Wednesday, 8 June 2022

WEDNESDAY, 8 JUNE 2022

WEDNESDAY, 8 JUNE 2022

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia/Prayers

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.

Motions

New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987—35th Anniversary

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Foreign Affairs): I seek leave to move a motion without notice and without debate to recognise the 35th anniversary of the passage of the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987.

SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There appears to be none.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: I move, That this House recognise the 35th anniversary of the commencement of the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act on 8 June 1987, and note that for more than a generation this legislation has shaped Aotearoa New Zealand’s independent foreign policy and that it remains a touchstone for our relationships with the Pacific and with the rest of the world.

Kia tau te āio ki te rangi, kia tau te mārire ki Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa. Kia tau te rangimārie ki ngā tāngata katoa. Ka tihei te ora o te moana, ka tihei te mauri o te tangata nō reira, tihei mauri ora.

[Let there be calm in the heavens and peace over the Pacific. Let there be harmony between all people. Behold the life of the ocean, behold the essence of humankind and therefore behold the sneeze of life.]

Motion agreed to.

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

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

SPEAKER: No bills have been introduced. A petition has been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

CLERK: Petition of Millie Grant requesting that the House pass legislation which places a purchase limit on pharmaceuticals such as paracetamol.

SPEAKER: That petition stands referred to the Petitions Committee. A paper has been delivered for presentation.

CLERK: Climate Change Commission, Advice on Agricultural Assistance and associated technical appendices.

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

CLERK: Reports of the Petitions Committee on the:

petition of Brian Mullane

petition of Catherine Overend

petition of Robert Forsyth, and

petition of Sophie Handford.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes. Tomorrow the first round of the expanded Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry Fund will go live, and is focused on working with medium to large energy-using businesses to reduce carbon emissions by switching from coal and fossil gas, and being more energy-efficient. This plan will unlock private investments, support businesses to reduce their costs and improve productivity, and reduce emissions. Reducing our reliance on fossil fuels will help shield New Zealanders from the volatility of international price hikes while reducing transport and energy bills. This policy is estimated to support projects that will make up around one-sixth of our total emissions reductions required between 2022 and 2025, and over a quarter of our emissions reductions required between 2025 and 2030—I think you’ll agree; an excellent programme.

Christopher Luxon: Why has the Government still not passed firearms prohibition orders legislation, despite the police calling for these powers more than five years ago?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Just for clarity, these are the firearms prohibition orders that the National Party first floated in 2014; at the time, Anne Tolley said that that work was due to be finished by the end of the year. I believe in 2016 Judith Collins said, “Firearm Prohibition Orders: the development of a regime is well advanced.”—2016. We currently have it at select committee, and so it is due back here in August. If after eight years of consideration the National Party are ready to support the bill, I look forward to them doing it when it comes back to the House.

Christopher Luxon: Does she believe that firearms prohibition orders (FPOs) would have helped police prevent the current escalation in gang shootings?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, I can’t quite answer on behalf of the member why his party—when in Government—chose not to put forward firearms prohibition orders. We have. It is before select committee. It comes back in August. If this is a commitment from the National Party to expedite it through its final stages I willingly accept their support.

Christopher Luxon: Does she agree with Police Association president Chris Cayhill, who said that FPOs without—

Hon Members: Cahill.

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I’ll get the member to start again. I’ll take it as a genuine attempt to help with pronunciation.

Christopher Luxon: Does she agree with Police Association president Chris Cahill, who said that FPOs without warrantless search powers would be “useless”, and will the Government include these powers in their FPO bill?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: They have warrantless search powers and they have used them, obviously, in the last month. I think they’ve said even in the last week there’s been, if I recall, until 27 May four warrantless searches executed as part of specifically the tensions that we’ve recently seen in one week, alongside six warranted searches. What I also know is that Chris Cahill said on 26 May of this year, “We think in the medium-to-long term, a gun register will have the most impact on reducing the availability of firearms to criminals”, a policy the National Party did not support.

Christopher Luxon: Will she commit to passing the FPO bill—as soon as possible once it’s brought back to the House—under urgency, and if not, why not?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: If the member is, now, since having given consideration to this bill and not having passed it in 2014 or 2016—that after eight years of consideration you now want it to go through urgency, we would welcome your support. Obviously, it has gone through the normal select committee process; it comes back in August. If the member is proposing urgency for the second and third reading we would welcome it.

Christopher Luxon: Was her police Minister correct when she said, “I reject the premise that gang tensions have increased under this Government’s watch”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member is rejecting the implication that Labour policy has directly increased gang tensions, and I support that. There is nothing that the member could point to that the Government has done, when, in fact, we have increased the penalties for firearms; we have removed prohibited weapons, to the tune of 60,000 of them; we’ve seen more asset seizures; we’ve increased the number of police; and we have doubled the organised crime unit, and yet under that party police numbers decreased. So that is why you cannot point to this Government’s actions as having increased tension, but they are certainly responding to it.

Christopher Luxon: Why does she have confidence in her police Minister?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Because we have the highest police numbers on record, having inherited a period where under the last National Party Government we saw police numbers in one period decline by 300. Because, as I’ve said, we’ve doubled the organised crime unit, and we now have a retail unit to specifically respond to the needs of retailers, and that is because we have record police numbers and are committed to 480 to match one police officer to the population to make sure that we keep up those numbers. We also have additional legislation on criminal seizures of assets for organised crime. We have finally, after much dawdling on the other side of the House, seen the progress of FPOs; we are creating a gun register, which the National Party have not supported; and we increased the penalties for firearms, which the National Party did not support.

Christopher Luxon: Will the Minister of Police still be the Minister of Police after her next reshuffle?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I have confidence in the Minister, and I have said that, for all of the reasons that I have outlined. What I don’t have confidence in is that the member opposite will stick to his word when all of the evidence demonstrates that under National the police lose money and people.

Question No. 2—Finance

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

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): The Crown accounts released this morning reflect the strong position the economy is in to manage the impacts of the challenging global economic environment. For the 10 months to the end of April, the operating balance before gains and losses deficit was $9.4 billion, $3.2 billion below that forecast in Budget 2022 in May. This result shows the strong position New Zealand finds itself in despite a highly uncertain global environment dominated by high levels of inflation, which are caused by the ongoing pandemic and supply-chain disruptions and the war in Ukraine. Our strong economic management has meant that we have navigated COVID to be in a better position than many other countries to deal with the challenges that lie ahead. Our recovery is gaining momentum, and the easing of restrictions and opening up to skilled workers and tourists will help businesses and the economy rebuild.

Barbara Edmonds: What did the report say about net debt?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Using the new debt indicator, which brings New Zealand closer in line with other countries, net debt is at 18 percent of GDP, compared with a forecast of 16.7 percent of GDP. This reflects the inclusion of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund assets, which are impacted by the volatility of global markets. The level of debt is substantially below the countries with which we compare ourselves. Our debt is set to peak at about half of Australia’s, around a third of that in the UK, and around a fifth of that in the US, measured consistently as a percentage of GDP. The year 2022 will continue to be a challenging year for many New Zealanders facing the impact of global inflation and the ongoing impact of the pandemic; however, our economic and fiscal position is strong. We are one of a handful of countries with a triple A credit rating from the leading ratings agencies, and our strong economic management has also been recognised by the OECD and the International Monetary Fund.

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

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The employment market is continuing to support the economy, with job ads rising in May. The SEEK New Zealand employment report increased 2.5 percent in May, compared with the previous month, to a record high and is up 40.4 percent for the year. BNZ’s economists said the heightened job ads portray exceptionally strong demand for staff at present. They say that the demand for workers was reasonably widespread across regions and industries and is consistent with the official measure of New Zealand unemployment remaining exceptionally low, after the record low rate of 3.2 percent reported for the March quarter in 2022.

Question No. 3—Foreign Affairs

3. Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs: Is she satisfied with advice received in 2021 from ministry officials which recommended against supporting a global moratorium on all deep sea mining; if so, why?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Yes, I am satisfied with that advice. Our focus is on engaging with the International Seabed Authority (ISA) process as the best means to achieve an outcome that deep-sea mining does not take place unless we can ensure the protection of our ocean through setting high environmental standards. At the most recent ISA negotiations in March this year, New Zealand worked with Chile and Costa Rica to advance a significant proposal to improve environmental decision-making and environmental standards in the ISA regulations. This is a proposal that has since been co-sponsored by the Federated States of Micronesia, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Is New Zealand sending a delegation to the next meeting of the International Seabed Authority Council in mid-July and, if so, will Cabinet decide and update Aotearoa New Zealand’s negotiating mandate before that?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: I intend to review the negotiating mandate in July—it seems a good juncture before the end of the moratorium period—but can I say that when I adjusted the negotiating parameters to participate in the ISA, part of that was to ensure that an inclusive forum for participation in meetings was able to occur, so that enables in-person and virtual participation.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Does the Minister agree with officials’ advice that “While seabed mining offers potential economic benefits, precaution is warranted in the face of uncertain and inadequate information about the marine environment and the effects of such activities.”, and, if so, isn’t a more precautionary approach for Aotearoa New Zealand to support a moratorium on seabed mining under the high seas?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: There’s a number of legs in that question, but if I could plead with the House for, perhaps, a little longer answer, yes, we do agree with the precautionary approach, and it was a part of our revised mandate. Secondly, the reason why we’re participating in the ISA is to ensure that we’re taking a position that is consistent with New Zealand’s own approach to deep-sea mining. Thirdly, the way in which we’re advocating for a high standards environmental protection framework will set a threshold that, in effect, must be adhered to in order for any seabed mining to take place.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Point of order. I seek leave to table a briefing from New Zealand Foreign Affairs and Trade of 24 November 2021, entitled Mandate for the Upcoming Meetings of the International Seabed Authority.

SPEAKER: The source of the document and whether it’s publicly available in any other way?

Hon Eugenie Sage: It was an Official Information Act request.

SPEAKER: OK. Is there leave for it to be tabled? Is there any objection? There appears to be none.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Teanau Tuiono (remote): How is New Zealand supporting the call of Pelenatita Kara, manager of Tonga’s national campaign against seabed mining, that the New Zealand Government needs to show regional leadership and help to protect Pacific Island nations from extractive activities that will harm the moana and their coastal resources, quoted in RNZ yesterday?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: Firstly, can I acknowledge the widespread views across the Pacific in relation to deep-sea mining. It has caused some division between member States of Pacific nation Governments and NGO organisations within their own countries. New Zealand will consider any request for assistance from a Pacific partner where the request relates to developing robust legal frameworks, governance structures, and environmental protections. In line with the sovereign rights of Pacific Island Governments and respect for their mana to assert their own kaitiakitanga responsibilities, Aotearoa New Zealand does not take a position for or against mining on the seabed within the jurisdiction of other Pacific Island countries’ international waters.

Teanau Tuiono (remote): Is the Minister satisfied with the accuracy of the statement in her ministry’s advice that supporting a global moratorium is “inconsistent with Pacific Island States’ sovereign right to chart their own development course, and their mana to determine their kaitiakitanga” when many Pacific leaders are calling for a moratorium to apply countries’ exclusive zones?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: I thank the member for the question. I acknowledge just how the differing views within Pacific nations are in relation to seabed mining. There is not a uniform view, but New Zealand will consistently act to ensure that by participating in the ISA we are advocating for high standards of environmental protection to ensure that a mining code can be set, and that those standards must be met in order to mine in any case. What I can say is that jumping straight to a moratorium provides a very difficult point at which countries like New Zealand could be seen to act consistently with our own domestic approach.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Is she prepared for Aotearoa to be complicit in giving the green light for deep-sea mining in Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa when scientists warn of the likelihood of an unprecedented environmental destruction?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: I can say that New Zealand has acted consistently and in line with our own domestic approach for high environmental standards to ensure that there is an international standard that could be applied, certainly, to the Pacific, and there would be good merit in doing that. Can I also say that, in terms of the revised mandate, we want to ensure that we continue to advocate for a robust mining code that provides for high environmental standards, as I’ve said; that we signal that New Zealand will vote against a mining code that does not provide for the effective protection of the marine environment, as required under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS); that we will advocate for additional environmental scientific expertise in the ISA to build that body of knowledge; and that we’ll continue to develop coalitions with States, which we already have, who are on the ISA council and who share our concerns regarding environmental protection. Furthermore, we’ll make sure, and have advocated, for inclusive meeting modalities so that those States who cannot participate in person have other means of participating so that they can contribute to this very important debate.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What is her response to indigenous leaders who have called for a moratorium on deep-sea mining in the Pacific, including hapū and iwi in Taranaki, Pacific Elders’ Voice, which includes former presidents Hilda Heine of Marshall Islands, Anote Tong of Kiribati, and Tuvalu’s former Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: What I will say is that by advocating for higher environmental standards through the ISA is a legitimate pathway to ensure that there is a framework to protect the marine environment, and establishing a mining code will give effect to that high environmental standard.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: How does she justify the Government’s position to mana whenua, indigenous groups, and local communities in Aotearoa and across the Pacific who will continue to face decades of expensive and time-consuming litigation to try and protect their moana, as a result of Aotearoa supporting deep-sea mining in the Pacific?

SPEAKER: Order! I’m going to—

Hon Nanaia Mahuta: I reject the second part—

SPEAKER: Oh, well, no—I’ll let the Minister answer it, but it was strictly an out of order supplementary.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: I reject the second part of that question; it is simply not true. And in fact, by participating in the ISA to ensure that there is advocacy for environmental protections and high standards in the marine environment, and in the setting of a mining code, that will set a threshold that is not currently there that is consistent with UNCLOS, and that will give greater protections than are already being experienced across the Pacific.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Point of order. I’m not sure which part was incorrect, Mr Speaker?

SPEAKER: Well if the member had listened to the answer she would have known.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Will she advocate for a moratorium or ban on seabed mining domestically and internationally to prevent such litigation, meet our international climate commitments, and protect local fisheries and ecosystems; if not, why not?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: The position that New Zealand is taking in relation to our participation in the ISA is absolutely consistent with our domestic position.

Question No. 4—Government’s Response to the Royal Commission’s Report into the Terrorist Attack on the Christchurch Mosques

4. IBRAHIM OMER (Labour) to the Lead Coordination Minister for the Government’s Response to the Royal Commission’s Report into the Terrorist Attack on the Christchurch Mosques: What progress has been made in implementing Recommendation 14 of the Royal Commission of Inquiry report into the terrorist attack on Christchurch masjidain?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Lead Coordination Minister for the Government’s Response to the Royal Commission’s Report into the Terrorist Attack on the Christchurch Mosques): Recommendation 14 called on the Government to establish a programme to fund independent, New Zealand - specific research on the causes of, and measures to prevent, violent extremism and terrorism. On Friday last week, the Prime Minister and I attended the official launch of the National Centre of Research Excellence for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism—He Whenua Taurikura. By establishing the centre at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, and directly supporting research nationally, we are going further than the original recommendation by the royal commission. The centre will be a keystone in helping us to become a more resilient, inclusive, and safer Aotearoa New Zealand. The launch of this centre is another step in implementing all of the recommendations from the royal commission report, which remain a priority for the Government as we continue to honour those lost and affected by the terrorist attack on the Christchurch mosques.

Ibrahim Omer: Who has been appointed to lead this centre?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I’m pleased that two highly-distinguished academics have been appointed to lead the centre. They are Professor Dr Joanna Kidman—whose whakapapa is Ngāti Maniapoto and Ngāti Raukawa—and Distinguished Professor Emeritus Paul Spoonley. One of the strengths of establishing the National Centre of Research Excellence for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism is appointing leadership that can drive this important work across Aotearoa New Zealand. Professor Kidman has been appointed for a three-year term, while Distinguished Professor Emeritus Spoonley has been appointed as an interim director for up to a year to support the establishment of the centre. Both professors are renowned experts in their fields, and will bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the role as directors.

Ibrahim Omer: How will this centre contribute to the prevention and the countering of violent extremism?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The National Centre of Research Excellence for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism will play a key role in bringing together research organisations, civil society, and Government to research this important area. The royal commission made clear that those disposed to carrying out violent extremism and terrorist acts live in our communities, and so understanding the influences and factors that drive people to this behaviour requires an understanding of what is happening at a family, whānau, and community level. The centre will provide scholarships that support research carried out at a New Zealand university or tertiary institute that will contribute to developing our understanding of the drivers of extremism.

Question No. 5—Finance

5. NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National) to the Minister of Finance: Does he agree with the Prime Minister’s assessment about the Budget 2023 operating allowance that “in terms of increasing costs that are likely to be seen by some of our agencies and departments, we’re looking at somewhere in the range of $3.5 billion that will be required to continue to operate as we stand”; if so, does $2.5 billion remain in the Budget 2023 operating allowance following the pre-commitments made in this year’s Budget?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): In answer to the first part of the question, I’ve always found agreeing with the Prime Minister to be a sensible approach. The Prime Minister is correct in noting the high level of cost pressures that Government departments are facing. Elevated rates of inflation result in increased costs for the Government, as well as households. In response to the second part of the question, the member is making an incorrect comparison between two numbers. As part of the public finance modernisation work that the Government is undertaking, a number of areas of the Budget have shifted to multi-year funding. As a result of that change, the health budgets and the budgets associated with the two new budget clusters now have greater certainty in their level of funding in the coming years. The estimate of $3.5 billion of cost pressures at Budget 2023 includes some of the areas that are subject to multi-year funding—for instance, the $1.3 billion investment in health cost pressures that we have committed for Budget 2023. Those areas of the Budget that are now on multi-year funding tracks will not be drawing upon the rest of the Budget 2023 operating allowance when we get into the next Budget cycle.

Nicola Willis: Isn’t it the case that the Budget documents printed by the Treasury advise that the operating allowance he has committed next year falls a billion short of what would be required to maintain existing services?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No. As I explained both to the member at select committee this morning and, indeed, today—

Nicola Willis: No, you didn’t.

SPEAKER: Order!

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: —and, indeed, right now, is that the member is not counting, within that number, what we’ve already funded for cost pressures through the multi-year allowance.

Nicola Willis: Has the Minister seen page 46 of the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update in which Treasury warns that there are only three ways that he can meet the spending track he has committed: reprioritising existing services, increasing tax, or increasing debt?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes, indeed, I’m very familiar with page 46, and that’s, in fact, where the member could look to discover that, in fact, we’ve already funded the health budget for Budget 2023 and the clusters. There is sufficient funding available for us to be able to meet cost pressures as they’ve been articulated. But also, as we discussed this morning, it is not uncommon for the Budget allowance to change between when it’s set. In fact—

Chris Bishop: It’s very common with this Government. It always goes up under this Government.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: —one occasion, for Mr Bishop’s benefit, was in the 2015 Budget Policy Statement, where the operating allowance for 2016 increased to $1.6 billion, and Bill English, a Minister that Mr Bishop might be familiar with, said: “A higher allowance in Budget 2016 means the Government can invest in public services, addressing the long-term drivers of social dysfunction to reduce long-term spending pressures.” Wise words.

Nicola Willis: Can the Minister identify a single occasion when he has not committed more spending in a Budget operating allowance than he said he would in the prior year’s Budget—a single occasion?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Again, as we discussed at select committee this morning, the Budget allowance is set through the Budget Policy Statement, normally about five months before a Budget is given out. How it is arrived at is a result of where we want to land on debt or on deficit. On every occasion, we have come out better in terms of our debt position and better in terms of either our surplus or deficit position on the basis of the operating allowances that we’ve done. I repeat: it’s not uncommon. It wasn’t just 2016; it was 2017 and it was 2013, as well, that the previous National Government was above their operating allowance.

Nicola Willis: Can we take it, then, that the Minister is today confirming that in next year’s Budget, he will allocate more than the $4.5 billion he committed to in this Budget and that he knew that when these documents were published, but has no regard for the importance of the operating allowance as a fiscal management tool?

SPEAKER: Any one of the three questions.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Absolutely not. What this Government will remain committed to is keeping a careful balance on what we do, between keeping a lid on debt, making sure that we return to surplus a year earlier than the National Party did, and making sure that we make up for the nine long years of neglect in public services.

Question No. 6—Forestry

6. LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE (Labour) to the Minister of Forestry: What support is the Government providing through Budget 2022 to help develop the forestry and wood processing sector?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Forestry): Budget 2022 demonstrated the Government’s commitment to the primary sector and reaffirms that we see it as the bedrock of our future economic security. For the forestry and wood processing sector, alongside investments made from the Climate Emergency Response Fund, the Government has also made significant investments of $27 million towards the Forestry and Wood Processing Industry Transformation Plan and $29 million to expand the forestry-based planning and advisory service. Both investments are to enable a pathway for New Zealand from a commodity resource producer to a sector generating high-value jobs, delivering development for our regions.

Lemauga Lydia Sosene: How will the forestry-based industry transformation plan support New Zealand’s move to a high-wage, low-emissions economy?

Hon STUART NASH: The forestry and wood processing sector in New Zealand is New Zealand’s third-biggest primary sector export earner, contributing between $6 billion and $7 billion per annum over recent years. With increasing global demand for low-emissions materials and fuels, New Zealand’s large forestry estate is a vital strategic asset. It will continue to drive development in both established and new areas—for example, long-lived wood products such as engineered wood products are a viable substitute for emissions-intense materials such as concrete and steel, and the residues from timber processing and harvesting skid sites can be used to generate solid heat energy and produce biofuels, displacing carbon-intensive fossil fuels like coal. Sector transformation will also support New Zealand’s reputation as a producer of premium, environmentally friendly goods, helping to offset and reduce emissions in other sectors. This is vital as trading partners and consumers increasingly seek environmentally friendly and sustainable products.

Lemauga Lydia Sosene: Why is an expanded forestry-based planning and advisory service needed?

Hon STUART NASH: The expansion is a key part of the New Zealand Forest Service making a shift to a more customer-focused approach by providing greater access to independent advice on all aspects of forestry planning. This includes improving forestry and land management practices to ensure the right tree, at the right place, at the right time and to adapt to climate change. The expanded services will build greater understanding of the wood supply chain, the forest industry, and provide essential coordination and support for the sector’s long-term investment decisions. In particular, it will support the Government’s climate change goals, including native afforestation and woody biomass forest crops and enable greater reach to a broader group of sector stakeholders.

Question No. 7—Health

7. Dr SHANE RETI (National) to the Minister of Health: What is the current national nursing shortage for each of the four main nursing groups as described in written parliamentary question 11238, and which hospital facilities, if any, are currently impacted by nursing shortages?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): In response to the first part of the member’s question, I’m advised that, as at 31 March 2022, nurse vacancies are as follows: enrolled nurses, 101.94 fulltime-equivalents or 12.9 percent of the enrolled nurse workforce; nurse practitioners, 6.25 fulltime-equivalents or 6.7 percent of that workforce; registered midwives, including senior midwives, 310 fulltime-equivalents or 23.8 percent of that workforce; and registered nurses, including senior nurses, 2,663 or 9.63 percent of that workforce. In response to the second of the member’s question, district health boards are responsible for managing their own workforces. Data is not collected at the level of granularity to be able to indicate specific hospital facilities that may be affected by the current vacancy rates across the health system. I point out that there is currently an elevated level absenteeism, particularly of nurses, because of COVID and other winter illnesses that is also putting pressure on the hospital system.

Dr Shane Reti: When he said last year that the health system was well prepared, had he been made aware of the size of the expected nursing shortage at that time?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: What I am aware of is that since this Government came into office, it has funded an additional 4,000 nurse roles in our hospital system. Not all of those roles are filled at the moment. But in addition to that, the impact of COVID, particularly Omicron, has seen an elevated level of absenteeism of the health workforce, including nurses. Now, with the winter flu season upon us, that also has put pressure on those workforces.

Dr Shane Reti: What advice has he received, if any, on the number of years it will take to clear the current nursing shortage?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The advice I’ve had is that providing the Government is committed to properly funding the health system and supporting the nurse workforce by lifting their pay and paying them properly—as this Government has done, increasing their pay 20 percent since we became the Government, rather than nurse pay going backwards in real terms under the previous Government—then we stand a good chance of filling those vacancies and getting the health workforce that we need to provide the healthcare that New Zealanders want.

Dr Shane Reti: What impact, if any, could Australia’s decision to spend $4.5 billion to grow their health workforce have on the size of New Zealand’s nursing shortage?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: That remains to be seen, and, of course, New Zealanders going to Australia go in with their eyes open, and they know that when they go to work in Australia they don’t have the same rights to residency as Australians get working here. They don’t get the same rights from the National Disability Insurance Scheme over there that workers here get under our ACC scheme. Anybody going from New Zealand to work in Australia does not have the same education rights for their children as would happen in New Zealand, and there are a range of other conditions that make Australia a challenging place to secure a workforce. Of course, that is a country—particularly in New South Wales and Victoria—whose health systems were under such extreme pressure that they were in fact overwhelmed by COVID, something that didn’t happen in New Zealand.

Dr Shane Reti: Are health officials receiving formal notifications such as section 31s from aged care and a provisional improvement notice from Wellington Hospital showing that due to nursing shortages, it is unsafe for some nurses to practice?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I’m aware that a provisional improvement notice was served on Capital and Coast District Health Board recently because of staff shortages, and that appears to be related to the fact that hospital management hasn’t taken the same steps that other hospitals around the country have done to manage down planned care—which was always expected around this time of the year with the winter flu season—to keep pressure off beds so that those who are being admitted for respiratory conditions get the beds that they need.

Question No. 8—Women

8. SARAH PALLETT (Labour—Ilam) to the Minister for Women: What advice has she received on the positive impacts that Budget 2022 will have for New Zealand women?

Hon JAN TINETTI (Minister for Women): Analysis from the Ministry for Women found that overall at least $2.34 billion of Budget 2022 is anticipated to have an impact on women and girls. The initiatives that will have the strongest impact for women include the cost of living package, as we know that women are overrepresented in low-income work and part-time work; the Child Support Pass-on Initiative to enable support payments to be passed on to sole parent beneficiaries rather than being retained by the Crown—approximately 82 percent of sole parents are women; over $40 million for support workers’ pay equity settlement and over $34 million for pay parity for early childhood education teachers—both workforces are predominantly women; and, importantly, funding to support the Accident Compensation (Maternal Birth Injury and Other Matters) Amendment Bill—targeted support for those who have suffered traumatic births.

Sarah Pallett: What funding was secured for Vote Women in Budget 2022?

Hon JAN TINETTI: In this Budget, Vote Women received $7.15 million over six years to continue to support the Mana Wāhine Kaupapa inquiry and $8.2 million over four years to resource the implementation of the Women’s Employment Action Plan, which has a particular focus on women who experience disadvantages in the labour market. This lift in baseline for the ministry demonstrates both the Government’s commitment to gender equality and also the increasing demand for gender-based analysis across Government, NGOs, and the private sector.

Sarah Pallett: What other work is the Government progressing for New Zealand women?

Hon JAN TINETTI: As the Minister for Women, I can say with confidence that across the Government’s work plan we are delivering for women through progress in areas such as settling historic pay equity claims—and just yesterday I was delighted to sign, alongside my colleague Minister Little, the historic DHB administration and clerical settlement; reducing the gender pay gap—for example, in the Public Service we’ve reduced it by 30 percent; increasing financial and childcare support for sole mothers; and targeting investments in employment, education, and training for women.

Question No. 9—Immigration

9. ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays) to the Minister of Immigration: Does he stand by his statement that “There’s some evidence that when people come from offshore and get into nursing roles, that they might leave a bit sooner – if they get residence”; if so, does he also stand by his answer related to who gave him this evidence that “we spoke to the likes of the Aged Care Association and other home-based care stakeholders … we also kept in close contact with the Ministry of Health”?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Immigration): In answer to the member’s first question, yes. In answer to her second question, yes.

Erica Stanford: Why did he include the Aged Care Association and other home-based care stakeholders in his answer to who he received evidence from, when the only two sector bodies he consulted with—the Aged Care Association and the Home and Community Health Association—have both stated that they did not provide him any such evidence or any suggestion that nurses leave their profession once gaining residence?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Because when we did engage, at least with the Aged Care Association, they outlined to us that they had concerns around retention of nurses.

Erica Stanford: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to table two emails sent to me from the Aged Care Association and the Home and Community Health Association stating they never provided such evidence.

SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action? There appears to be none.

Erica Stanford: Was the evidence he referred to by “keeping in close contact with the Ministry of Health” recorded data collected by District Health Boards (DHBs) of what migrant nurses do when they resign, or was it simply anecdotes from the Ministry of Health officials, given that DHBs do not keep such records, and therefore wouldn’t be in a position to provide such evidence?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: The evidence that we relied on, in terms of data, I understand, is Nursing Council of New Zealand data, which goes through the Ministry of Health, and which was sourced by Immigration officials.

Erica Stanford: What percentage of migrant nurses leave their profession after gaining residence, based on that evidence he says he’s received?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: As we went through the process of understanding the situation and retention concerns within the sector, my understanding: it’s not necessarily about gaining residence. In 2020, the Nursing Council figures showed that 6 percent of migrant nurses exited nursing, in comparison to 4 percent of New Zealand nurses who exited nursing in that year. When we took our decision around the rebalance, we wanted to make sure that we were making a simple pathway for nurses in order to attract nurses here to deal with retention issues and not make a situation around retention any worse, which was a concern of those who were consulted.

Erica Stanford: Can the Minister explain why he didn’t use section 49 of the Immigration Act to give migrant nurses immediate but conditional residence that would be conditional on them working as a nurse for two years, thereby putting us in a more competitive position with the likes of Australia, who gives immediate residence to nurses?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: We took a decision during the rebalance to give a simple and streamlined pathway to nurses. They, if they stay in nursing when they come to New Zealand, have residence after two years. Now, we have opened that pathway to 12 more cohorts of nurses pre-COVID, and under that member’s previous Government it was only available to aged-care nurses. We have expanded that to a broad range of 13 nurses. The nursing sector is much better off as a result of our rebalance.

Erica Stanford: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I don’t believe that the Minister addressed the question as to why he didn’t use section 49 of the Immigration Act.

SPEAKER: I was about to pull him up for going on too long about it.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I withdraw and apologise.

Question No. 10—Conservation

10. RACHEL BROOKING (Labour) to the Minister of Conservation: What support will Budget 2022 provide to help protect nature and tackle biodiversity loss?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Conservation): Budget 2022 sees an additional $400 million invested into conservation, which will provide a significant boost to the implementation of the Aotearoa New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy and protect our threatened species. As stated in our Government’s emissions reduction plan, our native ecosystems also support our climate efforts by removing and storing carbon and increasing our resilience to climate change impacts. Since coming to office in 2017, we’ve invested more than $1.2 billion into conservation, demonstrating this Government’s commitment to protecting nature now and for future generations.

Rachel Brooking: How will this investment help protect biodiversity on land?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: Biodiversity and protecting indigenous biodiversity in particular is at the heart of Budget 2022 for conservation. I’m incredibly proud of the fact that $30 million has been allocated for a new national programme for deer management and goat control, delivered in partnership with the hunting sector, to help maintain forest integrity while maintaining hunting opportunities. The Predator Free 2050 goal also received a $64 million boost with more support for inspiring community efforts across the country; innovative tools and techniques and further predator eradication on offshore islands; and a further $27 million, an increase, will provide for the Department of Conservation’s National Predator Control Programme, increasing coverage from 450,000 hectares now to 600,000 per year.

Rachel Brooking: How will this investment help protect biodiversity in the marine environment?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: Mr Speaker, and colleagues in the House, today is World Oceans Day. We know that the marine environment is facing a range of challenges. Budget 2022 provides $7 million to allow the Department of Conservation to improve their understanding of how toxoplasmosis gets into the Māui dolphin habitat, and enable further action to protect the antipodean albatross, the Whenua Hou diving petrel, and the black petrel. The sum of $14 million has also been allocated to support implementation of marine protection and localised management actions—for example, the work under way in the Hauaki Gulf and the South East of the South Island.

Question No. 11—Police

11. NICOLE McKEE (ACT) to the Minister of Police: When did she first learn about the theft of licensed firearms owners’ details from a disused Auckland City police station, and what explanation have Police given her, if any?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister of Police): I was first informed of the incident on 26 May. Police advised me they were in the process of notifying the Privacy Commissioner and have launched a criminal investigation into the matter. They have made arrests and laid a number of charges in relation to the incident. It’s disappointing that this breach has occurred, and I have relayed my concern to Police as to how they securely store information in locations they no longer regularly use. The investigation is ongoing and I expect, as a result, the Police will put measures in place to ensure this does not happen again.

Nicole McKee: So what steps, if any, did the Minister take after being informed of the theft on 26 May, of licensed firearm owners’ sensitive information?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: I’m relying on Police to continue to conduct their investigation, but I did express concern to Police that this matter had occurred in a building that was no longer used by the Police.

Nicole McKee: How many licensed firearm owners had their information stolen?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: The Police are conducting an investigation, and during the course of that investigation, those details may be known.

Nicole McKee: How can licensed firearm owners have any faith in this Government and the Police to develop and administer a nationwide whole-of-system firearms register when this is the second breach of information in the last three years?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: Budget 2022 included $208 million to deliver the firearms register, which will bring our firearms licensing system into the 21st century. This will help ensure situations like this never happen again. As part of the firearms regime modernisation process, significant developments are being made to ensure security and privacy of personal data and information, and this work has already begun with new police online application forms—licensed application forms. All new police cyber-systems are processed through the certification and accreditation framework, which is directed from Government via the GCSB and protective security requirements. The design and build of new systems is carefully revised to meet or exceed the Government’s security controls, which are detailed in the New Zealand Information Security Manual.

Question No. 12—Police

12. Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa) to the Minister of Police: Does she stand by her statement, “There is no doubt that our communities are feeling some incredible distress with the recent activities”; if so, does she believe gang tensions have increased under her watch?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister of Police): Yes. As I outlined in the House yesterday, police currently have a major operation under way in response to the recent escalation in tensions between two gangs. The operation is supported by the deployment of the Armed Offenders Squad, who are actively conducting search warrants and making arrests. As of this morning, there have been 23 search warrants carried out, 24 arrests made, 11 firearms seized, along with 300 rounds of ammunition.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Why hasn’t Operation Cobalt, the dedicated gang response unit, been established and set up?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: As I’ve said before, we are in transition between Tauwhiro and Cobalt, and can I just say to the member that Tauwhiro itself was a successful operation in that it conducted 743 warrantless searches, seized 1,724 firearms, 54 kilograms of methamphetamine, and made 1,388 arrests.

Hon Mark Mitchell: So can the Minister confirm to the House that at a time when we’ve seen 23 drive-by shootings, the country has never seen the level of lawlessness and gang tension currently in the community, that there is no dedicated gang response—Operation Tauwhiro has been stood down and Operation Cobalt has not been stood up?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: I absolutely refute that. Every single front-line officer is working really hard to ensure their communities are safe. We have the gang harm reduction unit, we are transitioning between Tauwhiro and Cobalt, and we have invested $94 million to deal with gangs. Every day, that member stands in this House and disrespects the work of the police. I feel for them. I feel for our front-line officers who cannot be supported by the Opposition. I would look to that Opposition to support the police better, to ensure that they continue with our process to ensure that we have one officer for every 480 Kiwis, and that they support the work that we do in ensuring that we’ve got sufficient cops on the beat.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Does the Minister understand that I’m holding her to account and not the front line?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: Does that member understand that the Minister is responsible for funding and resourcing the police? The Commissioner of Police is responsible for the deployment, and the Minister does not tell the commissioner what to do.

General Debate

General Debate

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

This is a Government that is setting up our health system to succeed. After years of underfunding; after years of neglecting it; after years of seeing the health workforce being underpaid, their pay rates going backwards; we now have a Government that is focused on having a health system that will meet the needs of all New Zealanders.

I was very proud last night when the House passed the third reading of the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Bill, because that legislation will now set ourselves up to have a health system that will be the envy of the world. We’ll have a health system now that focuses on health need, a health system that can be coordinated, managed, and run coherently across the country to meet all the health needs of our communities—a health system that will be focused on equity. Because the reality is, we have populations in this country that have been denied access to health services. Māori—to whom we have a commitment under the Treaty of Waitangi to treat equally and fairly, and they have not got that in our health services. They have seven years less in terms of life expectancy and longevity compared to the rest of the population. That tells you all you need to know about what is happening and about that inequity of access to our health services. We are on the road to now a health system that will be the best for New Zealand.

When you look at what the legislation sets up, you see Health New Zealand, the Māori Health Authority, and a public health agency now focused on public health. If there’s one thing we’ve learnt over the last two years it’s the importance of public health and public health measures that support a country and a population, and we now have that. Supported by the national public health service, we bring together all those incredibly talented people out there in our communities already, and give them a nationwide leadership that can actually deliver the public health services that are needed on the ground. And we can move them around as there are outbreaks, pandemics, water treatment disasters in parts of the country. We can move talented people around the country where the need is, as opposed to having to negotiate with 20 different—or 12 different—public health service providers.

We will have a revamped Ministry of Health that will focus on leading the system. It will bring its incredible intellectual firepower to bear. It will draw on the data that we’ll be generating from the new systems—the new platforms that we’re in the process of developing, because we’ve invested in technology as well—and give us the best insights and profile of our health needs and our population needs to deliver a health system that will be the envy of everybody.

Finally, we will have a Pharmac that is now well integrated into the rest of the health administration—Pharmac making decisions about therapeutic treatments that draws on the best from the ministry, from Health New Zealand, from the Māori Health Authority, and from all dimensions of our health system. Because this is a Government that backs health, this is a Government that backs our health workforce, and this is a Government that wants the best health for every New Zealander in the country.

You can contrast that to the members opposite. The Leader of the Opposition was on the radio this morning, and when he was asked, “Are you going to put more cash into health?”, what did he say? “No—no. They don’t need it.” So here it comes again. The good old National Party softening New Zealand up to say, “We don’t actually need a decent health system; we can carry on underfunding it if we ever get the opportunity to again. We don’t have to back our health workforce—we’ll just pay them peanuts and hope we get the best out of it.” That’s what National does when they’re in Government, because they’re obsessed about two things—they’re obsessed about two things: tax cuts for the wealthy; and the people who pay for that are the people who depend on public services like our public health service, like our other public services as well. That’s what the recipe is that National offers the rest of New Zealand: tax cuts for the wealthy, and everybody else can pay for it through miserable services—services that don’t meet the needs that we’ve got for our population—and they’ll continue to underpay our health workforce.

Well, this Government is determined to turn that around, and ever since we took office—ever since we took office—we have given priority to this most fundamental of social services—keeping people healthy, keeping people well, providing the services, supporting the health workforce, and supporting our doctors. And now we have a piece of legislation that every Government will be held to account to. We’ll have Government policy statements. We’ll have strategies for those populations that have so often missed out: Māori, Pacific, women, the disabled community, and rural communities that missed out so much under their mismanagement of health. We will have a health system because this Government, this party on this side, is the party of high-quality public health.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): This is a Government that hates the term “soft on crime”. But the reality of it is that it’s not just us that’s calling them soft on crime; it’s 68 percent of people polled in the country that call them soft on crime. It’s not just those 68 percent; it’s 54 percent of Labour voters that call them soft on crime. There’s been a 40 percent increase in gang numbers; a 21 percent increase in violent crime; a 31 percent increase in violent retail crime; and a tsunami of ram raids, youth, and juvenile offending. This Government’s record in the last four or five years has been nothing but soft on crime.

Let me give you some examples. Let’s put it on the record. Let’s have a look at this bill that was introduced by Chris Bishop. Chris Bishop brought this bill to the House on 3 May 2018, four years ago. It was the Arms (Firearms Prohibition Orders) Amendment Bill. What this bill did was it provided new powers for police to search persons, vehicles, and premises of specified serious and violent gang members for firearms at any time—four years ago. What happened to it? It was voted down by Labour. Soft on crime—soft on crime.

Let’s have a look, what’s the next bill here? Simeon Brown’s bill, introduced on 13 February 2020, was voted down by Labour. It was the Arms (Firearms Prohibition Orders) Amendment Bill (No 2). The purpose of the bill: to prevent the most dangerous gang members from accessing firearms. Second strike—voted down by Labour. What are Labour? Soft on crime.

Here’s one from me, Mark Mitchell, introduced on 17 May 2018. It was the Protection for First Responders and Prison Officers Bill. Guess what this bill did! It created a new offence for injuring a first responder or prison officer, with intent, which was a mandatory minimum sentence of six months imprisonment. It included emergency and health and fire service staff in the offence of assault on police, prison, or traffic officers currently provided for on the Summary Offences Act.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Great bill. What happened to it?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: We put this in place—what happened to it? Tell me what you think happened to it, Mr Brownlee.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Labour voted it down.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: They voted it down—Labour voted it down. Soft on crime.

And by the way, the real crime of this is that I met with our ambulance staff, our incredible St John Ambulance paramedics, two weeks ago. Something that’s really disturbing that they’re having to deal with now is young female officers being assaulted—and some of them sexually assaulted on the job. They asked me specifically why this bill wasn’t passed in this Parliament. Do you know why it wasn’t passed in this Parliament? Soft on crime. Look at them all, with their heads down.

Another very good Simeon Brown bill, introduced 14 February 2018, was the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill. Guess who voted this down! Labour. Soft on crime.

Let’s have a look at this one from Erica Stanford.

Hon Member: Not another one!

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Another one. Erica Stanford introduced a very good bill on 25 March 2021. This was the Crimes (Robbery) Amendment Bill. The reason why she brought this into the House was because the police asked for it. Quite simply, what it did is it dealt with a vehicle that’s taken by force—the offender may commit other offences which are relatively minor. There needs to be a stronger remedy for when a car is taken by force. That’s why she brought this bill to the House. Guess who voted it down! Labour.

Maureen Pugh: “Soft on crime Labour”.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Soft on crime; well done, Maureen Pugh.

On 23 September 2021, Simeon Brown introduced the Public Finance—get a load of this one—(Prohibition on Providing Public Funds to Gangs) Amendment Bill. The sum of $2.7 million went to Harry Tam and his stooges up in the Hawke’s Bay to run some sort of weird meth programme that never had any results. I met with the police up there a month ago. They were disgusted by what happened. Terrible use of taxpayers’ funds. These guys are still defending it. Guess what they did with that bill! They voted it down. Soft on crime.

There’s too many of these. I’m not going to have time to get through all of these. Nicole McKee introduced the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) (Definition of Significant Criminal Activity) Amendment Bill. This is the one that was just brought into the House a couple of weeks ago. It actually went after the gangs and it meant that if there was a firearm found, they could seize some additional assets, as well. It was a good bill. Even the Prime Minister came out and said, “Oh yeah, that sounds like a good bill.” Why did you vote it down? Labour voted it down two weeks ago. What are they? Soft on crime.

Here comes the Ginzu knives, right—if you had any doubts at all. Kris Faafoi, the Minister of Justice, and what is their priority? Repeal the three-strikes legislation, the only bit of decent legislation that actually puts some rigour around sentencing. The three-strikes law was intended to deter repeat offenders with the threat of progressively longer mandatory prison terms and to incapacitate those who continue to reoffend despite the additional penalties. Guess what this Government is doing! They’re repealing this; about the only tough piece of legislation we’ve got in our books.

Quite simply, this is a Government that is soft on crime.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister for Food Safety): This Government is securing our economic future through Budget 2022 as we recover from COVID-19. While we know that our economy has outperformed many other countries and that unemployment is at a record low rate of 3.2, we still know it’s been a tough couple of years for many New Zealanders.

The pandemic has caused huge disruption in our daily lives, and our workplaces and our families are feeling the pressure. There are the impacts of rising inflation and supply chain disruptions and pressure from oil prices because of the illegal invasion of Ukraine, and these are being felt at the petrol pump and at the supermarket. That’s why Budget 2022 includes more support for families. We’re delivering a short-term cost of living payment for about 2.1 million Kiwis to help with the impact of rising prices—$350 in three monthly instalments starting on 1 August. That’s worth about $27 per week for three months. It comes on top of a package of income support measures that came into force in 1 April this year, which I know the seniors community in particular greatly appreciated. It includes a significant lift in main benefit rates, student allowances, the family tax credit, and childcare allowances as well as superannuation.

Budget 2022 tackles the cost of transport by extending the 25c fuel excise tax cut and keeping public transport half price for a further two months—another measure very popular among seniors, and we are also making half-price public transport cuts permanent for community services card holders.

We’re addressing the root cause of higher grocery bills by introducing urgent legislation to stop supermarkets from blocking competition, from accessing land to open new stores. These are meaningful steps that will help Kiwi families face the cost of living pressures right now. At the same time, we’re investing in infrastructure, combating climate change, and investing in the critical services that people need. I’m pleased to follow my colleague Mr Little in noting that Budget 2022 made the largest ever investment in health for more nurses, more medicines, to get the health system sorted, to better focus on services.

Kiwis will be able to get emergency care when they need it, with funding for more paramedics, new ambulances, and emergency helicopters around the country. Dental grants for low-income Kiwis have more than tripled from $300 to $1,000 and no longer have to be for emergency work only.

Budget 2022 also delivers the largest police force ever and includes an extra $94 million specifically to target gangs and organised crime. These initiatives and many more that are in the Budget are only possible because we continue to manage such a strong growing economy. GDP is up 5.6 from a year ago and our economic activity is higher than it was before COVID-19. Unemployment is at a low of 3.2 percent, against expectations that when COVID hit it could be as high as 10 percent. Wages have outpaced inflation up until this recent inflation spike and we forecast a rise against inflation for every year after 2022. Many households are better off under Labour.

Our debt is set to peak at about half of Australia’s, around a third of that of the UK’s, a fifth of that of the US, and measured consistently as a percentage of GDP according to the IMF’s forecast, and we will get the books back into surplus in 2024.

In addition, Budget 2022 included measures to accelerate our economic recovery. This includes supporting a flexible business environment that promotes innovation, lays strong foundations for future growth and opportunities. We know part of this is increasing the climate resilience of our economy. That’s why we are making the transition to a low-emissions economy. That’s why you’ll see the Climate Emergency Response Fund package was such an important part of Budget 2022 and related announcements.

We are also delivering on our commitment to position the economy for the future through the establishment of industry transformation plans (ITPs). You’ll see there is funding to make progress across the ITP programme, including for the construction sector accord, advanced manufacturing ITP, an agritech industry transformation plan, a digital transformation plan, and plans in the primary industries. Budget 2022 is squarely focused on the needs of New Zealanders, the need for our economic security as we recover from COVID-19, the need to support our families, and the need to invest in the critical services that they expect and deserve.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I know our towns and cities can be places where our kids are safe and free to walk and cycle to school again. This is something that all of us in every party could get behind. It’s good for our kids to have the ability to be independent and to make their own way, and, as a double benefit, it also protects our climate. It means the air is cleaner.

Today is World Oceans Day. I wanted to go jump in the harbour, but because of the run-off of insufficient infrastructure—horrible pollution going into the water—it was actually unsafe for swimming everywhere around here, and part of that is because of our transport system and the wide expanse of tarmac everywhere. Our urban areas are totally, entirely, designed around cars and trucks, and that is completely understandable. But, unfortunately, while cars can be very practical for some trips, they are not practical for every person trying to get around a crowded urban area at the same time, and that’s why we have congestion. No matter where we live in a city, no matter what our circumstances are, all people should be able to move easily around and to get where they need to go in ways that are good for their health and protect our planet. That is what the Green Party is working for.

As a transport planner, I saw that there was heaps and heaps of evidence around delivering a balanced transport system and how that could benefit everyone, including those who are using motor vehicles. By simply making it safe and easy and convenient to take public transport or to use a bike or a scooter or a mobility scooter instead of a car, we actually help those people who are using motor vehicles, and yet, as a transport planner, having all the evidence was not sufficient to get this to happen. So I joined the Green Party because we needed political leadership on the big issues of our time: climate change and creating climate-friendly towns and cities and communities.

But this morning, I put my six-month-old baby in the baby capsule on the front of my cargo bike and my three-year-old son climbed in and sat there with her, and they were absolutely happy on my commute through the city to get to the day care here, yet we were totally unsafe for half of that commute because there’s no safe, separated infrastructure for people to use bikes. Why not? Why is it so hard to deliver this infrastructure?

In fact, the city council first started consulting on the Newtown Connections project in June 2018. That was before my nearly four-year-old son was born, and almost no progress has been made. Thousands of people have been involved. They consulted the businesses over the last 3½ years, and they were about to roll out a temporary trial for a separated cycleway that would have meant that my baby would be completely safe and I wouldn’t have to fear for her life every day when I got on my bike to take her to day care—and my toddler—and yet the work on this project has been stopped. It’s been delayed by a judicial review of the process by six businesses, four of whom are directly related to the car industry.

Ironically, Gazley Motors, the BMW—I’m sure I want to say no ill of Gazley Motors. Next time I want to buy an expensive BMW, I’ll go to him. But they have used the court process to delay and slow down safe, life-changing infrastructure that would mean that those who want to use a bike can do so without being threatened by cars and trucks. Ironically, Gazley Motors regularly has a big car-transporter truck parked in the traffic lane on Cambridge Terrace, northbound, so that they can unload vehicles and move them across the roadway into where the cars are being sold.

This is madness. People should be able to use a bike to get around. I have to ask those who use cars: do you really want me to get on a bike and create more congestion in the centre of Wellington? No, you don’t. Those using bikes are helping everyone in the community and have a right to safe, separated infrastructure.

The Green Party will keep fighting for a sensible transport policy that shares our public space fairly, that looks after our children and means that they can have clean air, that they can have clean water, that they can have independence, and that they can have a safe climate for their future, and the best thing about it all is it actually helps those who need to use cars.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. The Labour Party’s approach to COVID means New Zealand’s economy is recovering faster than almost anywhere in the world. Economic forecasts released with the Budget saw a return to surplus in 2024-25, almost a year earlier—well, it will be a year earlier—than National did after the global financial crisis.

We’ve received two world-leading triple A credit ratings, something very few countries in the world could claim. GDP up 5.6 percent. Unemployment is at a record low of 3.2 percent. Wages have outpaced inflation under this Government up until the recent inflation spike, and are projected to increase again ahead of inflation after 2022. Our debt is set to peak at around half of Australia’s, around a third of that in the UK, and around a fifth of that of the US. Our strong economic management—and credit to our Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister, Grant Robertson—means we can invest in critical services and help ensure Kiwis who need it are supported while we keep a lid on debt.

I want to speak a little bit about supermarkets. They are something that I am spending a lot of time thinking about right now, and this Government is taking action to ensure that Kiwis get a fairer deal at the checkout. We put supermarkets on notice and the message is clear: change at pace to increase competition and be prepared for regulation.

The Government has instructed the Commerce Commission to go away and do research. It’s come back with findings that show that competition is not working, that shoppers aren’t getting a fair deal, and that we have a duopoly in New Zealand that needs to be sorted out. Their estimate is that that duopoly is getting excess profits that currently amount to over $1 million a day coming out of ordinary Kiwis’ pockets every single day, so we’re determined to act. People are, rightly, fed up at paying a premium for the basics, and Budget 2022, of course, delivered the cost of living payment to 2.1 million Kiwis to help with the impact of rising prices. Fixing our supermarkets is another action the Government can take to meet people with the challenges of the cost of living.

The commission itself made 14 recommendations. We’ve adopted 12 of them and have said that we reject two on the basis that we want to go further and faster. The two that we’re going further and faster on are around wholesale access—making sure there’s a mandatory backstop so that the pledges supermarkets have made to open up their wholesale arms to competition, to potential competitors in the market, is something that they can deliver on, and if they don’t deliver on it, we’ll help them with regulation to make sure that that happens. These issues can’t be kicked down the road.

We also think we need to go faster on a review to make sure that competition really is working. It’s not a three-yearly review, as recommended by the Commerce Commission, but an annual review, which will be conducted by the regulator, and we’re progressing work on the regulator as well. We think the underlying drivers of a lack of competition need to be addressed.

Now, supermarkets know they’re under the spotlight. We’ve already seen some gestures from the supermarkets, some price roll-backs. We want to make sure, though, that we’re addressing the longer-term issues here. Those price roll-backs are for a short period of time. We want to address the underlying structural issues and make sure there is competition in the market, so we will implement a wholesale access regime and develop a regulatory backstop, and if supermarkets don’t strike good-faith wholesale deals with their competitors, our regulatory measures will make it happen for them.

So, right now, that work is progressing. We’re also doing further work on retail divestment to see how that stacks up. We’re also progressing compulsory unit pricing. That is currently out for consultation and is something that we will see in place by February next year. A mandatory code of conduct is being progressed, and we’ll shortly be seeking views on that. That is being developed with suppliers and the major grocery retailers. Access to sites is being progressed through planning law reform.

The Commerce Commission will act as an interim regulator as we develop the permanent watchdog who will produce those reports on the state of competition, and, of course, Budget night legislation is already in play, driving through change in the area of covenants and leases where there have been restrictive prohibitions put on, with supermarkets trying to block their competitors from coming into town.

The momentum of change is already with us. We’re seeing the covenants rolling back—the supermarkets have signed up to that already. We’ve seen the mandatory code of conduct coming into effect. We’ve seen a regulator be accepted by the duopoly—something they’d never accepted before—and we’re already seeing them making gestures—

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

Dr SHANE RETI (National): People say that eventually pet owners become like their pets in how they act and even how they look. To that end, this Labour Government is looking more and more like their COVID response and, as I will demonstrate, this Government can be well described in terms of common COVID vocabulary consistent with other debilitating diseases.

I can confidently say that this Labour Government is a negative-pressure Government. They are a negative pressure in health, education, gangs, and the economy to name but a few. A negative pressure is also known as a vacuum—the principle behind vacuum cleaners. This is, of course, consistent with the DNA of the Labour Party, which is littered with names such as Street and Dyson. A vacuum sucks everything up and mixes it all equally in the rubbish bag. This negative-pressure Government hoovers up taxpayer money in the belief of socialist mixing. At the same time, however, Labour’s negative vacuum also hoovers up the dreams of New Zealanders and spits them out in the exhaust of life. This is a negative-pressure Government.

Managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) is another word describing this Government’s pantheon of failures, especially the lottery of misery that was the MIQ lottery. I think Labour also used the MIQ lottery as a policy creation forum—a focus group, if you like. I say this because when the Government was considering transport options across the Waitematā Harbour, including the doomed cycle bridge, the MIQ lotteries site put up a selection of nine images and asked the question, “Which is a bridge?” Clearly they didn’t even know what a bridge looks like; no wonder the cycle bridge failed.

The Government has spent more than $6 million on Ernst & Young consultants in Wellington to restructure a health system in the middle of a pandemic. I propose that Labour’s definition of PPE is not personal protective equipment but that PPE, in this Government’s hands, actually stands for the pension plan for Ernst & Young.

This Labour Government has further borrowed COVID terminology from rapid antigen tests (RATs). It is now actually used to select Labour candidates for 2023 and is known as the Labour re-election assessment tool. It works exactly the same way as a RAT test: they take a couple of drips, put them in a hole, and see if they turn red.

As the COVID response has languished, so the health system is languishing. When did we ever think that a person with typhoid fever would be recommended to sleep in their car in the carpark at Middlemore Hospital? When did we ever think that all nurses at Wellington Hospital would issue a provisional improvement notice because the nursing shortage puts them at risk of being unsafe? When did we ever think that nurses in aged residential care would be submitting almost daily section 31 notices to the Ministry of Health saying they are at risk of practising unsafely due to nursing shortages? And we got some of the numbers today: 3,000 nurses short—2,663 registered nurses, 310 midwives—a 23.8 percent vacancy rate.

What is the plan for the health workforce? No one sees the plan and no one believes that this Government can actually make change. If we look at some of the proposed plans for nursing recruitment, the Kiwi Health Jobs plan springs to mind. It was announced in a vaunted way in November last year—$115,000 from district health boards, $300,000 from the ministry—to bring critical care nurses to New Zealand. It was actually launched in February—let’s work on that. Announced in November, launched in February—hard to explain. And by April, with three weeks to go, for $115,000, it had employed the grand total of three—three critical care nurses for the much vaunted Kiwi Health Jobs recruitment campaign.

Again, how did we find ourselves in this situation? I think we’ll look back, and we’ll look back at the failure to build ICU beds in that period between alpha and delta strain—that 15-month period will be a critical point in time. Because we didn’t have enough ICU beds, we had restrictions, social restrictions, and we cancelled surgery. That accounts for about 20,000 of those people waiting four months to see a specialist; the other 15,000 were there long before COVID arrived.

I come back to my opening statement: this is a negative-pressure Government, a vacuum, a suction that is sucking the lifeblood out of New Zealanders, splitting us apart and hoovering up all our dreams. Lifeless, bloodless—this Government needs to be put out of its misery. Time for a change—National has a plan.

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Minister of Customs): Over a week and a bit ago, we were in that member Dr Shane Reti’s electorate as part of the Māori Ministers’ roadshow, talking about Budget 2022. Budget 2022 continues to secure Aotearoa’s economic recovery with people at the centre. We were in Whangārei, we were in Dunedin, we were in Whanganui, we were in Auckland, and we were in Hamilton and Tai Rāwhiti, and the biggest numbers that came out were from the area of the member who just took his seat, in Whangārei and in the Far North. I can report to this House that Māoridom both engaged with what was presented and understood when we spoke about Budget 2022 delivering to Māori through a targeted approach but delivering to all.

I am proud to be on this side. I’m proud to say what has been delivered to ensure the economic recovery with people at the centre, through these Government policies. Let me touch on a couple of them. We have the most employed amongst Māoridom. We have one of the lowest unemployment rates in recorded history, whether our people are in employment—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Yeah, the phone’s off the hook.

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: —training, or learning. But, better still, an unprecedented number of homes are being built in partnership with iwi—try and beat that, Mr Brownlee. An unprecedented number of houses are being built in partnership, with Māori as partners, whether it’s Ngāti Toa, within Tai Rāwhiti, or in the Far North, houses are being built, and this Government is working in partnership. But hold on, we have also got our histories in schools, Matariki, and an investment in te reo, which will really reshape the way this nation sees itself as a Pacific nation. We should be proud of that heritage. These are the gifts that we’re talking about.

I want to touch on the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Bill, which Minister Little and this House passed last night, and the significance it will have for health services for all people and particularly for Māori people. The Māori Health Authority must be acknowledged, and I want to thank this Minister and, of course, our colleague the Associate Minister of Health Peeni Henare.

But it’s the agriculture space and the high-wage, low-emissions economy that this Government is committed to, and in Budget 2022 we have outlaid a plan of investing with our farmers and our growers to design the tools and technologies to keep them commercially and productively producing but also to address the low-emissions goal. I want to take the time to acknowledge the partners of He Waka Eke Noa for the report they’ve released today, and I look forward to the Government engaging with that. That’s the industry taking cognisance that we have got to do better in the agriculture space, and it’s important that I acknowledge them here today.

As the Situation and Outlook for Primary Industries report tells us, last year, while everyone was locking down, it was primary industry that carried this country, and I can’t say enough to thank our farmers and growers. It was almost $50 billion last year, and very shortly we will have the soon to be announced situation outlook report around the primary industries, where it’s predicted to go up by 9 percent. So—like I do—let’s not underestimate the value or the significance of the agriculture sector, and Budget 2022 delivers almost $1 billion in funds to support our agriculture and our primary industry sector to keep the ambition of being a high-wage economy while reducing emissions. That is in Budget 2022, and I couldn’t be prouder.

But that lot over there—that lot over there—is going to get rid of everything. They’ll get rid of everything. They’ve gone on record: the Māori Health Authority will go. Māori-specific, women’s affairs, ethnic communities—gone, because we’re all going to be one people, according to them. It’s a very backward, very 1950s view, and what I’m hoping those members will do is get up and talk about Aotearoa New Zealand in 2021, which goes to my final point about co-governance: do not be afraid of co-governance.

To members in this House, especially the ACT members, do not be afraid of co-governance—do not. Co-governance is about partnership that delivers for all, and if you don’t take my word for it, go and talk to the Waikato River Authority, the agreement signed by that side of the House, and for 10 years—10 years—it’s been consensus decision-making. Not once has that authority had to go to a vote. So here you go: don’t listen to that side, but go and do your own fact-checking around the importance of co-governance. We need to move the dial. We need to come into the 21st century, and I’m proud to belong to a Government that is securing our economic recovery by people at the heart.

MARK CAMERON (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Finally, the day has arrived. Industry and industry partners have weighed in on He Waka Eke Noa and what it will ultimately mean for the rural sector as a primary industry family. The rural sector is asking itself how it will reconcile the hardest and most difficult piece of legislation the sector has faced in decades. Will it be a handbrake or will it be an opportunity? New Zealand farmers are the most emissions-friendly farmers in the world. How many farmers, I ask, will be financially viable with this proposal? After today’s announcement, will productivity fall? Will the proposals push productivity and exacerbate the potentiality for emissions leakage, potentially further exacerbating the problem of global change and effects to the environment. Ultimately, there is a risk it could make the New Zealand economy poorer.

Now, I’m sure everyone here is aware and accepts there as a cost of living crisis that we are all absolutely having to deal with. The Government and its industry partners announced a pricing structure for on-farm emissions—a new direction of travel, we as farmers are told. We’re going to be part of this emissions pricing scheme. And we are all aware, here on the right side of the House, that the Government was hell-bent on forcing farmers into some sort of emissions pricing structure. We were the first nation in the world to force its farmers to do so, and by virtue risk potentially jeopardising productivity. The proponents of the programme have always acknowledged that New Zealand emissions as generated as part of our primary sector had to be mitigated. And look, we as farmers are acutely aware of that, and it’s incumbent upon us to do the right thing. But when I am reconciling the numbers—and I hear it all the time, that we’re the highest emissions per capita of most countries in the world—it makes sense of the fact we feed 40 million people.

Now, to contextualise the problem that we’re all facing, the food and fibre sector accounts for 82 percent of our trade, 11.2 percent of our GDP. It’s absolutely monumental. ACT has always said we’ve got to have a process where technology is in front of a tax, that all considerations must be given to science—not this hyperbole that routinely we seem to be having to deal with. A Government and stakeholder and farmer engagement and reconciliation to the problems, we know we’re going to be faced with a farm levy. Arguably, it’s the lesser of two evils. Farmers often felt jilted in the process, and it was disappointing to hear that the Government was a co-author to the narrative and yet it was not vested in being a co-signatory to the outcome. Moreover, half the conversation was missing. I’m a farmer. I’m acutely aware that we’re having to have conversations about on-farm sequestration. What does it ultimately look like? Short-term, long-term carbon sequestration by soil. None of those conversations were being had with any degree of honesty.

When I challenged James Shaw in this House about what technology was available to help farmers, he wasn’t privy to the fact that $200 million hadn’t created anything in my world, in the world of farmers. And that was Bovaer had sat on the desk of the Environmental Protection Authority for 13 months. We need honest dialogue and it’s got to be genuine. What other technologies is this Government slow-walking in this process? ACT absolutely believes this is a technology before tax. The fundamental reality is that New Zealand farmers, and I am one, are the best bloody farmers in the world. We will absolutely find the technology to mitigate our emissions if we have the liberalisation of regulations to allow us to do it.

There are millions of hectares in New Zealand being farmed by the best farmers in the world. ACT is here, we will always be listening to rural New Zealand. We are the number one party that supports rural New Zealand and farming communities. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Kia ora e te Māngai o te Whare. Earlier, Minister Little and Minister Verrall spoke about this Government’s massive investment in rebuilding our health service. Let me provide a little case study. When you’re from Whangārei and you visit other places, you notice a few differences. The cars are definitely flasher, there’s fewer people wearing gumboots in the CBD, and there’s much less of a chance of people out on a winter’s day in their fluffy onesies.

Now, our fashion choices aside—and your loss, New Zealand—if a Whangaruvian takes a trip to another town’s hospital, we’ve also found there’s far less chance of enjoying the indoor rain feature that we call a ceiling, and much less chance of the added excitement of sewage joining the deluge, as happened earlier this year. In fact, less of a chance has generally summed up most chances in my home town. In Whangārei, while some people do well, just over 40 percent have an income of $50,000 or less, and one in three are in the most deprived quintile. Now, that inevitably means our health statistics are even less flash than our vehicles. We have some of the greatest health needs in the country, and meanwhile, as I was hinting earlier, one of the oldest and cruddiest hospitals in the country.

As my youngest brother famously told my mum when he finished last in the Whangārei Primary School swimming sports, “Mum, I came first at the wrong end.” Whangārei Hospital, the struggles of its excellent staff working in an Emergency Department half the size it needs to be, in theatres where windows have been known to fall out during surgery, is what years of under-investment in health services looks like, and, likewise, it’s just become a case study in how this Labour Government is securing the recovery of Whangārei and places like it across the country.

Whangārei’s hospital opened on Valentine’s Day in 1900. The Minister of Health was invited but failed to turn up. It turned out that that was going to be prophetic. By the time the hospital was in its second century, with its main buildings about 60 years old, it was well-known that it needed a massive upgrade, but still no one turned up.

Admittedly, we weren’t alone in being ignored at this point. In their nine years of Government, National put only $1 billion into hospital infrastructure. In two of those years, including two years when the current National health spokesperson was the Whangārei electorate MP, they didn’t put in a single cent. But in 2021, this Government and this Minister of Health did turn up. On 7 May last year, Minister Little turned up to open the cardio catheterisation lab that was part of this Government’s $48 million budget in 2020 for urgent works, on top of the $24 million we set aside in 2018 for our new paediatric facilities, about 50 new in-patient beds, and the endoscopy lab as well.

Then, this year, came the best news of all. The Government confirmed that it is committed to fully funding the first and most major stage of the total rebuild of our hospital. A fit for purpose hospital will be a huge benefit to Whangārei and Northland’s health. Only today, the Northland DHB posted, celebrating the impact of that cardio lab, saying it has resulted in breakthrough improvements in wait times, with 90 to 95 percent of our heart attack patients getting their treatment within 72 hours. That’s 20 percent higher than the 70 percent Ministry of Health target. Finally, Whangārei is coming first, at the right end of a pool.

An investment in our hospital isn’t just about health outcomes. It will help secure our economic recovery by supplying ongoing work for our construction sector to the extent that where we once, as a regional town, feared contraction, we are now looking at a boom. This is the health story we are seeing across New Zealand. In the last five years, Labour has put almost $7 billion into rebuilding our health infrastructure, and that’s about seven times the $1 billion our predecessors put in over nine years. That is what I call and what Whangārei calls securing our recovery.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Well, if only this Government responded to the cost of living crisis as quickly as they responded to a tanking poll last week. By 6 o’clock, with the prime-time news, with the poll going down, the attack ads were already out. That’s what happens with Labour; when the polls go south they get personal. They’re the nasty party—getting nasty, getting personal, because finally New Zealanders have woken up.

What they learnt in that last Budget—and who would have thought; after a Budget, to get a poll when the researchers were in the field, to actually go down? Normally a Government would get a Budget bump. This Labour Government went down. But, of course, New Zealanders are waking up because they’re realising this Government doesn’t care. They were dragged kicking and screaming into the cost of living crisis, and then they put up a $350 payment to New Zealanders. Of the army of officials available to a Government, you’d expect one boffin, one Minister’s adviser to say, “Well, if you put in this $350 payment, but the entitlement is only up to $70,000 a year when the average Kiwi wage is $73,000.” Who would know? Where did this come from? They couldn’t even get it right that an average Kiwi would get the cost of living payment.

Then we find out in the paperwork it was cobbled together on 4 May, a few weeks before the Budget, and that’s why it wasn’t even costed in the Government’s costings for the Budget. And in the paperwork, the lead agencies—the Treasury was saying, “No, IRD should be it.”, and IRD were saying, “No, Treasury should be it.” Absolute incompetence. As we saw with the road-user charge discount—yeah, good enough; hard-working commuters like where I represent, they’ll get three months of discounted road-user charges. But what about the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been siphoned out of the National Land Transport Fund under this Labour Government into Auckland to pay for their pet public transport projects? Hard-working people I represent in Waimakariri are watching their hard-earned funds being siphoned off for these pet projects in Auckland.

What did this Labour Government do when they took office in 2017? They cancelled the Woodend bypass. So not only do Waimakariri commuters have to watch their road-user charges being redirected to Auckland, they don’t even get the promised roading infrastructure under a Labour Government. And another kick in the guts was the costing of the Woodend bypass was $120 million at the time. This Government spent more money on consultants for the failed Auckland cycleway bridge and the doomed Auckland light rail. They’ll spend more on consultants than they’ll build on roads in regional New Zealand.

I brought Simeon Brown, National’s transport spokesperson—soon to be transport Minister—into Waimakariri last Friday to hear from the Woodend community. That road is State Highway 1 that runs through the middle of that town—since this Government cancelled that motorway, vehicle movements have increased by 25 percent. They’ve had safety consultation after safety consultation. And what does the New Zealand Transport Agency do? Well, it’s all very well having recommendations, but the Minister’s given us no money to actually implement the recommendations. What a farce. So what are they doing now in Waimakariri? Well, they’re reducing speed limits because the council’s not getting enough funding from this Government for road maintenance. So the cheaper option is to reduce the speed limits. That’s what Waimakariri gets from a Labour Government.

Then we have this week—another kick in the guts—the three waters reforms. In a survey in Waimakariri, 95 percent of ratepayers oppose three waters and want to opt out. Let’s be very clear: this is an asset grab. This is theft of ratepayers’ own water infrastructure that they’ve worked hard over generations to pay for. And what does this Labour Government come in? They run roughshod over local people’s views and that’s why the polls are going down. That’s why under a Labour Government the attack ads are out. Labour gets nasty.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be in a positive Government that is delivering for New Zealanders every day. We have heard some strange contributions from the other side today. Mr Reti in particular talked about some negative pressure. He literally sucked the oxygen out of this Chamber. It was that bad of a contribution. I think Mr Brownlee should offer him his sleep apnoea machine to actually drive some positive air pressure through Mr Reti because that was such a weak contribution—likewise Mr Doocey, able and strong member for Waimakariri. There is a solution in Woodend and the answer lies in Māori Reserve 873. Māori Reserve 873—Māori land that runs all the way in between Woodend and Tuahiwi, which has been denied development for over 150 years. That could be a solution, Mr Doocey, to the traffic issues of Woodend.

But what I want to talk about is Budget 2022 creating economic security for now and into the future. I want to focus on the future—what we’re doing as a Government for the future—and I want to use two examples. Yesterday I had the pleasure, in my under-secretary for oceans and fisheries role, to attend a workshop with Ngā Iwi I te Rohe o Te Waiariki—the iwi of the Eastern Bay of Plenty, and down into the Bay of Plenty and the central North Island. They are absolutely powering ahead with their plans for aquaculture in that most beautiful part of Te Moana-a-Toi. I was very proud to be able to be part of that, right from the initiation of that smart Māori aquaculture project. The Government has been right there supporting them, whether it’s through making settlement space available, under the aquaculture settlements, to those iwi, or whether it’s investments in aquaculture infrastructure such as the Whakatōhea Mussels processing, the Ōpōtiki harbour redevelopment, or the mussel hatchery in Te Kaha.

These are significant investments that the Government is putting in, and I was proud to be part of a group with scientific collaboration, which is getting all the smarts that we have, whether it’s the Cawthron Institute, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd, all the smart scientific entities involved in this project, so we can move aquaculture forward for that region. We are going to continue to partner with that. I’m pleased to be working with Minister Parker as we put in place the plans for a management regime, as we can roll under a new resource management system, how we will be able to unleash this wonderful new industry for Aotearoa New Zealand. So it won’t be primarily dominated in the South Island, which I’m very attached to, but we will see aquaculture thriving in those regions up in the Eastern Bay of Plenty, where it is so desperately needed.

I also want to focus on just a quick example down at Te Tai Poutini, in the West Coast—what our Government is doing. A new visitor experience centre in Punakaiki, Dolomite Point—a short stop, a very popular tourism destination, and that whole area will be redeveloped. There’s going to be a partnership with Ngāti Waewae, the local hapū. My relations there will be running that experience centre and it’s just going to transform what is a somewhat tired offering that’s there currently. These are happening through the investments that we are making as a Government as we are unleashing our post-COVID recovery and our economic recovery for our regions especially, and for industries such as tourism.

But, to conclude my contribution today, I’m really looking forward to the bill, which is the local bill which is going to be following in today’s members’ day. I want to give a shout-out to all of the recipients of Queen’s honours under the Queen’s Birthday honours. In particular, I want to give a special mihi acknowledgment to Tā Tipene O’Regan, Order of New Zealand, ONZ.

He mihi mahana ki Tā Tīpene O’Regan mōna kua whiwhi i te tino tohu nui o Aotearoa. He tohu hirahira kua hoatu ki a Tā Tipene O’Regan nō Ngāi Tahu. E te matua, Tā Tīpene, tēnā koe.

[I offer my warm acknowledgment to Sir Tīpene O’Regan who has received New Zealand’s most senior honour. Sir Tīpene O’Regan, of Ngāi Tahu, has been awarded the Order of New Zealand. Congratulations, Sir Tīpene.]

That is a wonderful achievement for our rangatira, for the upoko rūnanga Te Pou Whakarae o Aotearoa. I know that he will be very proud of today—

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

SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Tomorrow is a big day for this Government. Despite the objections of local communities, Labour will use their majority to ram through the three waters reform at first reading. This is the beginning of the end for them. They’ve had opportunity after opportunity to engage constructively and work with local government—not against them—and they have rejected that opportunity at every chance.

Yesterday in the House, I put a straightforward question to the Minister of Local Government: what councils have opposed this reform? There are too many for a five-minute call, because, together, they represent councils of over 3 million New Zealanders. It goes deeper than that. You cannot go into a town hall around this country where there aren’t voices opposing this Government’s three waters reforms. I can see the faces on the other side, of those MPs, because they know that local councillors and their local communities are up in arms while they sit silent. They know, as we do, that this bill of 134 pages is a severance letter to every single one of the entire Labour Party’s backbench from Nanaia Mahuta, and I don’t have any great hope for those MPs opposite who will come out tomorrow and should be backing their communities. That’s a terrible shame, because our communities are watching.

The greatest tragedy is that this was entirely avoidable and was caused by an endless chain of mishaps and bad-faith actions, all based on a core agenda of centralisation and control. We all accept that something needs to be done, and this is how and where the Government has failed. Although they decide what the solution is, it’s centralisation and a four-entity mega-model, and that’s all in by force, if necessary. They can give councils just eight weeks to submit on that—a laughably short amount of time—but they could have given them 80 weeks and it wouldn’t have made a difference, because Cabinet papers show that the decision to take water assets by force had already been made before the consultation had even begun. Then it became a blame game.

This Government has spent millions of dollars on marketing consultants, showing TV ads of sludge running out of taps, and laying the blame squarely with local government. Even the Minister now admits that this was a mistake. To the surprise of precisely nobody, that didn’t work, and every poll shows that Kiwis utterly reject this Government’s reforms. In the One News Kantar poll, only one in four Kiwis support these reforms. In the Curia poll, it was only one in five. Last week, a poll showed 76 percent of New Zealanders think water services should be directly accountable to voters, including 74 percent of Labour voters. New Zealanders reject these reforms.

Maybe marketing wasn’t the answer, so then they fell back on the classic Labour adage “Throw a few billion dollars at it, and then hope for the best”. The $2.5 billion support package, which councils can spend on pretty much anything, shows how desperate this Government is to buy support. The money is being borrowed against these water entities, putting them directly in debt before they even start operating, with the rest being taken out of the back pockets of hard-working Kiwis, who are out there without a single metre of water pipe being put in the ground.

Councils and communities still oppose it, though. Councils who know, know that they can find the solutions to these problems. They know that this can’t be dealt with through Wellington alone, and the answers to these problems are found on the ground, where the work is done.

The other side is not listening. They’ll do what their Minister does and turn a blind eye, and say that everything is OK. But National is listening. We hear your voices, and we’ve got your back. The National Party will repeal this legislation and replace the three waters reform.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill

Second Reading

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): I move, That the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill be now read a second time.

Tuatahi, e te Māngai o te Whare, me mihi au ki aku whanaunga nō Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, me te Kaunihera Taiao o Waitaha. Nā tō kōrua mahi tahi i hautū nei i tēnei pire ki te Whare nei.

[Firstly, Mr Speaker, I must acknowledge my relatives from the Rūnanga of Ngāi Tahu and Environment Canterbury. Your collaboration has guided this bill to this House.]

I want to acknowledge the partners of this local bill, Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu and the Canterbury Regional Council, or Environment Canterbury, whose mahi tahi has been reflected in this bill. I’m so pleased that it’s come to the second reading. This is a momentous occasion. I want to acknowledge all the work that has been done thus far, in respect of the examination of the bill. In particular, I want to acknowledge the Māori Affairs Committee for their very thorough examination of the bill. In what were difficult COVID circumstances, they were able to hear from submitters, from representatives of iwi, from the councils within the Canterbury region, and I want to acknowledge them for their very thorough examination and thoughtful consideration of the issues that were raised. Now that we’re at second reading, I commend the committee for their amendments to the bill, for which a lot of it was around greater precision with the drafting, and clarification around certain provisions. I want to acknowledge the officials and all those that were involved in actually making what is a great bill even better. So I’m very proud to support it i tēnei pānuitanga tuarua [at the second reading.]

If I can just recap. This bill is about reinstating mana whenua representation, representatives from Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu on the Canterbury Regional Council, Environment Canterbury. I want to acknowledge the National Government under Sir John Key and Bill English for, I guess, putting the circumstances in place whereby Ngāi Tahu representatives on the council were able to come into being. That happened in 2010 with the appointment of seven commissioners. There was a whanaunga o Ngāti Wheke—Donald Couch was the first Ngāi Tahu councillor appointed to that august group. Later, there was another whanaunga: Elizabeth Cunningham nō Koukourarata. Further to that, in 2016, there was some transitional legislation which made two appointees from Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu—put them into law, put that into statute. So that arrangement worked. It worked for the Canterbury region. It worked and was very successful for nine years. There was an attempt to put it in place for the last local body elections—that, unfortunately, didn’t transpire.

But I’m so pleased that we are here at the second reading of this bill. Upon its passage, this bill will ensure that those Ngāi Tahu representatives can be put in place by Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu to coincide with the upcoming local body elections that will take place later this year.

There were a lot of submissions on this bill. Look, it’s fair to say that there are diverging views; there are opposing views. I’m sure we will hear more about those views from the other side’s contributions today. But I want to focus on the themes that were in support of this bill, and, in particular, the areas that were strongly advocated for, not only by Ngāi Tahu but also by many councils within the Canterbury region, such as the Selwyn District Council, the Hurunui District Council, and the Christchurch City Council—all supportive of this bill—and also many other interested members of Canterbury who were in support.

As I said at the outset, this bill works. It works for Canterbury. It works for a vast region of Aotearoa—the largest geographic area of any regional council in the country, servicing the second-largest population area of all regional councils in Aotearoa. This arrangement works. The themes that were conveyed were that mana whenua should have a voice of their own at the table and to be able to work with Environment Canterbury as partners. That has been demonstrated in the nine years when it was in place, and that can continue.

I want to stress that this is a very bespoke bill. The arrangements that we are putting in place in this bill likely cannot be duplicated anywhere else, particularly in the North Island, especially, because we are dealing with a discrete, very large geographic regional council area and a single iwi which has vast connections, as we all know, to Te Wai Pounamu, through the South, and is a major player, on their own, in the South Island economy and in society in general.

So having that mana whenua present at the council table is so important. The other areas which are so important is that having that knowledge and expertise can lead to better decision-making. That is what came through loud and clear from submissions. Also, it has worked well in the past. Most importantly, having mana whenua representation supports Te Tiriti o Waitangi, that partnership which has now driven through so many aspects—whether it’s executive Government, whether it’s through the courts, and now we have this arrangement which has worked well in the past and which can be formalised through the passage of this legislation.

This is a really great bill for the Canterbury, Waitaha region. As I’ve mentioned, it’s an extremely large, vast area, and it requires a lot of expertise from the actual councillors that sit around that table to manage so many difficult and complex issues around fresh water, land management, and coastal management. These are very complex areas and having Ngāi Tahu representatives that have great expertise in te taha Māori and in terms of Ngāi Tahu connection to their ancestral landscape and to the greater Canterbury regional area leads to better decision-making, and it’s one of the aspects which has great support from the submitters.

Now, I know there were opposing views. I just want to pick up on a couple of points. One was in relation to the size of the council. I’m pleased that the Māori Affairs Committee has left the bill as it is, in terms of the addition of two members to a 16-member regional council. As I mentioned, the addition of those two Ngāi Tahu councillors will not decrease the workload of Environment Canterbury; as I mentioned, it is a very vast area and there are some very big, complex issues that they deal with every day. But having those additions to try and take away two other normally elected councillors would be a very complex process to try and undo—and, in fact, I believe it wouldn’t really be possible under a local bill of this type to be able to do that. So I’m pleased that this will be an enlarged and enhanced council table, with the addition of the Ngāi Tahu representatives.

Just in conclusion, I want to also commend the committee for ensuring that the remuneration of the councillors will stay as it is, based on the method of calculation which is retained in the bill. I think it’s very important that those good citizens who put themselves forward to be able to be councillors are fairy remunerated. I know that they will continue to do a great job for Waitaha, Canterbury. I want to mihi to all of those who are supporting this bill, and I commend it to the House. Kia ora tātou.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill. The National Party is opposing this bill because it alters and offends two key principles of the democracy that we have enjoyed in this country for many decades and is fundamental to the success of New Zealand as a democratic country. The first is that all New Zealanders have equal voting rights, and the second is that there is accountability at the ballot box on a regular basis. So these are two key principles: equal voting rights for all New Zealanders and, secondly, accountability at the ballot box.

Now, this bill, what it does is that, for the Canterbury Regional Council, it says that all the people in Canterbury—Māori, Pākehā, Chinese; all ethnicities—get to vote for 14 councillors, and then, after the election, Ngāi Tahu have the ability to appoint two more. So that clearly moves away from equal voting rights, because those in Ngāi Tahu are getting extra representation. They’re getting their representation as a normal citizen amongst the first 14 councillors, and they’re getting two extra.

Secondly, when it comes to accountability, one of the most fundamental disciplines on all politicians is that if they go too far away from public opinion, they’ll be thrown out at the next election. “Throw the bums out!” is a very fundamental part of democracy, but under this bill there is no ability to do that. Ngāi Tahu will continue to have two representatives, regardless of how they perform and how the public thinks about them. So that fundamental part of our democracy is abandoned.

So why are these important? Why is equal suffrage important? Why is the idea that every New Zealander should have an equal say in who governs them and in who makes the decisions affecting their lives and their families and their businesses and the ability to live in an open society—why is that important? Well, I would have thought that was fairly self-explanatory, but it seems to me a pretty fundamental part of who we are as New Zealanders is that all New Zealanders have one standard of citizenship and that their votes carry as much weight as their neighbour’s. My vote carries as much weight as your vote, as his vote, and as her vote. Regardless of who our grandparents are or who we are, our votes are dealt with equally, and you just have to look around the rest of the world to see in other countries where a different approach is taken and it doesn’t work out well.

Why is it important to have democratic accountability for our elected representatives, or the people that represented us on councils, and, particularly in this House, as a member of Parliament? Well, again, you just have to look around the rest of the world where Governments are not accountable and cannot be thrown out. How does that work? It doesn’t tend to work very well. Show me a dictatorship that is unaccountable that works well—it doesn’t work well.

So for decades now, two key fundamental parts of our democracy have been equal voting rights for all New Zealanders and, secondly, accountability at the ballot box. Now, this bill changes both those things and discards both those things. Both are things which are precious and should be treasured by New Zealanders and are treasured by New Zealanders, and are assumed to be the case for all New Zealanders—those are being changed.

Now, this is a very significant constitutional change to the way that we organise our affairs in this country, brought through by a local bill in regard to Canterbury. The member introducing it said, “Well, this is fine. It’s only dealing with Canterbury. Canterbury is special and Ngāi Tahu are the only iwi in that area and, therefore, it’s all nice and simple.”, but surely even he recognises that it sets a precedent. There will be every other regional councils and local government, territorial, whether it’s cities—the same logic would apply, would it not?

Well, hang on a moment, if it’s important for mana whenua to have representation on the Canterbury council, well, why not in the Waikato, why not in Wellington, or why not in Auckland? So this will set a precedent. Then ultimately, if it’s good enough for local government, maybe it’s good enough for national Government, and indeed we should have mana whenua, various iwi, appointing members of Parliament. Now, that’s not being proposed at the moment, but the logic is the same.

We have Willie Jackson, the Cabinet Minister, saying, quite simply, “Well, the nature of democracy has changed” and that that justifies it. Well, I don’t know about you—and maybe Gerry Brownlee, my colleague, might be able to help me out on this—but I can’t recall a constitutional convention held in this country where we decided as a country that our democracy had changed and equal voting rights for all New Zealanders was something that we no longer agreed with and that accountability at the ballot box was something that we no longer agreed with. I can’t recall having a constitutional convention where we decided that.

I can’t recall a referendum where New Zealanders were consulted on this and decided that “No, no. Actually, we no longer think that all New Zealanders should be treated equally when it comes to the electoral laws of this country.” I don’t recall a referendum—Arena Williams—when we were asked, “Do we no longer believe that equal suffrage is a good idea and that that should be the rule of thumb in New Zealand?” No, I don’t recall anybody asking me whether it’s appropriate for the councillors at our local government levels or MPs should be accountable every three years at the ballot box, and whether that no longer is a good idea. So who has made the case?

Well, thank you, Mr—the member who brought this bill in has not really made the case—Rino Tirikatene. I don’t recall him actually making the case for the change very strongly. But what amazes me is that the Minister of Justice, Kris Faafoi, has not said a word on all this, not interested. A very significant change to our electoral laws, and no arguments are being put forward by the Minister of Justice. You would have thought that on something as consequential as this, we might hear from the Prime Minister—nothing from her. She’s happy to give speeches at Harvard, where she talks about trust in Government being important, and yet hasn’t had the decency to argue the case for this bill, or even acknowledge that it exists. The inclination is to say, “Oh, it’s only a local bill, nothing to do with us.” Well, it is only going to pass if Labour votes for it, and they’ve indicated that they will already.

Where are the institutions that should be raising this as an issue? Crown Law—where are they? If you look at the report—and I encourage members of the public to have a look at it; you can find it if you look hard enough—it’s about three or four pages. Crown Law, the guardians of the constitution and the law of the land, come in, they write a report and say, “Yes, this breaches the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. It discriminates against non - Ngaī Tahu members”—

Hon Member: No, it doesn’t.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: It does. It does say that, very clearly. It discriminates against non - Māori New Zealanders. But it says that the Treaty justifies it, and that’s about the extent of the argument.

Tāmati Coffey: “The Treaty justifies it.”

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Yeah, well, when did we decide as a country that the Treaty trumps democracy? I’d like to have an answer from the other side: when did we decide as a country that the Treaty trumps democracy when it comes to equal voting rights and accountability at the voting rights?

Tāmati Coffey: 1840.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Yes—well, that’s right. If they talk about partnership—meaning equal—then maybe the next change to this bill would be that there would be eight out of the 16 councillors appointed by Ngāi Tahu—I don’t know. Maybe that would be appropriate.

The final point I’d like to know is: where are the commentators? The institution of the Crown Law, I think, has done a feeble job in arguing the case, or even raising the issues properly. The Attorney-General on the sister bill to this one—the Rotorua bill—at least was more robust, but the Attorney-General seemed to be silent on this particular bill. I’d love to hear from Geoffrey Palmer and all the constitutional experts who usually have a lot to say about issues such as this. I’d love to hear from the legal profession. I’m amazed that we haven’t heard from the Law Society and the Auckland district. None of them have had anything to say on this bill, which has been one of the most significant constitutional changes in our history.

So we’re voting against this, and we acknowledge the importance and the precious nature of equal voting rights for all New Zealanders and for accountability at the ballot box. Those are important principles for our democracy, and we will defend them.

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

TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Crocodile tears—crocodile tears are something that I heard about, learnt about, when I was very young, and actually that is what I hear when I heard that previous contribution from that speaker, Paul Goldsmith, because it was that party that brought this arrangement in the first place.

At that time, they weren’t standing here calling for equal suffrage. No, not at all. They needed innovative solutions that suited them politically at the time, so they voted this in. In 2016, you had National Party member after National Party member talking about the great relationship that was going to be formed between Environment Canterbury (ECan) and Ngāi Tahu. And you know what? It worked. It really did work. It worked so well to the point where we heard, in select committee, submission after submission from people who are close to the fire, who are close to the action, and they were saying “We had this taken away from us. It worked for us. We had representation at the decision-making table and we want it back.” So to the National Party members who are standing here crying foul, I say: take a look back in history, read the history books, read the Hansard, because you guys started this one. They started this, Madam Speaker. They started it—not you. Not you at all.

Look, I want to point out—well, first of all, I want to thank those people that turned up to the Māori Affairs Committee to give their contributions on this. The tone was set right from the start when Ngāi Tahu actually fronted up to the committee and they talked about their settlement. Because in their settlement, there’s a new age of—

Rino Tirikatene: New age of cooperation.

TĀMATI COFFEY: What’s that?

Rino Tirikatene: Cooperation.

TĀMATI COFFEY: A new age of cooperation is what they talked about in their Treaty settlement. That’s right. The landmark Treaty settlement that Ngāi Tahu went into talked about a new age of cooperation, and that’s what this bill is. That’s what this arrangement is. It’s a new age of cooperation. It’s what the Crown signed up to in their Treaty settlement back in the day, and it’s what they take pains to explain every time they come to a committee of Parliament. They say, “We signed up to a new age of cooperation and we need the Crown to remember that.” Unfortunately, in this House, there is a huge amount, especially among elected politicians, of political amnesia. There is absolute political amnesia in this House and it’s beholden upon organisations like Ngāi Tahu to actually come to the House to remind elected politicians who are newly washed in—and some have washed out at the time—and to be able to say to them, “We signed up to a new age of cooperation and we’re here to get our dues.” This bill gives them their dues. This bill gives them the opportunity to participate in a meaningful way, to be able to address their Treaty of Waitangi commitments that this Crown signed up to, that elected officials in this House must adhere to. That’s what they signed up to.

In the select committee process, we heard about a couple of key differences between this bill and the bill that went through in the last Parliament, which was defeated. That was that they took the time to actually point out that if a Māori constituency, by nature of the Māori wards that were allocated at the start of last year—if the iwi wanted to be able to work with council to establish Māori wards, then they shouldn’t be prevented from being able to do that. And we stand here and we say we support that idea and we also support—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: What? Both?

Hon Member: Yeah, you’re allowed both.

TĀMATI COFFEY: Absolutely—absolutely. Because, and this is the reason, people just take it at face value. But actually, what Ngāi Tahu are doing here is they’re making sure that they’ve got Ngāi Tahu representation on ECan; Ngāi Tahu representation, not Māori representation, not any other Te Arawa person that’s living down in Christchurch, but actually Ngāi Tahu representation. And there’s something in that for other councils around the country, that actually by nature of Te Tiriti o Waitangi there is an obligation that the Crown have to follow. Absolutely. And we discussed that in select committee and I completely support that recommendation.

There was also conversation around the issue of remuneration and whether or not they should be paid or not, whether or not they should be paid from the existing pool. You see, for a long time Māori that have advised on regional councils, on local councils have been there by nature of the cup of tea and scones that happens after the meeting. They’re milked for all of their information, their historical knowledge, their mātauranga Māori, and what did they get for it? For many years they got a cup of tea and some scones. Long are those days gone. They are well gone and it’s time to start remunerating Māori that are sitting around those decision-making tables over and above the tea and scones that for so long our people had to put up with. This bill changes that.

There were a lot of submitters that came through, and they were very worried about this bogeyman called co-governance. They said the co-governance, it’s the start of the end, it’s the slippery slope, and that’s what their side of the House actually purport to agree with. But if you just have a look at a few of the Hansard debates, from the time that this first bill was put into place back in 2016, you’ll find that members that are sitting on that side of the House today gave speeches absolutely in favour of this, absolutely in favour of this.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Not this; quite different.

TĀMATI COFFEY: And this country—“It’s different—it’s different.”, he says. Right oh! OK, we’ll take your word for it. You can wait for your contribution and you can have your words then. But this is a really big issue. No, not you, Madam Speaker. Never you—never you. Never you, Madam Speaker.

You see, the country—we have come a long way. We’ve come a long, long way. Every year we get better at this stuff. This stuff won’t go away. Co-governance, Māori looking for meaningful engagement and partnership at the decision-making table will not go away. And if that side of the House don’t understand it, they should probably listen to the words of their ex-Treaty negotiations Minister, the Hon Chris Finlayson, who only a very short time ago wrote a media article, actually just calling out some people—some of those people that think of co-governance as the bogeyman. He said this, in his article, dated 29 May 2022, authored by Chris Finlayson—the article was titled “Co-governance should be embraced—not feared.” He says, “ ‘Co-governance’ has become a term that [many] people don’t understand. They think it means co-government. People who are frightened by co-governance think they’ll be locked out of access to our natural resources, for example. When what it really means is that involving iwi in a myriad of decisions can actually result in a better country.” How about that—how about that? His words, and I quote, “The people I call ‘the KKK brigade’ are out there. They dream of a world that never was, and never could be. They are the people—and these words,” he says, aren’t his, “but are taken from a former British foreign secretary—that you can call the ‘sour right’”—call them the sour right, he says. “They don’t really understand tangata whenua. They don’t really like change.”

So I stand here, having been through a select committee process, having listened to the various people that are very nervous about what co-governance looks like, are very nervous about what this means for ECan. I also listened to the very supportive mayors of the Canterbury region as they sat there and told us that they absolutely supported this and they wanted to have Ngāi Tahu representation, not Māori representation but Ngāi Tahu representation, on Environment Canterbury. They sat there, they talked to the committee, and they told us that this is what they wanted. As elected officials, we need to listen to them. As elected officials in this House, we have listened to them.

This bill will pass, and it comes with my absolute commendation. This is something that we absolutely must do. And what it will do is actually set a precedent for other councils around the country who are looking for ways that they can give effect to the Tiriti of Waitangi partnership in their own part of Aotearoa New Zealand. And if this sets the way, then that’s great. If they choose to take up Māori wards, as many councils around the country are doing because this Labour Government put them in place, then that’s a great thing too.

Let’s make sure that it never is put at risk by an incoming Opposition who are all fired up about this bogeyman called co-governance, and make sure that they do everything that they can to undo it and to put race relations in this country back another 183 years because they still don’t understand what the meaning of Te Tiriti o Waitangi is; they don’t understand the partnership. They need to be held to account for that, and they will be held to account for that. An Opposition that thinks that they’re going to stand in the Māori seats really needs to have a think about what their position is when it comes to things like co-governance. I commend this bill to the House.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I just wanted to start by responding to that last member, Tāmati Coffey, who resumed his seat. I think he clearly missed out one point, which we’re still waiting for an answer on: why isn’t this a Government bill? If these Government members are so cock-a-hoop that this is the right thing to do, why is it not a Government bill? And also, when he raises the very unique set of circumstances when the Environment Canterbury (ECan) councillors were sacked and appointees were put in place—that mechanism was done with a Government bill. So National did it with a Government bill, knowing if the public didn’t like it they would vote us out at the next election. So why would a Labour Government not do the same? Why are we not debating a Government bill today? And we still do not have the answer to that question.

And like many people in this House, tonight, when we come back into the Chamber in the second reading to debate the select committee stage—normally there’s a lot of questions that have been answered during the select committee stage. I would argue this bill comes back in with more questions than answers. I think what the reason for that is, purely—because what we have here is a workaround. I raised it in the first reading and we still haven’t had a response from the sponsoring member, Rino Tirikatene. Why is this a local bill? Because when we asked the Clerk’s Office why this can be a local bill—let’s not forget, the contribution of Paul Goldsmith raised a very valid point: this debate today is does the Treaty trump democracy? Now, I’m open to that debate. I think many members of Parliament want to engage in that debate. But why is that debate not being driven by a Government bill?

What we’ve got here is a local bill put in by ECan, who did no consultation with their local community. Go to the submitters. What’s interesting, when you look at the number of submissions there were—1,651 that the Māori Affairs Committee received, 74 in favour, 1,571 opposed. And one of the common themes that came out was ECan did no consultation. So that’s another question we’re landed with in the second reading: why did ECan not do any local consultation? The reason it comes back in and is allowed to be a local bill—because, of course, a local bill can’t change a primary statute. That’s why this is a workaround bill—because the Government did not want to change primary legislation.

Because of that—now, well, really, Pandora’s Box is potentially going to be open. Look at the submission from the Remuneration Authority, which clearly said it undermined them as an independent entity. And let’s be very clear, because Tāmati Coffey said, “Well, this is going to set to a precedent”—well, it will set a precedent. Because, in fact, that’s what the Remuneration Authority actually said. It said it’s “inconsistent with the mandatory criteria” under national legislative frameworks for determining elected member remuneration. This would interfere with the authority’s independence in setting remuneration for elected members. It would create an unfair advantage for the members of ECan over all other elected councillors in New Zealand. This Government that champions equity is not delivering equity very well—equity when it suits them.

This is why we have a bill that comes before us, that comes out of the select committee with more questions than answers. So we’ve got the question that wasn’t really resolved by the select committee to do with the Remuneration Authority’s submission. It’s interesting because you can’t—well, they do want to have it both ways because ECan said in follow-up discussions, with the cap, they’re wondering whether they reduce salaries to take on board the two extra members. And ECan, of course—because they’re not going to vote for Christmas, are they?—said a drop in councillor remuneration rates would have a significant detrimental effect on diversity of candidates.

So this is why we’ve got, actually, a bill that should have come in as a Government bill. It comes in as a local bill and actually causes a lot more questions than answers. For Tāmati Coffey to get up today and talk about this bill when, of course, he was the sponsor of the Rotorua local bill—another local bill that actually had to be scrapped because the Attorney-General said it was discriminatory and would breach the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. And that’s the problem with this approach. Then, in his defence, apparently the argument is now why the rest of caucus didn’t know it was so flawed—apparently, as a process in the Labour caucus, they don’t take local bills to get approved by their caucus.

So that raises another question: has this bill been in front of the Labour caucus? Do they know, actually, what they are voting on for tonight? Because what we’ve got is a bill that, in fact, is going to increase the numbers. And I’ve been very clear from the first reading—this isn’t about the appointment of Ngāi Tahu representatives into ECan because, in fact, they’re already there. This bill will enact remuneration and voting rights. What we still don’t have an answer to is: what will be the total numbers? And why is ECan still allowed to increase their number from 12 to 14, making it the largest regional council in New Zealand, and also have Māori wards? Why are they able to do both of those?

When you look at a range of submissions that were received, there were a number of people who thought this bill should not proceed. One submitter said “adding appointed members in addition to those democratically elected is a move away from democracy towards oligarchy”—this is what they thought this was going to do. Because as our lead caller said, the Hon Paul Goldsmith, this is fundamentally going to change democracy in New Zealand. We are going to move away from equal suffrage—one vote and one person. And what we’ve heard previously in debates around this issue—and, in fact, I think it might have been Tāmati Coffey who mentioned it in the first reading—there’s now a phrase Labour uses: these bills are just tweaking democracy. Well, I think we just need to look around the world at what happens when you start tweaking democracy.

So I come back to my original point—where what we are debating in this Chamber tonight is: does the Treaty trump democracy? Now, I think every member of Parliament is up for that debate. That’s a valid debate in New Zealand today. But why is it being shoehorned through in a local bill where ECan, Environment Canterbury, did no consultation with local Cantabrians? Then we have a bill that’s pitched up in the House and we’ve been told now that local bills don’t go through the approval process in the Labour caucus because, of course, they would have picked up Tāmati Coffey’s very flawed Rotorua local bill—that’s what they’re claiming, if it has.

And then we have this bill, that’s now come out of select committee, where there are very real questions posed about how they’re going to address some of the flaws in this bill around remuneration; around the consultation; and, in fact, what is going to happen to the appointees where there is no accountability? And what is going to happen when Māori wards are enacted for ECan as well? These are very real questions and I do look forward to some of the Government members who decided that they didn’t want this to be a Government bill, they were happy for it to go through in a local bill—and we’re very keen to hear some of their responses tonight. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill, the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill. I think we’ve come to a part in the debate where the ideas have become very high level, a little bit abstract, and it might be useful for me, as a member of the very excellent Māori Affairs Committee, to share some of the work that the Māori Affairs Committee put into this local bill, which has been advanced by Environment Canterbury and has been brought to this House as a local bill, championed by my colleague Rino Tirikatene.

So let me first start with a little bit about what Environment Canterbury does. It extends from the—

Nicola Grigg: Not much.

ARENA WILLIAMS: —north of Kaikōura to the Waitaki River and from Horomaka / Banks Peninsula to Aoraki / Mount Cook. I hear calls from the other side of the House that Environment Canterbury does not do much, but I would say that all local government representation is very important, and that, on this side of the House, we value the contribution that local government brings to all levels of representative democracy. I’ll return to that later about why local democracy is important and why representation is important. But let me just tell you more about Environment Canterbury’s role. So the kind of things that Environment Canterbury might do are around managing the effects of use of fresh water, land, air, and coastal waters. These things are resource management - heavy; they are technical in nature. It’s useful for people around the representative table to have expertise in these areas, whether they are farmers, whether they are business owners, whether they are community members, or whether they are iwi representatives with a kaitiaki relationship to the whenua that is being managed by the local councils. Things like developing regional policy statements and issuing consents—again, it’s really useful for the representatives around those tables to be able to interpret the advice that they receive, informed by a diverse background. We want those people around the local government table to bring a broad range of expertise. Things like managing rivers, mitigating soil erosion, and flood control—on that particular issue, it’s really helpful for representatives to be able to bring their expertise to bear in that.

So how does this bill enable local representatives around the table that we’re talking about to do that? Well, under the Environment Canterbury (Transitional Governance Arrangements) Act 2016, the Canterbury Regional Council had included two members appointed by Ministers on the recommendation of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu since then. The Act was repealed in 2019, but that was after the 2008 representation review undertaken by that body to decide how it should be formed from 2019 onwards. The reason why I talk about the functions of Environment Canterbury is that those inform the way that the representation review is considered. It’s really important to look at the sorts of skills that you need around the table before you determine how that’s going to be made up.

During that representation review, the Environment Canterbury (ECan) body stated that it had enjoyed the value and benefit of having two Ngāi Tahu representatives at the council table, and they considered how they could support continued Māori representation. In the final proposal they decided against establishing Māori constituencies and instead agreed to work with Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu to find other ways to continue with the current Māori representation model that they had had. This proposal is directly from Environment Canterbury. It recognises those factors which they took into account when they undertook the representation review, and it brings a model for legislation that my colleague Rino Tirikatene has extensively considered alongside representatives of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu and Environment Canterbury and deemed appropriate to bring to this House for further consideration.

When we got to the Māori Affairs Committee, we did consider that very carefully. Both submitters and officials gave us extensive advice on that. One of those pieces of advice, which was particularly important to the committee and we had a lot of discussion on, was the value that those Ngāi Tahu representatives could bring to the table by virtue of them being mana whenua. As you’ll know, and this House will know, Ngāi Tahu holds rangatiratanga over 80 percent of Te Wai Pounamu, which is the South Island, and that was recognised in 1997 by the Crown. In fulfilling its Treaty obligations, the Crown recognised Ngāi Tahu as tangata whenua and as holding rangatiratanga within the takiwā.

That’s important, because when we think about the unique situation which has led to this local bill, and not a Government response, we have to consider not only the ECan arrangements that existed at the time and through the local government review since 2018 but also the unique arrangements around the iwi representative table. This is a Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu which represents a number of papatipu rūnanga in this area. They have mature governance systems and mature election systems, which the committee discussed at length with submitters, including Ngāi Tahu themselves. We discussed how and why it’s important for Ngāi Tahu representatives to be chosen at large and to represent not only those members but also people within the takiwā who, as mana whenua, hold responsibility for representation around that table, as kaitaki. That is an essential part of the tikanga of Ngāi Tahu, to represent those guests in the area, to represent their interests, to also hold all of the interests of the community at heart, but be representatives that speak truthfully to their whakapapa and to their association with the whenua that has gone on for hundreds of years.

The committee also considered the point that my colleague Matt Doocey brought up around the remuneration and appropriate membership of the committee. This is a broadly technical point, but if you’ll indulge me, let me take you through what the committee considered, because we were—and I think the members from all political stripes around that table will know—open-minded about our inquiry into the membership and the remuneration question. We had an extensive back and forth with the Remuneration Authority and we sought further advice from officials on the remuneration question.

The reason why the committee landed where we did on remuneration was because of the way that clause 6 operates, and in relation to clause 12. So I’ll take you through that, because I’m getting some derisive laughs from the other side. Clause 6 would enable the membership of Environment Canterbury’s governing body to be increased from 14 to 16 members, and this would accommodate the two members appointed by Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu. I’m still getting some derisive laughs, so I will really labour the technical details.

This would accommodate the two members appointed by Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, and these members would have the same functions, powers, responsibilities, rights, indemnities, and duties, including voting rights, as elected members of Environment Canterbury. It’s important to note there that they would have the same voting rights. My colleague Tāmati Coffey, the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee, in a very impassioned speech, talked about what happens when you have Māori representatives at the council table who do not have those voting rights. They do not have the same kind of remuneration, and they are not treated in the same way that others are around the table. That was not something that the committee was interested in exploring further.

We considered deleting clause 6, too, so that the maximum membership of Environment Canterbury, including the appointed members, would remain at 14. So the effect of that would have been that the same number of members still sat around the ECan table, but two of them would be appointed by Ngāi Tahu. But we chose to retain clause 6 on advice of the officials, but proposed some drafting amendments because we thought that that gave effect to the policy intent that Environment Canterbury and Ngāi Tahu and a number of submitters were trying to achieve, which was to add to the skills around the table and to maintain what has been there since National implemented the policy in 2016.

Now, on the remuneration point, I’ve said that we went back and forth with our advisers and with the submitters on this, and it was really helpful to really drill down into the effect of this. This is in the context of other councils around the country being able to set their remuneration within a band and also to have members around the table who may not represent the same number or have the same sorts of duties as other councils. We look at a particular area in Wairoa where the councillor from Wairoa—because of their geographic location, that council has determined that they are a special community interest group and that they represent a special constituency which could not be represented by other members around the table, but that they represent 70 percent fewer members of that community in comparison to the other councils around the table. These are arrangements which are put in place on a case by case basis, and it’s really important that local authorities are empowered to recognise particular constituencies in this area.

So when we came to the remuneration point, there was really a pretty clear and stark choice between allowing those two members of Ngāi Tahu to be remunerated at the same rate as others around the table, or to create a situation where everyone was remunerated below the recommended rate for members by the Remuneration Authority. So that is why we chose an equitable outcome and I commend this bill, as it is, to the House.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. I’m very pleased to take a call in support of the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill on behalf of the Green Party. Can I seek your indulgence, Madam Speaker, to acknowledge and congratulate Ngāi Tahu kaumātua Tā Tipene O’Regan for being appointed to the Order of New Zealand in last weekend’s Queen’s Birthday and jubilee honours.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Indeed you can.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE: Thank you. As well as being a pivotal figure in Ngāi Tahu’s settlement with the Crown and the Crown apology to Ngāi Tahu, Tā Tipene has devoted his life to promoting a bicultural nation, and this bill is part of a commitment to biculturalism. It is part of our commitment to implement Te Tiriti o Waitangi properly and it’s part of the genesis of this bill.

Some of the previous speakers have highlighted and asked why Environment Canterbury, in putting this bill forward through its sponsor, Rino Tirikatene, did not undertake comprehensive consultation in the Waitaha Canterbury region. Well, as Environment Canterbury made very clear in its submission, this whole bill was consistent with a long line of previous council decisions. It wasn’t novel for the region, and, as others have noted, of course, the two Tumu Taiao representatives who were operating when Environment Canterbury had appointed commissioners from 2010 to 2019 highlighted just how successful Ngāi Tahu representation on the regional council has been. And, of course, there has been an extensive public consultation process through the Māori Affairs Committee and some 1,600 submissions to the select committee.

I think this bill and the submissions that came in talked about the very practical benefit to Environment Canterbury from having mana whenua representation at the table. It is those mana whenua kaitiaki responsibilities for air, for the whenua, for soils, for fresh water, for the wai, the awa, for the coastal waters that really need to be at the table of the Canterbury Regional Council because it’s got statutory responsibilities under the Resource Management Act for managing all those natural resources.

As the Selwyn District Council highlighted, one of a number of local councils that supported this bill, when you have mana whenua at the table, that means that they help own and create the key planning instruments, like the district plan and so on in this case, and that results in an increased partnership between local rūnanga and the council, not only for the planning process but also for other projects, and it meant that there were no appeals on a plan once it was notified. So it does, through this sheer decision-making process, lead to much stronger planning documents, much stronger decisions by the council, and a shorter more effective decision-making process.

This bill is putting into law the practice that, as Tāmati Coffey noted, the former National Government had put in by providing for the appointment of Tumu Taio representatives alongside the other appointed commissioners when elected councillors were removed from Environment Canterbury in 2010. One of the major benefits of that whole commissioner process—everything else, I object to—was the fact that the relationship with Ngāi Tahu did significantly improve. That’s what I think this bill, and just the practice of having a Tumu Taio around the table, has shown over recent years. But the trouble with the current practice is that at the moment while the Ngāi Tahu representatives are there, they do not have the same decision-making status as elected councillors, and that’s what this bill will do—put them on exactly the same basis as regional councillors. They would be appointed by Ngāi Tahu, and Arena Williams has canvassed the select committee’s careful consideration of the suggestion by some that there be an election within Ngāi Tahu or that there be Māori wards. Ngāi Tahu has a sophisticated process for ensuring that members appointed represent the papatipu rūnanga within the region, and Ngāi Tahu will use its internal processes to decide who should be the two representatives appointed to Ngāi Tahu to represent mana whenua.

There have been various comments about democracy being undermined, and it’s a very limited perspective around democracy. I’d like to refer to the comments of Dr Te Maire Tau in an article in The Spinoff in January. As he said, and I quote, “What opponents really mean by the use of ‘undemocratic’ is a desire that the majority have for the right to impose their narrow world view on the minority (in this case, Māori). This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what democracy means. Political democracy is not simply the right of a powerful majority to do whatever it wants regardless of the effect on anyone else.” Democracy is about protecting the rights and interests of citizens, and that is what this bill is about because it is ensuring that mana whenua have a strong voice at the council, which is fundamentally concerned, in our largest geographic region in Aotearoa, our second most populated region, with those natural resources. Mana whenua need to be at the table making those decisions, otherwise we are not implementing Te Tiriti and otherwise we have the tyranny of the majority.

So this is good bill. I congratulate the Māori Affairs Committee for all the mahi it has done. The changes it has made to the bill look extensive, but they are about drafting it in a clearer way so that it’s easier to read, and I acknowledge the work of parliamentary counsel there and all the submissions that came in, with people expressing their views. The work that has been done has shaped a better bill and it’s one that the Green Party fully supports.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour—Northland): E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. Tuatahi māku, e tautoko ana ahau i ngā mihi i tēnei ahiahi mai i tōku whanaunga, tōku hoa mahi a Rino Tirikatene ki te Kaunihera ā-Rohe o Waitaha, me te iwi whānui o Ngāi Tahu, nā rāua i tono mai tēnei pire ki roto i tēnei Whare i tēnei ahiahi.

Nō reira, e tū ana ahau ki te mihi ki a rātou, ka whakarahi ake waku kōrero e pā ana ki tērā āianei ake nei, engari e mihi ana ki te kaunihera, ki te iwi o Ngāi Tahu, otirā e mihi ana hoki ki a koe e Rino, ko koe te mema o Te Wai Pounamu i kawe mai i tēnei pire ki roto i Te Whare i tēnei ahiahi, nō reira e mihi ana ki a koe.

He mihi poto hoki ki te Komiti Māori nā rātou i whakarongo ki ngā kōrero maha e pā ana ki tēnei pire me te whakapau kaha ki te whiriwhiri i ngā take e pā ana ki tēnei pire. Nō reira, e mihi ana ki te heamana o tērā komiti, arā ko Tāmati Coffey, me ngā mema katoa i roto i tēnei Whare, nō reira, ka nui te mihi.

Ka huri ahau ki tērā atu o ngā reo.

[Greetings, Madam Speaker. Firstly, I support the acknowledgments made by my relative and colleague Rino Tirikatene, to Environment Canterbury and the wider tribes of Ngāi Tahu, who together requested that this bill be brought to the House this afternoon.

Therefore, I stand to acknowledge them, and I will expand what I have to say about that very soon, but for now I acknowledge the council and Ngāi Tahu, and also you, Rino, who, as the member for the South Island, has carried this bill into the House this afternoon, so thank you.

A short acknowledgment too to the Māori Affairs Committee who listened to the many submissions about this bill, and who have given their all discussing the issues relating to this bill. And I acknowledge the chair of that committee, Tāmati Coffey, and all the members in this House; greetings.

I shall now turn to the other language.]

I just wanted to take a short moment to make a few acknowledgments—firstly to the Canterbury Regional Council and to Ngāi Tahu for bringing forward a local proposal and a local solution that they think will benefit their region based on their experience, and I will elaborate on that in my contribution. But I want to acknowledge them because this is not the first time that they have tried to do that.

I also want to acknowledge the sponsor of this bill, the local MP for Te Wai Pounamu, Rino Tirikatene. I also just wanted to briefly acknowledge the Māori Affairs Committee. I am not a member of the Māori Affairs Committee, although I think I did sit on some of the stages of this bill going through the select committee process. I, however, was not there for any submissions; it was more around officials’ advice and the finalising of the report. So I do not profess to stand here this afternoon in the House and say that I have been intimately involved in the process of this bill going through the select committee process. But I have read the select committee’s report and I have read the submissions of Environment Canterbury (ECan) and also of Ngāi Tahu, and I will refer to those in my contributions this afternoon.

For somebody who is therefore brand new to this issue, it was helpful for me to understand the background. I am also not from Te Wai Pounamu, from Ngāi Tahu, or even that familiar with Canterbury. So it was helpful for me to understand the whakapapa of this issue. So when I was reading through the whakapapa of this bill, I understood that circumstances arose in 2010 and there was a bill at the time that was intended to have direct representation of Ngāi Tahu on Environment Canterbury, and that that would be done by the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of Local Government, appointed commissioners who collectively had knowledge of and experience, expertise, and a number of matters, including, relevantly, tikanga Māori as it applied in the Canterbury region.

However, that Act was repealed in 2016 and replaced with the Environment Canterbury (Transitional Governance Arrangements) Act 2016. Under section 12(2) of that Act, two of the three members appointed by the responsible Ministers were appointed on the recommendations of Ngāi Tahu. And, as it has been pointed out in the debates this afternoon in the House, this legislation was brought into force by the previous National Government. So I do find it interesting that something that they once supported, they now oppose.

Now, one of the things that I found interesting when I was reading the proposal from Environment Canterbury was that they had the benefit of more than nine years of that being in operation, and they said that they saw that the practical benefits of having mana whenua representation in Canterbury were rapidly and widely recognised. This recognition remained during the nine years for which that special legislation was in place. Those benefits include greater efficiency in planning and consenting processes, reduced costs for the council and consent applicants, and improved enforcement decisions. So I can’t understand why the other side of the House would be opposed to something that is providing, once again, greater efficiency in planning and consenting processes, reduced costs for the council and consent applicants, and improved enforcement decisions. Instead they are fixated on race-based arguments for why they oppose, instead of looking at the benefits that this has brought through proven experience in the nine years that it operated.

In 2018, Environment Waikato promoted a local bill to retain the right for Ngāi Tahu to appoint two members at the 2019 and subsequent local body elections. However, unfortunately, it was defeated, but here we are today able to reconsider that. Since 2020, Environment Waikato has continued to have two Tumu Taeo appointed by the Ngāi Tahu papatipu rūnanga chairs of the Canterbury region to assist with council decision-making. They sit at the table and they make valuable contributions, but they do not have voting rights. So it once was fine for them to have voting rights, and then it wasn’t fine, but we’ll still have their contribution because it’s really valuable and we recognise that. But what I’m hearing from the other side is it’s very valuable but we don’t want to give you any voting rights.

So I’m standing here saying that this is being promoted by the regional council, by the mana whenua, by the iwi, together—both of them saying that this is something that works for their community and they would like this House to consider implementing it in legislation so they can continue that. I haven’t heard any good reasons as to why we would go against something that has been promoted locally with the support locally for the solution.

Now, one of the things that has come up in the debate this afternoon is: well, why not Māori constituencies? I think that that’s been a really interesting issue to consider. I’m very proud of the work that this Government did to even the playing field to remove the discriminatory provisions that allowed for polls to overturn when councils and communities said that they wanted to have Māori representation through wards and constituencies, which doesn’t apply to any of the other seats on council. So we’ve made that available, but the important distinction is many councils will be using it at these upcoming local body elections in October.

Simon Court: Why not ECan?

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: Now, why not ECan? That’s a really good question. So they went through a representation review. They considered all of the options available to them, and through that representation review, they actually considered that this option suited them better. They had nine years of proven experience for it. They believe that they are able to accommodate for mana whenua. And, as we heard explained by Tāmati Coffey and other members on the Māori Affairs Committee, one of the issues with Māori wards and constituencies is that those that get to participate in the election of people into those seats are all Māori on the roll in that particular area. So that does not recognise the status of mana whenua—

Simon Court: So half of them are disenfranchised; is that what you’re saying?

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: —of Te Tiriti partners. I just encourage the member over there to understand the difference between mana whenua and Māori at large.

Simon Court: I do.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: And what this bill—do you? OK, interesting; I look forward to your contribution on that and you informing me what your understanding is, because if you did understand that, then you would support the argument put forward by Environment Canterbury, put forward by Ngāi Tahu. They’re saying that that option is there if they would like to use it in the future, but they actually believe that this one would provide better for them; they just need the legislation to be changed to allow them to do that.

So that’s what we are doing here this afternoon. I enjoyed reading that and listening to the discussion and the debate around how to accommodate for mana whenua interests in what are really important functions and roles within their rohe, which is also recognised in their Treaty settlement. Do you also not support that as well? Because that is what the settlement said that they would like to achieve. They said how they would do that through the Department of Conservation. This is just a natural extension of that into local government, which is responsible for the management of natural resources in their rohe. They are acknowledged as the only mana whenua there.

So to me it is very straightforward. I am very proud to commend this bill to the House.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, ACT opposes this bill because it conflicts with the ACT principle that only democratically-elected representatives should vote in councils and in Parliament. I’ll be clear: ACT opposes it because ACT believes that only democratically-elected representatives should vote in councils and in Parliament.

Now, this bill would give Ngāi Tahu two unelected members on Environment Canterbury, and therefore would give those two members decision making over many people whose livelihoods and businesses depend on access to fresh water and to building things on their land. Labour MPs, and the member who sponsored the bill, Rino Tirikatene, claim this bill addresses Crown obligations to Ngāi Tahu under the Treaty of Waitangi. Well, I say that’s nonsense, because the place for that is in the Waitangi Tribunal where any breaches of the Treaty are determined. Once a Treaty decision is published by the tribunal, if that then requires legislation that legislation is brought to the House. This legislation does not come from a Waitangi Tribunal decision, therefore your argument is nonsense.

Secondly, the New Zealand Parliament passed the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act in 1998; it recorded an apology from the Crown into settled claims made under the Treaty of Waitangi. Now there is a further claim by Ngāi Tahu relating to fresh water, which is currently before the Waitangi Tribunal. It’s still unresolved—it may well be that the tribunal finds in favour of Ngāi Tahu, which grants them some rights over water, or it may go against the applicant. But we don’t know, because it’s still before the Waitangi Tribunal. But in the meantime, if this bill passes, unelected Ngāi Tahu representatives will have the decision making over how water is allocated to farmers and businesses and who is allowed to build what in Canterbury. Now, that seems presumptive at best—pernicious and subversive at worst. But, look, I would assume, having seen how this Labour Government operates in the last 18 months, that attempting to drive this bill through is more likely simply another example of bullish incompetence.

So what does Ngāi Tahu do? Who are they? They are a successful commercial organisation with a strong community focus, and the people who I’ve met who represent Ngāi Tahu are some of the most competent, professional, and community-focused people that I’ve met in business in New Zealand. They’ve grown from a $170 million Treaty settlement in 1998 to a $600 million business today. They exist primarily for the benefit of around 25,000 trustees, of whom 18,700 live in Canterbury. Their investments in property amount to about $550 million, they own a seafood company, they own a hundred thousand hectares of forestry, they own the Shotover Jet and even the Huka jet at Lake Taupō in the North Island, and of course Whale Watch Kaikoura, and I could go on and on and on. They’re a very, very successful New Zealand organisation, primarily focused on returning benefits to members in their community, and that is laudable. But they’re also an example of how to turn a Treaty settlement—an amount of money and some assets which the Crown gave to Ngāi Tahu in recognition of wrongs, of a breach of contract under the Treaty of Waitangi. So they’re actually an example about how good things could be if you take a positive attitude and you focus on your people, and I think that’s to be lauded.

But none of their success to date has relied on co-governance or getting preferential treatment, and I’m assuming that the leadership of an organisation as successful, and having the mana of, as Ngāi Tahu would bristle at the suggestion that their success is due to special treatment. I think they would reject that. I can’t speak for them, but I’ve met some of them and I think they would say “We did it on our own, based on our own efforts. We didn’t need this kind of support.” That’s why it’s so hard to understand the motivations of the member Rino Tirikatene and his Labour Party colleagues in bringing this bill to the House. It’s another example of Labour MPs and the Labour Government failing to understand what good governance and democracy entails. That is, being able to elect the people who have decision making over your property rights and over our collective national resources that we all have a common interest in—to be able to elect people who make decisions about those things.

So, look, for context: a highly dysfunctional Environment Canterbury was disbanded and replaced under the Environment Canterbury (Transitional Governance Arrangements) Act in 2016, and at the time the ACT Party supported that two members of Ngāi Tahu would be appointed on their recommendation until full democracy could be restored. But democracy has been restored; in fact, in 2019 the people of Canterbury were able to directly elect representatives to Environment Canterbury, to the regional council. But that did not mean an end to the voice of Ngāi Tahu at the council table—in fact, they currently have two mana whenua experts who advise council on matters which are important to mana whenua, but those two people do not have the power to vote on council business. Now, that does appear to be a better way to ensure that iwi Māori voices are heard without tinkering with or overriding basic democratic principles—that is, one person, one vote. And I can confirm that in my experience as an engineer working in local government, I often presented to mana whenua forums to seek their feedback about engineering proposals, about proposals to close and remediate old landfills, and about things that were important to them as mana whenua and which they felt they should have a say in the design and implementation of engineering-based solutions. And that is absolutely fair enough.

If we just come to the proportionality of suffrage—this is a really important point. We understand that about 18,700 members of Ngāi Tahu live in Canterbury, of the 36,000 Māori New Zealanders which Stats New Zealand indicate live in Canterbury. So about half of the Māori New Zealanders who live in Canterbury are Ngāi Tahu, and this piece of legislation would benefit only those 18,700. However they have voting rights already—it’s not required because they don’t have voting rights. They can already vote in local government and general elections, or potentially on the Māori roll in an election. Yet the 563,000 people who live in Canterbury who this legislation doesn’t cover, they will have 14 representatives—about one per 40,000—whereas the Ngāi Tahu representatives appointed, they will represent about 9,000 each. So the democratically-elected representatives will only have one-quarter of the representation of those that Ngāi Tahu represents. So, look, this is going to result in unelected members having much greater voting powers compared to democratically-elected members. It’s a completely unacceptable act to Cantabrians and to most New Zealanders.

So, look, why might they need representation—the regional council? The member Rino Tirikatene has stated there are great benefits to having people with a special relationship with the land making decisions about land and water use. He gives no examples about how Ngāi Tahu representatives have in fact contributed to better decision-making around land and water simply by virtue of their genealogy. That’s frankly patronising and insulting to the tens of thousands of land and water and engineering and science professionals who make decisions for the benefit of our community about land and water every day. It’s patronising and it’s insulting to the farmers, to the foresters, to the engineers, the miners, and the scientists responsible for protecting and enhancing our environment. There is no one in my engineering class who could possibly have assumed that because of who their grandfather or their great-grandfather was, they would know more or less about the environment. None of us would have assumed that, because it’s simply not true. Good environmental practitioners study science and engineering, and they hold themselves and each other to high standards. Race and ethnicity do not come into it.

Now, New Zealanders who came here by waka, by sailing or steamship, or more recently by plane, came here to get away from a futile and a caste-based system; from hierarchies based on birth, whether it was the colour of your skin, your race, your religion, or any other means other than a democratically-elected system of Government—one person, one vote. The Treaty of Waitangi gave New Zealanders equal rights. It protected our property, and if there was anyone who breached our rights we could go to court and have that resolved. That’s available to all New Zealanders. The ACT Party believes that was the intention of Māori and representatives of the Crown. We reject the need for this bill, and, as part of a future Government, ACT will repeal this legislation.

SARAH PALLETT (Labour—Ilam): Thank you, Madam Speaker. He uri ahau nō tawhiti, ka mihi ahau ki tēnei whenua me ōna uri. Ko Sarah Pallett tēnei e mihi ana ki a koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

[My origins are in distant lands, but I pay tribute to this land and its descendants. My name is Sarah Pallett and I offer my greetings to you, my greetings to you all.]

I am a citizen of Aotearoa New Zealand, but this is not my tūrangawaewae; this is not my standing place. My standing place is almost exactly at the antipode of where we stand today: straight through the globe. But in recognising that this is not my tūrangawaewae, I recognise, too, the importance of taking my affirmation of allegiance as a citizen in te reo Māori. I also took my affirmation in te reo Māori here in this House.

Because this is not my tūrangawaewae, I’ve gone to some trouble to understand Te Tiriti o Waitangi, but I am absolutely not an expert. I’ll tell you who is an expert, though: the MP for Te Tai Tonga, Rino Tirikatene—not “Reno” Tirikatene. Rino Tirikatene is an expert in the Treaty of Waitangi, Te Tiriti o Waitangi; Tāmati Coffey, the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee is an expert; Paul Eagle, Arena Williams, Shanan Halbert—they are experts in Te Tiriti o Waitangi. But I digress slightly.

Talking to the bill, this is a local bill. It’s not a member’s bill, but it was introduced to the House by the member for Te Tai Tonga, and for that I’m very grateful. This provides a local solution for a local issue. This bill would have the effect of continuing mana whenua’s representation on the Canterbury Regional Council, Environment Canterbury—or ECan—in the form of two Ngāi Tahu councillors from the 2019 local body elections. This was an arrangement that was first put in place by the National Government in 2010.

As Environment Canterbury themselves say, this “Bill is intended to reinstate direct Ngāi Tahu representation … Under … Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Act 2010, the Minister for the Environment and the Minister for Local Government”—and you’ll forgive me for reading this directly, but it’s quite complicated—“appointed commissioners who collectively had knowledge of and expertise in a number of matters, including … tikanga Māori as it applied in the region. … The practical benefits of mana whenua representation in Canterbury were rapidly and widely recognised, and this recognition remained [for] the nine years [that] that special legislation was in place.”

We heard Willow-Jean Prime speak earlier of the benefits, which included greater efficiency in planning and consenting processes, reduced costs for the council, reduced costs for consent applicants, improved enforcement decisions, and, in addition, Ngāi Tahu participation on council played a pivotal role in building the social capital and community ownership of solutions that underpin water and land management in Canterbury.

“Since 2020, Environment Canterbury has had two Tumu Taiao appointed by the Ngāi Tahu Papatipu Rūnanga Chairs of the Canterbury Region, to assist with Council decision-making. They sit at the Council table and make valuable contributions, but they do not have voting rights.”—they have a seat at the table but they can’t eat. This bill is seeking to address that.

Environment Canterbury, we’ve heard, is responsible for environmental outcomes, but also social, economic, cultural, and environmental outcomes in the 45 square kilometres from Kaikōura to Waitaki, inland all the way to the Southern Alps. As we’ve heard before, Ngāi Tahu are the original people and kaitiaki of that area. They’re not just a business.

There is a lot of support locally for this bill. There is support from Hurunui District Council. There is support from Selwyn District Council. There is support from Christchurch City Council, who said in an earlier letter, in July 2021, that they supported the previous proposed legislation for mana whenua representation, and—their submission was the following: that “Mana whenua representation on Environment Canterbury provides real value and strengthens the strategic partnerships in Canterbury. The Council strongly supports the proposed legislative approach to ensure a representation model that ensures mana whenua representation.” Although that was from an earlier submission, they have said in this letter, dated July 2021—the Hon Lianne Dalziel, Mayor of Christchurch, said, “I shared your letter and the new draft bill with Councillor colleagues … can confirm … we support the new draft local bill and have no further feedback.”

But it’s fair to say that concerns have been raised—it’s fair to say that concerns have been raised. Concerns are occasionally raised about New Zealand Bill of Rights Act compliance. So I’d like to refer the House to the Attorney-General’s legal advice that was submitted to the select committee. I’ll sum it up. It says, “We have concluded that the Bill appears to be consistent with [that] Act.” I summed it up, but I’m going to go into a little bit more detail, because of the submitters seem to require it. As they said, “Section 19(1) of the Bill of Rights Act affirms the right to freedom from discrimination on the grounds set out in the Human Rights Act 1993 … The key questions in assessing whether there’s a limit to the right of freedom from discrimination are: … does the legislation draw a distinction on one of the prohibited grounds of discrimination under s21 of the Human Rights Act 1993; and if so, … does the distinction involve disadvantage to one or more classes of individuals?” They go on to say—I’m skipping a couple of paragraphs because I’m sure you don’t want me to read the whole thing—that “The Bill … confers rights on Māori that are not conferred on other people, by providing Ngāi Tahu with non-elected representatives on the Council, in addition to their vote for elected members. The Bill could therefore be seen to draw distinctions on the basis of rights or ethnic origin.” But the important part is in the next paragraph, because it goes as follows: “Notwithstanding this, the extent to which the distinctions reflect the status of Māori as … Crown’s Treaty partner, and the Crown’s duties under Te Tiriti o Waitangi, we do not consider any other groups in a comparable position. The Treaty of Waitangi settlement agreed between Ngāi Tahu and the Crown in November 1997 acknowledged the rangatiratanga and mana of Ngāi Tahu over their lands … and affirmed their special association with the natural environment in a number of areas.”

This is where I would return you to—Madam Speaker, I would return the House; not you, Madam Speaker—to the concept of kaitiaki, which is a really important concept to absorb, especially as an immigrant, as I am myself.

The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act assessment from the Attorney-General does conclude that in the context of the provisions within this bill, no other person or groups can be considered to be in comparable circumstances to Ngāi Tahu, and no person or groups will be materially disadvantaged by the passing of the bill. The result of this assessment is that section 19 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is not engaged, and the bill appears to be consistent with the rights and freedoms affirmed in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

Now, it’s important, when we reflect on the legal advice from the Attorney-General that the Attorney-General does not always find in our favour, and I think that it really does his reputation as an independent assessor—and one that we would uphold strongly, because we don’t always have agreement from the Attorney-General with this Government’s position.

But in summation, this bill is not about special privileges for Ngāi Tahu; it’s about recognising the responsibility that Ngāi Tahu as kaitiaki of the air, land, waters, and coast of the region, and enabling them to perform that duty. I commend it to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I call Joseph Mooney—five minutes.

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise as the member for Southland to speak on this bill. The National Party opposes the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill.

The proposed legislation provides mana whenua representation on the Canterbury Regional Council, while giving Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu the right to appoint up to two members of the council in addition to elected members and to ensure that, once appointed, those members have the same status as elected members for all purposes. The National Party opposes this legislation because the proposed provisions are undemocratic. The proposed two additional members of the council would be appointed by Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu rather than being elected by the public, of whom Ngāi Tahu are members.

It is a longstanding principle in Western democracies that where taxes or rates are levied, there should be a mechanism for those who pay to exercise control through voting. The provisions in this bill provide for the potential for Māori wards to also be introduced in Canterbury, including the potential for more appointed positions and the provisions in this bill also provides for less effective mana whenua representation in the current Tumu Taiao who advise the council.

This bill weakens Canterbury’s local democracy by creating a workaround of the democratic norm that community representatives legitimately exercise public power on the basis of being elected to make decisions on behalf of their communities. Accordingly, the addition of two additional councillors who are not elected would dilute the Canterbury region’s democratic representation by investing those two unelected appointees with the same voting rights and powers as elected members. Such an arrangement will weaken the council’s accountability to Cantabrians.

I note that the long history of New Zealand—New Zealand’s a young country, but we’re one of the oldest democracies. Originally, the voting rights were based on the possession of property in this country. However, Māori men were granted universal suffrage in 1867 with four electorates for Māori—three in the North Islands and one in the South Island—because only a small number of Māori owned individual freehold land at that time, and many Māori could not vote.

So Māori men were actually given the universal suffrage in this country before all other men who did not own land. Universal male suffrage was introduced 12 years later for all men on 12 December 1879, and that gave them the right to vote whether or not they owned property. It was 19 September 1893 that New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world in which women had the right to vote in parliamentary elections. So that’s 129 years of history in this country of universal suffrage, giving everyone in this country an equal right to vote in elections. This bill undermines that principle of 129 years of electoral universal suffrage in this country giving all adults—male and female—the same right to vote for those who exercise power and control over their lives.

This bill, also, in my view, is irreconcilable with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was proclaimed in 1948, and Article 21 says, “Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in their country.” It also says, “The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of Government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.” Again, this bill undermines that Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which makes it clear that there should be universal and equal suffrage for all voters in this country.

I note Ngāi Tahu are a fantastic iwi who have done incredible things since 1998 when they were given a settlement of $170 million—the Treaty settlement. They have grown that to an asset base that now stands at about $1.2 billion. Over $320 million has been distributed to support tribal programmes. Ngāi Tahu annually contribute over $200 million to the South Island economy through job creation, through purchasing, and spending profits locally. So National, and myself, strongly acknowledge Ngāi Tahu as an important, well organised tribe who are essential to the South Island’s future prosperity and resilience. Based on these strengths, Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu are well positioned to present and support credible, competent candidates that run for local or regional office who can succeed without reliance on preferential legislation.

We very much support Ngāi Tahu; we do not support this bill.

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare, and it’s a privilege to talk on the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill. Can I say a big thanks to Tāmati Coffey and the Māori Affairs Committee, where the former speaker and myself sit on that committee. We went through this process thoroughly in terms of getting this bill to the House. I wanted just to focus on three things this evening, and one is just a reflection on what’s happening now in terms of their representation on there. Really, what we’ve heard today, and what the feedback will show you in black and white, is it’s a reflection of what is happening now anyway. It’s been through a very thorough process to say that this is the model that we want, and I’m a real fan of that, because all communities are different throughout Aotearoa New Zealand. What works, for example, on the Chatham Islands is obviously not going to work in Waitaha, in Canterbury, or in Tāmaki-makau-rau—Auckland. So you’ve got a whole range of mechanisms where democracy and how that works will take place, and what I like most is this is a local solution, where the locals have done something where they think it works locally, and therefore it is good.

One of the issues, though, I find is we get really hot and heated under the collar about these people being democratically elected, but I always find the same hot and heatedness doesn’t apply to council-controlled organisations. These are organisations that are meant to be 100 percent owned by the cities or districts. They are loaded with undemocratically elected people—every single one of them, in fact—and no one says boo. Yes, there’s a process—there is—but are they democratically elected to run a council service? No. Not a word is said. There is a process. Democratically elected? No.

I’m just saying: council-controlled organisations across New Zealand with not one single democratically elected person on there, unless they are appointed as a councillor on to that board, and that is different from council to council, and organisation to organisation. Christchurch City, through the holdings company Christchurch City Holdings Ltd, Orion—but who knows? I mean, I don’t know who is elected on there. But this is right—no one can tell me. No one could even tell me who the board chair was or who the board members are on Orion, Citycare, the Christchurch Airport Co. Ltd. Who are they? I have no idea.

But my point is, as I’m not questioning the intelligence, the skills, and the contribution that each of those people bring—far from it. It’s just that key point about them—[Members interject]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Let’s just—the member Paul Eagle.

PAUL EAGLE: It gets a lot of heat there, Madam Speaker. But the key point here is just that it’s not the quality of the individuals or even of who they are politically—unlike some of my colleagues here—but it’s all to the point that the democracy element is simply not there.

So that’s what I’m just trying to compare this to say that, hey look, we have these entities. Yep, they’re slightly different, and they all are because they provide a whole range of different services. But that key notion—you see, back in the old days, some of these entities would have just been purely in-house and run by the cities and districts, and no problem. Some of these things would not even have been talked about. But what I find interesting now is that the minute we look at some of this in a wider context about being democratically elected, that does not apply right across the board. So I guess it’s just apples and oranges and bananas and pears—who knows?

But what I do know is that it is what Environment Canterbury, the Canterbury Regional Council, want. They have talked with their Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu partner and said, “Look, in terms of acknowledging the rights of mana whenua within their region, being a fundamental feature of Māori law, and being the political representative, that’s what they want.”

So, in terms of a local solution reflecting what is happening now, and being fully supported—and we’ve heard about some of the mayors within the region who have been supportive—then it just makes sense to me. I commend the bill to the House.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): In many ways the speech just given by the previous speaker, Paul Eagle, points to the ridiculous nature of this particular bill. He spoke about council-controlled organisations being stacked full of appointees. Well, many of those appointees in actual fact are—all of them, I would say—appointed because they have some degree of expertise. It’s quite interesting that he points out CCL, which is well chaired by Mr Barry Bragg, who happens also to be Ngāi Tahu but is primarily appointed because he is a very capable individual. I’m sure that when that previous speaker advances his own intentions with regards to local government in the next few months, he will equally be successful and nothing to do with the fact that he is Māori.

So let me just straighten up a few things. We heard from Tāmati Coffey this glowing sort of condemnation of the National Party position, because we apparently are backtracking on the previous position where there was one commissioner appointed to Environment Canterbury (ECan) at the time that ECan was sacked and replaced by commissioners. Now, looking at that situation, there had been 20 years where the ECan had failed totally to look after the water resource in Canterbury. Massively over-allocated. No real information about what its recharge capability was. It needed to have people with considerable expertise. As it happens, Anake Goodall, who was a Ngāi Tahu representative on that commission, had that expertise quite brilliantly and he was chosen as a result of that. And I think given that the democracy had been taken away from people who would normally vote on that council, it was only appropriate to have commissioners that represented the widest interests of the community possible. So that was the reason for the inclusion of Ngāi Tahu.

I’ve got to say, too, that post the earthquakes in Christchurch, Ngāi Tahu were a very, very influential part of the recovery, and included in all of that. But once again, because that work was being done largely by a Government department, it needed to have the sort of input that was required from the widest part of the community. How the widest part of the community is represented on a body like ECan is through the triannual elections. I don’t see what the problem is for Ngāi Tahu to put up their own candidates, openly saying that they’re standing on that ticket. What would be wrong with that? Why is that so hard? Because I can tell you that the public view of Ngāi Tahu in Canterbury is very, very positive—very positive. They are an organisation that contribute significantly to the wellbeing of the entire Te Wai Pounamu, and particularly in the Ōtautahi community. I’m using those words almost with a degree of reluctance because I do remember being criticised very heavily by a recently appointed Knight of the Realm for using inappropriate vowels in a couple of sentences that I uttered at that time. You know, I suppose through that I do understand to some extent the term “grievance”.

But let me also look at, for a moment, the issues around what the Labour Party are calling co-governance—we would call co-management. So in the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Bill there were a number of coastal areas that were set aside for exclusive use during different times of the year for Ngāi Tahu. There has never been an issue around any of that. There were a few skirmishes initially at a place called Kaiapoi, which is Saltwater Creek, but it settled very, very quickly. And the recognition was of the customary rights that Ngāi Tahu had in that area and many others throughout the South Island.

We also have, post that period, a number of tai-ā-pure that have been set up around the coastline and they are very much the local fishing interests, the local community, and Ngāi Tahu are involved in that as well, and they have been enormously successful. We did have an arrangement around the Whanganui River and that has been successful. And then also in the Ureweras; very successful. And the reason for that is because it is a management of a specific location, specific area, with a very specific purpose. ECan has a very broad purpose, a huge purpose, and much of it affects commercial activity that takes place on the Canterbury Plains and into South Canterbury, right up into North Canterbury as well, up to the Alps. So a very, very broad mandate that they have. And the question that sits in my head is: why would we say that this particular part of the community has a much greater interest in the environmental outcomes for that area? If it’s just on the basis of principle, which says, “Well, the Treaty demands it.”, then show us how that demand is being represented by this Government—because it’s not. The Government has run a mile from this bill and allowed it to go through as a private bill. They’ll go round and tell people quietly who aren’t happy with it—and there were 1,600 submitters who weren’t happy with it—“Oh, look, we had no choice. It was what they wanted; we had to give it to them.” They, of course, being ECan itself.

So I think there’s just bad process here as much as anything else. I have a huge respect for Ngāi Tahu, for the engagement that I’ve had with them over a number of years. It’s not day to day, it’s not week to week, it’s not month to month, but it is certainly there—on a needs basis—and recognising they’re an independent organisation that, post their Treaty settlement, have not relied on the Government for anything. I think in some ways this devalues their position in our community and I don’t like that either.

Over the weekend there was the announcement that Sir Tipene O’Regan was to be elevated to the Order of New Zealand. That is a most appropriate honour—one of the more appropriate honours that I’ve seen in my time in this House. I think—well, he may well support this bill; I don’t know what his views are. What he does support is a very independent, a very strong, and a very contributing Ngāi Tahu, focused on the wellbeing of their people. I think this takes a little bit away from that. And I think the question I go back to, the point I go back to is: why don’t Ngāi Tahu sign up to a candidacy, or more, for ECan seats? I can’t see what the problem is, other than—just like everybody else in the community—Ngāi Tahu have different political views, different political opinions, and different political allegiances to any particular candidates who may or may not stand. And that, I think, further devalues the concept of saying, “Well, just the leadership of Ngāi Tahu can decide who these two new councillors are.”

So this is not, in my opinion, good legislation. If it was a Government bill, then it would be the sort of thing that you would have the whole system of Government working on. There would be a consideration of the Tāmati Coffey position, which is that this is precedent setting, it’s just the beginning, and there’s a whole lot more to come. The legislation that would flow from it would probably be schedule-based to enable such a thing. We probably wouldn’t vote for that either. But the point is this Government won’t do it either. So the question becomes should we support legislation that is almost hobby horse in its construction. Or should we take the appropriate ground, as Paul Goldsmith so eloquently put it before and say, “Look, in a democracy”—and Paul Eagle made the same point, in actual fact—“an elected body can make any appointments it wants.” It can delegate certain responsibilities to those bodies. So in that case, why would we start to weaken the supremacy of the elected body? And that is what this bill sets out to do and is the reason why we are not supporting it.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour—Banks Peninsula): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to contribute today, when we talk about the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill. To start with, I really do want to acknowledge the member who’s shepherding this bill through, Rino Tirikatene, the member of Parliament for Te Tai Tonga and a very proud member of Parliament for Te Tai Tonga as well.

Before I go on, I, like others, would also like to acknowledge the New Zealander of the year, Tā Tipene O’Regan o Ngāi Tahu, after receiving, as Mr Brownlee just said, New Zealand’s highest order, our country’s most royal sort of accolade, by being named as a member of the Order of New Zealand in the recent Queen’s Birthday Honours List. It is, as Mr Brownlee said, incredibly fitting and very well deserved.

The bill that we’ve got before us today is a pretty simple bill, and I don’t want to make that sound as if I’m being simplistic about it, because it’s clearly engendered a lot of emotion today. But the bill essentially allows Ngāi Tahu to appoint up to two members to its council. It’s what happens now, it’s what works well now, and it’s what Environment Canterbury (ECan) would like to continue to do. It seeks to reinstate mana whenua representation on the council and it reflects, I think, ECan’s ongoing and commendable commitment to securing that permanent Ngāi Tahu representation.

I just want to pick up on a couple of points that have been made. Joseph Mooney mentioned, and Mr Brownlee also continued the conversation along the lines, that Ngāi Tahu are well positioned and well placed to field very competent candidates. And I think the inference was that they were well placed to run very well-resourced campaigns, and both of those things are true. In fact, there are many Ngāi Tahu candidates elected in local body elections in the region who do a fantastic job. But that’s not the point. Whilst they may be mana whenua, this bill here is seeking a permanent recognition of mana whenua representation on that board. So it’s not just about that.

It’s a unique bill, in so far as it’s a local bill—it doesn’t happen that frequently. The Canterbury Regional Council, colloquially known as ECan, requested that Rino Tirikatene take this bill to Parliament, and that he has done. They did so, so that they can promote a legislative change at a local level. So in that sense, it’s a bespoke arrangement. And I’d like to quote my colleague Rino Tirikatene when he said, “This is a unique situation where you have a single iwi which has already appointed councillors and it’s just seeking to reinstate that arrangement for a single geographic area.” ECan is not urging that this model be adopted by others, and I think that that’s really important to note, but it does ask this House that it be allowed to have a system that it believes is the right system for Canterbury. And as we’ve heard from others earlier on, my colleague Willow-Jean Prime talked about the fact that there was an extensive and substantive representation review and they went through a process where they looked at options and they decided what was best for them. They considered the fact that they’d had nine years of benefit with something that was working really well, and this is what they want.

Willow-Jean Prime also mentioned the fact that when someone asked, “Why not just opt for Māori Wards or constituencies?” It doesn’t work like that for everyone. This is about mana whenua and not specifically about all Māori. So when we talk about ECan in terms of what their goals are and what their aspirations are for the way that they operate, I think there’s a couple of other things that we really need to bear in mind as well. The council only has one iwi with mana whenua throughout its region, and for this reason, the council prefers a direct appointment, as their reflection of Ngaī Tahu as mana whenua. It’s also not about special privileges. And I find some of the contributions that have alleged special privilege, or used the concept of special privilege, and have really almost crossed that line to be quite discomforting. Ngāi Tahu appointees do not come at the expense of elected members, and that’s really clear.

The bill, as recommended by the select committee, would expand the total membership of ECan to 16 representatives, so essentially an increase from the 14 who currently sit on council to 16. It’s making room for that relationship. I think the bill is not about special privileges for Ngāi Tahu, and if we cast our minds back to several contributions ago, we heard what can only be described as quite a simplistic and condescending explanation, a sort of ACT-splanation, so to speak, about Ngāi Tahu focusing on Ngāi Tahu as an organisation and not acknowledging Ngāi Tahu as a people.

So this bill was not about special privileges. This bill is about recognising the responsibility that Ngāi Tahu has as kaitiaki of the air, as kaitiaki of waters, as kaitiaki of the land and the coast of the region—a particularly special region and unique region as well—and enabling them to perform what is their duty. That responsibility lies with Ngāi Tahu directly, and not Māori generally. Crown Law has advised that the bill does not breach the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, as my colleague Sarah Pallett talked about. To quote “the extent to which the distinctions [on the basis of race or ethnic origins] reflect the status of Māori as the Crown’s Treaty partner, and the Crown’s duties under Te Tiriti o Waitangi, we do not consider any other group is in a comparable position.”

And also, when we think about it—I wasn’t able to listen to all of the earlier contributions, I was elsewhere. But out of the corner of my eye—and quite discreetly, I should hope—I was looking on my cell phone to see where we were up to, and the auto cue was accompanying and making up for the lack of sound. And quite frequently, again, out of the corner of my eye, all I could see from the Opposition was the word “democracy”, “democracy”, and “democracy” being sort of bandied about. My first thought was, “Oh, the irony of that”—particularly in this area, particularly when we’re literally debating the Canterbury Regional Council, and everything that that went through, and the precedent set by National. The irony of the Opposition to date.

And again, my colleague Rino Tirikatene, I’d like to quote him again: “This arrangement of Ngāi Tahu councillors was first put in place by the National Government in 2010, when it installed commissioners on the council.” And don’t we all remember that? What we do know since the 2010 arrangement was, and we’ve heard several people mention this—not just today, but certainly, as I understand, through the submission process—was that a significant amount of details were provided about everything that was achieved during that time, with a proper mana whenua voice being involved in ECan’s decision making, and from which the region has benefited. Again, members opposite, happy to take the benefit, not so happy to contribute to ensuring that that benefit exists. It also benefits ratepayers, hence their wish for this body to continue.

I also note that the Hon Eugenie Sage, along the same lines, mentioned it’s somewhat ironic that we have a National Party opposing this bill and talking about democracy because, of course, it was the National Party that got rid of the 14 elected councillors on Environment Canterbury in 2010 and did not return democracy to Canterbury for nine long years. I think it’s been quite interesting listening to the Opposition’s opposition to this bill. I know they’re just doing their job, but it’s somewhat out of step with some of the other bodies in the area. And I certainly note that the Selwyn District Council strongly supported this bill in the select committee submission. The Selwyn District Council specifically said that it existed during the transitional Government’s governance arrangement periods from 2010 until 2019, and it commended the Canterbury Regional Council and Ngāi Tahu on the commitment, the actual commitment to work together for the benefit of the region. And further, I note that Mayor Sam Broughton—a very good mayor—said “My experience has been that complex issues are dealt with best when all parties are in the room and [all parties] are involved from the start.”

To finish off, I’d just like to commend the Māori Affairs Committee, ably chaired by Tāmati Coffey, and all of the people that participated during this process. I’d also like to acknowledge my friend Jo McLean, wahine o Ngāi Tahu, for her guidance and her wisdom and for always talking open heartedly about all of the issues that face us. Thank you.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 77

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

Noes 42

New Zealand National 32; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill

First Reading

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): I move, That Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Māori Affairs Committee to consider the bill.

E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. E te Whare, tēnā koutou katoa. Whatungarongaro he tangata, toitū te whenua.

[As man disappears from sight, the land remains.]

Whenua is of vital importance to Māori. It is essential for Māori that land is retained through generations. It is whakapapa. The vital relationship that Māori have with land is recognised as whanaungatanga, and if Māori can act as guardians of the land’s natural and physical resources, that is kaitiakitanga. There are more than 27,000 blocks of Māori land under the present Te Ture Whenua Maori Act, comprising 1.4 million hectares, about 5 percent of the total land mass of New Zealand. It has been estimated that up to 80 percent of Māori land is underperforming for its owners. In many cases, this is because of structural issues which stem from the existing legislation. Under current legislation, fragmentation is getting worse, not better, and there are thousands of owners who remain disconnected from their land.

Even if whānau, hapū, or iwi have managed to hold on to some of their lands through confiscations, war, or have succeeded in having their ancestral whenua returned, the odds are still stacked against them to build a single house upon it, to develop papakāinga, or to operate enterprises on that land. Picture this: in many parts of the country on one side of the road, you can see farms where the title was granted by the Crown and is thus considered general land. The property on that side of the land is productively developed and farmed by its owners. In part, this is because owners of general land have easy access to mortgage loans and other financial assistance. Owners of general land have easy access to finance, because banks can call in the mortgage if they fail to service it and can sell the land to recover their costs. On the other side of the land, Māori freehold land owners, or land that is Māori customary land, face big challenges in developing and building on their land. The problem for lenders is that it is a big risk to provide lending in respect of land with multiple owners. This is because banks cannot call in whenua Māori if the loan is not paid as the finance institutions cannot sell the land to recover their costs.

I note the Kāinga Whenua loan scheme, which is an initiative between Kāinga Ora and Kiwibank to help Māori achieve landownership on multiple-owned land. However, that also has its limitations as it puts limits on the type of house that can be built, purchased, or relocated. It must be a one-storey house of at least 50 square metres. It must be on piles so it can be moved, and it has to have reasonable road access. As a consequence, far too often, Māori freehold land tends to remain underdeveloped. It’s not because Māori land owners don’t want to live and work their whenua but it many ways Te Ture Whenua Maori Act in its current form does not empower them to make the decisions they need to improve the land or to build housing and papakāinga.

This bill provides clearer governance structures such as trusts, incorporations, or external administrators to administer the land for the benefit of the participating owners. It also provides accountability mechanisms to ensure that those who are entrusted to govern the land for the benefit of iwi, hapū, and whānau do so competently and can be held to account for any breach of duty. This would be likely to give financial institutions greater confidence in lending to multiple-owned whenua Māori land for papakāinga intergenerational collective housing as well as agricultural and other enterprises on that land.

There are two key aims at the heart of this bill. Firstly, the bill will strengthen Te Ture Whenua Maori Act to keep Māori land in Māori hands. Secondly, this bill will empower iwi, hapū, and whānau to make their own decisions about how they wish to maximise the potential of their whenua for their benefit and the benefit of future generations. This legislation supports the enhanced performance and productivity of Māori land, which has the opportunity to provide billions of dollars of additional economic and cultural benefit for the owners. Māori land has the potential to produce up to $8 billion in additional value for the Māori economy. This bill reflects a policy shift to more clearly support land utilisation and productivity as determined by the owners themselves. National’s objective with this bill is to keep Māori land in the undisturbed possession of its owners and its occupation, use, and administration by them for their benefit. Laws and policies must emphasise and consolidate Māori land ownership and use by the whānau or kin group. It is, however, important in determining where we need to go to examine more closely where we have come from.

Over the years numerous reviews of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act have emphasised that the law for Māori land needs to be an enabling law so that the participating owners can make decisions without having to get court approval. Multiple reviews have repeatedly determined that the law is required to be a protective law too so that Māori land is retained by Māori. The law needs to give Māori land owners a clear and accountable governance framework within which to develop their land. Moreover, the law must include a better dispute resolution support structure for Māori land owners, and the law needs to have options to address fragmentation.

This can only happen by replacing the current Act, not just tinkering with it. There have been more than 180 statutes relating to Māori land over the last 168 years—180 statutes and 168 years, and, unfortunately, that volume of legislation reflects the tendency of politicians to fiddle around the edges of this important issue rather than deal with comprehensive reform of it. This bill is based on the fundamental principle that Māori land endures as a taonga tuku iho by virtue of whakapapa, that tikanga Māori is fundamental to matters involving Māori land, and that the Treaty of Waitangi is central to the application of laws affecting Māori land. The bill is also grounded in the idea that Māori land owners have the right to decide for themselves how their land is governed and how it is used, to take advantage of opportunities to develop their land for the benefit of present and future generations, and to have disputes managed in a way that maintains and enhances relationships among the owners and members of the whānau and hapū.

As of 2018 the Māori economy was worth over $68 billion. Over the past decade, the Māori asset base has been growing at 10 percent a year, much faster than the overall economy. The Māori economy is on track to reach $100 billion by 2030. A PricewaterhouseCoopers study prepared for the Ministry for Primary Industries in 2013 suggested that the benefits of improving governance and management of Māori land could increase financial benefit to Māori by up to $8 billion and create up to 3,600 jobs over a decade. The growth of the Māori economy is a great success story. This bill would support and accelerate the growth of that economy by improving the performance and productivity of Māori land by and for Māori. Unleashing the potential of Māori land is crucial to setting up Māori for success in their post - Treaty settlement future.

National believes that when Māori succeed, New Zealand succeeds. The New Zealand National Party has a proud tradition of supporting Māori to unleash the potential of their whenua, their land. Sir Apirana Ngata, the legendary National Party native affairs Minister during the early 20th century, embarked on a programme of enabling Māori to develop their land. Sir Apirana Ngata pressed ahead with land development schemes and initiated schemes across New Zealand where he could find underdeveloped Māori land in local communities willing to work it. Through this legislation, National is backing Māori aspirations and broadening opportunities by enabling Māori to unlock the strategic potential of their resources.

National wants to boost the Māori economy and improve outcomes for Māori by supporting Māori in their self-development and self-determination. This bill reforms and restates Te Ture Whenua Maori Act into a modern, fit for purpose law which strengthens the protections of whenua Māori and unleashes the productive potential it can provide for iwi, hapū, and whānau. Whereas the current 1993 Act has the Māori Land Court as its central focus, the reforms proposed in this bill will place the legislative focus on the land itself and the rights and authority of the owners. This bill reflects a policy shift to more clearly support land utilisation as determined by the owners themselves. This is done by providing a new framework within which owners of Māori land will themselves be able to determine, design, establish, and operate effective governance arrangements for their land. The new framework establishes a clear and explicit governance environment, providing certainty for those working within it, flexible options for governance structures, the ability to reflect tikanga Māori in governance arrangements, baseline thresholds for certain decisions, and appropriate measures for Government accountability.

The bill would achieve the dual aims of protecting Māori land and supporting the productive utilisation of whenua Māori in several key ways. First it will allow engaged land owners of Māori land to make governance and utilisation decisions without needing approval by the Māori Land Court. The current regime is structured so that a number of decisions cannot be taken by Māori land owners themselves because they are subject to endorsement by the Māori Land Court. Currently, this ranges from long-term lease decisions to the establishment of trusts and incorporations to ratify any decisions of assembled owners. This serves to disempower owners and makes decision-making processes unnecessarily complex for most of the decisions effected.

The bill would also continue and strengthen safeguards to support the retention of Māori land in Māori ownership. Thirdly, the bill would unlock access to landlocked land. Many Māori land owners, particularly rural land owners, are unable to maximise the potential of their land due to where their whenua is located. Approximately 27 percent of Māori whenua is landlocked. When whenua is landlocked land owners must have either really good neighbours who will let them drive over their whenua or they can’t actually get to it other than by walking. The law as it currently is requires Māori land owners to approach surrounding neighbours and negotiate and formalise reasonable legal access. The lack of reasonable access to whenua is a huge legal and practical obstacle to the development and utilisation of whenua.

This bill is a significant step forward, and I would hope to see support from the Labour Party, the Māori Party, and the Green Party. I have written to all members of the House seeking their input on this, and I hope they will at least support this bill through to select committee.

Sitting suspended from 6.03 p.m. to 7 p.m.

TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to also take an opportunity to thank my colleague on the Māori Affairs Committee for bringing this forward. We have a very collegial understanding on the Māori Affairs Committee, and we try to check our politics at the door and make sure that we’re actually tackling the real issues that our people want us to be able to face. Unfortunately though, this isn’t one of them. For that reason, I’ll not be supporting this bill.

This is a bill that deserves a little bit of a history lesson because that’s where this bill started. It started way back in 2016. It was brought to the House. It was introduced by the Hon Te Ururoa Flavell. He had gone out there and had done a little bit of consultation with the community and then was ready to ram it through the House. Fortunately, that wasn’t able to happen. It went to the Māori Affairs Committee, and the members at the time voiced their concerns. There was a submissions process, and there were people that are very highly regarded in Te Ao Māori that also voiced their concerns against this too.

I want to note the submission from the judges of the Māori Land Court, who actually put in a submission against this bill. They were very fearful of the upheaval and the huge leap that was going from legislation for which—way back when Te Ture Whenua Maori Act, the first Act, was put in place in 1993—there was a lot of work that was put into that legislation. This isn’t the same. Although it’s a long bill, it didn’t have that same kind of negotiation that it had out there in the community, especially amongst Māori stakeholders.

At home—back home in the Bay of Plenty and the Waiariki and Rotorua—we have lots of Māori land. At the time there was concern raised from the community—a lot of our Māori land owners—who were saying “We don’t know about this bill. We don’t know enough about this bill. We don’t like it. Sure, there’s things to tweak in the ture whenua system, especially in the court system, but we think that we can do that with smaller, more incremental changes, rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water.” That was the sentiment of the submission that came in from—again—the judges of the Māori Land Court and also members of the community that engaged me on that conversation too.

This bill is almost an identical copy of that bill, which gave so much concern at the time. There was significant concern from iwi and from Māori all around the country, and also you had organisations like the New Zealand Law Society and the Human Rights Commission that actually fronted up and said this is not a good piece of legislation. Yes, we need reform, but this isn’t the bill to do it.

Sadly to say, it was actually an issue that we took on the campaign trail in 2017 and the Hon Te Ururoa Flavell was voted out because of this legislation. There was a real fear in the community that he was moving way too fast on this and hadn’t done the ground work. I’m sad to say to my colleague this is a cut and paste, and it has not had the groundwork done on it. It still is very identical to the bill that came before the House back then, and, for that same reason, we have to oppose it. This is not good legislation.

In the meantime, what we have done as a Government is implemented small changes at the Māori Land Court. Can I give a little shout-out to the people that live and breathe life in the Māori Land Court—my mother being one of them. She gave 20 years of her life, up until her retirement last year, to Te Kōti Whenua Māori. When you work as a case manager in that environment, the work is heavy. It is very heavy.

One of the things that I know that her colleagues wanted was actually a more streamlined system. They said, “We want for not every case to come before court, because we don’t think that a judge needs to preside over everything that happens in the Māori Land Court. We think that that can be done in a streamlined, more administrative way.” We’ve made those changes since we’ve been in Government. We also didn’t want to come into Government in 2017—having turned this bill down and opposing this bill—to not actually do anything. So we put in place a series of reforms. Our Minister the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, when she was leading the Ministry of Māori Development, made sure that these changes were put in place—a more streamlined administrative system so that not every case has to go before the Māori Land Court judge.

The ability to actually create an environment where you don’t go there just to talk about your land grievance but actually you go there to talk about your land and also what opportunities there are for you to be able to build on your land and do some productive things, which everybody wants—that’s currently happening with the service that we’ve got. We bolstered the efforts of Te Puni Kōkiri to be able to assist the Māori Land Court to be able to help Māori land owners to realise their aspirations, whether it’s papa kāinga developments in housing or horticulture opportunities and being able to do some really innovative stuff in that way. We’ve made some tweaks to the system. They’ve been good tweaks to the system. There isn’t the call for this reform.

I need the member that’s bringing this to the House to understand this: there is no call for this reform. The people that work inside the Māori Land Court understand the changes that we’ve gone and made as a Government. We did it in two tranches. They’re very happy with those changes, and we need to make sure that we’re actually listening to the voices of the community and those people that are at the coalface in this. There isn’t the call for change.

For that reason, I again—with, I’m pretty sure, our members on this side of the House—will be voting against it, because we believe that the Māori Land Court has got an absolute job to play, remembering that the history of the Māori Land Court isn’t an easy one—

Simon Court: We’ll take the win, from the member. “Pretty sure” is a back down.

TĀMATI COFFEY: I don’t know what he just said.

Simon Court: You’re “pretty sure” you’ll be voting against it, so that’s a back-down. So there’s still—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): Order! You’ll get your turn.

TĀMATI COFFEY: He will get his turn, and it’ll be pretty predictable about what he might say.

The Māori Land Court actually has a turbulent history in Te Ao Māori—remembering that this came at a time when the Māori Land Court was put in place to actually individualise titles on Māori land. Collective Māori land that was owned by tribes suddenly had to be individualised, and, actually, there was a lot of pain and a lot of heartache through that system. In fact, I know, as chair of the Māori Affairs Committee, that in the establishment of the Māori Land Court there were petitions flooding into this House of Parliament from Māori all around the country saying, “Our land is being taken. Our land is being taken. You need to listen to us.” Unfortunately, this House didn’t act as it could have and should have, and much land was taken through that process. We’re still making up for it now.

But the Māori Land Court has actually turned into a museum and an archive of knowledge. It has the minutes of our grandparents and our great grandparents standing in those courts of law fighting for their rights, fighting for their lands, and talking to us about whakapapa, about who owns what, and about which boundary is the boundary between my section and that person’s section. It’s become an absolute treasure trove of knowledge, and for that reason I have the utmost respect for the system as it stands.

Can we do better? Of course we can—of course we can. But having to go through this and doing monumental change when it isn’t called for is the wrong thing to do. I appreciate that the member thought that there were some more legs in this bill and that he could just dust it off the shelf and put it back into the parliamentary system. I understand that. I get that. He probably just needed a member’s bill and thought this was the right thing to do. But this was a really challenging piece of legislation that led to the departure of the Māori Party from this House in 2017, because Māori and land is a very, very sensitive topic, and you don’t take it lightly. We’ve had to fight for the amount of land that we’ve got these days. We’re still fighting those fights. So to be able to touch legislation like this and think that you’re going to get support without the call, without the groundswell from the people at the front line, and without the Māori community backing you, actually makes this bill pretty hollow.

For that reason, I won’t be supporting this bill, but I do again thank the member for bringing this to the House so that we can have that discussion. But things haven’t changed, and there is still huge concern about the content of this bill, and there’s been not much change between the original legislation back in 2016 and this legislation that’s being presented before the House right now. For that reason, I do not commend this bill to the House.

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

Dr ELIZABETH KEREKERE (Green): Kia ora. As is the custom, I congratulate Joseph Mooney for having his bill drawn from the ballot—I’m still crossing my fingers after 18 months—and it has come up on the Order Paper so many times, I think I wrote the notes for this last year. So I’m glad that it can be addressed tonight one way or another. I certainly agreed when you spoke first before the break that when Māori succeed Aotearoa New Zealand succeeds, so kia ora.

To add to the whakapapa outlined by my colleague Tāmati Coffey, we note that this comprehensive and weighty bill is effectively the same one introduced by the National Government following the review of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act in 2013. I understand it met with a lot of opposition at that time and was subsequently withdrawn in 2017 by the Hon Nanaia Mahuta.

I’m on record as supporting a complete overhaul of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act. It has so much wrong with it, I believe, and to date we’ve only seen piecemeal incremental changes to it: different laws that take small chunks and try to make sense of it. The previous Government, of course, went on to pass the Te Ture Whenua Māori (Succession, Dispute Resolution, and Related Matters) Amendment Bill in August 2020, and the current Government has passed the Local Government (Rating of Whenua Māori) Amendment Bill and the Local Electoral (Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill. All of these we did support.

So this bill, we note, has drawn upon advice of the review panel of March 2014 and submissions on an exposure draft that was extensively consulted on back in May 2015. It does seek to improve the performance and productivity of Māori land, to repeal and replace the current law relating to Māori land, and to allow Māori land owners the right to do more and improve that performance, and, absolutely, it correctly identifies it is underutilised land.

We note that it intends to prescribe a clear decision-making process and provide the Māori Land Court with more discretion—we support that aspect of it—as to whether the partitions will assist owners on Māori freehold land to retain, occupy, or develop this land. However, as I’ve mentioned, in other bills and in any pieces of legislation that come in, the Government determines how Māori must account for what they’re doing in their decisions on their own land, and there remains that paternalistic aspect of this bill, which seeks to determine what Māori should do once they have access to their own land. I would so love to see a bill which just gives Māori land back to the owners—the original owners—and allows them to just do what they like with it. Hence Hoki Whenua Mai and #LandBack.

I would like to say that the policy statement at the beginning of this bill is actually really beautiful. I thought that that was really well written, so I just mihi to that, but I think this bill does not live up to it. I don’t think enough has been done to it that makes it really, really fit those goals.

We were vocal opponents of previous iterations of this bill because many Māori viewed it as having been rushed and having had inadequate consultation for them when it was initially introduced. As Mr Coffey has identified, hapū and iwi across the country did not support it because they felt that it didn’t uphold their tino rangatiratanga and that the whenua was still not being properly protected through its provisions. They felt that even though so much work went into this, it still didn’t actually resolve some of those issues around providing active protection and accessing landlocked land.

So our position is always that all these land reforms need to be led by whānau, hapū, and iwi. I don’t know that necessarily it shouldn’t go ahead because there’s not a groundswell of people saying we should have this at the moment, but these are longstanding issues. This will always be an issue. We feel that the concerns that have been raised by those iwi, hapū, and whānau have not been addressed in this bill, so tonight we’re not able to support this and we do not commend it to the House. Kia ora.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour—Northland): E te Māngai o te Whare. Otirā, tēnā koe, Joseph. Congratulations on getting your bill drawn from the members’ ballot. Like Tāmati Coffey who just spoke prior, I will not be able to support this bill or commend it to the House. I’ll just outline my reasons for that.

So my involvement with whenua Māori goes back at least a decade, first in the Waitangi Tribunal where our hapū claims were taken to the Waitangi Tribunal. One of the first claims that was filed were our issues with the Native Land Court and now the Māori Land Court. So I am acutely aware of the types of issues and challenges that whānau have with Māori land.

But also, more recently, when I was a councillor on the Far North District Council, and we were dealing with the issue of rates on whenua Māori. The challenges that the legislation presented in terms of the rates arrears on whenua Māori, and how that inhibited many whānau in their desire to utilise their land, whether that be for housing or for economic development or other purposes. I also sat as a commissioner on the papa kāinga plan change for the Whangarei District Council.

So the reasons why I am not supporting these wholesale changes to Te Ture Whenua Maori Act is because I think that a lot of the issues have been in other pieces of legislation, which this would not have addressed, but it is also in the lack of policy. And really—and I was talking about it with the Hon Kiritapu Allan, who has also had extensive experience with Māori land—it’s the lack of funding available to whānau to be able to do things on their land. We shouldn’t have to change the legislation for them to be able to access the funding.

So I want to talk about the things that this Government has been doing, which I think addresses some of the issues that this bill was proposing to change. So, first and foremost, I’m very proud of the legislation introduced by the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, the whenua Māori rating amendment bill. That legislation was over a hundred years old, and, as I said, from my experience on the Far North District Council, knowing how much Māori land had rates arrears on it when this was land that had never been used, never been able to be utilised, was one of the reasons why whānau believed that they couldn’t now be in a position to either do housing or development on their lands because of the huge rates arrears that were on their whenua. Now with that legislation, councils are able to write off those rates arrears, not have to wait for the six years to be able to do that. They can write that off. And that is one of the major barriers, I think, to whānau being able to progress any of their aspirations with their whenua.

At the time, the Minister said that the bill was part of a wider set of initiatives that the Government is working through that aim to provide Māori landowners with tools to support them to use, develop, and live on their land, and to support whānau to reach their aspirations and the full potential of their land, removing obstacles so Māori and local authorities can develop strong relationships and remove those historical rates arrears and apply a non-rating clause to land that we know isn’t currently being utilised.

But in the minute that I’ve got remaining I want to talk about a couple of other initiatives. We did pass amendments to te ture whenua to address more streamlined succession. There’s an alternative dispute resolution process in there where whānau can use tikanga-based mediations. These are some of the things that this bill proposed, which we have, in fact, already changed in legislation. But most recently, the change to the Kāinga Whenua Loan Scheme cap from $200,000 to $500,000 I think is more realistic for what it costs for whānau to build houses on whenua Māori. And then the final one is the Te Ringa Hāpai Whenua Fund. So, in 2019, we had $100 million contestable fund for whānau with aspirations to develop their whenua, and in Budget 2022 an additional $10 million to realise their aspirations. So I want to commend the Ministers, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta and the Hon Willie Jackson, who have been doing a huge amount of work in this area with policy and legislative changes and funding to support whānau to realise their aspirations. I think that’s what is desperately needed. Kia ora.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. ACT likes this bill and we are supporting it. We commend Joseph Mooney for bringing it to the House and congratulate him for getting it pulled from the ballot box. It reflects a commitment to property rights in a Māori context, and it’s important for allowing Māori to realise their full potential and opportunities in the rights of land ownership.

Currently, large tracts of Māori-owned land are underperforming for their owners and this is largely due to the constraints stemming from current legislation. If we can improve the performance of productivity of Māori land, it has the potential to provide hundreds of millions of dollars for the economic and cultural benefit of its owners, their whānau, and their hapu, while at the same time ensuring that there is better guardianship of the land—better than letting it go to gorse and not being utilised at all.

This bill would mean that Māori land owners will be able to make beneficial changes and still keep their taonga. But best of all, they won’t have to go through the Māori Land Court process if 75 percent of the owners are in agreement on progressing their land use.

For those at home that are wondering why we need to legislate, let me explain it this way. Māori land can be difficult to work with and much of the reason why is because there can be many owners with disagreeing views on how to utilise that land. Banks are often not tempted to award mortgages because they cannot use the land as security, and those that do get standard home loans often have to put their homes on piles, ensure that there’s road access, so that those homes can be uplifted for removal if the mortgagor defaults on their payments. Māori land passes from one generation to the next. That is, its transfer is based on bloodlines, not sale and purchase agreements, nor marriage. This can become a problem when the parcels of shares to a block of land become smaller. Of course, that happens as each generation grows.

My sister and I will inherit my father’s Māori land when he passes. He and his four brothers inherited their share from their father. So my grandfather’s share was broken into five parts. The share that my grandfather inherited came to him after it was broken down into six parts for sharing with his brothers. That means that the share my great-grandfather had has been split amongst his six sons. Those shares are then split again amongst their children and then again amongst their children, which is my generation. My share will then be split among my four children. This is our whakapapa.

You can quickly see how a parcel of land can produce multiple owners over just a couple of generations. Once you get many owners, it becomes harder to agree on what to do with the land and get financing for initiatives. The volume of land that we’re talking about here is large. It’s 5 percent of the total land mass of New Zealand, comprising 1.4 million hectares—or 27,000 blocks—that are held as Māori land, and much of it is underutilised.

The Māori economy contributes $68.7 billion to our GDP, a figure and achievement that should be shouted from the rooftops. But Labour doesn’t celebrate it at all and will hinder the growth of Māori by not supporting this bill. There is so much untapped potential here. Māori should be able to grow and realise that potential with their whenua asset. Where Māori can contribute $68 billion from their hard mahi and innovative ideas, imagine how much more can be produced for their whānau, hapu, and iwi if they can actually use their land. Living costs might just be affordable for many, including our elders. The bonus will be in the potential further contribution to the country’s $68 billion GDP already being delivered: an estimated $8 billion and the creation of over 3,000 jobs.

This is a sort of boost to our economy that can contribute to making it healthy again, a necessity in these trying and expensive times. There is so much innovative potential being lost when 80 percent of Māori land is not being utilised due to bureaucracy. This bill seeks to alleviate that bureaucracy and open up Māori land for whānau opportunities. We commend this bill to the House.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak in the first reading of this bill, and probably the last. But I want to congratulate Mr Mooney, a new member to this House, and I was initially very impressed when I saw 393 pages full of a member’s bill had landed into the Bills Office, but on closer inspection, this was just a copy and paste of a bill which did not follow the passage through this House. It was, effectively, removed by the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, and for very good reason.

As has been outlined by my colleagues, on the issue of Māori land, I’m sure the whole House agrees that we want to ensure that Māori land can reach its optimal production value and have benefits that can accrue back to hapū owners and regions, so it’s very important. But there is a long whakapapa to Māori land, especially Māori land legislation. The 1993 Act, as Mr Coffey mentioned, was some 20 years in the making. So there is a lot of policy development and a lot of consultation, just in terms of the very nature of he taonga tuku iho that is Māori land.

As we know, the history of our country is set out in every Treaty settlement bill that comes through this House. It talks about the modus operandi, of which the Native Land Court, or the Māori Land Court, was a big part at the time, which actually helped divest and take land away from Māori, so much so that, as Mr Mooney mentioned, there’s only, what, about 5 percent, if that, of the total land mass of Aotearoa left which is te ture whenua Māori.

So this issue needs to be looked at very carefully. Policy development and consultation with Māori has to be right from page one, not from just putting forward a 393-page bill on a members’ day, and I’ll give a case in point. We’ve already dealt with certain parts of this bill, as has been mentioned, with the Hon Nanaia Mahuta. We did it in stages. We took targeted amendments to ensure that we followed a proper process and proper policy development to ensure that we could improve certain aspects. So if I look at this bill, I think it still contains Part 7, and that’s already been dealt with by a separate piece of legislation around the administration of estates. Likewise, the rating of whenua Māori in Part 16 has already been dealt with. We’ve already passed legislation through this House dealing with these specific issues. So it’s not fit for purpose. I think better effort should be done in terms of proper consultation and policy development.

I remember when this came through the House. There was an uproar from Māoridom in terms of the pace and the far-reaching implications of the provisions of this bill, and so it was, rightly, discontinued. But a more staged approach of more targeted reforms, which we are doing as a Government, is the preferred way.

There are a lot of successful examples of Māori land interests that are doing very well. Passing a law is not necessarily the panacea to ensuring that there are optimal economic benefits accruing from Māori land. Quite simply, a hillside remains a hillside; marginal land remains marginal land. But there are examples such as the Tuaropaki Trust in Mōkai up in Taupō District—over $1 billion in an ahu whenua trust operates under te ture whenua Māori law. We can look at all the host of Māori incorporations, as well, that are doing very well around the country, also operating under the existing law and also doing very well.

In terms of the fragmentation, yes, fragmentation is an issue. But it’s long been provisioned that we can create trusts—whānau trusts—to group up those interests, so it’s not as if there’s this uncontrollable fragmentation that takes place. We can go to the Māori Land Court and deal with those issues.

So this isn’t fit for purpose, but I acknowledge Mr Mooney for bringing it to the House, and, yes, I’m sure you might have better luck with another piece of legislation. I commend this—I don’t commend this bill, sorry. Oh, rewind—rewind! We oppose this bill. Aroha mai.

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I just acknowledge the previous speaker Rino Tirikatene, for his good work, and a wee correction at the end there—that’s a good start to the evening.

Can I acknowledge and applaud the member who’s brought this bill to the House, Joseph Mooney. I have the pleasure of sitting on the Māori Affairs Committee with Joseph, and he does a good—

Shanan Halbert: He’s a good man—good man.

PAUL EAGLE: —job in terms of—he is a good man—representing Māori issues.

In terms of this particular bill, though, you’ve heard from previous speakers on this side of the House that we won’t be supporting this member’s bill. We don’t feel it’s fit for purpose, and I say that because it is almost an identical copy of the 2016 Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill that was put forward then; it was discharged later in 2017, and that was primarily because of just the overwhelming concern from all involved. So, without knowing in detail what went on back then, I am somewhat surprised. But none the less, it’s good to be talking about Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill.

It’s interesting. I’ve learnt a lot about Māori land and laws, and how the whole thing interacts and connects. It’s complex—there’s the word. Having the Chatham Islands in my patch, we’re just going through the Treaty claims settlement process with the Moriori and Ngāti Mutunga o Wharekauri and getting an understanding about how when people land there, they go, “There’s plenty of land”—lots of gorse too, but lots of land none the less—“owned by Māori and tied up with”—

Joseph Mooney: Lots of pigs.

PAUL EAGLE: Lots of pigs, too—nice poaka to eat, but we’ll talk about eating and that another day. But getting an understanding about the complexities of Māori land and how it’s tied up has taken some time. It’s good land that I see there. Look, it’s got the potential, and I feel that in terms of some of that targeted reform that we have done since 2018 to now in terms of legislative reform, some of that’s happened.

I give an example here, where we’ve got, say, for example, better provision for housing. There was a targeted amendment done to the Act to support the Māori Land Court and its processes to strengthen that regulatory framework. Those amendments included just that simplification of and for the succession of Māori land, new provisions for whāngai and an emphasis on tikanga of the relevant hapū or iwi, and new processes for a dispute resolution with new mediation provisions.

That’s key, because I mentioned the word “complex”, and it’s been vital to try and simplify that or get some clarity and to do that quickly, because it is locked up. There is the need to say that, well, if we are going to get some progress, then those targeted reforms to the 1993 Act just show that rather than just doing a wholesale reform like this, those targeted measures do actually work, and there are some good examples there around how that can happen. I mean, there were more in 2019 and 2020, where they were talking about additional—or they impacted the valuation and rating of Māori freehold land, too. So that happened in 2021, covering a whole lot of things ranging from rates arrears to remission of rates—that’s a biggie. You find that people have found that the complexity and the know-how is just too tough.

So I guess that whilst I applaud our member on the opposite side, what I’m saying, with some really practical examples here, is that there are some targeted reforms happening already. They will do a job. It doesn’t show a need for this, hence the reason why we have said it’s not fit for purpose. So, unfortunately, I do not commend this bill to the House.

Dr SHANE RETI (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak to this bill this evening, and I too want to congratulate Joseph Mooney, who has a done a lot of work around this bill, shaping it, progressing it though caucus, preparing it, and bringing it to the House here tonight, and, indeed, having it drawn. I recall a very senior person in this House making the point of what a privilege it is to have a bill drawn from the ballot box and that, over the many decades that he had been here, he hadn’t actually had a bill drawn. I also recall the comment behind my “Maybe you should have put one in the ballot box.” But that’s a different story.

Joseph has brought his legal background to understand the detail to this bill, and that’s clearly shown through to us here in caucus, and despite the comments and the commentary that I’ve heard tonight, it’s not clear to us and it’s certainly not clear to me that the issues that te ture whenua was looking to address 14 years ago are at all well addressed here today. I want to look back and just reflect on some of the background that brought us here. Indeed, if we look at some of the commentary that Labour was making back in 2018, they were commenting and suggesting that they would do exactly these sort of reforms that we have here in Joseph’s bill here tonight.

In 2008, Labour policy was “to help Māori realise the economic potential of Māori land by reviewing Te Ture Whenua Maori Act”. Three years later, in 2011, the same Labour Party said, “The most effective way to ensure the wellbeing of Māori is to grow the position of Māori in the economy. Māori are no longer passive bystanders in the New Zealand economy; they are active participants. The challenge for Labour is to grow this figure, to grow the Māori economy, for the benefit of all Māori”. Then Labour proposed in 2011 that they would review ture whenua land legislation to simplify the development options for multiply-owned land. So, you know, Labour had been proposing for many years to do exactly what this bill is doing here, and the fact that it’s not in their name really shouldn’t be relevant if there’s good work that might come from this. I would suggest there is.

When the Hon Chris Finlayson took this over, the commentary’s been made that maybe—and maybe I didn’t hear correctly—there hasn’t been enough dialogue with Māori, and then that Te Ao Māori were unhappy with the outcomes 2016 to 2017. I would make the point that when Chris was Associate Minister to Pita Sharples, he had discussions with very senior people in Māoridom—Toko Kapia from Ngāti Apa, Matanuku Mahuika from Ngāti Porou, Dion Tuuta from Ngāti Mutunga, and Dame Patsy Reddy were all involved with an exposure draft that was quite rare to actually put out, and had widespread discussion.

I think there are several parts of this bill that particularly interest me that I see no redress and answer to today. The section in Part 3, looking at kaiwhakamarumaru, which is for disabled people to have a say in the management of land and Māori affairs—this bill replaces the jurisdiction of the Māori Land Court to establish a kaitiaki trust for owners under a disability with a new jurisdiction to appoint kaiwhakamarmaru to act as managers for owners needing protection; being owners under 18 years of age or owners who, in the opinion of the court, partly lack the legal capacity or competence to manage their own affairs. This seems like a good thing and, to me, it seems like it’s still an area of weakness.

The other area I’d point to is a tidying up of the part of the old Act that talks about the disposal of Māori land, which says that freehold Māori land can be disposed to a “preferred class of alienees”, and this is an odd sort of aggregation of terms. Children descendants of owners; that makes sense. Whanaunga of an owner; that makes sense, as well. There’s about eight items here. The one I’m looking at is descendants of any former owner. What it misses here is former owners. So what this bill does in clause 109, page 88, in Part 4 is specifically address that. Just by way of example of a hole that needs fixing that clearly Labour hasn’t fixed, this bill would fix here tonight on its progress through select committee—and the redress here is in clause 109(1)(iv): “any former owners of the land, and descendants of any former owners of the land, including the land when it formed any part of a former parcel;”. There’s a solution right there to a problem we have here today.

This bill addresses many, many problems, actually. I recall the discussion with Marama Fox, actually, around a whāngai, and she was very adamant, very strong, actually brought very good ideas to the table—I happened to be in the Māori Affairs Committee that day—and that is also addressed by this bill. It still stands out there hanging, to my mind, under succession, so I think this bill does address a lot of existing issues in Māoridom, and it’s a bill that the National Party will be supporting. Thank you.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Thank you, Mr Speaker. As you know, I hail from the mighty Mōkai Pātea, and across the beautiful hills and maunga as I look towards Aorangi I consider the amount of Māori land that still sits with us—a very small percentage of what my iwi originally had. But I look to it and I think, how are we going to develop the many, many acres that we currently do have? What I do agree on, in a sense, is the importance of how we unlock whenua Māori—yes, how we use that as an economic base for our iwi and to establish our future.

This bill seeks to repeal and replace the current law relating to Māori land, to allow land owners, and their whānau and hapū to improve the performance and productivity on their land. So it’s quite an aspirational statement there, which I tend to agree with to an extent. My friend Joseph Mooney, who is on the Māori Affairs Committee with us, is a good man, and I said that before—he is a good man and he had considered this. I’m unsure, however, to the extent of how Mr Mooney has considered this particular bill. It has a chequered history and, you know, I’m encouraged that he’s gone back so far to look into that chequered history. But something hasn’t quite landed with him to realise that it was not a successful one at the time, and it’s certainly not a successful one now, my friend. When we look into this we look back to the submissions, and at this particular time we have the submission from Te Ropu Wahine Maori Toko i te Ora—the Maori Women’s Welfare League. It says, “The Maori Women’s Welfare League opposes Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill in its entirety.”

Chris Bishop: Oh yes. And who’s the CE of that?

SHANAN HALBERT: Maybe the noisy one across the room might want to do a speech on this at some point and respond to it. But I am encouraged by National’s attempt to reach in to building better Māori policy, because they do need to do something drastic in that area, so good on you, Mr Mooney.

But back to the Maori Women’s Welfare League—they opposed this bill. They said there’s no rational basis for wholesale reform and repeal of Te Ture Whenua Māori Act 1993. They talked about Māori land being a taonga, and we’ve heard tonight how sensitive the discussion on Māori and whenua Māori is. They go on to say in the submission, “The process undertaken in respect of this bill falls well short of the most basic requirements of genuine consultation, let alone the higher duty that exists under the Treaty of Waitangi where the subject matter is Māori land.” Now that’s one submission from one of the most influential Māori organisations in Aotearoa. They did not support this bill then, and they certainly don’t support this bill now.

If we look to another submission, the submission of the judges of the Māori Land Court to the ministerial advisory group at the time, they called this a “high risk approach to law reform”—“high risk approach to law reform”. And maybe that was about the speed—I think Mr Coffey earlier talked about “ramming it through the House”; and I’ll remember that for future legislation that comes through here—but that the bill will completely rewrite and replace the existing legislation with two particular Acts. That Act at the time came about following lengthy discussions with iwi Māori—lengthy and meaningful discussions with iwi Māori.

So I’m a bit confused, Mr Mooney, this evening—and, you know, “A” for effort, my friend, on putting a piece of Māori legislation through the National Party. Good on you, and keep it up. Let’s do more, but let’s ensure that we do the groundwork that we need to at the particular time where we have the support of Māori groups, of iwi Māori and hāpu—that they support such legislation before we put it back into this House. In the research and the previous submissions, you should have learnt from that time. I encourage you to put more forward, and kia kaha—thank you for this, but I do not commend this to the House.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a real privilege, as tangata Tiriti, to take this last call for the Labour Party on this member’s bill. Like others, I want to congratulate the member Joseph Mooney for having the bill drawn from the ballot. I cannot support this bill, not around so much the substance of the bill, because I was not on the select committee, but it’s very apparent from listening to the contributions tonight that the process around the bill is not tika and it is not pono, and that concerns me, and it is evident in the lack of support for the original bill which occurred in 2016. There were heavyweights including Māori land owners, trusts, and incorporations, Māori Land Court judges, the Human Rights Commission and the New Zealand Law Society, which all came out against it.

We have heard tonight about the considerable work that has been done by this Government to address some of the issues that were in that original piece of legislation. It’s a tribute to the Māori Affairs Committee that my colleague Arena Williams has written to Mr Mooney on 8 June 2022 to outline in great detail why she doesn’t support his bill. It shows the collegiality of that committee, which I’ve had the privilege of experiencing myself on the times that I’ve sat on it.

But in summary, the Government, on 19 September 2019, introduced a bill comprising three targeted amendments, including te ture whenua Māori succession, dispute resolution, and related matters.. On 12 April 2021—additional reforms. There’s been ongoing legislative reform work in terms of a Māori Purposes Bill that is scheduled for introduction this year. Work has also resumed on the development of a Public Works (Whenua Māori) Amendment Bill to adjust the ways in which the Public Works Act 1981 relates to and impacts on whenua Māori. Other substantive reforms are being extracted from the 2016 bill and developed and implemented in the context of amendments to that 1993 Act. That’s all a significant amount of work, and we can see the level of ambition that the member’s bill has sought to achieve with 393 pages of proposed legislation. That’s really unusual for a member’s bill, and I would suggest ambitious, and, perhaps echoing the words of Elizabeth Kerekere, wondering about whether it is a slightly paternalistic approach, given that Māori are not at the centre of leading this charge.

So I’d like to finish with the words of Minister Willie Jackson, who spoke on this bill previously in the House, and he said, “Māori have a deep spiritual connection to whenua, which is a taonga tuku iho, a treasure handed down from earlier generations to be nurtured and cared for by the next generation. Māori are the kaitiaki of this taonga which provides a source of unity and identity for tangata whenua.” I respect those words. I respect that Minister, and also, actually, the previous members from this side who spoke—and a special shout-out to Rino Tirikatene who has moved down into Ōtepoti. So just want to acknowledge how strong we feel having Rino there and the contributions he made earlier tonight with the Kāi Tahu legislation, member’s bill, that he is getting through.

But going back to the bill, I respect that process around what is tika and what is pono for tangata whenua to sort out their own affairs in relation to land that directly concerns them. It is not for others to bring this forward without adequate consultation and draw the opposition of such heavyweights as the Māori Land Court judges, the Human Rights Commission, the New Zealand Law Society, and the Māori Women’s Welfare League, as we heard from my colleague Shanan Halbert.

So there is work to do. We’ve heard that from Paul Eagle tonight. There has also been a substantial amount of work that this Government has already done pursuant to the 2016 bill being withdrawn, and there’s been significant progress made. But a member’s bill is not the way to do that and certainly not a member’s bill that hasn’t gone through the correct tikanga, the correct process. I think being Dutch I’m perhaps a little bit more forthright in how I say that than my Māori colleagues on this side of the House.

I again congratulate the member for having his bill drawn and echo the words of Shanan Halbert to say, “Keep going. Well done.”, and fantastic work by the select committee and tautoko to their collegiality. I don’t commend the bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): I call that good man Joseph Mooney—five minutes in reply.

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, I just wanted to thank everyone who’s contributed to the debate tonight and just respond to a couple of points.

The National Party wholeheartedly recognises that Māori land is a sensitive issue and that’s why this bill has been very, very careful and has actually done a lot of work to strengthen the protections for Māori land, for Māori whenua. So this would ensure that there’s further protection to make sure that that land is not alienated from Māori. That’s been a very, very key component of this bill.

But equally, it is focused on how to unlock the potential of that land for Māori. Because we hear constantly that Māori cannot build on their own land, they cannot develop their own land. You know, we’re talking about 5 percent of New Zealand which is in Māori ownership but cannot be utilised properly. That is an issue that has not been solved; I have not heard from the opposition tonight on how they propose to solve that issue.

Look, I note back in 2011, the Labour Party said the most effective way to ensure the wellbeing of Māori is to grow the position of Māori in the economy. The National Party wholeheartedly agrees with that position and that’s what this bill is all about. Labour’s 2011 manifesto further observed that Māori are no longer passive bystanders of the New Zealand economy; they are active participants.

In 2018, the Māori economy was worth over $68 billion. Asset values have increased significantly since then. It’s on track to be worth $100 billion dollars by 2030. That is fantastic and we want to support measures that can actually encourage that development. If we can help solve this issue of 5 percent of New Zealand land mass—1.4 million hectares of land—that is owned by Māori so they can utilise it themselves, they can enhance the protection of that but also develop it and decide what is best for it; that was what we want to do and that is what this bill is about.

I’ve heard just a couple of speakers talk about paternalism, and this bill is actually quite the opposite. This is about enhancing the tino rangatiratanga of Māori in respect of the governance of their own land. The current Te Ture Whenua Maori Act unfortunately has an element of paternalism in it in that the Māori Land Court is required to make decisions in respect of pretty much everything in respect of Māori land. So that is actually paternalistic, and we with this bill are actually trying to solve that issue and take it away from paternalism and give that power to Māori to decide what is best for them and the development of their own land.

I do thank the member for Manurewa, Arena Williams, for writing to me today and for detailing at some length the reasons why she would not be supporting the bill. I would just say that this is not the same bill as the one she campaigned against a number of years ago. This bill has been the result of an extensive consultation, including the circulation of exposure draft for submissions, which is not usually done.

The current version of this bill is the result of over 21 drafts, considering feedback from submissions from numerous reports, consultations, 20 hui across the country, and a select committee report. The real way to solve the issues that have been raised by the Government—the Government parties and Green Party—tonight is to actually send this to select committee so we can hear from submitters about how to solve these issues because these are complex issues.

These have not been solved yet, and the issue still remains. Māori cannot, for example, build papa kāinga on much of their land. That is something that’s just not good enough in 2022 and this is what we want to solve.

I do want to thank Nicole McKee from the ACT Party for engaging with me. I wrote to every member of every other party in the House, and she was the only one who actually came back to me before today and interacted with me on this bill. It shows, I think, the value that the ACT Party places on actually trying to solve these issues.

I acknowledge that the Government parties want to solve these issues as well, but it would be good if we could move past just being partisan on these issues and actually look at how to solve them. Because, I mean, fundamentally, we don’t want to just kick the can down the road for another generation to try to fix. We need to actually do the hard mahi now for this generation of Māori land owners so they can get on the ladder and utilise the land for the betterment of their tamariki and future generations.

I do acknowledge Nanaia Mahuta has put some measures in place, but the valuation and rating of Māori freehold land, for example, is a symptom of the problem, not a solution, because Māori can’t actually utilise their land to develop and use it for their own purposes. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 42

New Zealand National 32; ACT New Zealand 10.

Noes 77

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

Motion not agreed to.

Bills

Financial Professional Services Trading Advice Transparency Bill

First Reading

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I move, That the Financial Professional Services Trading Advice Transparency Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider the bill.

This bill is a bill that promotes openness and transparency. I’m really hoping tonight, at least at first reading, that this bill might get the ear of the Government. I know that openness and transparency are important to them, and I have heard them often say that they are the most open and transparent Government ever.

What I want to do, before I start actually speaking about some of the details of the bill, is acknowledge—because this is about businesses going into liquidation or having people appointed when a business is not succeeding—that over the last two years, as we’ve experienced COVID, I know that there are a lot of business in this country that have gone through a lot of pain. Often, when businesses have to go into liquidation or receivership, it is through things that are outside of the control of those businesses, and there have certainly been a lot of things that are outside of the control of many businesses over the past couple of years. I think of businesses particularly in the tourism sector. I think about businesses in the hospitality sector. While it’s not limited to those businesses, there are a wide range of businesses in that category. Many times in the last couple of years, I’ve felt lucky to belong to the agriculture industry, which has actually been one of the industries that has been on the right side of the COVID experience, and we’ve been very lucky.

What this bill is intended to do is prevent financial advisers who recommend a third-party takeover for the management or disposal of a business or its assets from performing such a function themselves. I’m pleased to note that the letter has come through from the Attorney-General, who has considered this bill in terms of where it sits with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and has concluded that the bill appears to be consistent with the rights and freedoms affirmed in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. That’s always a good start when you put a member’s bill forward—to have that sense of approval. I know Mr Penk is far more of an expert on those topics than I am, but it’s very good to have that from the Attorney-General’s office.

Really, what it does is those very simple things. It prevents a person from being appointed as an administrator of a company if the person recommended the administration or is associated with the person who has recommended the administration and prevents a person from being appointed or acting as a liquidator of a company if the person recommended the liquidation or is associated with the person who recommended the liquidation.

I think this is a bill—in my mind—that’s very important to New Zealand. We have a good reputation in New Zealand for being a good place for doing business. We have a good reputation for being very strong in business ethics, and this bill’s intent is to enhance our reputation. We are not seen as a corrupt country; neither do we want to be seen as a corrupt country. But if you leave some gaps in the law at times, then it leaves the opportunity for people to take advantage. The thing with this bill is it will remove any inherent conflict of interest that exists for those providing advice on the trading viability of troubled companies who would then go on to be appointed as the administrator, liquidator, or receiver of the company. While there may not be any actual intent with most of the people that would be carrying out these functions, what it would do is remove any doubt if that opportunity wasn’t allowed to prevail in this country.

Often, professional advisers, such as accounting firms, are called in by creditors, like banks, trustees, and business owners seeking advice on whether the company can manage its way through difficult times. The bill makes it very clear to individuals and financial service firms that they can give the advice that sees a company wound up but they can’t then be appointed to wind up the company and then earn fees over the ensuing months or years winding that company up.

Now, I understand in terms of some of the conversations I’ve had around having this bill in the ballot, and the conversations that I’ve had since it’s been drawn out, that there are a range of opinions. Informal feedback from insolvency practitioners suggest that the bill will have the support of a wide proportion of the sector but it may strike some opposition from a few, but vocal, practitioner firms.

I know that not all of the members of RITANZ may agree with what’s contained in this bill. For those who are listening outside of the House tonight—because those inside the House hopefully will know—RITANZ is a professional body for insolvency practitioners. It’s actually the Restructuring, Insolvency, and Turnaround Association New Zealand Inc, which is quite a mouthful in itself, which is probably why the initials RITANZ are used. But it is a professional body. I understand that there are some people in there that hold a differing view to what is contained in this bill. I would hope that if we can get support across the House to get first reading going and get it to a select committee, then those people would be able to come in and have a discussion and also put their views on the table, which would mean that we could come out with a good piece of legislation or potentially even a better piece of legislation.

What I find is that when we’re making laws in this country and we’re moving through legislation, most of the value of the process is when you open a process, call the submitters in, and hear all the points of view. We get a select committee that is usually put together—and, hopefully, in this case, if it goes through, the Finance and Expenditure Committee will have a look at it—and it will be able to assess the views that are being put forward, and, if there are some adjustments that need to be made to the piece of legislation, then they could do it. None of us would be bold enough to stand up and say we were putting up a perfect piece of legislation at first reading. We start off with a good intent, we make it as good as we possibly can, and then we ask submitters and the people of New Zealand, who often have more knowledge about these things than we do, to come in and give their views so that we can make sure that we’ve got the best piece of legislation possible.

The drawing of this bill from the ballot has coincided with changes to the New Zealand Insolvency Engagement Standard. The revised standard includes a new requirement to consider whether there are any reasons for not accepting an insolvency appointment or engagement. The matters which practitioners are required to consider do not appear to include a principle about not accepting appointments to execute actions which they themselves have recommended.

It’s my hope tonight that we can have other parties in the House supporting this piece of legislation. I know we want to keep New Zealand an open and transparent country, and I just think, if there’s any opportunity in any of these transactions for any conflict of interest to be perceived—if you think about the worst-case scenario: somebody actually being asked to transact this process may have an eye on purchasing the company themselves—let’s remove all of those either perceived or real opportunities, take this bill to the select committee, and see if we can progress this through the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

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

BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s great to be able to have an opportunity to take a call on the Financial Professional Services Trading Advice Transparency Bill, a member’s bill in the name of Barbara Kuriger, and I congratulate the member for her bill being drawn.

Prima facie, the bill seems to make a practical change—that is, it prevents financial advisers who recommend that a third party take over the management or disposal of a business or its assets from performing such functions themselves. At first blush, that does seem somewhat reasonable. The bill proposes changes to the Companies Act 1993, in Part 1; in Part 2, it makes obviously considerable changes to the Receiverships Act; and it also comes into force the day after it receives Royal assent. Overall, I understand the purpose of that bill is to remove that conflict.

However—here comes the “but”—but what if we already have conflict management provisions already in the current law, conflict management provisions that, funnily enough, the Opposition agreed to in 2019 when we put through the Insolvency Practitioners Regulation Act? That’s the problem with this bill, from this side of the House. We have the current provisions that manage such conflicts—conflicts of interest on the part of insolvency practitioners and when such conflicts should prevent them from acting on a specific appointment. That’s, again, already been considered and enacted as part of the Insolvency Practitioners Regulation Act 2019.

So Parliament, only a couple of years ago, agreed. We got support from the National Party at the time. The member who was the chair of the Economic, Science and Innovation Committee which looked at this particular legislation—because the Companies Act and the Insolvency Act are actually underneath their remit, not the Finance and Expenditure Committee’s. When they looked at it, they agreed, and there were particular changes that were made by Minister Kris Faafoi at the time in order to get such agreement from across the House. So, again, only a couple of years ago they agreed that a person who has provided professional services to a company in the two years before its insolvency is prohibited from acting as its liquidator or a receiver unless those services advise on the solvency of the company.

Secondly, the Insolvency Practitioners Regulation Act only actually fully came into force in September 2020, so this side of the House believes that that Act created a robust occupational regulation regime designed to prevent inappropriate conduct by insolvency practitioners. This particular member’s bill, however, was only introduced 12 months later, and we have not so far seen sufficient repetitive evidence that the changes made in 2019 require another significant change less than two years after the bill has been enacted. So it’s for those reasons that Labour does not support this bill.

To provide some context for the House as to why Labour doesn’t support the bill, we have to have some understanding around insolvency law and why we landed with the current legislation that makes this member’s bill redundant. Insolvency law can seem complex, and, fortunately for me, one of the roles I had to play in a previous life was to be able to provide the standard practice statements for how the Commissioner of Inland Revenue would apply the tax law around insolvencies and liquidations. So I have a little bit of experience, particularly when it comes to debt collection.

One of the main aims of insolvency law is for businesses to be turned around if they are viable, because that’s what we want. We want businesses to succeed, and that’s important. But if not, they should be wound up and the assets realised and distributed to creditors in accordance with clear rules and with a minimum of harm, both to the insolvent party and to their creditors. This is a system that does rely on trustworthiness and competent professionals to act in the best interest of creditors, and the regulation of insolvency practitioners which was put through in that 2019 Act is an important part of this commerce and consumer affairs legislative framework.

As advised earlier, the 2019 Act changes were made with the support of the Opposition and, again, it was to promote better outcomes underneath the corporate insolvency system by strengthening the regulation of insolvency practitioners. How the Act supported those outcomes was it introduced a robust new regime for licensing practitioners. It provided effective mechanisms for holding them to account and it required things such as professional development to raise the standards of practitioners’ behaviour at the time. Those were necessary changes to ensure that all the insolvency practitioners meet the basic standards of honesty and competency that the public is entitled to expect.

Unfortunately, at the time—and that’s the reason why this regime was put in—there was clear and repeated evidence that a small number of practitioners continued to fall well short of those standards. They used to engage in conduct such as charging excessive fees for their services, carrying out unnecessary work to inflate their fees. They were acting in the interests of the directors of insolvent companies who appointed them at the expense of the creditors, and taking on appointments without the necessary skills, knowledge, or expertise. That insolvency practitioners Act 2019 sought to address those issues by introducing a co-regulatory licensing system modelled on one under the Auditor Regulation Act of 2012, so that’s what the current regime is actually mastered off.

So under the current system, the Registrar of Companies will be required to set minimum standards for licensing insolvency practitioners and to accredit professional bodies, bodies such as that referred to by the previous member. These accredited bodies will be responsible for the front-line licensing and regulation of individual practitioners, which includes regulating their entry into the profession, ongoing competency, investigating complaints against practitioners, reporting on the adequacy and effectiveness of their regulatory systems and processes. Section 5 of the Receiverships Act, which is what this bill sets out to make a small change to, does set out the condition that if you want to be a receiver, you have to meet. So a person may be appointed as a receiver if that person is licensed in accordance with, again, the 2019 insolvency Act, and section 12 of the Insolvency Practitioners Regulation Act says that licences are subject to particular conditions and it sets out the types of conditions that are under section 12. Section 22 of that same Act says, “Registrar may prescribe licensing and other measures”. Again, this is to set minimum standards.

So again, at first blush, it looks like a good piece of regulation. However, on further detailed analysis and understanding the regulatory regime that we have now, some of the history of that regulatory regime—which is, again, only a couple of years old—the lack of evidence that has come to our attention for needing to have this conflict provision, because we on this side of the House believe that the current provisions do address that. Licensing bodies can prescribe conditions. The registrar can prescribe licensing conditions.

So we oppose this bill. We believe that the current 2019 Act is sufficient.

Again, I’ll just conclude my argument: it introduces a robust regime which includes rigorous competency, honesty, and integrity criteria in relation to obtaining and retaining a licence to act as insolvency practitioners. We believe it provides an effective way for holding practitioners to account. The 2019 Act makes other amendments to both the Companies Act and the Receiverships Act. Again, this member’s bill makes those changes again to extend that, and again, we believe that that particular Act updated those pieces of legislation to ensure they were fit for purpose.

We believe that more time is needed. If the other side of the House believes that it’s failing, we haven’t seen any evidence so far to say that it is failing. It has been only two years since the 2019 Act was put in, which, again, had support from across the House. So Labour does not commend this bill to the House.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. A privilege to speak on behalf of the Green Party on the Financial Professional Services Trading Advice Transparency Bill.

I want to congratulate the member Barbara Kuriger for having this bill drawn and having the opportunity to discuss this. I heard the member’s initial speech about the concerns that she was raising and, sort of, the purpose as to why she should put this bill forward. To us, it was a common-sense change in terms of looking to avoid conflicts of interest and ensure financial advice, and to just give impartial advice.

We do think that there is merit in exploring in a select committee stage whether the current framework is working. I think, as the member to my left indicated, that we have yet to see much evidence of whether the current framework is or isn’t working. I think the select committee stage could potentially be an opportunity to unpack that more thoroughly, and, potentially, seek to make improvements via this bill or identify where there may be gaps. So that could be a good opportunity for Parliament to review whether the Insolvency Practitioners Regulation Act 2019 is fit for purpose.

I think, as my Labour colleague to my left identified, that, again, at first value, trying to basically amend the Companies Act to stop financial advisers that recommend receivership, liquidation, or other forms of third party administration for a company from being appointed to subsequent roles created as a result of that advice is something that, in theory, would seek to address potential issues of corruption and just malpractice. So while we do have a code that is supposed to regulate that conduct, I think the member is expressing those concerns. I’ve tried to do a search online about whether other entities or bodies have raised concerns around this. And I did see Russell McVeagh, I think, had a blog post around this, raising the potential for exploring this but also noting some of the concerns from Labour. And so for us, I think, we do see merit in this bill having further discussion at the select committee stage, and broadly are supportive of the intent of this bill. So we will be supporting this bill. Kia ora.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I also would like to congratulate the member for having her bill drawn. And I mean this very sincerely, but I do wonder if she missed the memo, because there is nothing wrong with the logic of the intervention. Clearly, there has been a need for professional advisers to not only to do the right thing, to be honest and scrupulous, and to being motivated for the right reasons, but also the perceptions around that for an industry in a sector that sometimes has had a bit of a bad rap. So I do appreciate the logic. I just wonder about missing the memo because, as we’ve heard this evening, there is already legislation in place which achieves what this bill is trying to do. In fact, this bill would reverse some of that impact.

I also query the Green member suggesting that the likes of Russell McVeagh, my old law firm, want to entertain going through a select committee process. That’s all very well and good, because they’re not resourcing it. But where there is no evidence that the current legislation is not being ineffective, then there is no reason to involve taxpayer funding and resources to question whether that legislation is working. Should there be evidence, then, absolutely, but there is no evidence, as we heard tonight from my colleague Barbara Edmonds. So, like my colleague, I agree that on first blush, this is a sensible piece of legislation, it’s requiring professional advisers to not deliver on the advice that they have given due to the possibility of a conflict of interest. So that’s both a conflict of interest or even the perceptions or the questions that might arise in people’s minds. I also agree that it’s really important to have these kind of things in place, to protect the transparency that we have in our democracy and perceptions of our transparency internationally—for all sorts of reasons around economic stability and so on. But the reason that I believe that Restructuring Insolvency & Turnaround Association New Zealand (RITANZ) members are not supporting this bill is because they already know that we have laws in place and they don’t want to reduce their credibility by supporting something which is going to duplicate something which is already in place.

And that group of RITANZ is made up of professionals: it’s academics, judges, bankers, accountants. Their reputations are really important. And I’m sure that those members who are against this going to select committee would have considered what it might mean to support a piece of legislation that is, in effect, duplicating and actually reversing the impact of existing legislation. So the Insolvency Practitioners Regulation Act came fully into force in September 2020, and that did seek to remedy some of the things that the member Barbara Kuriger has talked about, around the reputation of the sector, about the conduct of some of the practitioners, about fairness for those who might be in business who might be facing financial difficulties and grappling with whether their business is going to be viable or not. But also, what the legislation has done is it has also updated other Acts, such as the Companies Act and the Receiverships Act, to ensure that there is a coherence to the sector and to the way that the sector is regulated. So it was a thoughtful piece of legislation that did go through. Normally, in the amount of time—2019, it’s now 2022—we would have seen by now if there were defects in that legislation, we would have evidence of that legislation not working. To date, there hasn’t been evidence of that.

At a time when Kiwis are struggling with the cost of living and just getting through COVID and everything else, we’ve got to be really responsible in how we use public resources to create laws and to review laws. And there are pieces of law that do need reviewing. Absolutely. My perspective, though, is that this is not one of them. There is not a shred of evidence that I’ve seen presented to this House that would suggest that the laws that we have thoughtfully enacted around the sector are not working, and that is why RITANZ members don’t want to support it. They, too, want to keep their professional reputations intact. They want to be seen as doing the right thing for their sector and they are doing the right thing if they don’t support this legislation, just as I won’t be doing. Thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): I’ve got him right tonight—I call Damien Smith.

DAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you for your note. The Financial Professional Services Trading Advice Transparency Bill was something we would like to have supported through to the select committee. I think that Labour have used the insolvency angle to sort of flatten the spirit of this bill. It was an excellent technical presentation by Barbara Kuriger, but in terms of how the Restructuring Insolvency and Turnaround Association New Zealand works—and they’ve obviously managed to influence that—but there are still other categories of financial adviser that can recommend various routes of when a troubled company is required to enact these serious provisions of receivership or liquidation.

If you look at this logically, this could have been a bill going on top of a bill, and it could have been done in the spirit of investigating how those people carry out that role. As an example, with PricewaterhouseCoopers, somebody in the accounting team can be sent in to audit a business that’s in trouble. Then, with the Chinese wall put up, their mergers and acquisitions team could actually come and sell it and they’re still part of the same organisation, and this could have been an opportunity to clean things like that up.

On the balance, the bill would have provided more confidence that financial advisers were given sound advice, and there are examples, apart from what Ingrid Leary said, where there have been people who have taken hold of companies and shaken them up and undersold their value and have actually ended up with a beneficial interest at a financial level. This has occurred quite a lot of times in the New Zealand market place. So there could have been a spirit here which would have allowed us to take those particular functions themselves and to run a figure of eight around the insolvency aspect, because there’s more to this than just insolvency practice.

So the bill was supposed to clarify that a financial adviser could recommend and then they would have to go away and not carry out any further role, and I don’t think that’s contemplated in Barbara Edmonds’ definition and explanation tonight of what financial advisers can conduct. She was speaking specifically about the insolvency advisers.

The other thing that I think would have been good in the select committee to talk about is who actually pays the bills for this. It probably gets into trouble. When you own the company, you’re the one who’s going to pay the bill, and so then you’ve got a choice of a professional adviser that you choose or an insolvency firm. You may even decide to continue with another member of their team in another part of the business to either extract value for you or to sell what the bones of the business are, and one of the things that’s easy for a liquidator and an insolvency expert is they get brought in really fast. They have a matter of days to turn the business around, or they have to recommend to the shareholder, to creditors, what should be its destiny, and, therefore, the person that pays the bill should be the one that gets to make the decisions within the framework that Barbara Edmonds was proposing.

There appear to be no significant costs to actually doing this and to drafting a hybrid piece of legislation which would have covered this area, so I think it’s a bit of a wasted opportunity. The person that is employed or otherwise engaged would probably have accepted these rules really easily. So receiverships and insolvencies are just one part of this, and I hope there’s an opportunity for the bill to come back in a different form at some stage to address these issues.

The whole idea was not about remuneration or the firm. It was about the confidence in the advice and getting that correct so that the person advised knew that, as the third party, they had specific responsibilities, and I don’t think that’s contemplated in the existing legislation. So I’m disappointed that it’s not going to go forward, but the ACT Party would have supported it at the next stage. Thank you.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Often in this House, when we’re confronted with a piece of legislation that’s dealing with what is essentially introducing another layer of bureaucracy, we sit here and think—and none of us ever come to this House thinking that that’s our place in life: to add another layer of bureaucracy.

However, what we very quickly find is that where we are confronted with an issue—and there are many issues that we come here that we’ve known about or we learn about when we’re here—ultimately to do something about it, we need to actually add another layer of bureaucracy.

To give an example of why we do need bureaucracy: bureaucracy’s a thing that’s sort of got a bit of a bad rep over the years, but I always challenge people to, if they don’t like bureaucracy, have a look at a place where there isn’t any. I’m looking at perhaps the organised crime gang scene in New Zealand, of which I have a little bit of knowledge. Of course, when there is—in this case, I’m bringing it down to the bill we’re discussing, of course, Madam Speaker, as I know you want to have us do as speakers.

The Financial Professional Services Trading Advice Transparency Bill, which of course, is about how we deal with receiverships. Well, of course, how we deal with receiverships and issues like this in an unregulated environment is where you’ll suddenly see an individual who may have been driving around in a $50,000 or $60,000 vehicle as part of their own enterprise—criminal enterprise, whatever enterprise it was. All of a sudden, that vehicle will be in the hands of another person because the receivership—or whatever name you will put on it—has taken place in a very informal manner.

But other than those of us who were around and saw how business was done in the mid-1980s leading up to the financial crash in 1987—perhaps showing our age a little then. That was very much a cowboy period. That wasn’t in that part of the environment or business that we recognised immediately as criminal.

But as we had what could only be described—we went from a highly regulated environment to a deregulated environment overnight. Some of the practices—and many books have been written about it—that took place and how people who apparently ended up broke ended up completely holding on to all their possessions through their relationships, often with people who had been appointed as liquidators or receivers.

So anyone who thinks you don’t need good regulation in this area, there’s plenty of evidence that would suggest otherwise.

So that comes to the bill before us today. Again, like everyone here, I congratulate the member. No doubt she has come here, like many of us do; she’s seen, probably from personal experience or certainly one of her maybe constituents has come to her and probably has had a very bad experience where they have—and I see the member nodding; that’s probably why it came here—and so very legitimate reason to bring it.

But that experience is not confined to that member’s constituent or any of our constituents. It is a common practice. So that is why—and I must admit, when I first picked up this bill, “Hmm, that makes a bit of sense.” Then I read further and actually looked at how we’d arrived at this place, and I see that actually it has been addressed. Some of the other speakers tonight have talked about the fact that this was addressed in a piece of legislation, the Insolvency Practitioners Bill. Before coming here tonight, I just took the time to find the commentary on that bill, which actually does address this very issue: part six, where it actually talks about who can act as a solvent company liquidator.

So the very issues that we have spoken about tonight, I think if you have a look through this commentary, you will find that those issues have been well addressed. Many submitters commenting that limiting who was eligible to undertake a solvent liquidation would prevent competent people from undertaking the work, and I think that’s really at the base of this.

I see my time is coming to an end, and I just feel like I’m just winding up on this. So in summary, I’d say this is a world that does require the bureaucracy that often gets a bad name. But we need the protection for everyone involved because this is something that happens in people’s lives that does actually create a lot of problems. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order!

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m always amused at my colleague Greg O’Connor’s ability to go through such a speech to bring some of his police experience into this particular discussion. But I do agree with him on the importance of protection.

Can I acknowledge Barbara Kuriger. It’s always a privilege, I think—I haven’t had that privilege yet—to have a member’s bill pulled from the ballot, but, fingers crossed, I’ll be able to—

Chris Bishop: Oh, one day—one day!

SHANAN HALBERT: One day, that’s right. I hope—

Chris Bishop: What’s your bill?

SHANAN HALBERT: I’ve got a great member’s bill that you will love, so watch out for that one.

This bill would prevent financial advisers who recommend that a third party take over the management or disposal of a business or its assets from performing such a function themselves. I consider myself quite lucky this evening to speak on this very important kaupapa, and we have had a number this evening, and I go back to some of the thoughts of previous members that have spoken on this bill this evening.

I’d like to think that I’m a pragmatic person, and there is practical change that sits within this particular bill, and that is that the prevention of financial advisers who recommend that a third party take over the management or disposal of the business or its assets from performing such functions themselves. It does look at what’s reasonable, to an extent, and I’d like to think that I’m a reasonable person and, Ms Kuriger, you probably are too. But there are some challenges that come with this particular bill, and when it refers to the conflict management provisions, I guess the question for us all is: are we saying that there’s currently no regulations in place for conflict management? I don’t think that that would be correct, and that’s the challenge with this particular bill.

We have current provisions that manage such conflicts, currently: the conflicts of interest on the part of the insolvency practitioners, and when such conflicts that should prevent them from acting on a specific appointment have already been considered and enacted as part of the Insolvency Practitioners Regulation Act in there.

We do oppose this bill this evening, and it is the second in train, unfortunately, that I’ve had to speak on this evening where it doesn’t quite adequately, or accurately, address the issue. The Financial Professional Services Trading Advice Transparency Bill—this member’s bill in front of us—would actually oppose the Insolvency Practitioners Regulation Bill, which this Government brought into effect back in September 2020. In the insolvency legislation, we have addressed a couple of things in that particular work that introduces a robust regime, including rigorous competence, honesty, integrity, transparency, in relation to obtaining and retaining a licence to act as an insolvency practitioner. We’ve provided effective ways of holding practitioners to account, and this is a very important thing for me.

The Insolvency Practitioners Regulation Bill makes other attempts to amend the Companies Act and the Receiverships Act, and this bill is aimed at updating these pieces of legislation to make sure that they are still fit for purpose and reflect the new Insolvency Practitioners Regulation Bill.

So there are some challenges in there that we have to work through. I wouldn’t tend to work against legislation that we’ve already put through—in fact, this one opposes that piece of legislation, which wouldn’t make sense to me. This side of the House believes that the Act created a robust occupational regulation regime, and that is important in the way forward and to achieving the transparency that we wish to.

So, sadly, this is my second round this evening of not being able to support a member’s bill. They need a little bit more work, a little bit more research, but good on the member over there. I’m very pleased for you that you’ve managed to pull one out of the ballot, out of the hat—good on you.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you, Madam Speaker. A pleasure to be speaking on the Financial Professional Services Trading Advice Transparency Bill first reading. And my congratulations to my good colleague, Barbara Kuriger, for doing a good job and thinking about the hard-working business owners, mums and dads who own our 580,000 small businesses, particularly in New Zealand.

Hey, I loved that last line from that last speaker, Shanan Halbert, about doing just “a little bit more work”. Well, I just wish the Labour members actually just did “a little bit more work” and actually thought about this bill, rather than read from their notes.

So I thought it’d be useful just to give a little bit of context. Unfortunately, I only have five minutes. But this is really pertinent because, since the start of this year, we are fast approaching 100 building and construction companies that have gone into receivership or liquidation since the start of this year—100 construction companies. And actually, over 200 if you go back 12 months. We have a huge crisis in the building construction industry. It is happening. Liquidations and receiverships are the end results of poor markets and interfering Governments who don’t actually set about trying to help them. So if anyone doesn’t think this an important issue, it is vitally important.

Now, I think it’s useful just to elaborate on what we are talking about here. So a liquidation—and I know Mr Greg O’Connor may have got to the bottom of this, but I didn’t hear it in his contribution. A liquidator is appointed by the company’s shareholders, therefore, if they do it, it’s a voluntary thing; or by unsecured creditors; or, of course, the court. That is what liquidation proceedings are. A receiver is appointed by a bank and that is often where there’s a huge conflict between the shareholders and the banks.

It was interesting, I just thought I would talk to a retired practitioner—and someone said practitioner. I’m just going to quote—just indulge me—what he wrote: “I think this is a good bill. When banks send in an investigating accountant, that is the prelude to whether, in fact, they might put a company into receivership. To advise on the viability of the business, the first thing the accountant does is work out how they can get more work. One of those ways is to recommend receivership. The current Act currently provides that they are not conflicted”—and this is a thing I never heard from any of the members on the other side—“from doing this.”

Now, the other interesting thing is that there is an established practice in Australia where liquidators and receivers, who’ve been banned, actually go and do this pre-investigation work and then recommend their mates to try and do it. Now, I’m not suggesting that happens in New Zealand. But it is a common practice overseas. This bill is about conflicts. It’s not about the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Act 2019, which did make significant and considerable changes to liquidation and receivership position. And we welcome that. But this is a further nuance about dealing with the issue of conflict.

It’s interesting that the drawing of Barbara Kuriger’s bill coincided with changes to the New Zealand insolvency engagement standard. Again, that standard includes the new requirement to consider whether there are any reasons for not accepting a role, such as insolvency appointment. But practitioners do not appear to include a principle about not accepting appointments to execute actions when they themselves have recommended it—i.e., the standard does not adequately deal with the issue of conflict. That is the purpose of this bill. And that is why the Labour members, on the other side, should have actually done some more work. So they stood up and spoke about something that they talked and thought about for a few minutes of reading a few notes that someone in one of the offices prepared. This is a good bill, it should be supported. And shame on you.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East): Madam Speaker, thanks for the opportunity to follow that passionate speech from the previous member, Andrew Bayly. It’s a delight to stand as part of the Labour Party, the party for small business. We’ve supported small businesses every time we’ve been in Government. We’ve supported the small businesses across New Zealand and we’ve done it through COVID, we’ve done it through the wage subsidy, and we’ve done it through, you know, various loans and support, and R & D credits. We’ve done a lot for small business, and it’s a delight to talk about what we have done as a Government to support—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! It would be a delight to hear the member address the bill.

JAMIE STRANGE: Thank you—thank you. I’ll finish my response to the member there. Bringing it to the bill, this bill is about having trust in business and the financial sector—it’s more than that, that businesses and individuals do have to have trust in the sector. The member opposite has quite rightly brought that fact to the House tonight that it’s important that there aren’t conflicts of interest. She’s highlighted an example of a conflict of interest in terms of the financial sector. She’s talked about how her bill would prevent financial advisers who recommend that a third party take over the management or disposal of a business or its assets from performing such a function themselves, and that’s a fair point. Look, as one of the previous speakers mentioned, I sat in my office and I read this bill and I thought, “Yeah, sure. That makes sense.” I had forgotten, though—I had forgotten—this piece of legislation here, and I think that both of the parties opposite have very short memories, because in 2019, the Insolvency Practitioners Regulation Act—one that I’m sure some of you might remember—clearly addresses this.

So, look, you know, as others have said, I certainly acknowledge the member Barbara Kuriger. I also haven’t had a bill drawn from the ballot yet—probably a bit tricky at the moment, because I actually don’t have a bill in the ballot, but I am working on one. I am working on one. I’m sure the House will be waiting with eager anticipation in terms of the bill that I’ll place into the biscuit tin soon.

But coming back to the bill, the Restructuring Insolvency & Turnaround Association of New Zealand—now, if there is an organisation that that can speak with authority on a piece of legislation like this, it would be RITANZ. We have heard them spoken about previously; set up in 2015 under the previous National Government. So let’s see what RITANZ say about this bill. So they say, “This issue”—and they do acknowledge the issue—“was extensively reviewed by the Insolvency Working Group in 2016”—so going back quite a way here—“whose recommendations were largely adopted in the 2019 law reforms”, which, as I mentioned before, came into force in this legislation, the Insolvency Practitioners Regulation Act.

Now, it will be interesting to hear from the member when she gives her right of reply in terms of her rebuttal and the arguments on this side of the House, because the arguments have quite clearly been outlaid on this side of the House that there is no need for this bill because it’s already been addressed. But we’ll wait and hear what the member says.

Some people might ask, “How has this been solved by the previous piece of legislation?” I’m sure members opposite are interested in that. So, look, the Insolvency Practitioners Regulation Bill, it makes amendments to the Companies Act and the Receiverships Act. I probably haven’t got time to go into details around that, but it certainly makes provision to ensure that the conflicts of interest that the member outlines in her piece of legislation don’t happen, basically.

Now, if we have a look in terms of regulation, we certainly do need regulation in New Zealand. We need to strike the right balance, obviously, but we are a small country and when we do have a small country—we are, you know, the size of a city like Sydney—

Todd Muller: Don’t be “smallist”.

JAMIE STRANGE: —it is easy—small but great country, about to qualify for the FIFA World Cup, Mr Muller, which I’m looking forward to.

But if you have a look at some of the regulation needed—there certainly is regulation needed at times, because we are a small country, and conflicts of interest can often arise in an environment like we have in New Zealand. So it’s important that as Governments we continue to keep on top of the regulation that is needed. The member has highlighted it, but unfortunately she was just a couple of years too late. We will not support this bill on this side of the House.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker, and thank you for the opportunity to take a call in relation to this bill. I’d also like to congratulate the member Barbara Kuriger for having her bill drawn from the ballot tin. But, like my colleagues, I won’t be speaking in favour of this bill. It was heartening to see the enthusiasm on the other side of the House in terms of speaking about the ethics of decision making. This is something that actually quite excites me as well. Maybe not surprising, I’m also excited by things like the Regulations Review Committee, which I’m a part of.

But I do want to talk about the complex nature of this bill. I think what struck me, when I read the bill, is that when you have a conflict of interest, it’s actually very rare for you to then exclude the decision maker in totality from the circumstances that you’re considering, which is what this bill is set out to do. And even if you look at the exclusions in the current 2019-20 legislation, they’re time-bound in terms of who they exclude from the bill, so it’s that two-year period that they look at. When you have other conflicts that arise, there are often management techniques that you put over a conflict. Part of that could be looking at relevant practising standards, it could be looking at the selection method of decision makers, and it could be looking at the pool of decision makers who you have—if you have a limited pool available, you might have looser measures of managing a conflict of interest.

So I disagree with the assertion that this has nothing to do with the 2019-20 legislation; it does, because that’s part of looking at what the existing practising standards are. You can increase how stringent they are, to protect responsible decision-making, and that is, essentially, what a number of my colleagues have been referring to. There are extremely stringent measures in place to ensure that the people who hold those roles are held to a very high standard, and that’s included in the co-regulatory licensing regime, which has actually quite a stringent accreditation system. And it allows complaints, investigations, and reporting on inadequacy in terms of the standards of those services provided, but also in terms of the selection methods.

A number of people have referenced the fact that there was cross-party support for the 2019-20 bill, which there was. I think there were some interesting comments from many of the members in relation to that bill, some of whom—I think Lawrence Yule, a National Party member, spoke about the—well, he referenced the fact that, actually, there weren’t a high number of practitioners in this area. He wasn’t referencing this issue—he was referencing whether the industry could cover its costs in certain areas—but he made the comment, which I thought was really useful to read, that, actually, this isn’t an area that has a lot of practitioners in it. That is important in terms of understanding the totality of regulation and whether you want to prohibit—which is unusual; it’s actually unusual in the Act at the moment—or whether you want to regulate through using different standards, like having stringent requirements, which is what, again, the 2019-20 legislation did.

So, again, there are a number of stringent requirements already, there is a small pool of providers in this, and then the third thing that we, I think, also should consider is the selection criteria of those who are in positions such as liquidators. I take the point from across the House that that’s not the only position we’re considering here, but that is one. If you look at liquidation methods, you would have things like voluntary liquidation, where 75 percent of shareholders would have to make the decision to appoint a liquidator. So there are steps in place for those people with the best information to hand to make the most appropriate decision about who’s going to perform that task. It’s not that there’s an absence, in this area, of protections; there are protections there.

The final thing that I would say is that I agree with my colleagues that if these protections aren’t working, then, absolutely, we should relook at whether additional protections are needed. But we haven’t yet seen that demonstrated. For the time being, we have a robust set of protection mechanisms across the different categories that I’ve mentioned, so I’m afraid I can’t support this bill this evening.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Barbara Kuriger, five minutes in reply.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, it’s been an interesting debate on this bill. I would like to thank the Greens and the ACT Party and my colleague Andrew Bayly for their words in support of what we’re trying to achieve here.

Now, the last member spoke of stringent requirements. We’ve had members on the other side of the House who have spoken about honesty and integrity and trustworthiness, and you can have requirements and you can have people filling out the documentation, and you can have all of those things in place but there’s nothing like an extra piece of insurance in legislation that says that practitioners are unable to do this, and that is the conflict that we’re talking about.

Now, I think it’s really important to recognise that the people on this side of the House—and that includes the Green Party tonight who have spoken in support of this bill—do realise that things can fall through the cracks, and we are not frightened of sunshine. We are not frightened of having a look at things to see if they are working.

The Government members seem to be so sure that the Insolvency Practitioners Regulations Act, which yes, the National Party supported, is perfect. It seems to be what the Labour members are saying tonight is that “We did something perfect. It’s got no cracks in it. We are not prepared to go and put what we thought, at first glance, was a good bill in front of a select committee so that we can have members of organisations who work in this field every day and are far more knowledgeable than any of us that sit in the House here tonight, or stand in the House tonight, to come in and have a look and point this out.”

I actually said in my initial speech that some Restructuring Insolvency and Turnaround Association of New Zealand (RITANZ) members may not agree with this, and we have heard that. I said “some”, and I think some of the speakers on the other side of the House have taken that to mean “all”. Now, if those RITANZ members are so certain that the Insolvency Practitioners Regulations Act is working then they would not be scared of actually having a bit of sunlight displayed. I don’t want to question the integrity of the majority of those people, but I think when we’re making legislation we’ve always got to be making sure that there are some people that are not falling through the cracks of the legislation. As much as we can put stringent requirements in front of people and expect that everybody will fill them out to the best of their knowledge and the best of their ability, we must, I think, as regulators and legislators, accept that there is a chance that someone will go through the cracks of those systems. I’m sure many of us have had people come to our offices who have had problems. If you happen to be the person—not you, Madam Speaker—but if the person who comes to our office and complains is the person that’s been caught out in a situation like this, where somebody hasn’t acted with the honesty and integrity and trustworthiness that the customer would expect, then that’s when we see these things happening at the worst.

So I think that it’s very short-sighted of the Government and Labour MPs here tonight to think that any piece of legislation that any of us put in place—and yes, we agreed to the legislation two years ago. But because the Labour Party members haven’t seen any evidence that what they did was broken, it is now perfect, and there is no need to actually underpin it and improve it by putting a couple of clauses, both in the Companies Act and the Receiverships Act, that says that we could make this a lot more watertight than it already is. I think that the openness and sunshine of a select committee would have done this a huge favour. But unfortunately it looks like unless in the next 10 seconds the Labour Government members are going to change their mind, we’re not going to have the opportunity to do that. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Financial Professional Services Trading Advice Transparency Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 54

New Zealand National 32; ACT New Zealand 10; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Noes 65

New Zealand Labour 65.

Motion not agreed to.

Bills

Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill

First Reading

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): I move, That the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill.

It’s a privilege to again attempt to usher a member’s bill through the House; my first was picked up by Minister Little: the Sentencing (Livestock Rustling) Amendment Bill, and passed as part of a broader Government bill—survived an election as well. My second bill that passed related to the Dog Control Act, and this the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill is my third—so we’ll soon know how it goes.

This bill originated from a Winston Peters’ download on the police and alcohol laws, where typically he blamed both for the downturn and on-course turnover and attendance of race meetings. The very quick Chris Bishop drafted a bill in his sleep, and by the next morning he had the bill in the ballot, which he allowed me to pick up. At the time, he was a prodigious producer of members’ bills and didn’t want this one; he wants it now!

The bill seeks to allow racegoers to take their family picnics and include a bottle of wine or beer in the hamper to the races where those racing clubs concerned wish this to occur.

A day out at the races was, in the past, very much part of the New Zealand way of life, as it still is in Australia. It is comparatively recent changes to alcohol laws in this country that’s contributed to the stopping of this practice, and a subsequent drop in attendance at race meetings. Our country is very different than what in the days when John Clarke, alias Fred Dagg, made more famous the Rod Derrett song, “Rugby, Racing and Beer”—I’d sing it if I could!

Andrew Bayly: Have a go, Ian—have a go!

IAN McKELVIE: What about you, Bayly? However, there’s still very much a place for a day out with the family, enjoying the last two in moderation.

Currently, licensing laws make it difficult for racing clubs who wish to allow car boot picnics to occur at their meetings to do so, if they wish to, without considerable difficulty. Many of our race meetings were founded on the backs of families taking their picnic lunch to the races, sitting in the back of their car, or, in the distant past, their dray or carriage, and, of course, if some in this House have their way, we’ll be going in the dray and carriage to the races again in the future. They had a great day out, and I believe this law will make it much more attractive for families to once again enjoy a day out with their family and friends, having the odd flutter, the odd beer, and a lot of fun, while the kids play with their friends in a safe and educational environment.

The reason it will become more attractive is that some racing clubs will endeavour to ensure this option is once again available to patrons. I must, however, make the point that this can be achieved under current legislation with considerable difficulty and a great deal of cost. This bill alleviates that problem by changing some little points in the Act, which I will refer to later.

I wrote to all racing clubs some time ago to gather support for this bill. It will surprise some members to know that it received a good amount of support; although, some of that support came from clubs that have no need for it or have satisfactory arrangements in place already, and that was to be expected. The real beneficiaries of this legislation will, however, be our small country racing clubs, many of them who run their feature race meetings at holiday times of the year and really run them as the entertainment for those holiday destinations in New Zealand. It’s a significant part and a very important part of the New Zealand racing industry; it’s also a very important part of our rural and provincial communities, particularly in the more isolated parts of New Zealand.

In that letter, I also stated that I understand this is likely to be a conscience issue, with some parties and members of Parliament having the ability to choose how to vote without their party whipping the vote in a particular direction. So I urged them to speak to their local MPs if they had any interest in this bill—and I’d have to state that a number of them did. I also stated that we’d very much appreciate their support, fully understanding that many of them make a portion of their income from the sale of alcohol, so their current licensing arrangement is quite important. But none the less, from a racing industry perspective, it’s very important that we get people through the gate and that we are able to encourage greater attendance, particularly from our younger people, and, I think, to take them to the races at a young stage in a very friendly environment where they can have a pleasant day out is very important for all of us.

Race meetings are important community events around New Zealand, largely run by volunteer committees. Many regional racing clubs lack the infrastructure to offer large amounts of organised hospitality services, simply because they don’t have, as I said, the infrastructure or the facilities that are up to standard. Allowing patrons to bring their own food and drink to a course is a major driver in attracting attendance on race days. Saddlery clubs obtain a special licence or hold an on-licence for designated areas, and this allows the rest of the course to be available for bring-your-own alcohol consumption, if, in fact, the club requires it or the local community demands it.

Recently, the police began to object to BYO alcohol during clubs’ avocation for special alcohol licence for specific areas on the course. This has been a stressful, time-consuming, and uncertain exercise for many racing clubs throughout the country. Interestingly, it affects a lot of other organisations, of course, such as A&P societies, and things like that, but, effectively, this bill only deals with racing clubs. Police have issued guidance, providing some clarity on their interpretation of section 235, which is the section that this Act makes some alteration to, but ambiguity still remains.

The bill makes it clear that racing clubs and race meetings are not the intended target of section 235 of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012. The bill provides an exemption from section 235 for racing clubs on days of race meetings if the consumption of alcohol takes place at a time when the clubs either hold an on-licence or an on-site special licence that applies to the race meeting. The bill, very briefly, contrary to the bill we had in the House earlier tonight as 390 pages, outlines that very clearly.

Just a little bit of history on the racing clubs, because it’s such an important industry to New Zealand. It is a very big industry in New Zealand.

Andrew Bayly: It underpins rural New Zealand!

IAN McKELVIE: Shh! Shh! Shh! It, effectively, employs a very large number of people, some 20,000 people. Interestingly, we also produce some outstanding horses, jockeys, and trainers—and you could say the leading trainer and jockey in the world at the moment: Chris Waller from Himatangi—those of you who don’t know where that is, it’s in the Rangitīkei—and he’s the leading trainer, certainly in Australia, and probably in the world; and James McDonald from Cambridge, who’s also the leading jockey in Australia, and probably in the world. I think that’s pretty special and it shows the importance of this industry and the breeding industry, particularly, to New Zealand. It’s really important, I think, that we encourage, in every way we can, that industry to be successful.

This bill, in a very small way, contributes to the future potential success and the ability of the industry to attract more people and more young people into it. I hope the bill makes progress tonight.

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

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Look, it’s an interesting bill, and look, it’s nice to have also a debate on a conscience issue when you get to look at a bill, and really examine it in terms of where the good strengths lie and where the concerns might lie for the community. So thank you, Mr McKelvie, for bringing the bill to the House.

My main concerns with the bill—we’ll have a talk about what it does, but my two main concerns are, first of all, if an organisation has applied to their local council for a special licence and that has been declined by police, then there’s a reason for that. So the reasons in the past, I understand, would be along the lines of excessive drinking; implications in and around underage drinking; implications, particularly in rural areas, in and around driving on rural roads under the influence when there’s no police able to police those areas. So my concern would be: does this bill undermine the ability of police to do their job within rural communities, to keep young people safe, to keep our community safe, and to keep our roads safe?

The second point I would make is that, while I don’t have a racetrack in my electorate, I have talked to MPs who do have racetracks, and they get special licences, and they’re quite happy. So you’ve got a bit of a hit and miss that if you’ve got central government making a unilateral decision in and around one rule applying to every racetrack when this issue isn’t occurring in all racetracks, from what I can understand.

So the bill provides an exemption from section 235 in the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act, meaning that when you hold your meeting, you can have an on-licence or an on-site special licence that applies. This would allow the consumption of BYO, say, in the middle of the track or around the edges of the track. Under the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act, the only allowance for bringing your own alcohol would be consumed on licenced premises for restaurants or holding a licence with a BYO endorsement. However, the Act also regulates the hosting of BYO events in unlicensed premises. And this is where section 235 of the Act marks the line between lawful but unlicensed gatherings and the kind of gatherings that require a licence. So under that section, it’s an offence for a person to allow for their unlicensed premises to be kept or used as a “place of resort”—as the Act refers—for the consumption of alcohol for the general public. And this is the exemption that Mr McKelvie’s Act is seeking.

So while I completely understand what the case is and I sympathise with how race meetings are a Kiwi tradition, and I think Mr McKelvie captures it very well when he says “a glass of wine or a beer in the sun with some chips and a dip is a Kiwi tradition.”, some race meets have allowed BYO for more than 135 years. The law should target the real harms and problems areas caused by alcohol rather than family-friendly events. My concern, Mr McKelvie, is that the way New Zealand drinks has changed. We drink more and we binge drink more. There are issues in and around those areas and we need our police service to be able to object when we have unhealthy or unsafe behaviours occurring.

So recently police have begun to object to BYO alcohol during clubs’ applications, and it’d be really interesting to take a look at a couple of those applications to understand specifically why. I’m sure, if this bill makes it to select committee, they’re the sorts of things that submitters will be looking at, as to why those special licences in those instances were declined. But this bill does make it clear that those racetracks are not subject to section 235. And here’s my other point where I’ve got a problem: why racetracks? What about, I don’t know, roller derbies? We could BYO a six-pack of Woodies to the Upper Hutt roller skating rink. So why is it just racetracks, we need to be specifying why this should be the case.

So the problems that have been identified by officials so far are pretty good. I think there needs to be consistency, and what this bill introduces is a lack of consistency across the same types of venues within New Zealand. I know that the racing industry have argued and also the former member of Parliament, Winston Peters, has also argued that allowing patrons to bring their own food and drink to the course is a common method used to increase attendance and get people along and get more people there. But the same thing, I think it’s kind of sad that if you’ve got to rely on alcohol to get people to a family fun day out, I think that’s—you know, what’s wrong with a bouncy castle? There’s some good fun there. It takes the power away from local government to make decisions locally.

But interestingly—I thought this was quite interesting—the Ministry of Justice said that the bill, the way it was drafted, was likely to increase alcohol-related harms and to undermine the current licensing regime. Look, there are faults with the current licensing regime. You only need to look at local alcohol policies and how they haven’t worked as well as they could have. We can do a whole lot better. We should be empowering local communities to think safer and work collectively to figure out how we combat these harms that particularly affect our young people. So I don’t think using this Act is going to address some of those.

They also consider that the proposals might require quite a substantial shift in the current licensing framework, potentially creating unintended consequences for other parts of the alcohol industry and communities. Ministry of Justice have also consulted with New Zealand Police and the Health Promotion Agency and advised that they are also likely to have considerable concerns with the bill—particularly concerning increased intoxication, as I’ve already mentioned. Most recently, some of the provisions under the BYO alcohol were included in the development for the Racing Industry Act in 2020, but they were withdrawn because the need was to look at an overarching approach. And I think this is where we’re heading, that contentious issues like alcohol, a legalised drug in our community that does cause harm, we need to have an overarching framework in the way that we look at those harms and how we mitigate those harms, and how we encourage people to make more healthy decisions around how they’re using alcohol, whether it be at the race club, a bouncy castle, or a roller skating rink.

The proposal and the bill would apply regardless of whether the gathering had a high risk of alcohol-related harm, and it prevents that ability to ascertain what that risk might be. And quite frankly, I just think it disempowers local police from being able to act responsibly. Many of the large racing events are often associated with high levels of intoxication and harm, which may be exacerbated by attendees bringing their own alcohol. In addition, for smaller rural events where attendees travel to the racecourse, there are concerns that this could increase issues around drink driving. And if you have a small police service in your rural area, it also limits police to police the roads safely after a major event, if there has been drinking going on at the racetrack.

So my view is I’m going to be voting against this bill. Police still have the ability to stop gathering under its general powers, but it’s not clear whether they would be able to retain the ability to hold someone accountable under this proposed legislation. Furthermore, it’s not clear who is responsible for the consumption of outside the licenced premises, when you have things happening outside that venue. The provisions intend to enable police and other regulatory bodies to take action when necessary and appropriate to mitigate alcohol-related harm. And the bill seeks to address the concerns that police have.

Look, I think the member has addressed an issue that’s important, however, I think on issues such as alcohol, where we have some significant harm that is ongoing in our communities, that we take an overarching and consistent harm minimisation approach in terms of how we address these issues. My concern, and the reason I won’t be voting for this bill, is it disempowers local police. It may encourage excessive drinking, and it may make our roads more dangerous than what they already are. I don’t commend the bill.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party to speak on the first reading of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill. I want to commend the member Ian McKelvie for having this bill drawn. How great is it that we’ve got an opportunity to debate harm minimisation regarding alcohol? I wish we could be having these sorts of debates around the best fit for purpose legal framework on other substances, such as cannabis.

It’s great to have the opportunity to speak on the merits of these proposed amendments. In the case of this bill, what it is trying to achieve is an exemption to the “place of resort” offence for racing clubs on the days of race meetings if the BYO consumption of alcohol takes place at a time when the club holds either an on-licence or an on-site special licence that applies to the race meeting. What this bill would do is, basically, mean that racing clubs could advertise and promote large-scale BYO for the racing events, so long as they offered alcohol under licence somewhere in the venue.

As a former manager on duty at a hospitality venue where alcohol was sold, I got to see first-hand the importance of having really strong regulatory frameworks and, actually, the supervision that comes alongside, even in small community spaces, to ensure that our communities are being kept safe. Alcohol is a substance that, while it plays a role in our communities when it comes to social gatherings, has harms associated with it. What this bill inevitably will be doing is continuing coupling the cultural connection between alcohol and sport, and I think, when so many grassroots communities are trying to encourage us to move away from that, this bill goes in the opposite direction.

I also want to note that it’s been noted in Radio New Zealand that, actually, we do have quite a few bills relating to alcohol in the biscuit tin, and only one of them—actually, from my colleague Chlöe Swarbrick—is around harm minimisation. I do think it’s interesting that this bill tries to portray in the explanatory note that the interventions by police have been broad and really concerning when most of them seem to be emerging from the 2016 and 2017 period and there is limited evidence that the police is acting in a really unscrupulous matter when it comes to preventing licences having BYO spaces.

The Green Party continues calling for a harm minimisation approach to substances to encourage this Parliament to take the same approach, actually with other substances, not just alcohol, and we won’t be supporting this bill through the passage.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, I really would like to congratulate the member Ian McKelvie for bringing this bill to the House. The racing industry is part of really the culture of New Zealand and it’s full of characters. I’d have to say the member who’s brought the bill to the House is one of the characters of the House, so I think it’s apt and appropriate that he has done so. I just wonder whether that member may have got his ideas about BYO from when he attended the Lord’s Cricket Ground some years ago at a cricket final with another member not far from him over there, where we discovered—and I was there—that, actually, Lord’s had a very liberal attitude towards BYO, as long as it was champagne. It was quite interesting to wander around the ground afterwards to see champagne bottles liberally scattered across the floor in a way that maybe Lion or Tui beer cans would be in New Zealand. So maybe that was where the idea was born.

I’m from a family that was deeply embedded in the racing industry. In fact, I had an uncle, Uncle Jim, who was actually a horse doper. He was a vet—he wasn’t allowed to be called a vet; he was a technician. But it was a little bit embarrassing. The preferred doping method in those days was arsenic. It was a little bit risky: you could actually get a very fast horse or a very dead horse as it came round into the back straight, but he was very proud of the fact that none of his ever died in the front straight. What happened after the meeting was another story.

But coming back to the bill, Madam Speaker—which I know that you’re always keen that we do, as speakers—I will actually be supporting this bill. Yes, we have heard some of the arguments against that. In fact, I think it’s a bit ironic that the previous speaker Ricardo Menéndez March did bring in other substances into this. One of the main arguments—and I was a supporter of legalising cannabis during the referendum last year, for the very reason that he opposes this, which is because I think it brought it out from behind the shelter sheds, if you like, and it actually gave a lot better ability to control that particular substance. In this way, too, I don’t think for a moment that without the ability for families to enjoy a drink—the bottle of wine or a couple of beers at a country race meeting—I don’t think it would stop, but what it would do would be to actually push it into the shadows, if you like, and really inhibit the ability to actually have any control over that behaviour at all.

So in bringing together the fact that this does allow a continuation of what is a big tradition—I mean, my own family gather on Boxing Day at the Westport races. It’s very much a tradition, and I have to say that many of my family—some of them actually don’t drink at all, but still go along. Some of them do, I might say. But, like many things, I think we’re generally learning to take a better and more responsible attitude towards alcohol. In fact, it’s interesting to see that alcohol consumption has gone down, particularly among younger people, and, in fact it’s older people, the statistics are showing, who are actually drinking more.

One of the worst things about gambling in this country—and I have to say that there’s not much good about pokie machines, and they don’t actually add anything to the economy. At least with racing, whatever you think of gambling or gambling harm, there is an associated industry that actually produces quite heavily for this country by way of exports and by way of reputation, and don’t we all love it when a New Zealand horse wins a significant race in Australia or elsewhere in the world? So that’s another reason.

If we’re going to keep that industry going—an industry that’s been badly affected by the ability of the betting dollar to go elsewhere—then it’s important that we do attract another generation. It’s not just another generation; it’s other cultures that are coming into this country, and I think there’s no better way to introduce them to something that was actually pretty much traditional. As the introducer of the bill said, it’s rugby, racing, and beer. It can go beyond that. This will allow it, and I think we’re slowly, generationally—the fact that our younger people are drinking a lot less than their parents and grandparents shows that this is a way to ensure that they can drink responsibly. I’ll be supporting this bill.

MARK CAMERON (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, what a cracking good piece of legislation, I wager anyone here in this House. I will certainly be supporting this bill. I think it’s a lovely and concise little piece of legislation. I can imagine the detractors have come up with all manner of adages and catchphrases to name this piece of legislation like “Punters at the Pub Bill”, “Booze and the Bookies Bill”, or “A Tipple at the Track Bill”, but the reality is it’s a good bit of legislation.

Now, I live in a small community not far from what was the Dargaville racetrack. We used to have a lot of attendance there. A lot of punters would come out and, as the member Mr McKelvie, who put this piece of legislation forth tonight, alluded, it was a real family event. A wicker basket, a bottle of wine, a couple of children, if you were fortunate enough to have them with you on the day, or not, depending on how the day went, and a basket full of food—what a wonderful day it was, and it literally supported the local economy. Sadly, the Dargaville racetrack is no longer there, it’s moved across the isle and has gone across to Ruakākā.

This piece of legislation is a good little piece of legislation. It’s concise, it’s not overly onerous, and I sort of find it quite disappointing that some in the Labour caucus seem to think that there has to be more parenting of everyday life in New Zealand.

New Zealand has got a fair degree of common sense. I don’t really see this as being overly onerous—I mean, the assertion seemed to be a comparison between running on race day with a bottle of wine and a whole lot of teenagers at a nightclub, and the comparison was almost just one and the same. It’s really shameful that they can’t see the good in this piece of legislation.

I like the fact it gives certainty for those that are bringing alcohol on race day to their local track. I don’t see why I need to go on any more than to share with Mr McKelvie that this is a good piece of legislation and I will certainly be supporting it.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): I rise to speak on this bill, and I have to first congratulate the member Ian McKelvie for the luck of the draw. I have to also say to him that I have a very limited acquaintance with racecourses. In fact, my acquaintanceship with racecourses is limited to a brief and rather rocky love affair with a retired racehorse called Sir Tain—do you get it; “certain”—and the only thing about Sir Tain that was certain was that (a) he wasn’t going to win any races at all—nada, from nine starts, from recollection—and (b) you could never be certain what temper he was going to be in when you got on. Our relationship ended abruptly when he threw me off in a very decisive manner on a very steep and, may I say, very hard hillside, and I’m afraid that Mr McKelvie is about to find that I am probably going to return the favour to Sir Tain in my response to this bill.

Although Mr McKelvie’s description of what it should be when you go to the races with a family—the odd flutter and the odd beer was another of the descriptions that was given—my concerns are threefold. The first is that that’s not always accurate in our country, and while my colleague Mr Greg O’Connor made a heartfelt and eloquent plea for the reduction in drinking, I come from a reasonably rural place and I worry about the fact that there is still a high level of drink-driving. If we have families and young people out on the racecourse drinking after a long day, then I worry about carnage. I don’t think that is appropriate. I think what is appropriate is to leave it to the local people to make this decision—the local police and the local council. I do not believe in further tying local hands from make decisions according to local circumstances.

I guess that brings me to my next concern with this bill, which is that I don’t feel like it’s appropriate to spend large amounts of public money, as we all do, as we stand here when there isn’t a truly demonstrable problem, and I’m not yet convinced by the argument that there is. I have done a little bit of looking back and I noticed that it was the Hon Paula Bennett who seems to have first raised the hackles that resulted in this bill back in 2017, and that was because there were actual problems in racecourses. The police were bringing that to her as an issue, and that seems to have caused a bit of a panic amongst the racing fraternity, but I have to say that I am not convinced that the panic has really been well realised in actuality. I have not been able to pin down a wide swath of racecourses going out of business because they can’t be BYO. Therefore, I am afraid that for me, the bill fails the test of whether we ought to be spending our time and money on it, and I’m sorry for that.

But I think it is wrong necessarily to link people’s willingness to attend races with BYO. I am worried about binge drinking and rural drinking and that this is actually encouraging that, and that is a part of our culture which we do need to address. Alcohol is not necessary to happiness. I do firmly agree that local alcohol licensing provisions do need tightening, but, in my view, we need to give councils more power to regulate access to alcohol in their communities, not tie their hands and the hands of the police, and thus I cannot commend this bill to the House.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Madam Speaker, tēnā koe. I oppose this bill, but the member who brought it the House is a well-respected member with his community at heart and it’s an important issue, so it’s important to me to be able to speak about why. The purpose of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act, when it was introduced, was to increase community say over alcohol licensing decisions. This bill silences the community in the particular case of race meetings, and drags this Parliament even further into the regulatory black hole of an Act which has not given communities—that’s the mums, the teachers, the principals, the other business owners, and the churchgoers who live near these venues and alcohol shops—the clout that they need in licensing decisions.

I want to thank Mr McKelvie for bringing this bill to the House. He has recognised that reform of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act is needed, and that section 235 of the Act is poorly worded and could encapsulate events and parties that don’t need to be regulated at all. I agree with him that the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act needs amendment, and I want the legislation to do three things. Those are three factors that I use to assess this bill, so let me tell you what they are. First, the legislation shall allow communities to make meaningful contributions to licensing decisions. Second, it should be a piece of legislation that allows licensing bodies to take into account alcohol’s contribution to health and social issues within the community they are considering. Third, it should create a better way of regulating alcohol that leads to thriving, healthy regions, cities and towns, where those on the lowest incomes, and Māori and Pacific people, aren’t disproportionately affected by the impact of alcohol. Because the current legislation makes it far too difficult for communities to object to licences, and this bill would only make it harder, in particular circumstances.

I believe that it should not be left to communities to have to fight against licences, and yet people know they have to object to licences because of the proliferation of alcohol outlets in their communities. It’s time-consuming, it’s expensive, and sometimes it’s humiliating, but it is important for them to be a part of that, because more alcohol outlets means more alcohol-related harm, it means more noise, more smashed bottles in our playgrounds, more incidences of family violence, more drink-driving, and more serious crashes.

Let me speak to why I object to the effect of this proposed reform, and briefly comment on the reform that is needed. What does the bill do? It creates this exemption to section 235. Section 235 requires occupiers of unlicensed premises to get a special licence if that premises is going to be used to buy and sell alcohol. In practice, that means people who are doing something with a venue like managing it, putting on a concert or show at it, selling tickets to come in, or charging an entry fee at the door, or providing security are required to apply for a special licence. Then if the police have concerns about the group applying, they can object. Racing clubs can apply for special licences, and they get them. But this bill would mean that when police have the concerns, they wouldn’t be able to object, to racing clubs only. Justice Minister Kris Faafoi is working to review the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act, and there is work going on in this area by the Government and members—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Order! I’m just going to invite the member to put her script to one side, stop reading the speech, and debate the bill in the House.

ARENA WILLIAMS: I am sorry, Madam Speaker. I’m very conscious of my time and I have a lot to say about this bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Well, I might invite the member to get on with it.

ARENA WILLIAMS: I will. Let me then finally comment on how the effect of this legislation has a wider impact: that when we discourage the police from raising objections to licences, whether they are in race club meetings, whether they are in any circumstances where people who are putting on an event might apply for a special licence, we further disenfranchise those communities who are already trying to speak up against them. That further disenfranchises the people who are most affected by alcohol harm, and we around this House know that that is people in South Auckland who look like me. Māori women are the most affected by the harms of alcohol, through family violence, through abuse of alcohol. We are the most affected by driving offences with alcohol harm - related incidences. We are the most affected by crime with alcohol as a factor.

By weakening the protections that exist in the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act, we create more alcohol-related harm in our communities. That is not something I can tolerate, and that is why I am voting against this bill.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Well, look, it gives me great pleasure to speak on this bill. I’ve been waiting for this day; for the bill to be drawn. Because, as Mr McKelvie, as the bill’s sponsor, made mention, I had a little bit to do with the drafting of it and I’m very happy that it’s now in his hands.

But let me give you the brief background to how this came about. In 2017, Winston Peters was the Minister for Racing and he turns up to select committee—sorry, 2018. He turns up to select committee and kind of out of nowhere, he says, “The big problem with the racing industry is these bureaucratic shiny bums down in Wellington who are stopping races and racecourses from holding their traditional BYO events.” I thought, “That’s very interesting.”

Now, knowing the Rt Hon Winston Peters, I knew he would do nothing about it. Let’s remember: he was the racing Minister. So, OK. So I gave a series of written questions to him and I asked an Official Information Act (OIA) request and said, “What are you doing about it?” What he did was, after I made the request to him, he went to the Racing Board and said, “You’d better do something about this. Can I get some advice?” Bear in mind it was after I asked him about it.

So he got the advice, and the Racing Board wrote him a really good report and it went to Winston Peters and I asked him a written question and he refused to tell me what it was, and then I OIA’d the advice and I got the advice. The advice was, “You need to sort out section 235 of the Sale and Supply of Liquor Act.” It even gave him the legislation. It gave him the bill.

So I said, “What are you going to do about it?” He said, “Oh, well, not a lot. I’m too busy stopping Auckland light rail and, you know, stuffing up the Government and jamming things up for the coalition Government.” He didn’t say that: I’m interpolating from what he actually said.

Anyway, I thought, “Well, I’m a guy who’s in Opposition. I like to make sensible changes to the law. I like a beer. I like a racecourse. Let’s put a bill on the ballot.” So I drafted up the bill based on the official Racing Board advice, chucked it in the ballot, wrote to Winston Peters and said, “Come on, mate. You should support it.” He took about five months to write back to me and he said—I’m quoting directly—“The coalition Government takes members’ bills very seriously.” He said, “You’ve got to wait for the Messara report, which has disappeared off into the bureaucratic ether, like so many reports that have been compiled into racing over the years, and nothing’s happened.” The bill’s been in the ballot and now it’s been pulled out and we’ve got an opportunity to sort it out.

Now, Arena Williams made mention of section 235. She is right: it is outdated and outmoded. It’s anachronistic. It’s basically, from my read of the law, a hangover from the old Sale of Liquor Act 1989, and basically it stops alcohol being served—or its original purpose was to stop alcohol being served—at dens of iniquity; at brothels.

That’s the original background to it, but the way it’s used now is to stop racecourses having summer picnics in the middle of the racetrack like when we used to do in the good old days at Trentham Racecourse in Upper Hutt, or at the Kumara Races, or down south—

Joseph Mooney: Roxburgh.

CHRIS BISHOP: It stops at Roxburgh—my good colleague Joseph Mooney says, Roxburgh, Winton. It stops those events from happening.

Now, Emily Henderson says, “Is there like a widespread swathe of race cancellations?” No. There isn’t. There isn’t, and I’m not going to pretend that the problem is absolutely massive.

Ginny Andersen is quite right that special licences can already be issued, and for most parts, they are. But there’s big parts of the country where they aren’t. They’re small, rural, regional racetracks run by volunteers and they can’t afford to go through the long and expensive process of getting a special licence. So what this bill says, very simply, is section 235 should not apply to race meetings, to make it explicitly crystal clear for the police, and it basically says that police can’t object to these liquor licence applications—because that’s what they’re doing.

Ginny Andersen was right about one thing, but she was wrong about how the police decline these licences. The police don’t decline licences. The district licensing committees consider the licences. What the police do is strongly object and put these race clubs through time and expense and move heaven and earth to try and just run a simple race meeting.

In terms of protections—and I do regard it as important that we don’t have people turning up and getting pissed and then driving away and, you know, long, long drives home. What it says is section 235 doesn’t apply when the race club holds an on-licence or an on-site special licence that applies to an area within the premises for the duration of the race meeting.

What does that mean? Typically what happens is you’ll have a bar—an on-licence—operating with security and very nicely run and all of the normal rules that apply. What it will also mean is that at the same time as you have the bar running with the security, you can also have a BYO.

So in terms of the police and the terms of the security guards and all the rest of it, all of that can apply as well. This is a common-sense change, I hope members support it. I’m so excited to have it in the House and I’m looking forward to Kieran McAnulty’s speech.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour—Northland): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a short call on the member’s bill. As others have already done, I congratulate him on the luck of having his bill drawn from the biscuit tin. Some people have more luck than others when it comes to the biscuit tin, so I just want to congratulate the member.

I have given this a lot of consideration, and I do so with my background formerly as a Far North district councillor and a district licensing officer—or part of a team that was responsible for doing liquor licensing. I come to this issue with some real experience and interest in this area.

I first and foremost want to thank all of the people in our community who are working tirelessly to prevent alcohol harm, and that’s where I really want to start with my contribution this evening. I find it difficult, with what is proposed—difficult in terms of when I look at what the purpose and the objectives of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act are and what is being proposed here. I just cannot reconcile the two.

The object of the Act is that “the sale, supply and consumption of alcohol should be undertaken safely and responsibly” and that harm caused by excessive and inappropriate consumption of alcohol “should be minimised”. So I cannot see why proposing an exemption for race meetings—I’m not convinced by anything that I’ve heard tonight—goes towards achieving the objectives and the purposes of the main Act which this is looking to amend. I am not convinced by the proposal this evening that it is achieving the objectives of the Act, and, in fact, we are trying to remove some of the processes that are in the legislation to achieve those objectives of the Act.

It is acknowledged in the explanatory note of the member’s bill that recently police have begun to object to BYO alcohol during clubs’ applications for special alcohol licences for specific areas of the courses. The police along with the medical officer of health are two that are required to comment on the applications for special licences, and the fact that they have started to object would suggest to me that they are concerned that the behaviour that is taking place is not achieving the objectives of the Act. That’s what they are submitting on when they are giving this opinion as part of the special application process. So if they have concerns, I do not believe that it is appropriate to bring in legislation to remove their power to object or to raise their concerns—and perhaps consideration of special conditions to be applied to licences—by purely taking out or exempting race meetings from this Act. I think it is inconsistent with—again, what I said—the objectives and the purposes of the Act. I think that it is dangerous that we consider doing this for one area, and I don’t believe the case has been made for why it should apply to only race meetings and why it should apply when we do actually have evidence of police having raised concerns and opposing applications for special licences or requiring further conditions to be met.

I support that we leave this to our councils, to our local authorities—

Hon Member: To democracy.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: —to democracy—who are the closest to these clubs and who are the closest to the community, to be able to make the decisions, following the processes that are set out in legislation, which has that special role for the police and the medical officer of health. It is not difficult to apply for a special licence. It is not that costly to apply for a special licence either, as was suggested on the other side of the House. According to the Ministry of Justice: $55 for one or two events covered by a small size and $180 for three to 12 events if it’s of a medium size. I think they require about 20 days’ notice for the application to give the police and the medical officer of health time to input into that process. So I would say that I support our councils in the role that they play to achieve the objectives of this Act to reduce and minimise harm caused by the sale, supply, and consumption of alcohol. I do not believe that we should be exempting one small group of clubs, for the reasons that I have already outlined but particularly because police have been raising concerns about this. So I do not commend the bill to the House.

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour—Wairarapa): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Anyone that knows me, knows that I’m a big fan of racing. I will do what I can to support the racing industry. The racing industry is very important to the New Zealand economy. It provides as much to the GDP as the fishing industry, and that’s something that’s lost on a lot of people. Because the racing industry is not just going to the clubs and having a punt. The racing industry has many aspects to it, and part of that is the export element of racing, the breeding and the exporting of horses. That part of the industry cannot happen if it wasn’t for the domestic racing industry.

So when I looked at this bill, my natural instinct was to support it. Part of that was for the fact of the member who sponsored it. Ian McKelvie is one of life’s gentlemen. Despite the fact that he’s a Tory, he’s also a decent bloke, and so I like him a lot. He cannot play cricket to save himself but I admire the fact that he tries. So when I saw this I really wanted to back it. My natural instinct was to back it.

But being a good electorate MP, I rang my local racing clubs. I’ve got three in my electorate. There’s the Tauherenīkau racing club, there’s also the Masterton Racing Club, which operates out of Tauherenīkau, there’s the Woodville, and there’s the Waipukurau. I rang them all, and they all gave a different answer. But their answer equated to the same conclusion, which is that ultimately they didn’t feel this bill was necessary. I was quite surprised by that response.

And so I’ll walk the House through how it worked out. Tauherenīkau already have a BYO licence with their council. They didn’t think this bill was necessary. They have an arrangement with the South Wairarapa District Council that on particular days they have BYO licences and on other days they don’t. Of course, they make more money out of the bar when they don’t have a BYO licence. And when they do have that situation, it is more controlled and they’re able to assess each punter as they come up to the bar as to whether or not they meet the criteria that then entitles them to purchase a drink. So I thought “OK. Fair enough. I’ll try Woodville.” Woodville don’t want it. They haven’t applied for it because they, like I said, make more money out of the bar. I was like, “OK. Fair enough.” I spoke to Waipukurau, that operates out of the Hawke’s Bay Racing Club. They have a similar situation. Some days are BYO and some days are not.

So I’m in a dilemma; I’ll be honest. I want to back racing clubs but when I speak to my own racing clubs they don’t want it. So what do I do? So what I’ve decided to do in this bill is to back it to select committee. I’m going to vote “yes” on this bill. I’m going to give the select committee the chance to actually scrutinise this bill and propose any amendments that could improve it. And actually, if we’re honest, that’s the purpose of select committees, isn’t it? That’s also the select committee—

Toni Severin: Oh, yes.

KIERAN McANULTY: I didn’t expect to be heckled on this particular bill. But anyway, thank you, Toni Severin. I appreciate that. I don’t know—some neoliberal nonsense; let’s not take any notice. But look, the point of both members’ days and select committees is to propose an idea and let’s scrutinise it. So whilst my local racing clubs say to me, for various reasons, that they don’t particularly see the need for this bill, I still want to vote for it.

This is a conscience vote on this side of the House. Those that have been watching Parliament TV tonight will see that some Labour members have spoken in favour of this bill and some Labour members, actually quite enthusiastically, have spoken against it, and that’s all good because that’s what conscience bills are all about. But for me, not only as a racing fan but also as a local MP for Wairarapa, I just want to give this bill a chance. Let’s get it to the select committee. Let’s hear it out. If it turns out that actually this bill is not needed and that each racing club can go to their local council and get a BYO licence, much like Tauherenīkau racing venue have, and it turns out that it’s not needed: fine. We gave it its fair share. We gave it a shot.

You know, I’ve got a history of working with Ian McKelvie on members’ bills. You know, I remember the cattle rustling bill that he first put up, and it didn’t quite work out. But he and I worked together. We went to the Minister. I said to Ian, “I think I’ve got a way forward here.” We proposed a way forward to the Minister, and he got it through, and it passed. That was a great example of parliamentarianism. Perhaps this might be another opportunity for that. But we won’t know that unless we get it to the select committee. So I’m going to vote for this, and I wish you all the best, Ian McKelvie. I hope this will be able to come out of a select committee in a form that the whole of Parliament will support. But I guess what I’m saying, my message, is that in its current form, I probably won’t support it past select committee. But I want to give it a shot to make it get to a point where I can. All the best.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I seek leave for the House to vote immediately following the conclusion of Mr McKelvie’s speech, notwithstanding that we’ll likely be five minutes to 10.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Is there any objection? There is none.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): I just want to remind the last speaker, Kieran McAnulty, in case he’s got me into trouble or my brother-in-law into trouble, that my brother-in-law’s president of one of his racing clubs. And my cousin is president of another one. So I’ve got a bone to pick with them!

I really just want to reply to some of the points raised by some of the Labour members, and I respect their point of view. I think, though, that a select committee process will certainly answer some of their questions, because I think some of the questions they raise really don’t apply to what we’re trying to achieve here. And I think our main object here is, actually, to benefit the racing industry, not to benefit the liquor industry or anything else.

And I think one of the great shames or great tragedies of this Parliament in our country—and I guess every other place that makes laws in a democratic manner—is that it only takes 1 percent of the people to affect 99 percent of the rest of us. And that’s the problem we have with a lot of laws—particularly relating to alcohol, gambling, and things like that. Most people participate in those things in a perfectly normal, rational manner and cause no problem whatsoever. One or 2 percent of us do cause trouble from time to time, and I think that’s the challenge for it.

Andrew Bayly: Speak for yourself.

IAN McKELVIE: You’re speaking from experience, Bayly; I’m not! I won’t say any more because I appreciate the point that we want to get through this tonight, but I do think that a select committee process will answer some of the questions raised by some of the members opposite who I think did make some very good points, but none the less, I think the objective of this is to benefit the racing industry and to encourage more people to participate in the racing industry at whatever level we’re at. So I hope this bill gets through its next little phase, and I hope that it gets to the select committee, and I hope, then, we can have some rational discussion on it and put some order around what otherwise, probably, is a bill that needs tidying up a little bit. That’s my lot.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 76

New Zealand Labour 34 (Allan, Boyack, Brooking, Chen, Coffey, Eagle, Halbert, Jackson, Leary, Lewis, Lorck, Lubeck, Luxton, Mahuta, Mallard, McAnulty, McLellan, Nash, Ngobi, D O’Connor, G O’Connor, Omer, Parker, Rurawhe, Salesa, Sio, Strange, Tinetti, Tirikatene, Utikere, Warren-Clark, Whaitiri, White, Wood); New Zealand National 32; ACT New Zealand 10.

Noes 42

New Zealand Labour 30 (Andersen, Ardern, Belich, Bennett, Clark, Craig, Davis, Edmonds, Faafoi, Henare, Henderson, Hipkins, Kanongata’a-Suisuiki, Leavasa, Little, Pallett, Prime, Radhakrishnan, Roberts, Robertson, Russell, Sepuloni, Sosene, Twyford, Verrall, Webb, A Williams, P Williams, Walters, Woods); Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Abstentions 1

New Zealand Labour 1 (Sharma).

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is, That the—[Interruption] Order! Order! We’re voting. The question is, That the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill be considered by the Governance and Administration Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Governance and Administration Committee.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, the House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow. Thank you.

The House adjourned at 9.57 p.m.