and so that there is a measure of trust engaged with Māori, with hapū, and with iwi in terms of the seeking, the sourcing, the uptake, and being entrusted to treasure and hold that information to use and dispose of it in the appropriate, responsible manner.

So also I made mention that I was at a Whānau Ora hui, and at that gathering, there was recognition by those working in the Whānau Ora space of the importance of data sovereignty. So we have Māori organisations that have been entrusted on behalf of their representative groups, such as Te Kāhui Raraunga; that is one group, and the responsibility that they have to be trusted by the people to be entrusted to care for that information. Information is knowledge and knowledge is power.

Interestingly enough too, Mr Speaker, I looked at the Hansard record of the first reading of this bill, and because you, Mr Speaker—Mr Assistant Speaker McKelvie—are in the Chair, you are denied the opportunity to speak at this reading. But what I did notice is that at the first reading you did raise and talk about the importance of trust. And I quote that you shared with the House that, “It is most important that we do that in a manner that those people providing the information can trust, because if they don’t trust it, they won’t fill the information in [or provide it] correctly.”, and that it—

Kieran McAnulty: That’s beautiful.

HARETE HIPANGO: It is beautiful, indeed, because trust should be premised on the relevance and the significance of the beauty of a relationship. If it’s not there, then people will either withhold the information that’s sought or they will give incorrect information, upon which the Government would be required to act.

In the few moments I have left, I’m mindful that it’s Budget day on Thursday, and in terms of Budgets, it’s important that the information that’s sourced from the census is reliable for the Budget information and the allocation of resources and funding to those targeted groups are identified within the census, as is provided by members of our public.

So, on that note, the National Party commends this bill to the House. Before it comes to the third reading, I invite members to consider what I’ve shared in terms of the Māori development, the importance of trust, and getting consistency in our legislation that comes before the House in relation to engagement with the Crown.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei) (remote): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. While not a member of the Governance and Administration Committee, as an ex-academic researcher and full nerd, I feel inspired by this bill to start this closing submission with the opening words of literature’s greatest love story: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that any policy maker in possession of a great social issue will be in want of data and statistics.” Conversely, to proceed without sufficient data and statistics is to risk ineffective or even counter-productive policy and legislation. Evidence is important.

So, after 47 years, we gather to update the 1975 Statistics Act, an Act pre-dating not only the internet and online data collection tools, such as the beautifully named SurveyMonkey but also proper recognition of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. This new bill recognises Māori interests in data and statistics, requiring meaningful engagement as to how and for what data is collected, and enabling Māori to better access and use their data. We’re enabling better systems leadership, strengthening the Statistician’s oversight and powers to set standards, require agencies to provide information, and to set and revise the format in which the data comes so it comes in its most practicable form. And alongside that, we’re modernising census data collection too.

My academic’s heart soars to know that this bill also modernises the framework for research, incorporating best practice frameworks, ensuring that researchers are properly expert, and that the public knows who those researchers are, and what and how they’re doing with the data. In so doing, the bill provides vital protections for the privacy and confidentiality of individuals and organisations. Good information is essential to good governance. I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2)

Second Reading

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I present a legislative statement on the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2).

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the parliamentary website.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I move that the Education and Training Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I’d like to begin by thanking the Education and Workforce Committee for their careful consideration—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): Order! Order! Can the Minister just start again with the correct name of the bill, please.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Did I not read that correctly? I move, That the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a second time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): Thank you. You just missed the “(No 2)”.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Oh right—OK. Very good.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): Thank you.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Thank you. Well, I’ll start again. [Interruption]

Hon David Bennett: I don’t know if he did, actually—I think he might have spoken once.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Well, the second one’s even better than the first. I know that—I moved the first one as well. Can I start again by thanking the members of the Education and Workforce Committee for the careful consideration that they gave to the bill and to Supplementary Order Paper 118, which relates to early learning network management, which I’ll speak more about in a moment.

To briefly recap what the bill does, it covers a range of different issues and it’s part of an ongoing programme of work to tidy up, effectively, education laws and regulations in New Zealand. It started with the Education and Training Act, which drew together the existing legislation into one place and put it into a more streamlined version. Now this, along with other bills that are progressing, is tidying up the various policy issues that were identified during that process.

So not much of this will set the world on fire, but they are, in fact, important provisions. They cover almost every aspect of our education system: early learning through to tertiary. They’ll help to strengthen the network management provisions for early learning. They’ll make the Teaching Council complaints process more efficient. They’ll enhance learner wellbeing and safety for international and tertiary students. They will provide more flexibility in the way that we regulate compulsory student services fees that are charged by tertiary education providers. The changes will authorise the use of national student numbers to support work-based training—something that we’re expecting to see a lot more of. They’ll also authorise the use of those numbers to support the teaching and assessment of NCEA in other jurisdictions, and the changes will give the Education Review Office the ability to review professional learning and development.

A range of submissions were received by the committee, so I’m told. They covered a range of views and suggestions. I understand that they were quite constructive and broadly supportive of the changes in the bill.

So to run through a few of the key changes that are being endorsed at this second reading, for police vetting, an amendment closes a minor loophole in the bill by requiring registered but non-certificated persons employed in non-teaching roles to be police-vetted before they start working.

For the Teaching Council disciplinary process—and this is quite important—we got a lot of feedback over the last couple of years that the disciplinary process that is used by the Teaching Council has become too cumbersome and, in fact, is adding significant cost to teacher registration fees unnecessarily with no real increase in professional standards and no real justification, so we’re making changes there. The bill is aiming to make the handling of complaints more efficient and more streamlined, but we also need to balance the rights of teachers and are ensuring that teachers continue to have a say in the sanctions that may be imposed by the Complaints Assessment Committee, so the select committee has proposed retaining the existing requirement in the Act for the Complaints Assessment Committee to reach an agreement about a sanction with a teacher who is the subject of a complaint.

The bill’s been updated to make sure that if minor or technical amendments are made to the code of pastoral care by the Minister, the code administrator needs to make reasonable efforts to notify representatives of affected persons or the staff of affected providers. That makes sense to the Government: people need to understand what the code is and what it means for them. The notification requirement will mean that affected parties will be able to scrutinise any of those changes as well. Concerns were raised about information-sharing provisions in the student contracts dispute resolution scheme, so the bill now clarifies what those provisions are to better ensure that they’re aligned with the information privacy principles in the Privacy Act of 2020. So I want to thank the committee for those technical amendments.

I know the committee spent quite a lot of time discussing early learning network management. It’s an issue that I’ve grappled with quite a lot in the period of time that I’ve been the Minister of Education, and I’ve heard from providers, who invest a lot of time and energy and, in many cases, their capital, in building up early learning services to find that, suddenly, the area where they’ve built up that service is subject to significant oversupply. Then, likewise, in other areas, we get complaints from communities that they have undersupply in other areas. So we want to take a more strategic approach to the way we manage early learning services and the granting of new early learning service licences.

Having said that, we’ve also got to recognise that there are some constraints there as well. So we’ve got to make sure that the licensing regime allows a practical window of opportunity for people to build a service. There are certainly challenges at the moment—and I’ve had some good conversations with the Opposition spokesperson about this—where services are finding that the building and construction sector is particularly heated, as many are, and, therefore, they were concerned that they wouldn’t be able to build services within the time frames allowed. So we have done some work to push out the deadlines for when these provisions apply. Now, the Government is intending to propose some additional changes at the committee of the whole House stage around the length of time someone can take from being given a provisional approval to when they actually build their service, because we recognise that that will be particularly difficult at the moment. So, again, I want to acknowledge the discussion that has happened there and thank the committee for their consideration of that.

The bill touches on the Crown’s obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi in relation to partnership and active protection, and, as such, we have had further conversations about that and made the decision to exclude kōhanga reo from early learning network management at this point. In fact, we need to see an expansion of Māori-medium early childhood education and provision on quite a significant scale. Growing the number of early learning services that are teaching children in te reo Māori is a priority for the Government, so, hence, we want to exclude them from these provisions at this point, and I want to signal that there’ll be some further changes that we’ll considering there in the committee of the whole House stage as well.

I also intend to—well, actually, I think I’ve covered all of the changes that I intend to move through the committee of the whole House stage. So it really just remains for me to thank the committee, once again, for their work and say that I’m looking forward to the debate when the bill reaches the committee of the whole House stage. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I have to wholeheartedly agree with the Minister when he says that most of the changes in this bill won’t set the world on fire. But what is worthy of debate—and he won’t be surprised to hear this—is Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 118 around network planning. Nothing in this Supplementary Order Paper can’t, I would argue, be done under the existing tools available to the Minister, and what it will, in fact, do is reduce choice, it will reduce quality, and it will reduce the affordability in early childhood education (ECE). That has been our position all the way along and it doesn’t change.

There were some changes made to the bill at the select committee stage, and we worked really constructively, I’d have to say, as a committee to get some of those changes through, and I’ll mention some of them in a moment. The Minister has already alluded to some of them. We worked really hard to make this SOP a better SOP. I would argue that network planning still does more harm than good, but I would say that we did work really constructively and got some wins to change that SOP to make what is a bad idea a slightly less bad but none the less still a very bad idea.

I just want to go through some of the changes that we made at select committee on SOP 188 around network management. Firstly, the commencement date, and I have to say that having the Minister come into the committee, this new way of operating where we get the Minister in before we start talking to submitters and start thinking about the bill—having the Minister come to the committee and explain what he’s trying to do actually worked really well in this case because we got to give him some feedback that was, I think, really important around the commencement date of network planning.

It was 1 August this year, and builders had been given a two-year window to get their buildings completed before they had to apply for an application for licensing. The problem was that two years, firstly, is never long enough to build an ECE centre or even renovate one—that’s the first problem, and we’ll talk about that more in a bit—and, secondly, COVID had come along in the meantime and made things really difficult. We had lockdowns, we had lack of supply of materials, we had people off with COVID and buildings delayed, and we had council services that weren’t able to come in and do inspections, and that pushed out the building of so many centres that were not going to make it in time for the 1 August date.

Now, we made this very clear to the Minister right at the very start. It should have been, frankly, obvious to him. The feedback from the sector should have been obvious to the officials and to the Minister, but it was the work of the Opposition in pointing out that there were going to be dozens and dozens of centres caught out and, potentially, put in very, very difficult situations where banks were going to stop lending to them halfway through a build because they were concerned about the fact that they might not get their first licence. Now, to the Minister’s credit, he listened and changed the date out to 1 February. We did try and move that out six weeks, given that six weeks is lost over the Christmas period, where councils and health authorities can’t come in and do any checks over that period, but, unfortunately, that was voted down—I tried my best.

The second area that was really important—and many submitters came in and talked about this—was not the commencement date as such, but the two-year period to build an ECE centre. The only part in this bill that would guarantee you a little bit of extra time was some sort of unforeseen event like a natural disaster, but a lack of building products or consent times pushing out weren’t included, and so we made that really clear to officials that there wasn’t a developer that we spoke to that said that they could get a centre built in two years under normal circumstances, let alone the circumstances that we exist in right now with a lack of building products and a lack of workers. It was really hard for us to get this through to officials, and I have to commend the Minister. He entertained me in his office and listened to me, and went away and has said that he’s going to put an SOP through extending this. We don’t know what the details of that SOP are, but if it’s sensible and it makes the bill better, we will support it. But we have yet to see the details of that.

The other change that was made, which kind of went maybe 10 percent of the way to making this clause better, was—I call it—the clause that will stop banks lending to ECE. What this clause says is that the Minister may, at any time, impose new conditions on the approval, or may amend or revoke any conditions. So for those out there who are listening, the Minister could give approval for a pre-licence and, then, halfway through the build, could change his mind about the conditions of that build—how many licences, for example. When we put this to officials, they said, “No, no, no. It’ll only be if the developer’s circumstances change that the Minister will make these changes.” We tried to get that made clear in the bill, but we were unsuccessful. The only change that was made was around the fact that now there is an explicit requirement to notify the applicant of any changes and seek their response, but, in the end, the Minister still retains the right to make any changes that he likes halfway through a build.

The other thing that was changed was excluding kōhanga reo from network planning. The question arises from this—and it’s not clear in the bill and it’s not clear in any of the commentary—how the Government will analyse statistics to come up with their regional plans for network planning. Do they exclude Māori from that statistical analysis if kōhanga reo aren’t included in network planning? When people are putting forward their plans to try and get a pre-licence, are they to include Māori in that area or not include Māori in that area because kōhanga reo aren’t included, or are they to exclude a percentage of Māori in that data analysis? So I think, potentially, there is a problem that the data will be skewed around where a centre is required and who requires that centre if we’re not including kōhanga reo in network planning. I’m not saying that we should include it, but I’m just saying that we haven’t heard from the Minister how the data will now be analysed if kōhanga reo are not included.

Probably the most important things are the changes that weren’t made. One of the things that I argued really strongly for was statutory time frames for decisions to be made. I argued really strongly for this because developers clearly said to us in select committee that if a developer is putting up land for tender or they’ve got an option on some land, they put in their network plan application and then have to wait. How long? We don’t know. We argued for a reasonable amount of time so that developers wouldn’t lose out on land. The problem comes if a developer has an option on some land, puts in an application for approval for their licence, and then it takes three months for the Minister to make his decision. Meanwhile, they’ve lost the land, and what does that mean? Does that mean they have to go back to square one and apply again? So there’s all these questions that are thrown up through network planning that haven’t been answered.

In the short amount of time I’ve got left, I want to talk about the Minister’s strategic priorities—which have come out this week for consultation—and the problems around that, and nothing in this bill explains to us how he’s going to weight his strategic priorities.

So, for example, if you have a big centre that puts in on day one a very comprehensive plan, here’s a new development that requires a centre, and a big centre has come in and put their plan in. They’ve spent thousands of dollars on it, they’ve surveyed parents, they know exactly where to put it, and they know exactly what parents want, where they want it, and on what route, and then what does the Minister do? He’s got now a set of priorities that prioritise bilingual services, hapū- and iwi-owned services, services with a distinct Māori identity, Pacific bilingual—and the list goes on—Pacific language and culture. What does he do? Which one does he give weighting to?

If he gets a very comprehensive set of data from one centre and then one of his strategic-priority centres comes along with not such great data, and only for a small centre but the requirement is for more, what does he do? Which centre does he give the approval to? There’s nothing in this bill to say what the weighting is. If you take, for example, a new development area in rural New Zealand that requires, say, a centre for a hundred kids and a big centre comes along and says, “We can provide a centre for a hundred kids.”, and, say, a bilingual centre comes along and says, “Well, there’s only demand for 30. We can do 30.”, what does the Minister do?

We don’t know what the weighting is, and we would argue—I argued this in the first reading and I’ll argue it again at the third reading—that all this does is entrench those existing providers. It doesn’t give them any impetus or any incentive to keep their fees low or invest in capital to make their centre any better, because they will enjoy the licence without any competition, and so that’s why we’ve been opposing the bill. There are so many questions that we will put to the Minister at the committee stage around this, because they haven’t been answered at the select committee stage. Thank you.

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

MARJA LUBECK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a real pleasure, as the chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, which dealt with the bill, to take a short call.

The Minister of Education ran us through the extensive work that was done during the last parliamentary term when, of course, we had a complete rewrite of the education legislation and a revamp—a well-overdue revamp—of the whole education legislative framework. We had a new Education and Training Act created at the time, which came in force on 1 August 2020, and it was actually the most significant education legislation that we had seen for several decades at that time.

So the Minister has already spoken about the next steps being continuous improvement in that process that we have started. The Minister gave us quite a good recap of those improvements that this bill contains, so I won’t go too deep into the detail, except to say that we had 36 written submissions in total come to this committee and we had 14 oral submissions that we heard, and 14 of the 15 submissions that dealt solely with this particular bill supported the bill.

Also, we heard the previous speaker Erica Stanford talk about the timing of the network management changes. It is probably fair to say that as a result of the feedback and the Minister’s taking that feedback into account, we had the timing pushed back significantly from 1 August 2022 to what is now the date of 1 February 2023. That is a balanced approach because, I guess, we also have to acknowledge that the provisions in the Act have been in there now for a couple of years and the sector has been aware of them. I also want to add to this that a good early childhood education centre doesn’t mean it has to necessarily just be a new build, so that is something to keep in mind, as well.

So this bill is, then, one of a number of bills that the Government will be bringing to the House this parliamentary term. Together, they will progress our education work programme and contribute to what I’ve already mentioned is a continuous improvement of the education sector. I do commend the Minister of Education, the Hon Chris Hipkins, for introducing this bill, and I commend it to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

PENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak in opposition to the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2). The purpose of the bill, obviously, at the start was to make a number of amendments across a range of relatively minor and technical changes, but then, of course, that changed with Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 118, when it brought in the networking planning for the early childhood sector—a particularly significant addition to the bill.

Some of the technical changes are relatively minor, but I think they’re worth mentioning because some will have real nuisance value. The police-vetting provisions will certainly be a nuisance to the police in that a number of applicants—non-teaching and unregistered-position applicants—will be preparing their application and getting vetted in preparation for it, so that means that the police are going to be doing a lot more work than is necessary in that area. The other area is that of the compulsory student services fees being charged. The notes say, and I listened carefully to the Minister of Education saying, “greater flexibility for the Government”—please read that as “much less flexibility for the tertiary education providers”. Once more, the Government is exercising more control and, therefore, making it more difficult, with less control for those on the ground.

The simplification of qualifications and other credentials: this is an enabling part of the bill for the WDCs, or the workforce development councils, which were part of the review of vocational education. That was a completely unnecessary review, and equally unnecessary workforce development councils were put in place. Previously, this work was done by industry training organisations, which were made up of people from the industry. The workforce development councils, unlike the industry training organisation boards, are mainly made up of union representatives and special interest groups, and so I think we are quite likely to see a change in focus around the qualifications. Let’s look carefully and see how many encompass things like employee rights, health and safety, and employee welfare, rather than the actual skills needed in a trade and industry qualification.

The most significant part of the bill, though, obviously was SOP 118. The Minister talked about the granting of new early childhood education (ECE) licences. Now, all through, I kept thinking that this is a solution looking for a problem, and the solution that was already sitting there for the Minister was the targeted assistance for participation (TAP) funding that could have been used where he wanted to put in place centres—particularly special nature centres—where there aren’t centres or where it’s difficult to put a centre in for it to be viable. So he had the tool there to be able to bring about the change without taking this heavy-handed sledgehammer to the walnut.

This, though, is part of an overall trend. This is a Government trying to dictate to the private sector. So we’re seeing it in the ECE sector, we’ve seen it in the tertiary education sector, and we’ve seen it in the healthcare of elderly sector—most recently in the tertiary sector, where the Minister has reduced funding for private providers, and it will be to such an extent that a number of private providers will close. In the healthcare sector, I received a letter this week, as did a number of southern MPs, about the incredible difficulties that their private providers in the care of elderly were finding and the lack of sympathy from the Government in terms of those private providers. It is ideological. It is driven from a point of saying that the private sector should not be doing these things, the centre knows best, the Government knows best, and the Government wants control.

The two-year time frame that my colleague Erica Stanford has referred to—there was a lot of argument over this. Look, I’m not surprised that the Minister didn’t understand that you couldn’t build something in two years. We have to keep remembering that the Minister has never run any sort of tertiary, early childhood, or any education centre, so he simply wouldn’t know how long it takes to get resource consent, to get building consent, and to do the building of it. As someone who has built over $110 million worth of education facilities, I knew that two years was ridiculous, and so we had to try and point this out gently to the Minister so that he could understand it.

Going to a number of early childhood centres with this legislation and trying to get from them what the issues are—and look, there are a number of issues. Having visited a number of centres, let’s traverse some of the issues that they are looking at. Child-to-teacher ratios: major issues there. Pay parity—where the Government has caused more harm than good. Quality assurance: spot checks are not regularly occurring that we were led to believe would occur. High costs to parents—and here we see the impact, again, on those squeezed middle-income families, who have got high childcare costs. The free hours for those over three years old just simply are not free hours for many families. The administrative burden on teachers and centre managers; the restrictions on the six hours per day that can be claimed; the skill shortages and the desperate issues that they have around being able to access qualified teachers, who are simply burning out—these are all real problems. They’re real problems looking for solutions, not solutions looking for a problem, as the Minister has gone here.

The consultation around this legislation, this bill, could not have happened at a worse time. When I visited the centres and talked to the centre managers, these were people who were absolutely exhausted. They were people who had been through the most difficult time in their careers: keeping centres open for essential workers; keeping centres open when they were struggling to get enough teachers there themselves; people having to work much longer hours than they should have; trying to cope with these staff shortages; trying to cope with children with COVID; and all the time, they were expected to be in a place in their mindset to be able to think of network management—of the Government wanting to have more control over where centres should be open, how they should open, and what they should look like.

This whole notion of strategic priorities, again, talking to the centres—how do you put these applications in when you have no idea what the weighting is going to be of the criteria? This most transparent Government ever, without any indication on just how these priorities are going to influence the Minister’s decision-making!

This just looks like the whole tertiary education situation again, where, if you centralise it, you have control over it. When I look at things like the simplification of qualifications, where normally 16 invitations to participate would have been putting in submissions, all of a sudden it’s centralised, controlled by a head office. They cannot put submissions in. They cannot put their heads up and disagree with the Government, because they are entirely controlled by the centre.

So that’s what this Government is wanting to do with this legislation: more control. They’ve got control of the vocational sector. They’re going now for this greater control of the early childhood education centre. This will not improve quality; it will lower quality. It will reduce competition and it will increase prices, and the squeezed middle families will be hit again.

ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): I was really looking forward to hearing somebody who was supposedly a champion for vocational excellence in New Zealand, and it was really disappointing to hear the speaker before me talk about things that aren’t happening. It would be really great if you’d kept up—it’s not a review of vocational education; it was a reform. Things have changed, and they’ve changed for the better.

This bill brings coherence to vocational training. We’re getting rid of things—our training programmes and training packages—and we’re getting really coherent micro-credentialling, qualifications, and national curricula, and they are determined by industry, because we do have these things called workforce development councils and they are driven by industry.

Nicola Grigg: And unions.

ANGELA ROBERTS: The industry decides—do the maths. It isn’t dominated by unions; it is dominated by the sectors. It’s industry-led. It’s going to bring long-term solutions to the workforce development issues that we hear in health, in construction, and primary industries.

I was with farmers last week who were really pleased about the fact that they were going to have young farmers turn up on-farm and they were going to have qualifications that were developed by them—by the farmers—and they were going to be credible and they were going to be world leading. They were looking forward to that because the other system was not delivering for them.

So for those of you who can keep up, you will understand that this bill is supporting a very good, very progressive way of building a wonderful vocational framework that will meet industry needs because it is led by industry. So keep up because the world is moving on, and I really do commend this bill to the House.

TEANAU TUIONO (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. First of all, I’d like to acknowledge all of our teachers and learning support staff and school leaders and principals and our communities, who have been doing it tough over the last couple of years. They really do have our tamariki at their heart and our children at their heart as well. Whenever I meet teachers, you know it’s not about the money—they’re not going to make heaps of money, anyway—it is about the passion and commitment to our children, to our tamariki, to our whānau, and to our families, and I just wanted to start off by acknowledging them. At 9 o’clock tonight, if any of the teachers are out there watching this and listening to this debate, I would say, “Why?”—two words: work-life balance. But if you are out there listening, kia ora, tēnā koutou katoa.

The House has been moving pretty quickly tonight. It’s been kind of whizzing through, and I can only imagine it’s because the Labour Party can’t wait to release all the goodies—the education budget goodies—for teachers and those out there in the learning sector. I know I’ll be interested to take a look about what’s going to be showing up in that Budget. We know—and it’s been talked about a bit in the House tonight—about the pay parity gap in early childhood education (ECE). The solution there is that you actually need to put some more funding into those steps. It was a start, but it was a start that actually needed to have more funding, and it needs the sort of funding where you actually can get a line of sight and a long-term vision as to how we’re going to actually decrease that gap in ECE, because it is massive. With a plan, it signals to the sector, “You know what? Actually, this Government is serious about sorting that out.”, and I will be looking for that and I’m sure some of the teachers will be looking for that.

Also, I’m mindful of some of the learning support staff that I have met over the past year as well, and I’m hoping that will also feature in this Budget as well, because they do an amazing job. I will be looking at the operational grants part of the education budget as well to see if there is going to be anything there for those learning support staff but particularly our teacher aides, our resource teachers of learning and behaviour, our resource teachers, our clinicians, and everybody who supports our tamariki to do all those things.

Anyway, this bill is about none of that. The Minister of Education talked earlier today about all the different things. This bill won’t put the house on fire—people were excited over there. It is one of those bills which is designed to sort of pull together and tidy up a bunch of things: things such as having better alignment for police-vetting requirements, strengthening and streamlining the Teaching Council’s disciplinary processes, giving the Government more flexibility to regulate compulsory student services fees by tertiary education providers, enabling student numbers, enabling the New Zealand Qualifications Authority to exercise discretion, expanding the Education Review Office, simplifying qualifications and other credentials, and ensuring that learner wellbeing and safety arrangements and dispute resolution schemes for international and tertiary students are fit for purpose. A Supplementary Order Paper did show up. I had a look at it and I was just going through some of the submissions, and I think it’s a good thing, to be honest.

What the ECE sector needs is consistency. We have talked about pay parity; we do talk about pay equity. We do talk about how it’s incredibly patchy out there within the ECE sector as well, so we feel that this will actually give a bit more of that consistency across the ECE sector.

The introduction of network management for early learning is a provision for early learning services which, to be honest, has been left to the market, resulting in an oversupply of services in some areas while other areas remain underserved. It is often those communities that are disadvantaged due to location and socio-economic status who suffer from an undersupply. So good on the Government—it’s good to see this proactive approach.

I do note the submission from the New Zealand Educational Institute, who said that the “Private provision has been shown to encourage a ‘race to the bottom’ around wages and working conditions, opening a wide pay gap between teachers in early learning and their colleagues with the same qualification in the schooling sector. This has created barriers to the provision of quality early learning and has contributed to a critical shortage of teachers in the sector. This is confirmed by the experiences of teachers in private early learning over the past few decades, as well as a proliferation of research reports and reviews identifying the failures of market-based provision.”

Capitalism is what I think the general term for it is, and I do like how they sum it up here, because, yes, this is a good step, but there is more to do—and this quote here is—“However, while the new network planning provisions in the bill are an important step in moving away from market-based provision and preventing further damage, they do not offer a pathway for undoing the damage market-based provision has caused. The proposed provisions are akin to a halting of the tide, but not of a turning [of the tide].” So I’m hoping there’s going to be a bit more in this Budget which will help to not only halt the tide but turn the tide.

My final reflection is on supporting our kōhanga reo. It is always important that we build those relationships and build those connections with our kōhanga reo, with our kura kaupapa, and with our wharekura, understanding that commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi but also understanding that they are servicing and committed to a different need out there. It’s not like we are building kōhanga reo on top of each other—they’re not as prolific as that. It is built around those whānau that have that commitment to te reo Māori, have that commitment to tikanga, and have those roots within the community or families that want to participate in that, so it does make sense that there is a different way that you engage in that. So I do take the Minister’s point in having a bit more of think-through about what that relationship would look like in terms of this management process. So, on that, we support this bill.

CHRIS BAILLIE (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT to speak to the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2). The purpose of the bill is to make amendments across a range of matters in the Act to give effect to new policy decisions and to make other minor and technical changes. There are some valid and reasonable changes in the bill, even if they are minor and technical, but taken as a whole, the desire to get more Government control is obvious and ACT will not be supporting the bill.

The major areas of change are police-vetting provisions that better align with the Children’s Act 2014. This makes sense, but I would be surprised if most childhood services and schools don’t already have a policy like this without the need for legislation.

Teaching Councils have been talked about quite a lot recently and it’s been noted that matters of teachers’ conduct have taken too long to reach an outcome. The aim is to strengthen the Teaching Council’s disciplinary processes. It makes sense as it is their core business, and a lot of other stuff isn’t and it shouldn’t be. I know of a matter that has just concluded after three years. It had dragged on for three years. It cost the person involved over $10,000 and it is the direct cause of a number of health conditions. After three years, a simple letter stating, “There will be no further action.” ended the anguish and a distinguished career, and this is unacceptable and it needs to be sorted.

I’ve spoken to many teachers and principals and I haven’t yet come across one who thinks the Teaching Council should be involved in teachers’ professional development. There’s a conflict of interest and the teachers actually know what they need to learn. They’re doing it now and they can sort it.

The amendment to the compulsory student services fee sounds OK, but we in the ACT Party shudder when we read “give the Government more flexibility to regulate”. I think we all know what that means. The PTE—or private training establishment—changes are to enable the New Zealand Qualifications Authority to exercise discretion about whether to council the registration of a private training establishment in relation to immigration breaches. There were five cases in 2018-19, affecting a total of about 60 students. This area needs to be looked at, but we don’t believe this sort of authoritarian attitude is warranted, and we have to ask: is it the “private” part of PTEs that’s the problem?

The bill extends the mandate of the Education Review Office (ERO) to enable it to review professional learning and development. As an ex-teacher, the mention of ERO makes me nervous, and this addition of responsibility doesn’t alleviate this nervousness at all.

Then we have new sections around student accommodation. A couple make sense—for example, the provider must ensure employees must be of good character and undergo police vets, amongst other things. But new section 634A in clause 57 says where an administrator can authorise any person to “enter and inspect any premises” to check that the provider is complying with the code. You can’t just barge into a gang pad to look for drugs without a warrant, so we think this is quite an overreach and not justified.

Then we come to Supplementary Order Paper 118, which is a concern for lots of reasons, adding another chapter to the agenda around early childhood education centres (ECEs) that I think we have every right to be suspicious about. I won’t go into the details—I think some previous speakers have done that very well—but the concern ACT has over the control the Minister seeks to have over private businesses wasn’t addressed properly in the select committee. Too many inadequately answered questions that make us suspect other agendas and ideologies are the main reasons for this addition. We also think that all ECEs should be treated equally, including kōhanga reo.

ACT opposes this bill. Thank you.

IBRAHIM OMER (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak on the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2). For far too long, the education sector was underfunded. Some areas were almost left dry and the sector was left to demoralise. There was a worrying teacher shortage and schools were in despair. It was the previous speaker’s Penny Simmonds’ party that left the sector dry and in tatters, in case she forgets, because what I heard her saying about the Minister of Education not having any experience is just funny and ironic.

This bill is the next step in the Government’s improvement in the education sector. It fits within the larger overhaul of the education legislation, bringing all early learning schooling and tertiary education into a single statute. The changes set out in this bill create a more sustainable and higher-quality and a more diverse network of early learning services.

This bill will do quite a few things. One of the things that it will be doing is that the police-vetting process will be more aligned with the Children’s Act 2014. Non-teaching staff also must have a police vet before starting. It includes registered teachers who do not have a practising certificate. This bill will also make a number of minor and technical amendments.

The Education and Workforce Committee dealt with some concerns raised along the way. For example, the commencement of this provision was quite a concern for some people, and that is pushed back now to 1 August 2022.

So this is a balanced bill that puts a lot of things into consideration, and I’d like to thank the Minister for his hard work to bring this bill into the House. I also want to commend the members of the select committee for their positive engagement. It was quite a diligent and positive vibe when we discussed this bill. So with no further delay, I’d like to commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The next call is a split call. I call on Nicola Grigg—five minutes.

NICOLA GRIGG (National—Selwyn): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I am just going to make a short contribution this evening in opposition to the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2).

As has been previously canvassed, this bill does give effect to a number of new Government policy decisions. They might like to term them initiatives, but we would say they are retrograde and backward steps. But I would actually like to talk a lot about what Penny Simmonds, I think, very eloquently referred to as nuisance value. One has really to question the timing of something like this, and I know a member opposite tried to tell the National Party side of the House that we needed to get real and get with the programme. Well, actually, we do. We go out and speak to these providers, and they frequently talk to us about the vast and deep impact that the last two years have had on them and their operations, and a change like this is just yet another thing that they are going to have to deal with.

I think someone mentioned this just before. I’ve got an email here from a provider who lives in my region and has been in this industry for 21 years. She spent 14 years managing five centres and she says, “Thankfully, I currently only operate one.”—given the vast amount of regulation and authority that is raining down on them at the moment. The key areas that she has been concerned with this particular bill have been in the ratios that have been mentioned, in the teacher training, the teacher supply, and the police vetting. She thinks that around 33,000 applications are going unqualified and unattended, but, actually, she does a bit of a deep dive into the ramifications and the impacts on these private providers. These are people trying to run a business.

She said, “Here is a cross-sector of clients that have approached us or engaged with us in the past 12 months. One spent time in a mental health facility—owned two centres, one of which was shut down. One has thrown in the towel and sold after a mere seven months. Many are working on the floor with children, do extra hours completing compliance after hours, and are not keeping up with the requirements of licensing. Four are seeking help for licensing breaches and facing closure, all of which just because they are overwhelmed. Many operators, managers, and teachers are speaking up about their recent mental health issues, including anxiety attacks, panic attacks, depression, borderline suicidal. Our sector is drained, and no doubt so is the health sector.”

The reason I raise this is, again, because of the point of the Government’s ill-timed amendments to this sector, but I would also like to focus some contribution on this Supplementary Order Paper 118, which is exercising many in the sector. For many private providers, this is the very thin end of the wedge. They are very nervous—and I think rightly so—that this is just the beginning of a move towards centralisation and carving them out of the market so that we end up with a nationwide kindergarten system.

The vast majority of opposition to this network building is that it removes choice from providers, choice from parents, and choice from families. In Selwyn, the electorate that I am very lucky to represent, there is a centre in Rolleston turning away 50 to 20 new kids a week, and I do know another that’s had 20 enrolments in the past three weeks, but just simply can’t cater to them. Selwyn is the fastest-growing territorial authority in New Zealand, and this bill does not cater for districts like that which I represent.

This network system is only going to reduce competition in fast-growing areas and will not be there to provide essential services for families and—more importantly—for kids. It disincentivises competition and, disappointingly, it encourages the expectation of the meeting of minimum requirements only, and I think that’s been summed up really well. In its submission to the select committee, the Early Childhood Council said that the changes require a “significant ‘leap of faith’ to have confidence that any new process would be workable.”

So this is yet another example of the long arm of Government reaching into private enterprise, dictating how the private sector should operate, telling the public “we know best”, and it is, therefore, going to do nothing but reduce choice and quality for the children of New Zealand. National opposes this bill.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m pleased to rise and take this call.

Consummate—consummate—conservatives. But the fundamental conservative—with a little “c”—Nicola Grigg would say, “Not now. Let’s not do anything right now. Let’s not improve our police vetting. Let’s not improve the quality of our education.” But I can’t blame her—she hasn’t been in education for years and years. Penny Simmonds, however, should know a lot better. We all know she can read, but to spend 10 minutes reading her speech and continually harp on about Southern Institute of Technology, which isn’t even affected by this—it would be great to have some engagement from the Opposition with ideas. It would be good to have a proposition from the Opposition, rather than a do-nothing Opposition who says, “Not now. Too early. Let’s sit on our hands.”

This is a bill that’s going to improve education, and I’m very glad to be part of a Parliament and a party that is committed to improving the lives of all New Zealanders, including this. I commend it to the House.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’ve said it before in relation to this bill, but I’ll say it again: it is good lawmaking to make sure that any issues that have arisen through a substantive process are addressed through subsequent legislation. This is what this bill does: it improves the education sector in New Zealand.

It goes through almost every element of our education sector, as the Minister of Education has stated, and makes tiny improvements. As we’ve also heard—and other speakers have gone on in detail about this—Supplementary Order Paper 118 does make substantive policy changes in relation to early childhood education. The speakers on the other side accused the speakers on our side, or the Government, in fact, that this particular type of bill was a trend, and I agree with them. It is a trend—a trend towards improving education for all of our learners and all of our students through continuous legislative change. These changes will lead to a more unified, diverse, sustainable, higher-quality, and consistent network of early childhood education and learning services in New Zealand.

Now just to turn to a slightly more sombre note, I lost my grandmother on the weekend. My grandmother—her name was Valerie Belich. She passed away on 14 May. As a young parent she was a supervisor at early childhood education services, and so I just wanted to honour her memory, really, by talking about what she believed in in relation to early childhood education. She believed passionately that all parents should be educated in early childhood development, and she also believed passionately in the value of early childhood education.

So although this is not a major legislative change in this area, this will improve early childhood education in New Zealand, and it will improve the experiences of children who are in that education. So I think, even though it is not a substantive bill, she would support this bill and the direction it’s going in, into making those improvements for the children in New Zealand.

This bill also goes through and makes a number of important changes to health, safety, and wellbeing. Now these are important changes. They are not things that should be maligned or should have it said that they are a Government overreach. They ensure that things like police vets happen for people who are working with our most vulnerable—children. These are important things, and so I have no hesitation in commending this bill to the House.

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’d just like to pay our respects to the past speaker Camilla Belich and her family. Anybody that serves in the teaching profession is someone that’s given their life to other people and to bettering our country, so a big thankyou for your family’s contribution in that area.

This is a bill that centres on the early childhood education (ECE) sector debate in this House tonight, and when we look at that, the early childhood sector in New Zealand was, essentially, set up by Helen Clark in the great view of the left that everything should be done through Government. They would be very disappointed that the early childhood centres actually flourished and grew, because what they created was the ultra-capitalist society where they gave a payment to people in the private sector to actually deliver a service. In the true heart of the Labour Party, when it beats slowly at night, they’ll be thinking about how they actually did this: how they actually stuffed up early childhood education, in their view, and didn’t create another form of primary or secondary or intermediate education where the State dominates, the State runs, the State owns, and the State controls.

Helen Clark got it wrong, and the Labour Party, that little heartbeat that flutters in the middle of the night sometimes and is on life support now—

Hon Stuart Nash: What are you talking about?

Hon DAVID BENNETT: —is struggling for a home, is flat-lining, and needs a Stuart Nash to take over the leadership to give it some leadership and some strength—the Labour Party will never admit it, but they hate having a private sector part of the education system. They will hate it, and this is a blatant attempt by the Labour Party to try and ratchet in that sector.

Now, I’m not saying that they are wrong. Our primary, secondary, and intermediate schools, which are State-bound, have served this country and generations of members of this House exceptionally well. I’m not saying that’s the wrong policy; I’m just saying Helen Clark got it wrong when she was in Government and was setting up the structure.

Now, our education system values the most its Catholic network, of course. That adds a lot of value to the system. But that had to be brought in because of all those great MPs here that came through the Catholic network—they will understand how important that is. But the Labour Party is trying to ratchet that system up. They know that they want to change the rules around ECE and they don’t know how to do it, and that’s why you’re seeing the sector being quite dormant in the last few months, because people see the writing on the wall from this kind of legislation. It’s going to make them very difficult to do what they’re doing. They’re, effectively, going to be quasi - Government-controlled, and that’s what this Government attempts to do.

This will be a staged process by the Labour Government towards ECE. This will not be a one-off—“Oh, a little tinkering”. We hear them talk about “It’s only a small bill. Don’t worry about it.”, but there will be more tinkering and more plans as they try and dominate any private sector in this country, and that has been shown to be completely ineffective in other areas where they have done that.

So it is a small bill, but National does oppose it for fundamental reasons. The system we have in New Zealand for early childhood education is, essentially, a private system. Whether the Labour Party agrees with it or not, they set it up that way, and that’s the system we have. Unless they’re going to nationalise the whole thing, which I don’t think they’re going to do at this stage, they cannot change it other than tinkering with it, and every time you tinker with something, you distort it and it becomes less effective.

If you’re going to go down the market approach that we did, do not distort that market approach. What they’re going for is sort of a middle ground, where it’s a market approach but they control it, and that is the worst kind of approach that you can have.

So this is a bill that the National Party does not support. It’s time the Labour Party was honest about its history in this area and actually fronted up to the people in New Zealand and said what they actually think, and not try to do little pieces of legislation hiding the fact that they really have some issues around having a private education system in New Zealand.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m lucky to speak after Mr David Bennett, and it’s good to see my North Shore colleagues across the way on this particular topic. I am incredibly ambitious for the North Shore—I think I used “optimistic” as the word—but particularly our education system on the North Shore.

As North Shore MPs, we have to ask ourselves: do we have the best education system that meets the needs of all of our children—that is the question—and have we put the right changes in place to meet those learners’ needs? Sure, we’ve got some gaps. We’ve got some work to do. I look over to tertiary education—man, I am proud of the reforms that we are doing under this Government. I am proud of the savings and the opportunities for young people there and the achievements that we are working on.

But I come back to this particular bill, the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2), and this is another step in continuing this good work. It’s technical and there are some very simple changes that are required. But I want to speak very closely to clause 35—which, probably, nobody over the other side has read. It is the point that expands the functions of the Chief Review Officer of the Education Review Office to include reviewing professional learning and development access by schools, kura, and early learning centres.

Under this Government, we’ve heavily invested in the development of our teachers, the development of our learning support workers in schools, and the development of people that teach our tamariki. But what we also want to know—and I think of programmes like Te Ahu o te Reo Māori, the investment into building te reo Māori capability amongst kaiako and teachers and amongst staff—that this particular investment has been well spent. As we increase the volumes, we now want to carve it up and ask: are we achieving the goals that we want to? This particular bill enables us to do that.

We have expectations. We have best practice that we are looking for so that in turn, our tamariki, our children, and our young people are receiving the best quality learning experience from early childhood education and kōhanga reo right up to tertiary and vocational learning. So thank you very much. I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a second time.

Ayes 77

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

Noes 42

New Zealand National 32; ACT New Zealand First 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill

Second Reading

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister for the Digital Economy and Communications): I present a legislative statement on the Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill.

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

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I move, That the Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill be now read a second time.

The Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill introduces a new regulatory framework which helps New Zealanders share their personal information via trusted and secure services. It’s a modernised system for a modern world, and, by passing through the second reading today in the House, we are one step closer to modernising our digital identity system, which is critical as we continue to work more online, socialise more online, and learn more online.

Digital identity services allow for user-authorised collection sharing and other uses of personal information. Now, an example of the kind of information that you provide with a digital identity service might include things like a person’s date of birth, name, employment history, medical records, qualifications, or other information that describes them. That’s the kind of data we’re talking about being protected in the trust framework. Now, a New Zealander who has this kind of data, using that trust framework, can then choose to authorise service providers to share this information, helping them to access services and entitlements or prove who they are, and so forth. So a person who has these details, has this information, can choose, in this trusted format, to share with others.

The bill is part of a wider programme of initiatives that support key Government priorities for the digital community and is another part of the digital strategy for Aotearoa. It’s also trade-enabling; digital identity can enable digital trade and other cross-border transactions. A mutual recognition of digital identity services with Australia is something that our Prime Minister and the Prime Minister of Australia have both signalled as a priority for the single economic market agenda. As I said when I first introduced the bill to the House, the trust framework bill introduces a rules-based, opt-in accreditation scheme for digital identity services.

I know that during the select committee process, some submitters expressed concern that the trust framework was establishing some kind of mandatory and centralised identity regime—and I want to be very clear with this House: this bill does no such thing. The trust framework does not establish a centralised identity system; in fact, it’s really distributing information with the users themselves to control. It does not create any new powers for the Government to collect or share people’s information without their consent—it does not do that. Instead, the trust framework consists of a set of minimum standards for security, privacy, information, and identification management that must be met when people choose to share their information through this mechanism. To labour the point, participation in the trust framework is optional. No one will be required to get a digital identity to access services, and the Government will continue to make services available to people on an in-person basis. The bill itself is also subject to the Privacy Act of 2020.

Now, in order to establish the trust framework, the bill establishes three regulatory bodies that will oversee different aspects of the trust framework. Now, those three bodies are: a governance board, a Māori advisory group, and an accreditation authority. The Governance board develops rules and engages with the public on future objectives for the trust framework. The Māori advisory group comes together to advise the board on Māori interests and knowledge as they relate to operation of the trust framework. The accreditation authority is responsible for accrediting organisations, but it also does the monitoring and enforcement parts that are necessary under the trust framework.

The bill also requires a consultation be undertaken with key stakeholders when potential changes to the rules are proposed, and it provides the accreditation authority with powers to investigate compliance and to issue remedies if it finds that there has been a breach of the trust framework.

I do want to thank the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee for its work on the bill. They’ve made a number of helpful suggestions to improve the operation of the trust framework once the bill’s passed by this House. I want to take the time also to acknowledge those submitters who took the time to engage with the technical aspects of the bill, because it is a bill that needs careful engagement, and those that took that time to make suggestions to ensure that the bill serves people well are to be thanked. And so I do that on behalf of the House.

I’d like, now, to touch on some of the amendments that the committee has recommended. Broadly, I think the committee—well, clearly—accepted the policy rationale and the purpose of the bill, but has made some suggested changes. Now, a number of these suggested amendments relate to ensuring that the trust framework gives better effect to Māori approaches to identity. These changes include amending the consultation requirements to include tikanga experts with knowledge of Te Ao Māori and identity, adding a positive obligation on the board to recognise and provide for Māori interests in the operation of the trust framework, and requiring the board and the Māori advisory group to collectively identify how they will consult with iwi and hapū.

Several submitters expressed concern that the bill provides immunity from liability in civil proceedings for accredited digital identity service providers over harms which have resulted from the use of their services, and the bill has been amended in response to this concern to establish that that immunity does not apply to any proceedings taken under the Privacy Act. A further amendment seeks to clarify who may make rules that comprise the trust framework. To make sure that the Minister’s powers are clearly prescribed, the bill has now been amended to clarify that the Minister’s power to make trust framework rules is limited to the technical standards set out in clause 19.

During the select committee process, submitters also expressed concern about the limitation of six months for people to make a complaint when they find out about a breach of the rules. Essentially, submitters found that that was too restrictive, and submitted as such, and the bill has therefore been amended to extend that time limit to 12 months.

The digital sector continues to grow and evolve rapidly, and the need to ensure people can access services in a straightforward way so that they can be sure that their information is protected and be sure to benefit from the ease of access that comes with faster digital ways of doing things has only grown in importance.

Before I close, I do want to acknowledge that it is Techweek this week, and, you know, we’ve made some announcements around supporting software as a service in our Budget, upcoming, and also put some money behind the tech story. And I would encourage people out there looking to the benefits that we will see from this digital economy to look at the We See Tomorrow First website, where assets around our tech story are stored—a very powerful story. Most people know the story of “100% Pure”—that is a story we’ve told about New Zealand for a long time and told clearly to overseas audiences. The tech story and its resources that are now available online and supported through the Budget will enable our entrepreneurs to tell the story of the great things that are happening in the digital economy in New Zealand. So in Techweek, can I thank those who contributed to the New Zealand story development and encourage New Zealand citizens to go and have a look at the We See Tomorrow First website to check these things out for themselves.

But it’s my pleasure to commend this bill, given that it introduces a regulatory framework that helps to keep people safe, that is optional to participate in, but that provides benefit to New Zealand citizens of knowing their data is safe and secure and they can choose who they share it with in a digital world, which brings them many benefits in the future.

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

MELISSA LEE (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I thank the Minister, the Hon Dr David Clark, who just took his seat, for bringing this bill to the House.

Right from the outset, I will say that National is supporting this bill in its second reading and will continue to do so, because I believe that it is actually a very important piece of work to get us started in this day and age, where digital is where we are. I want to traverse everything that the Minister has actually said, because he, basically, talked about most of the things that we actually dealt with in the select committee. But we support the best use of data to achieve better outcomes, and a trusted innovative digital economy and a digital identity framework will develop this actually further, I think.

One of the things that I find very interesting and completely support is what the Minister said, this is all about making sure that people’s data is actually secure. In this day and age, when we have to prove our identity, often people ask for several pieces of documentation to prove who we are—sometimes it’s usually a photo identification or a bill that actually has your home address; sometimes people actually feel really insecure about providing those personal details to protect their privacy. This framework will assist in that process where you literally will only have to do it once with a trusted framework provider who will, in effect, provide that security and also provide that identity identification, I guess. When I actually want to do something I don’t have to continually send in that documentation. When you send documentations to other people, whether via email or whatever, sometimes those documentations are not protected. People can actually steal your identity, and that’s been a problem.

We believe it is actually vital that the framework and digital identity services on offer in New Zealand must enshrine principles of privacy and digital safety, as I’ve actually just said. Having considered the issue in detail through a select committee—and, at this juncture, I’d like to thank my colleagues right across the House from the select committee led by Jamie Strange, who actually does a very, very good job as chair. As the spokesperson for the National Party for the digital economy and communications, I am really satisfied that the kinds of things that we’re actually talking about is going to be achieved through this bill out of the committee process.

In New Zealand, digital interactions between individuals, business, and Government are only going to increase. We must have resilience, and, you know, we must have resilient future-focused policies in place, and back innovative new technologies that exist now and actually will grow in the future. A framework for regulated entities to offer recognised digital identity services will add to the constantly changing evolution of our technological nation in a secure way is actually a step forward.

Recently, the New Zealand Parliament also addressed the topic of digital exclusion through select committee petitions, most notably the one by the Citizens Advice Bureau, which recently reported back to the House, and is soon to be debated in its own right, in several weeks’ time. I note that there are many New Zealanders who cannot, for many reasons, engage digitally. The issue is not just the rural-urban divide; there are cultural issues, there are socioeconomic and demographical reasons, and also the specific region that they live in where they actually have digital exclusion. It is vital to ensure public institutions continue to be able to engage with those people who cannot engage online as a part of a due process for all people in New Zealand. That is one aspect of select committee discussions that I’m glad that we have managed to put in the mind of the officials when we were actually working through this. The digital identity framework must be complementary to existing identity tools and not a tool for digital exclusion. It must not become a means to disregard New Zealanders’ access to Government and public services who prefer the traditional method of official identification, trusted for many, many decades.

When we talk about many decades, it actually reminds me, going back to probably some 20-odd years ago when I think it was the Hon Maurice Williamson who introduced the photo driver’s licence. At the time, it was to replace the paper driver’s licence that everybody used to have. I used to have a little blue driver’s licence that didn’t actually have a photo, so my mother could have potentially used it. Who would know the difference, you know? When the photo driver’s licence was introduced, everybody went absolutely wild and said, “You cannot do this. This is actually Big Brother spying on us. This is a travesty. You cannot do this.” Aren’t we so glad that the National Government back then had the foresight to actually provide the driver’s licence which also meant that people had to have their eye test? Immediately after the photo driver’s licences were instigated, there were many people who had to actually wear glasses to drive. That means our roads are safer as a result. How technology improves our lives, this bill will do that.

One further issue relating to digital identity services and legislation that Parliament is considering is also worth a comment. National members were quite concerned and I’m sure that members across were also concerned that the misinformation that circulated from untrusted digital sources regarding what the legislation will achieve and what it is actually about, and there were many, many submissions which were out of bounds for our consideration.

This legislation was debated during the heights of public discourse on the COVID vaccine passes, of a COVID mandate, and alongside channels of mal-information growing fear. This legislation was caught up in the storm of unassociated, disjointed commentary about wider conspiracy theories, fear of Government control, and similar topics. I have to actually quote the report from the committee—and I quote—“Many submissions also compared this bill to social credit systems, centralised state control of identity (for example, the removal of physical driver licences), and moving to a cashless society using digital currencies. None of these ideas are related to the content of this bill.” I have to agree wholeheartedly with this statement, fully, that this bill is not and will not be a mechanism for State control. That is misinformation. That is fake news.

We will not see the withdrawal of existing forms of official identity from circulation as a result of this legislation. As the Minister said, it is actually an opt-in kind of a system where people can choose whether to be in or not; they can choose what information they actually want to share.

I would also like to recognise, though, that some people will have some apprehension that this new option could be the start of a process to end physical identity documentation—this is not the case. These services will be complementary to the existing identity processes as part of the growing digital world that we live in, alongside physical human interactions.

National actually believes in New Zealand having a digital future. We also believe no one should be left behind. On that note, I’d like to request that the Minister for the Digital Economy and Communications be a little bit more ambitious and, perhaps, ask for more funding to actually grow your vision. I’m just a little bit disappointed with the $20 million.

A digital identity framework will allow our digital economy to embrace the next stage of innovation and technological opportunity. I look forward to furthering the discussion on this legislation in detail through the remaining stages of the bill over the weeks to come. In the committee stages, we could, potentially, discuss many other detailed bits in the legislation, and perhaps the Minister could answer some of those questions that we may have. On that note, I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 9.55 p.m.