Wednesday, 29 June 2022

WEDNESDAY, 29 JUNE 2022

WEDNESDAY, 29 JUNE 2022

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia/Prayers

Karakia/Prayers

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

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

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

SPEAKER: No petitions or select committee reports have been presented. No bills have been introduced. Ministers have delivered papers.

CLERK: The Statement of Performance Expectations for 2022/23 for Crown Regional Holdings Ltd and Education Payroll.

SPEAKER: I present the report of the Controller and Auditor-General entitled Improving value through better Crown entity monitoring. Those papers are published under the authority of the House.

I just want to thank my assistants earlier in the parade from Kamo Intermediate School. I used to think “Kamo” was an All Black, but it’s a place as well.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Prime Minister

1. NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National) to the Acting Prime Minister: Does he stand by the Prime Minister’s statement that “We need to be aspirational, and have a plan, but we also need to be disciplined and prioritise”, and is he satisfied that the Government is delivering good outcomes for taxpayer money?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Acting Prime Minister): I do stand by the Prime Minister’s statement, particularly where she went on to say, “Not all our commitments will be met in this budget. The past three years have demonstrated the benefits of careful management and targeted investment. Our strong position means we have an opportunity over time to bring down debt and put the Government’s books on a path to surplus, but our balanced approach will also see tens of billions of dollars opened up for investment into infrastructure over the coming decade so we don’t leave the next generation with debt of another kind.” In answer to the second part of the member’s question, yes, including, for example, unemployment at its lowest levels since when the household labour force survey began, levels of public debt amongst the lowest in the OECD, the fact that we’ve lifted more than 66,000 children out of poverty, that we’ve seen reducing numbers of people on benefits, that we’ve seen 190,000 people go in to free apprenticeships and trade training, and many more things. Things are tough for many households and businesses at this time and the Government is stepping up to support them.

Nicola Willis: Was it the Government’s aspirational plan to oversee an explosion in the number of New Zealanders being forced to live in emergency motels with a cumulative spend of $1 billion since his Government came to power?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The Government’s aspiration was to make sure that we didn’t do what the National Party had done and allow children to be brought up in cars. We have made sure that we’ve invested in the largest ever State house building programme, investing in building transitional housing, and making sure we do actually provide support to people.

Hon Scott Simpson: Bring back Jacinda!

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Of course we want to move to a situation where people have more of their own permanent housing. If only the previous Government had invested in building housing, we might be able to do that now.

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I just want to indicate in particular to Mr Simpson that his—he knows, I think, his interjection was out of order, actually on two counts. He’s a pretty experienced member and should know better.

Nicola Willis: Is the Minister aware that this year Kāinga Ora, the Government’s State house builder, has demolished more homes than it has built, and is that a good outcome for taxpayers’ money?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What I am aware of is that this Government has added more than 9,000 public housing places, and that stands in distinct contrast to the previous National Government, who sold off State houses in the middle of a housing crisis.

Nicola Willis: Can the Minister confirm that the State house waiting list has grown from fewer than 6,000 people when National was in office to more than 27,000 today on Labour’s watch?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What I can confirm was that if the National Party had built housing at the rate that this Government is building housing, we would not have the issue with the State house waiting list that we do. On this side of the House we build State houses, we acquire State houses, we improve State houses, we insulate State houses; on that side of the House, they sell them.

SPEAKER: Before the member asks, I’m just going to warn her that I probably shouldn’t have let her get away with the last part of her last question. She will ask her questions within order. She knows what I mean.

Nicola Willis: Does the Acting Prime Minister consider that the reason there are now more than four times as many people on the State house waiting list could be that rents have risen at a rapid rate under his Government, up $50 a week on average in the past year alone?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I know that the problem that New Zealand’s housing market faces consists of both supply and demand challenges. I also know that this Government has been addressing those on the demand side with a ban on foreign buyers, on removing interest deductibility, on extending the brightline test, and, on the supply side, on building more houses. We have acknowledged that New Zealand has a housing crisis; the previous Government refused to acknowledge that, and that’s how we’ve ended up where we are.

Nicola Willis: What good is it in acknowledging a housing crisis if the result is that last night, 4,500 children were put to bed in an emergency motel room?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: On that member’s party’s watch, those children were going to bed in cars. On this side of the House, we have made sure that they are warm and dry. Of course we want them to be in more permanent and stable housing. That’s why we are building more houses than any Government since the 1970s.

Nicola Willis: Is it really credible for the Acting Prime Minister to claim that when National was in Government, 4,500 children were sleeping in cars, or is it in fact the case that the Acting Prime Minister is trying to deflect from the most colossal failure of public policy ever seen by a New Zealand Government?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What I am saying to this House and to New Zealand is that they have a Government that is building more houses than any Government since the 1970s. Houses aren’t built overnight, and the member should know that being part of the party that sold off State houses does not put her in a position to lecture the Government about what needs to be done in social housing. We are getting on with the job of undoing the damage done by her Government.

Nicola Willis: Does the Acting Prime Minister regret lecturing New Zealanders about KiwiBuild and how it would deliver 100,000 homes to solve the housing crisis when, in fact, only 1,300 have been built?

SPEAKER: No—unless the member can show me evidence that the Acting Prime Minister did that. Further supplementary?

Nicola Willis: I won’t take a further supplementary. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: I’ll remind the member that’s what got Mr Seymour in trouble yesterday.

Question No. 2—Finance

2. INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has he seen on the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Statistics New Zealand recently released the food price index, which did report that food prices were up 6.4 percent on the previous month. In the face of these rising prices, the Government has intervened directly in order to make sure that we have greater competition in the supermarket sector, which will flow through to better outcomes at the checkout. Parliament last night passed legislation stopping major supermarkets from blocking their competitors’ access to land to set up new stores. Along with this action, my colleague the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs has noted that we will shortly be consulting on the mandatory code of conduct for supermarkets and already have a unit pricing scheme out for feedback, and we have already committed to making sure that we open up the wholesale market. The Government is acting directly to help bring the prices that New Zealanders pay at the supermarket down.

Ingrid Leary: What other reports has he seen on the economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s weekly fuel price monitoring report shows that prices remain high, with average prices for 91 with a discount being $3.05. Everyone across the House knows that the supply chain constraints around the world and the Russian invasion of Ukraine have pushed up the price of oil. That is why we moved quickly to help ease the pressure at the pump for New Zealanders by reducing fuel excise duty by 25c a litre, cutting road-user charges by an equivalent amount, and halving public transport fares. [Interruption] They don’t like action to actually support people as opposed to opposing every single thing that this Government has done. They cry foul, but they never support low and middle income earners. I’m proud of the action this Government has taken to do that.

Ingrid Leary: What reports has he seen on rising prices that affect the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Higher prices of fuel and supply chain disruptions do flow through to the rising prices of goods and services, as highlighted in the previous two reports I’ve mentioned. The Government is acutely aware of the cost of living pressure on New Zealanders, especially those on low and middle incomes. That’s why, at the May Budget, we announced the temporary cost of living payment for people earning less than $70,000, and we have permanently halved the cost of public transport for low-income New Zealanders. On this side of the House, we are taking action to support low and middle income New Zealanders rather than focusing on giving tax cuts to the wealthiest New Zealanders.

Question No. 3—Public Service

3. SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga) to the Minister for the Public Service: Does he stand by the statements of Acting Public Service Minister Hon Grant Robertson that “I’m confident that the public service is delivering to New Zealanders” and “We’ll always make sure that what we spend is careful”?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for the Public Service): Yes, in the context in which the statement was made.

Simeon Brown: Has he seen reports that the number of comms staff across the Public Service has increased by 46 percent, from 339 in 2017 to 497 in 2021, and, if so, is he convinced that spending an extra 64 percent on comms staff is a good use of taxpayers’ money?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes, I have seen that. I think it’s important to note what we’re talking about when we’re talking about comms staff. The number of media-related comms staff—i.e., press secretaries and so on—has remained the same. The additional comms staff that are being employed are to do things like provide information to the public, make sure website information is available in a publicly accessible form, and respond to queries from members of the public.

Simeon Brown: Why has the number of comms staff at the Public Service Commission, which is a department he is the Minister for, almost tripled from six in 2017 to 15 in 2021, and is this an example of careful Government expenditure?

SPEAKER: Well, I think I was the Minister of Education when that member was at school, and we didn’t do a good thing on maths, did we?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The issue there is primarily one of coding. If we look at what those staff members do, they’re not responding to media queries; they’re doing other activities that are classified as communications related.

Simeon Brown: How can he say that the Public Service is careful in its spending when the Public Service Commission, which he is responsible for, has almost three times as many comms staff and more than doubled its spend on consultants since he came to office?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I suspect the member didn’t hear my answer to the last question, but I addressed that in my last answer.

Rachel Boyack: What growth, if any, has there been in permanent employees in the Public Service in the last year, and what have been the main contributors to that growth?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I appreciate there is a lot of public interest in this. The growth in Public Service employees last year, up to the end of June, was 3,950, or a 6.9 percent increase. Half of that growth—around 50 percent—was directly attributable to the Government’s response to COVID-19. That included people running managed isolation and quarantine facilities, rolling out the vaccination programme, supporting contact tracing, managing the border, and providing welfare assistance to people and businesses affected by the economic impact of COVID-19. About 40 percent of the growth was to support the Government’s work programme, including improving front-line services and help to individuals, families, and businesses; implementing the Government’s reform agenda, including climate change, Resource Management Act reform, and mental health service roll-out; and investing in the delivery of services such as more support for schools and teachers, more protection for workers and consumers and businesses.

Simeon Brown: Is he aware that the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) has more than doubled its comms staff, from 32 in 2017 to 88 in 2021, and, if so, with examples like this, is the Government’s priority to employ spin-doctors over front-line doctors in our hospitals?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Again, I think the member should listen to the previous answer I gave. This isn’t about spin-doctors; this about people who are engaging with members of the public. NZTA’s very comprehensive work programme does involve engaging members of the public who are affected by that work.

Hon Grant Robertson: What would the Minister’s response be if, as Public Service Minister, it was brought to his attention that a pay system was introduced that had 90 percent of public school teachers mis-paid for two years, and $45 million had to be spent to fix the system?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I think that’s exactly the sort of example that we want to avoid, where penny-pinching ultimately leads to services that don’t actually deliver for New Zealanders, and cost a lot more in the long run, and Novopay is a really good example of what we get when we end up with a National Government trying to cut corners.

SPEAKER: The answer to the member’s question was Anne Tolley.

Question No. 4—Children

4. ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa) to the Minister for Children: Mānawatia a Matariki, Mr Speaker. Ngā mihi o te wā Pipiri. How is the Government continuing to transform Oranga Tamariki?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister for Children): For too long, Oranga Tamariki has put itself at the centre of their work. Hapū, iwi, and communities know what’s best for their children, and need to be empowered to lead decisions locally. Work is under way so that iwi and communities are empowered to lead and deliver services to enhance their effectiveness, efficiency, and cultural relevance for the tamariki and whānau they support.

Arena Williams: How does this new direction support our tamariki?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Well, it’s simple. We are investing $23 million to enable locally led initiatives to be delivered by iwi, communities, and partners. This will improve iwi and community collaboration and give these groups control of the services provided. This investment will empower communities and Māori to help children and their families in a way that suits them and not just Wellington.

Arena Williams: What is an example of a locally led partnership?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Take the Whānau as First Navigators programme. This partnership between Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu and Oranga Tamariki was first signed in 2018. Its uniquely for Māori, by Māori approach has benefited tamariki and whānau in the Ngāi Tahu takiwā. Between 2018 and 2021, the number of Ngāi Tahu tamariki in Oranga Tamariki’s care dropped by almost 30 percent. That is why I was proud to announce a further $25 million of funding last year to continue this important work. This is an example of Oranga Tamariki being an enabler, not a dictator.

Arena Williams: What other work is under way in refreshing Oranga Tamariki?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Last year, this Government accepted all of the recommendations of the ministerial advisory board appointed to provide advice on how to fix the child care and protection system. Oranga Tamariki created its future direction plan, an internal blueprint aligned to the themes of the recommendations, to ensure Oranga Tamariki stays focused on this fundamental shift. The future direction plan remains a central focus for Oranga Tamariki in the work it does. A plan has been put in place, and alongside the members of my ministerial advisory board and the leadership of Oranga Tamariki we are already changing the system.

Question No. 5—Transport

5. SIMON COURT (ACT) to the Minister of Transport: How many people drive through the Mt Victoria tunnel per day, and how many does he project will walk and cycle through if the Government bans cars from the tunnel, as he announced this morning?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): I reject the premise in the member’s questions; the question that we’ve banned cars from Mount Victoria. In fact, the announcement that we’ve made on the preferred mode and route for mass rapid transit in Wellington today provides for a new Mount Victoria tunnel with four lanes; two for cars and two for public transport. This means that there is exactly the same capacity as currently provided for cars, which enables approximately 50,000 to 55,000 vehicles per day. The difference is that we’re also enabling high quality bus rapid transit to give Wellingtonians real transport choices and faster journey times.

David Seymour: Point of order, Mr Speaker. This was a question accepted on notice about two things: how many cars currently drive through the tunnel, and how many people would walk or cycle through it if—and this is accepted on notice from a press release from the Government on the Beehive website this morning.

SPEAKER: OK.

David Seymour: He didn’t address either leg of the question you accepted.

SPEAKER: OK. I think the member does have a point. He especially has a point as to the first part of the question, which is not hypothetical; it’s a factual matter, which one would expect to be involved in the preparation. The member might give an answer which says he doesn’t have that information, or that wasn’t available over that time, but the—

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Speaking to the point of order, I said between 50,000 and 55,000 vehicles per day in my answer.

SPEAKER: Right. I missed it, as did David Seymour.

Simon Court: Is the Minister aware of Treasury advice stating 80,000 additional people will be living in Wellington by 2050; and if he is aware, why is he planning to close off a vital route which, as he pointed out, serves 55,000 vehicle trips per day, instead of adding to it?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Following question time, I’m very happy to arrange a session to take the member through the Let’s Get Wellington Moving proposals that have been announced this morning, where I can reconfirm to him again that the same vehicular capacity through Mount Victoria will apply, but that additional capacity will be created through mass rapid transit which will move thousands of people per day, and additional capacity will be created for safe walking and cycling. More people will be able to move through Mount Victoria through more transport choices under the plans that we have announced today.

Simon Court: What does the Minister have to say to the 70 percent of people who responded to Let’s Get Wellington Moving surveys who wanted to see, from their website, “two lanes for general traffic in each direction”, because they believe this would futureproof the investment and support population growth and intensification; and are these people wrong, Minister?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: What I would say is that the overwhelming feedback from public consultation for Let’s Get Wellington Moving is that people supported our objectives of achieving mode shift, which we do by providing more transport choices to people in Wellington. The feedback from the Let’s Get Wellington Moving consultation was overwhelmingly positive, and by and large supported option 1, which is the preferred option of the Government, as announced today.

Simon Court: Has the Minister done the maths, which shows that by building four new lanes, taking two away for public transport, taking two away from closing the Mount Victoria tunnel, that adds zero extra lanes for general traffic for $7.4 billion; and, if so, is this morning’s announcement simply proof of what the independent reviewer concluded, that Let’s Get Wellington Moving is at risk of failing to deliver?

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Complex maths! You may need tutoring.

Hon Peeni Henare: Certainly not from a woodwork teacher.

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Order. Mr Henare, I think—

Hon Peeni Henare: Sorry, sir.

SPEAKER: There’s been one or two on your own side who haven’t had brilliant maths in the last couple of weeks.

Hon Chris Hipkins: You can do all that on one hand, Gerry.

SPEAKER: Order! Come on. Come on, let’s—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: We’ll find out.

SPEAKER: I’ll be imploring people to take their shoes off to count properly soon.

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Look, I would make two comments in response to the member’s question. The first is just to reiterate—for about the third time—that more capacity for people to travel around Wellington is created through the Let’s Get Wellington Moving plan announced this morning though the provision of mass rapid transit through Mount Victoria, and also through the significant changes that are created around the Basin Reserve, which will also significantly improve the urban environment.

But secondly, and most substantially, it is important to note that our Government is a Government which believes that we will not solve the transport problems of our larger cities just by pouring more and more cars into already congested roads. That will simply make the problem worse. All of the most successful, productive, and innovative cities around the world have high-quality rapid public transport systems. That is what we will finally deliver for Wellington after 50 years of this issue being kicked down the road.

Simeon Brown: How can Wellingtonians believe that he can deliver rapid transit for Wellington when Aucklanders have been waiting almost five years for Auckland Light Rail to Mount Roskill by 2021—last year?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I certainly think that Wellingtonians will have more confidence in this Government to deliver that than the other side of the House, given that their former leader called Wellington a “dying city”.

Simon Court: Will the Minister ensure that the Mount Victoria tunnel pedestrian and cycling conversion is easily removable so that when ACT is part of a future Government after 2024, we can turn it back to a car driving—

SPEAKER: All right. All right.

David Seymour: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: The member’s allowed to take his mask off so we can hear him clearly.

David Seymour: I know you like to see me. The question was: will this design allow future conversion? Now, that is a matter of public interest. I accept the second leg of the question may not have been necessary, but surely the Minister can answer that. People want to know.

SPEAKER: The second part of the question was out of order, and therefore the question was out of order.

David Seymour: Well, can he answer the first part?

SPEAKER: No. Well, he can but he mayn’t.

Question No. 6—Conservation

6. ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour) to the Minister of Conservation: How has Jobs for Nature supported the restoration of Rotorua lakes?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister of Conservation): Jobs for Nature funding has enabled jobs; environmental improvements; and connection of community, hapū, and iwi to the Rotorua lakes. Jobs for Nature has invested $2.5 million into the Mauri Tu Mauri Ora programme, led by Te Arawa Lakes Trust. Since making the investment, the project has restored wetlands; habitat for taonga species, including kōura, inanga, and tuna; increased bird life through pest control; improved fresh water quality; and restored the mauri of ecosystems across the lakes. The programme also has a focus on investing in people and has been achieving five year goals in as little as six months.

Angie Warren-Clark: What specific achievements have been made by this project to date?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: I’m advised that this project has already seen work at over 40 sites throughout the Te Arawa rohe, the production of 29,000 plans, the treatment of 1,000 hectares for weeds, and the warranting of four new staff under the Biosecurity Act.

Angie Warren-Clark: How is this project developing the people working on it?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: Te Arawa Lakes Trust have noted the growth of individuals through Jobs for Nature experience, such as gaining qualifications, and that this is a wider benefit for the growth of their community. Staff have been trained to be skilled in other employment to deliver further conservation projects. This includes undertaking pest animal control, working as maritime compliance officers, and training to be scientific divers. Staff development and training in this field has made them readily employable to environmental organisations. Staff have obtained qualifications such as the certificate in controlled substance handling, registered chemical applicators, skipper certificates, and biosecurity compliance officer training.

Question No. 7—Transport

7. Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) to the Minister of Transport: Does he stand by his statement, “The emissions reduction plan is Government policy and something that we give great priority to. We will be considering that as we consider the best options to take mass rapid transit in Wellington forward”?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): Yes, I do stand by that statement that I made in the House last week, and I’m very pleased that in the announcement that we have made this morning about moving mass rapid transport forward, the Government’s preferred option is the one which supports the highest degree of benefits for mode shift as compared to the other options. It offers significant benefits for Wellingtonians in terms of reduced travel times and improved urban environment but also in terms of reducing emissions, which we know is a critical task.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Can he confirm that the life cycle of carbon analysis published by Let’s Get Wellington Moving, on page 10, shows that the options the Government is progressing with have more than doubled the embedded emissions, and lower yearly carbon reduction compared to option iv?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I can confirm that the embedded emissions involved in the construction of option i are higher than for option iv, noting that any significant construction project in transport will have significant embedded emissions. But what I also note is that clearly in the Government’s announcement we confirmed that option i will be strongly linked with a higher model of urban intensification, which, when taken together, will offer significant carbon reductions and enable us to reach a point of carbon neutrality and then savings by the mid-2030s.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Is he denying the evidence provided in the urban development analysis published by Let’s Get Wellington Moving, which, on page 23, says option iv would generate similar opportunity for growth and new residential development as option i?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: No, that information is correct when comparing the base cases for urban intensification across the models, whereas—as I confirmed in my previous answer—we will be working hard to achieve a higher level of urban intensification for option i, which will deliver significantly greater carbon savings.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: How does he explain how option i would reduce emissions to a greater extent with greater urban development when the carbon life-cycle analysis shows that there is greater carbon reduction on a year-to-year basis from option iv, with or without the maximum urban development scenario?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Because that is the advice that I have received from officials who have considered these matters. I note that option i, even without the increased housing intensification, offers monetised benefits that are $51 million higher for public transport, $20 million for private vehicles, and $42 million higher for active transport, demonstrating that there is more mode shift achieved under option i, and that is just at the base case. It is significantly higher with the higher level of urban intensification that we wish to achieve, and I’m happy to share that information with the member.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Does he deny that if that $2.2 billion that is being spent on new, high-carbon tunnels was spent on more transformational and climate-friendly transport, it would get greater mode shift and greater carbon benefits for the total amount of money spent?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: No, I don’t accept that proposition. The various options that were put out for consultation under the Let’s Get Wellington Moving consultation options have to work in the round because they are interdependent on different parts, and I do note that aspects of the tunnels that the member refers to do confer benefits for people using public transport, walking, and cycling, and, in particular, the improvements that we will make around the Basin Reserve will create a significantly improved environment for users of those services.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: How can he guarantee that in the future, two of the four road lanes in the new Mount Victoria tunnel will be reserved for public transport when they could easily be opened to general traffic, thereby eliminating any benefits for public transport users?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: The Government simply has to get on and make decisions in the best interests of Wellington, according to the best plan. It is my hope that political leaders across central government and local government will support us in getting on with the job of delivering better public transport—

Nicola Willis: It won’t happen.

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: —for the people of Wellington, and I note the comments from the member opposite saying it won’t happen. That’s exactly the attitude that we had under nine years of the National Government, which failed to invest in a better public transport system for Wellington. We are getting on with it, and I think the fact that the member has that point of view explains her successive electoral failures in this city.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Given that answer, will his Government commit to completing light rail as soon as possible and improving walking, cycling, and bus journeys across Wellington before digging for two new, high-carbon tunnels?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: In the first instance, I do just reflect back on my comments, which note that any form of significant construction involves a degree of embedded carbon across any of the options that we are looking at. The key point is what we then enable by way of carbon reduction in the long run, and our view is that option i, particularly with the intensified housing model, provides that. But what I will say to the member is that we are ambitious to make progress as soon as possible and we have engaged with officials to ask them to look at accelerated options, including the phasing of options, to bring forward the benefits of light rail within the programme.

Question No. 8—Internal Affairs

8. TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty) to the Minister of Internal Affairs: Why did she accept the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Statement of Performance Expectations for 2022/23, in which the FENZ board indicated budgeted revenue of $661 million?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education) on behalf of the Minister of Internal Affairs: On behalf of the Minister of Internal Affairs, because the document met the statutory criteria for a Crown entity.

Todd Muller: Is she satisfied that despite a $220 million higher operational spend than expected when Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) was created, fire stations were closed last weekend and fire engines not crewed?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Like all of the workforce, Fire and Emergency are experiencing disruption due to COVID-19 and due to other winter illness, including influenza. I am confident, as Minister, that the fire service is managing that in the most appropriate way. Where a fire crew is under-crewed because of workforce disruption, they have an ability to move crews around and respond accordingly, as they do, for example, when a fire station is responding to multiple different incidents.

Todd Muller: Why does she accept that despite the $661 million budget, life insurance and income protection is available to all non-uniformed staff but specifically excludes uniformed front-line staff?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I think if the member wanted to ask a question specifically about that, he should have done so rather than asking a question about the fire service’s revenue and statement of performance expectations.

Todd Muller: What is her response to the thousands of firefighters who are telling me they look at this Government and think, “Where on earth has all the money gone, because it ain’t reached me?”

SPEAKER: Order! I’m just going to invite the member to consider that question as to whether it is a matter of fact—the assertion that he made right at the beginning of it. If the member says that it’s absolutely accurate, I’m happy for the member to answer it.

TODD MULLER: Yes.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The member is well aware that there is bargaining ongoing at the moment, and as Minister it would be inappropriate to get involved in that.

Todd Muller: What is her response to firefighters sharing their frustrations with me that FENZ is employing six full-time staff to trawl social media and spot negative comments about FENZ by firefighters, while at the same time their calls for more front-line staff are met with silence?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I reject the premise of the member’s question, and I also repeat the previous answer that I gave, which is that it is inappropriate for a Minister to be making public comment on bargaining that is under way.

Jan Logie: Is the Minister aware that when yesterday in the House she said no qualified firefighters are on less than the living wage, there are two ranks below qualified firefighter that are on less than the living wage?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The Minister stands by her statement yesterday.

Question No. 9—Tourism

9. JAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East) to the Minister of Tourism: What announcements has he made on tourism infrastructure supporting Matariki?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Tourism): Last Friday, on our first Matariki public holiday, myself, with the Associate Minister of Tourism, Hon Peeni Henare, announced the sixth round of recipients for the Tourism Infrastructure Fund. This fund has played a key role in supporting infrastructure that many districts can’t afford by themselves. This round was particularly special as it was the first time that funding criteria included an explicit mention of infrastructure to support the delivery and management of Matariki events. Round six of the fund invests over $15 million into 62 projects across 34 councils and community organisations around the country to help address tourism infrastructure needs, including future Matariki celebrations.

Jamie Strange: What are some of the funded projects that will help communities celebrate Matariki?

Hon STUART NASH: From star-gazing platforms to event infrastructure and facility upgrades, round six of the Tourism Infrastructure Fund will help get the community and visitors engaged in our newest public holiday. To highlight a couple of their successful projects, at beautiful Waihī Beach, locals and visitors can look forward to new star-gazing platforms, which will link together with a popular walking trail. The platforms will include a Matariki star compass and cultural information about the site. In Rotorua, the Matariki on the Marae project will fund upgrades to marae facilities to incorporate Matariki infrastructure. This includes viewing platforms, cultural signage, enhanced walkways, public toilets, and a Matariki-inspired entranceway to the marae complex. Other district councils will also receive funds for Matariki events, which will help the communities learn more about New Zealand’s cultural history.

Jamie Strange: How has the Tourism Infrastructure Fund supported communities in the past?

Hon STUART NASH: Tourism is hugely important to our economy. As we open back up to the world, it is essential that our tourism infrastructure meets the high expectation of visitors. To date, the fund has supported more than 200 projects, totalling over $90 million, which have improved the quality of tourism infrastructure for residents and visitors alike. The Tourism Infrastructure Fund has supported notable projects around the country, including coastal walkways, essential waste-water treatment plants, park and ride facilities, and high-quality public toilets. Our investments are proof of our commitment to stand beside local communities to co-fund important tourism infrastructure, which will ensure we protect and enhance our strong global reputation.

Question No. 10—Justice

10. NICOLE McKEE (ACT) to the Minister of Justice: Does she stand by her statement that she will bring a “victim-centric” approach to her job; and if so, will she commit to introducing tougher penalties for offenders who repeatedly victimise New Zealanders?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): In response to the first part of the question, yes. In response to the second part of the question, the Government is committed to taking an evidence-based approach to keeping our communities safe, breaking the cycle of offending, and tackling the root causes of crime.

Nicole McKee: What work will she ask the Ministry of Justice to do, if any, considering the news of the number of burglaries increased to 289,000 over the last year, as evidenced this morning?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: This morning, the New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey was released. It’s the fourth of its type and it showed a range of interesting outcomes. The first is that crime trends are relatively stabilised. The second is that those that are victims of crime, there are some substantive issues there. First of all, that 2 percent of all adults experiencing crime experienced 39 percent of the total crime rates against all victims. We know that those that are victims of crimes are those that are already most disproportionately impacted by a range of factors. Those with disabilities are impacted 55 percent more than others, those that form part of our queer community, those that are Māori all form a substantial part of our victims. So to the member’s question, “What will we be doing?”, we have taken an approach that will enable, first of all, through our Budget 2023, a joined-up approach across the justice sector. Over $40 million has been invested into ensuring that there is an all-of-Government approach to the way that we are responding to those victims of crime. Second is that we are making sure that we engage victims at the outset of the process. There are a range of different measures in place, and I think it’s clear that both sides of this House—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I think it’s fair to say that the member’s had a fair go.

Nicole McKee: Is she concerned that the number of repeat burglaries increased over the last year; and will she be introducing new policies to target criminals who repeatedly commit burglaries?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: One of the highlights of the New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey, as just stated in this House, was that crime rates overall are relatively stable and have been over the last few years. With respect to burglary in particular, we’re taking it in terms of the focus on victims. Our focus is on ensuring that we are supporting those victims at the outset when a crime is done against them, and we’re taking an all-of-Government approach.

Nicole McKee: Will she commit to considering ACT’s policy of sentencing burglars to three years in prison without parole if they are convicted of a burglary for a third time?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: No.

Nicole McKee: What work has she asked the Ministry of Justice to do, if any, to support the victims of crime who are owed more than $35 million in unpaid reparations, since I asked her about it last week?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I thank the member again for her question, because this is an area that I am quite concerned about. Reparations getting to victims—there have been multiple challenges over many, many years. One of the things that we have established there is to ensure that victims receive their reparations in a more coordinated approach. To date, in the last year, we’ve seen over $5 million go directly to victims. We’ve got $6 million that are on an automatic payment scheme, which is an uplift from previous years. And we’ll continue to monitor that progress.

Nicole McKee: Point of order. My question was to the Minister about what work she’s done in the last week on the issue about the $35 million of unpaid reparation.

SPEAKER: And I think she started off by saying she’s been focusing quite a lot on that issue.

Question No. 11—Justice

11. CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi) to the Minister of Justice: Does she have confidence victims of crime are receiving adequate support with timely access to justice; if not, why not?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): Victims, as I’ve said in this House, are a priority for our Government, which is why I’m pleased that Budget 2022 made long-overdue investments both for victims and for access to justice, including $41.5 million to cover the costs of existing demand for legal-aid services, $45.7 million across the justice sector towards improving outcomes for victims of crime, $12.3 million for assistance grants to victims of crime, providing for an additional 7,200 financial grants per year, and $148.7 million to address core issues limiting access to legal aid by raising income eligibility thresholds, debt-repayment thresholds, civil and family eligibility thresholds, removing the legal-aid user charge, and increasing the hourly rate paid to legal-aid providers.

Chris Penk: Why should victims of crime take comfort from the answer that the Minister has just given regarding additional spending when the $3 million fund for victims of serious crime, as announced in Budget 2021, has supported zero victims after having been open for five months?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: The core focus for this year’s Budget, in particular, has been to make sure that services are provided earlier. And that, indeed, has been a direction that our Government has requested, which is why you’ve seen the bolstering of fiscal support for victims of crime, in particular through the uplift of finances available to those that are eligible for grants through that $12 million made available through Budget 2022.

Chris Penk: Is availability of funds not the issue when it has been the case that according to Budget documents, victims have been “deliberately excluded” from accessing Government support to which they are entitled during a time in which violent crime has increased by 21 percent over four years?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: To reiterate the statements I have made in this House, there have been multiple years of under-investment into victims of crime, but to quote the Chief Victims Advisor, Dr Kim McGregor, described Budget 2022 as a “game-changer” for victims, and in particular, the focus of this Government is “to join up the siloed parts of the justice system.” It’s what the Victims Advisor has been calling on, she says, “for several years”—“There hasn’t been a victims-focused team with a view across the entire system—police, courts, corrections, parole board—from a victim’s perspective.” So she says, the Chief Advisor that the National Government appointed in 2015, that this is “hugely significant”—“a game-changer for … victims of crime”.

Chris Penk: Do the years of significant under-investment to which the Minister’s just referred include the last 4½ years?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: Yes, they do. There has been for multiple years of Government—yeah, that’s absolutely right, and I don’t think that anyone could decry that. For years and years, there has been an under-investment into the way that the right services in a joined-up approach across Government has been able to be provided to our victims, and that is why there were two major priorities through the justice Budget cluster this year. The first is access to justice, and the second was victims and focusing on their needs.

Chris Penk: What is her response to victims of violent crimes who have stated in relation to the Government’s proposed repeal of the three-strikes law, “We believe the proposed changes are misconceived, misguided, and certain to create more members of the club to which we all belong, the club which no one wants to join.”?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: First of all, to any victim of crime we would say that we want to ensure that they have all of the right support available to them. Secondly, with respect to three strikes, we heard from many victims through the select committee process about their experiences, of which many were absolutely horrific. The thing about the three-strikes law, however, is that this doesn’t diminish the ability of any judicial officer to be able to provide the minimum or the maximum penalties, and it’s restoring the discretion of the judicial officer to exercise their duties and functions. Just this year, we have seen the exercise of a judicial officer imposing the maximum penalty—life sentence without parole—for an individual that hasn’t met the three-strikes threshold. We do not have any intention of providing any kind of retrospectivity when it comes to those that have suffered at the hands of crime and criminals, but we are reinstating the integrity of our judicial branch of Government so that they exercise their discretion within the bands of the Sentencing Act.

Chris Penk: Are the Government’s reported new justice priorities of curbing violent crime and looking after victims an admission that the Government has failed to address the 21 percent increase in violent crime under its watch?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I refute the proposition of that question. This isn’t a new priority; it’s one that’s ongoing for this side of the House.

Chris Penk: Supplementary question.

SPEAKER: No, no. The member has used all his supplementaries.

Question No. 12—Transport

12. GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu) to the Minister of Transport: What recent announcements has he made about the future of mass rapid transit in Wellington?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): Today, the Minister of Finance and I announced that the Government is progressing a preferred option for mass rapid transit in Wellington which includes light rail from Wellington station to Island Bay; a new tunnel through Mount Victoria for public transport, walking, and cycling; an upgrade to the Basin Reserve area so it’s no longer the country’s biggest and most congested roundabout. The preferred option will reduce travel times, improve air quality, enable more housing, and reduce emissions. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to shape Wellington’s future and we believe, on this side of the House, that it’s time to get on with it. That’s what we’re doing.

Barbara Edmonds: What other work is the Government doing to build a linked-up transport network in Wellington?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Our capital does need a linked-up rapid transit network that will serve Wellingtonians now and into the future, making it faster to move through the city, connecting communities, creating better access to businesses, and reducing congestion. Today’s decision provides certainty to our partners at Greater Wellington and Wellington City and to Wellington residents about this important part of Let’s Get Wellington Moving. It builds on work under way within the broader programme, improving work to transform the “golden mile”, to improve safety and urban attractiveness on the Thorndon Quay and Hutt Road, and also further work on pedestrian improvements around the city and the city streets programme, of which work is under way on all of those projects at the moment.

Ginny Andersen: How does today’s announcement about mass rapid transport in Wellington align with the Government’s transport infrastructure priorities?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Our support for mass rapid transit in both Auckland and Wellington demonstrates our commitment to investing in the core transport infrastructure in our biggest city, to enable them to grow now and in the decades to come. As we continue to invest in core infrastructure like Let’s Get Wellington Moving, Auckland light rail, the alternative Waitematā Harbour crossing, and, in the near future, Christchurch mass rapid transit, we’re plugging an infrastructure deficit that’s built up for decades and helping to support a high wage, high productivity, low emissions economy for years to come.

General Debate

General Debate

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Prime Minister): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

Last weekend was a weekend of contrast. Here in New Zealand, we celebrated as a country, for the first time, Matariki—Mānawatia a Matariki. This was a tremendous occasion, one where it was so much more than a public holiday. It was a celebration of who we are as a nation and who we would like to be as a nation. Its timing was impeccable after a tough couple of years for New Zealanders, and facing, as we are, a cost of living crisis and pressures across the economy, this was an opportunity for New Zealanders to take stock.

I note the words of Sir Pou Temara when he said, “Today is a moment in time. Today we have chosen to thread the principles and values of Matariki into who we are as a people. Yes, let us celebrate our individuality and uniqueness, our diversity and variety, and the wonderful colours and flavours who make us who we are. But let us also come together to rise as one people, one nation, as one cluster to collectively darn another historical stitch into the fabric of our national identity.”

I am immensely proud to be part of a Government that recognises the importance of Te Ao Māori and our national identity in building our nation. For me, this sits alongside the introduction of New Zealand histories into our school curriculum, the fact that we have apologised for and are working on reconciliation around the Dawn Raids, the fact that as a country, we are making sure that we address the needs of people right across New Zealand, and, on Friday, we have—perhaps for the first time in the world—a ministry of disabled people that will open as well. These things matter because they’re about every New Zealander finding their place in this country of Aotearoa New Zealand.

As a Government, it is our job to make sure we look after New Zealanders in the here and now, and support them with the rising costs they see in supermarkets and in petrol prices as the global inflation pressures strike in New Zealand. It is to make sure we support them through COVID-19, and it is to invest in our future so that we have high-wage jobs in a low-carbon economy. We must do all of that, but a Government must also make sure that every person who lives here feels included, feels valued, and feels respected. I know that it is the values that Jacinda Ardern holds as Prime Minister—the values of inclusion, of support, of manaakitanga, of making sure that every single New Zealander finds a place for themselves in our country—and Matariki is a great example of the way that we can do that, and I think New Zealanders have welcomed it.

But the contrast last weekend was the release of the Roe v Wade decision in the United States of America and the distress that that caused for women across the world as fundamental reproductive rights were stripped away after 50 years of what had been thought to be settled and consensus law. It was absolutely no surprise that women and people across Aotearoa New Zealand were concerned and distressed about this, and, again, the Prime Minister spoke for those values.

Five days on, I couldn’t tell you what Christopher Luxon thinks about these issues. I couldn’t tell you what values Christopher Luxon would bring to being the leader of New Zealand. I couldn’t tell you that, because today I don’t know whether the National Party will vote for a member’s bill when it comes to issue of abortion.

What I do know is that Christopher Luxon has decided that fundamental reproductive rights for women are a distraction—that’s what he’s decided. He’s also given a list today of the issues that concern women. So, stand down ladies, Christopher Luxon’s got it covered for you! He knows the issues are for woman; he doesn’t need to hear from anybody else!

Simon O’Connor has had a lot to say this week as well about these issues. I want to quote from something that he said in this House: “one of the things that [annoys me] as a student of philosophy and as a parliamentarian is inconsistency. [If at] any time the public can see inconsistency, they know something wrong is happening.” I couldn’t agree—for once in my life—more with Simon O’Connor.

This is about consistency. On this side of the House, we have a Government that consistently upholds the values of inclusion and of support, and of making sure that every New Zealander can achieve their potential. On the other side of the House, we have a group of people who are committed, once again, to dividing and looking after the most wealthy in our society.

This has been a weekend of celebration for New Zealand with Matariki. We are on a path to celebrating our national identity, and including and supporting every citizen. I’m immensely proud of the Government that has led that.

CHRIS BAILLIE (ACT): Crime’s out of control in this wonderful country, and we need to let the police do their job and support them when they do. “Soft on crime” has become a popular catchphrase, but it goes deeper than that. This increase in crime is a result of naive Government ideologies and a massive disconnect between real life and office-dwellers.

We’re told that the way to deal with gangs is to get to know them and ask them what they need. We have a senior Minister saying that it’s better to be shot by a shotgun than a semi-automatic—that’s the success of the gun buyback. The same Minister said recently that he spoke to a policeman a few months ago who told him he feels a lot safer after that gun buy-back. It’s just nonsense. I speak to police every day and they don’t, and neither do good, law-abiding, licensed firearms owners, knowing that their details could be in criminals’ hands if not now, then later, when the proposed firearms register fails.

Youth crime must be addressed before the kids on our street become bling-wearing adult criminals. A few months back, an MP who sits not too far from me said that young people can’t commit crime; they just don’t understand what they’re doing. I realised then that we’re going to head down this path for a little bit longer.

Young people haven’t changed from 10, 20, 50 years ago—they’re all the same. What is different is how we treat them, react to their behaviour. Burying your head in the sand, telling kids that it’s not their fault, and blaming everyone else and everything else is not the answer. Young ram-raiders are saying, “We know the police won’t chase us.” There must be a consequence to these actions, and we can’t continue to excuse violent and criminal behaviour. Young people want boundaries. It shows them that you care about them, that you want them to succeed and to learn. This doesn’t mean just giving them everything they want.

Education is the key, and kids who can’t read will get into trouble. Seventy percent of prison inmates are functionally illiterate, but, instead of reading, with blind ideology we’re going to make teachers prioritise a dodgy history curriculum.

Young people know when a teacher genuinely cares about them. It’s a teacher who tells them off, and makes them finish their work and use their manners. Kids actually want that.

It’s easy to blame parents, but I’m a bit more sympathetic. Despite what those who often don’t have kids say, parents’ rights have been eroded and their responsibilities taken off them, like with breakfast in schools. Who loves their kids the most: the parent who gives their child everything they want, protects them from situations that aren’t nice, and doesn’t impose boundaries, or the parent who gives their kids the tools and resilience to navigate through life’s ups and downs, and tells them off when they do silly stuff? There is a happy medium, but, currently, we’re on a dangerous end of the spectrum. Values have to be taught, and there must be consequences. Any suggestion that “Oh well, it’s just a young person and it doesn’t really matter.” is just stupid.

New Zealand has a world-leading youth aid system. I worked for a number of years as a youth aid officer not too long ago. Back then, the relationship with other Government agencies was fantastic. The family group conference process was very successful. In some areas, this system is still working well, producing great results. In other areas, it’s broken and needs to be fixed.

Two years ago, a woman approached me at a restaurant. After introducing herself through tears, she thanked me for saving her daughter’s life. Now in her 20s, her daughter went through the family group conference process and the mandatory follow-up to get accountability. The then 15-year-old, who had started to self-harm, was made to take responsibility for her actions. This intervention was enough to turn her life around. Fourteen years later, she’s happy, owns a house, and has a responsible job in the hospitality industry. It really isn’t rocket science, but it requires sensible policies. Police resources must be put in the right places.

Police are at the sharp end of all antisocial behaviour, and they must be supported. Unfortunately, despite the millions of dollars and promises, they don’t feel they are. We’ve got to challenge the constant rhetoric we hear from too many irresponsible members in this House when they allege systemic racism in the New Zealand Police. It is divisive and not true. The recent statement made in this House to the media that more police on the street means more dead Māori should have been condemned by the police Minister, but not a word. It’s little wonder police don’t feel supported. It’s because they’re not.

New Zealand police are the best in the world. They do a job few here would want to do, see things few here will ever see, and get into situations that most of the armchair experts here will never experience. The ACT Party will always support police and the rights of victims.

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister for Disability Issues): Thank you, Mr Speaker. A little later on this week, I will have the absolute honour and privilege of being at the launch of the new ministry whaikaha, the Ministry for Disabled People.

First, I want to mihi to my colleague the Hon Carmel Sepuloni for all the massive work that she has done in putting this together. I was speaking to the governance group who are supporting the establishment unit in bringing the ministry together, made up of members of the disability community, made up of tangata whaikaha Māori and officials. They were telling me about how important this particular piece of work is. It is 40 years in the making, and it will come to fruition on 1 July—enormously proud and excited to be part of that.

We have worked with disabled communities and disabled people since coming into Government when we put the commitment into our manifesto around accessibility legislation. I know that previous members of this House the Hon Ruth Dyson and current members of this House Angie Warren-Clark and Gaurav Sharma have supported the parliamentary champions for accessibility legislation. I also want to make a shout-out to Greg O’Connor, who was instrumental in that work. That was our commitment to them to ensure that we get a bill in the House that deals with the issue of ensuring accessibility for disabled people, not just in housing, not just in education but in justice, in transport, and in all the areas of their life where they currently find barriers to be able to live their best lives. I’m enormously proud of that work.

That is in stark contrast to what we are hearing from the other parties in this House who are saying things like—and I want to quote from a press release by the ACT Party. They would scrap demographic ministries. Most of these ministries replicate work that should already be done in policy ministries or the Ministry for Culture and Heritage. I just want to suggest to the ACT Party that any disabled person hearing those words or reading those words would feel completely marginalised, and we are talking about over a million people who identify as being part of our disabled persons community and their families and whānau.

It’s extraordinary to me that not only the ACT Party are saying that but Mr Luxon, the day after that on his 1News interview, said, “I think that’s a very good point in there. I think we have over the period of this Government built up a huge amount of bureaucracy.” Again, I point to the fact that any disabled person who is hearing those comments would think how little the National Party and ACT Party think of them and their aspirations.

Talking to the governance group a little earlier this week, I want to use their words to this House about the importance of this ministry. They feel they have been nurtured. They feel that they are able to grow, that this ministry will have heart and meaning. They say it will have a strong foundation. They commend this Government for the long strides it is taking into supporting disabled people and tangata whaikaha Māori. They talk about the train. And in that conversation, I did say to them: “I don’t think this is a train, because trains have carriages that can be picked off, much like the ACT Party and National Party would do with this particular ministry.” I have said that, for me, it is about the double-hulled canoe; it is about the waka, where you can have different views but you travel together in the same direction.

They talked about a shared vision. They talked about control and choice, and that, for me, says it all—that our tangata whaikaha Māori, our disabled people, will have control and choice; not only that, they will have voice. They will have voice to be able to speak directly to Government on the issues that impact them the most.

We will change the lives of nearly 1.5 million New Zealanders by the introduction of this ministry. But, more than that, we will work with them to ensure that their aspirations are not only met but they are enhanced, that they have the ability to determine their own lives, that the inclusive development they talk about is realised, that we are brave and bold alongside our disabled community, that we are transformational and aspirational, not just for them but for ourselves. It is an absolute privilege to be able to do that.

I want to mihi to the Office for Disability Issues, who will be folded into the new ministry, for the work that they have done advocating for this community for so long. I commend this new ministry to our House.

SPEAKER: The Hon Dr—no, sorry. The ordinary Dr Shane Reti.

Dr Shane Reti: OK.

SPEAKER: There’s no withdrawal of the honourable nature of the member.

Dr SHANE RETI (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. We now know why more than 36,000 people are waiting more than four months to see a specialist. We now know why emergency department (ED) wait times have increased, with some people waiting more than 32 hours. We now know why we have a health workforce shortage—4,000 nurses, 1,500 GPs, and 1,500 specialists.

Because Andrew Little ignored the cry for help a year ago when a district health board (DHB) chief executive wrote, on behalf of every DHB, pleading for help, a letter with dire warnings and actions that were needed immediately to “avert a health crisis”. A year later, the chickens have come home to roost.

Let’s see if Andrew Little takes a general debate call this afternoon, 48 hours out from significant health reforms, which would be the convention with such a big structural change. Let’s see if that happens, and if he wants to defend what I’ll lay down on the table today. The Minister is trying to say he only found out about this letter a month ago. I do not believe that, and I want to challenge that on at least two points.

First of all, if the Minister didn’t know about the letter, he should have known about the letter. This letter was on behalf of every single chief executive in the DHB sector—that is, the most senior executive group in our hospitals—and they deserved his attention.

Secondly, very senior people in the Minister’s own ministry also received the letter—the ministry he is supposed to have oversight for. It was also sent to the acting Deputy Director-General of Health Workforce New Zealand on 28 July last year. It’s a very senior person, the Deputy Director-General, inside the Ministry of Health.

I contend that Andrew Little should have been aware, or was aware, of this letter from DHBs a year ago and he did nothing. The Minister was warned a year ago and did nothing. His track record in this sort of modus operandi is well known. I’m inclined to remember ICU beds—warned about it, did nothing, and the dire consequence that came from doing nothing around ICU beds, and particularly building new ICU beds, particularly in Auckland.

The letter sent by 20 DHBs a year ago had multiple warnings. First, the health system is buckling, with some sites in code red. Directly from the letter: “You will be aware that our hospitals are also experiencing very high levels of occupancy at present, and some sites are even in code red, where they are deemed to be at extreme levels. This is obviously an unsustainable situation and places even more pressure on our existing workforce. We are very concerned about this situation and for the potential for further deterioration if there are no changes to assist with at least securing the existing workforce from 20 DHBs.”

Secondly, the letter also says, “We are also experiencing increased presentations in emergency departments.” They even sent graphs of what the occupancy rate looks like inside the EDs, showing the increasing trend towards what they call “extreme occupancy” across emergency departments a year ago, and here we are today with emergency department times increasing.

Point three, what the letter also says: “In order to respond to surge, the system will have to redirect workforce from areas like planned care.” That’s code for 36,000 people waiting more than four months to see a specialist. What’s really poignant is their last summary of that: “This will have long-term impacts on the health and wellbeing of New Zealanders.”

Point four, and here’s the immigration bit—here is what 20 DHBs were urgently asking for, which resonates with what my colleague Erica Stanford has been talking about for a long time, in which we have a petition up at the moment. This is the summary to the letter: “Therefore, DHBs seek your immediate attention to (1) ensure our current overseas-trained staff can have a direct and prompt path to residency.” That’s not two years for registered nurses; that’s a direct and prompt path to residency. “And (2) that overseas health professionals are facilitated to enter New Zealand as required to avert a crisis in the health sector.”

Clearly that has failed. This was a warning a year ago that the Minister had and he did nothing. There’s now no money for ED nurses; no money for ED docs. Because what we also know is that instead of building the health workforce, the ministry has employed up to 1,000 new consultants—not even in the past year; just in the past 10 months is what the written parliamentary question shows. No money for ED nurses, no money for ED doctors, but plenty for up to 1,000 consultants.

It’s interesting looking at the list of consultants: corporate services, 78; data and digital, 728; the DG’s Office, 40; Health Workforce New Zealand, 10. I think that kind of sums it up right there. Just 10 in this bloated, excessive list of consultants. I rest my case.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): When I stood in this House to make my maiden speech, I said that I signed up to this job to make progress in my communities, and today I stood on those front steps with some of my colleagues to say to a group of young people from Albany Senior High School that “our kopapa is your kopapa” as they presented a petition to this House to urge our Government to fund gender-neutral bathrooms. They did that because they believe in this Government and that we understand the vision and aspirations of our future generation. That’s what I stand for and I encourage others to stand up for the voice of our young people.

I’m incredibly proud to be the chair of Labour’s rainbow caucus, and the work that we’ve done since we’ve been in Government to enable those voices, for the mahi to be done, and for the action to be taken. In fact, the first time I met that group of young people was when they were lobbying me and telling me the reasons why they believed we needed to ban conversion practices in this country. They’ve seen internationally the impacts that it had on young people—the impact on their mental health—and they wanted us to do something about it. And there we were. We all stood up together—well, most of us stood up together—to ban conversion practices, and that’s why I’m proud to be the chair of Labour’s rainbow caucus alongside many of our partners in this House.

We’ve made progressive change for our rainbow communities, and it doesn’t stop there. Today is another example. In the Budget this year, we have boosted funding for gender—affirming care and training for our health sector to be more responsive to the needs of transgender New Zealanders, because in this House every New Zealander counts. We’ve also introduced a rights-based approach to healthcare for intersex tamariki and young people, empowering them and their parents with better information to make informed decisions about their care, and preventing unnecessary medical interventions from occurring. This side of the House responds to those issues well. We understand that every child in this country has the right to feel included. Whether it be in this House, whether it be in their schools, or whether it be in their community centres, they have a right to be included, and under this Government we are getting those things done.

But solid delivery doesn’t stop there. In fact, I’ve been really proud to be a member of Parliament on the North Shore where we’ve been able to get work done on housing, transport, and infrastructure. Aucklanders are facing a 7 percent increase in water rates. That side of the House wants to do nothing. This side of the House wants to get on with the job of supporting Aucklanders to be able to pay, to live within the costs of our city. That’s solid delivery, and I want to speak particularly to the progressive gains that we’ve seen with our children and our whānau. I have a whole list.

Ten thousand local people benefited from the boost to the benefits in Budget 2021 and the further increase delivered on 1 April this year. That’s North Shore people. Over 50 percent of workers in Tāmaki-makau-rau, Auckland, were kept in work through COVID lockdowns, and we see unemployment at low levels now. There are free lunches in schools, and that really counts. I heard the member across the House talk about breakfasts. Well, we’ve got school lunches in our schools. The winter energy payment is helping low-income families across this country with their winter energy bills—helping to keep them warm this winter. And last but not least, and a favourite of mine, we’ve been working on our crime and safety challenges in our community. We’ve put back funding to reverse National’s truancy services that they cut, and we did it in this Budget, this year, to ensure that our young people are engaged in their learning and are in their schools and not choosing alternative negative pathways.

I am proud that under this Government we are standing for inclusion. I am proud that we’re getting things done, but most of all I’m proud of our progress.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Mr Speaker, what if I told you that around half a century ago we directly imported laws from the United States of America that sought to criminalise people and what they put into their bodies? What if I told you that despite all of the “Just say no” moralising, people continued to do that thing that this Parliament had tried to ban and that that attempt at that ban caused even more harm?

Most of us in this House recognise that banning abortion doesn’t stop abortions; it stops safe abortions. We saw politicians—or, at least, most of us—come across this House in this Parliament condemning the actions of the US Supreme Court in overturning the precedent of Roe v Wade, overnight making abortion illegal in around half of American states. We lamented the danger that this creates. Well, referring to the comments that Minister Robertson quoted from National Party MP Simon O’Connor about the want for some logical consistency, let’s have it, because we continue to have American-style laws on our books with similar logic that we know will create more harm. I am of course talking about our drug laws. I am talking about the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975. It might surprise Christopher Luxon, Simeon Brown, Simon O’Connor, and the rest of the National Party that we currently have a totally liberalised, completely unregulated, full-on, free market for illegal drugs in this country.

The National Party’s stance on drugs, I might say, is perhaps the most coherent economic policy. This morning, Christopher Luxon told Tova O’Brien that he would need more evidence before he made up his mind on whether the National Party would support greater resourcing for drug-checking or decriminalising drugs for an evidence-based approach. I’ve come to learn that, like with abortion, there is literally no evidence that the National Party MPs could be confronted with that would change their faith in criminal prohibition—not the Law Commission’s 2011 report; not He Ara Oranga, the mental health and addiction inquiry; not Turuki! Turuki!, the Safe and Effective Justice review; not even Victoria University of Wellington’s research on drug-checking that shows that when the majority of people are confronted with evidence that the substance that they thought they were consuming is not what they thought it was, they will not consume that substance.

The reality is that this is exactly the same line that we’ve heard from the National Party for a really long time now, because it was exactly the same line that former National Prime Minister the Hon Bill English took when confronted with a growing death toll as a result of the synthetics crisis, when he said that this was just a matter of personal responsibility. Faith is a powerful thing, because having spent five years in this place trying to talk about drug law reform and engage in the debate, I can tell you for a fact that the reason that this country spends four times as much money on criminal enforcement than on drug harm reduction is because this House does not really care about the evidence. The reason that the police continue to spend the better part of a million dollars on cannabis choppers every single year, despite their own internal evidence-based policing unit telling them that it has no discernible impact on supply, and, in fact, we know from Ministry of Health data that cannabis consumption has gone up, is because we do not care for the evidence.

Despite the evidence that we have inherited these drug laws directly from the United States and they continue to deliver worse and worse outcomes, both National and, unfortunately, I must say to this point, largely the Labour Party continue to be invested in the same myths that were peddled by former President of the United States Richard Nixon. Drugs exist, like abortions and all of the things that the National Party caucus would prefer did not. These things exist regardless of our moral high-horsing. They exist regardless of our opinions. They just exist, and we have to deal with that reality, because we’ve got 50 years of evidence that shows that our laws make drug harm worse, and with powdered fentanyl now on our streets, a drug that has killed tens of thousands of Americans as a result of the same laws that we have here, maybe it’s time that we decided to give evidence a go, because, at some point in all of our lives, we have to decide to confront the reality of the world that we live in. It’s process known as growing up, and when it comes to drug law, unfortunately it doesn’t feel as though this House to this point has done all too much of that. It’s time for this place to grow up.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. All politics is local, so let me speak to the ways that we are protecting our progressive gains that the Government has made since it took office in 2017 for the local people of South Auckland and those in my electorate of Manurewa. May I first start with an acknowledgment of the incredible celebration of Matariki. For South Aucklanders, this was a special moment, because it represented not only a day which is unique to New Zealanders, not only a day which brings us closer together, whether we are Māori, whether we are Pākehā, whether we are tauiwi to this country. It also represented a time in which we could celebrate those things which have been going on in South Auckland for so long, at our marae and within our Pacific communities, in the recognition of Matariki or Matali’i, and those brilliant traditions that mark this time of reflection and rebirth in the new year. It was really special for South Aucklanders to be able to share that with the rest of our country.

Now, let me first turn to health and environment, because at a local level in South Auckland, these two things are very closely connected. In the last Budget, the Government announced a million-dollar project for the clean-up of the Puhinui Creek. It’s an important one to me as a local MP because I see the stream as an emblem for our community’s experience with the health system. When you have a health system which is funded through our traditional models of funding, with limited funding that is not prioritised by need, you end up with a system like the Puhinui Creek, where in leafy green suburbs like Totara Heights, the stream runs through unimpeded. It is clean. It is beautiful. Children enjoy it. Neighbours appreciate it, and it raises house prices. Then in areas like Rata Vine, it is a breeder of rats the size of cats. It is a catchment for local trollies being dumped. It is a place where teenagers go to smoke marijuana. It is not a nice place. And because that funding has been limited in scope and has not looked at the whole system of the stream, investment hasn’t been able to clean it up, because there are areas of dire under-investment. That is the situation for South Auckland and our health system.

I am pleased that parts of that health system reform are coming into effect within days, and I’m proud of a Government that is investing in a health system which is going to serve not only South Aucklanders, who desperately need the end of the postcode lottery, but our Māori and Pacific populations who have been desperately under-served by those traditional models of health in the same way that the Puhinui Creek in our areas has not been something we could enjoy. We need a system that works for all New Zealanders, and that’s what this Government is building.

Budget 2022 delivers more for medicines and treatments. It delivers dental grants for low-income eligible families, tripled from $300 to $1,000. There are 48 more ambulances on our streets and 248 more paramedics allowed for in this Budget. Many of those will come from South Auckland through our Auckland University of Technology paramedicine programme, and I’m proud that we’re responding to the need in our communities for that service.

The ability of the new health system to take a bird’s-eye view of our public health needs is also going to be critical for the people of Manurewa. I acknowledge the Green member Chlöe Swarbrick for her advocacy for a public health system which deals with things like alcohol and drugs. I hear from people on the doorsteps in Manurewa that there are too many bottle stores on every suburban corner and that we need evidence-based health responses to curbing alcohol harms, which is what the investment in this new public health system allows. Why do we need that? Why do the people of Manurewa need that? Because Manurewa’s population is disproportionately affected by alcohol harm, especially Māori women like me who suffer more adverse effects as a result of other people’s drinking than anyone else.

These investments also allow us to build upon the Government’s work in 2019 to move towards a health-based approach to other addictive substances. I’m proud of this Government’s commitment to a continued focus on harm prevention. Just in the last week, the Green member mentioned that we’re seeing fentanyl—a powdered drug that has caused tens of thousands of deaths overseas—enter New Zealand and sold as cocaine. I want to take this opportunity to thank the first responders who were carrying naloxone and were able to prevent deaths of the people who consumed it. We need a health system that is built so that it can respond to new threats like these. That is why we are investing in a public health system which can do that, and I’m proud to stand with a Government that is making those investments.

I am proud that since coming into Government in 2017, we’ve worked hard to tackle some of those long-term challenges facing people in South Auckland, like under-investment in our health system and in our local environment. I’m proud of the progress we’ve made on those big issues, but I know there’s more to do, and that’s why we committed to building on our progress and protecting the gains we’ve already made. Tēnā tātou.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): There is no doubt in my mind that today was the first day in which the future Labour leader aspirants began to show their colours. We know the old saying, “When the cat’s away, the mouse will play.” Well, the mice were out today, very much in that mode.

If you have a look at the question sheet today, which is question time, the great theatre piece for Parliament, Grant Robertson had two questions, Kiri Allan had two questions, there was a cursory question for Kelvin Davis, and of course Chris Hipkins got one question as well, as did Stuart Nash. All of those names are sort of in the mix. But, of course, coming through the middle were three questions today to Michael Wood, long believed by many to be the future leader of the Labour Party. I think what is sad is that they all kind of missed the mark. When Mr Robertson was asked to talk about the economy and to justify the billion dollars that’s been expended on people over the last four years being put into motels instead of houses, he came up with the suggestion that no Government has built more houses in New Zealand’s history than the current Government. Well, they had to do that, because their plan was to build 100,000 houses in 10 years; they’ve built only 1,300 under that programme. The rest were Kāinga Ora doing what it always does. And the nonsensical suggestion that National sold off the State housing stock was, of course, once again trotted out as some kind of mantra. Those houses never disappeared—they never disappeared. They’re still there, still part of the national housing stock. Then they’re, of course, dismissing the fact that Kāinga Ora, in the last couple of years, has managed to demolish more houses than they’ve actually been able to build.

So where on earth this is all supposed to take us, who knows, but what it means is that that a billion dollars spent on motel bills for housing people who would otherwise have nowhere to go could have built 1,000 million-dollar houses. It could have built 2,000 $500,000 houses. So it is an enormous expense, massively disproportionate to the cost of proper housing. But, of course, they couldn’t guarantee their housing at the moment, because of the building supply shortages. And wouldn’t one have thought that a Government that is making so much noise about how much they’re doing in the space of solving New Zealand’s housing crisis might have looked at that building supply issue? What I can say is that I was very proud to welcome Knauf plasterboard into New Zealand in 2013, trying to get the start of some competition in this country. I think the Commerce Commission has been incredibly weak, and that successive Ministers have allowed that weakness, particularly in the last few years, because the great empire that produces most of the wallboard in this country managed to see that company off, managed to put them in a position where they had to shut down after just a short few years operating in New Zealand. When cartels work like that, we should have recourse to law, which we have, to break them up, but there has been no action taken, and successive Ministers have had their eye off the ball.

We’ve got the extraordinary situation of 25,000 people—five times the number that were there in 2017—waiting for a State house. There has to be a question asked: what’s caused that massive number to rise over that period of time? Around about 5,000 a year. And, of course, they say, “Oh, well, if the Government prior to 2017 had done more, it wouldn’t have happened.” This has happened on their watch, nothing to do with the prior five years, and so is the entire situation that we face at the moment. Look at the rise in rental costs—huge rises, $50 alone on the average rental in the last 12 months. These are things that contribute to the massive cost of living, and it is unacceptable that the Government runs off and says, “Oh, it’s COVID-19.”, “Well, it’s the war in Ukraine.”, “It’s supply chains.”, “It’s everything else; it’s nothing to do with us.” Well, I think one of the interesting things today is that the standout debutante Mr Wood said that they are building a programme of transport infrastructure that will serve New Zealand for decades ahead. The sad thing is that the smart money would be on the fact that it will be decades ahead before their plan ever sees the light of day.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Ngā mihi o Matariki, te tau hou Māori. Mānawatia a Matariki. I’m really delighted to take the call. My voice is sounding a little bit deep today. That’s probably because, unfortunately, I missed most of the celebrations for Matariki due to a cold over the break, so I stayed at home and did what I was required to do. But I did feel a tremendous sense of pride, and a tremendous excitement to see all of the things that were happening around the country. I got up early and watched the service that occurred at Te Papa—just amazing. What a time to be in this country. What a time for us to come together as a people. I’m not going to yell and shout across to the House about how wrong, and different, and all of those things—this is a time for us to celebrate, in the depths of winter, that we finally have a celebration that is uniquely ours.

I thought long and hard about what I was going to say today, and I thought about the wishing star—Hiwa-i-te-rangi. I thought about the wishing star and what would be my wish for this House and for our nation going forward at this time. I thought about what an interesting juxtaposition we had over the weekend, and unfortunately, because I was sick, I watched a little bit too much TV about Roe v Wade. So I watched that and while, on the one hand, I was feeling tremendously proud of our nationhood and how we’ve moved forward, I also, as a woman, felt the mamae of my sisters across the world. It was an interesting decision, and one we had had flagged and we did know was coming, but I took comfort from my Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, and her words. We knew exactly where our Prime Minister stood, and I think her words bear repeating. She said, “Here in New Zealand we recently legislated to decriminalise abortion and treat it as a health rather than a criminal issue. That change was grounded in the fundamental belief that it is a woman’s right to choose. People are absolutely entitled to have deeply held convictions on this issue. But these personal beliefs should never rob another from making their own decision.”

I have held the hand of a number of women who I’ve supported as they have made the very difficult decision. None of us here in this House is pro-abortion—none. We are pro-choice or we are pro-life. And I want to make it very, very clear that, for those of us here who stood and voted “yes” to take abortion out of the Crimes Act, under the leadership of Andrew Little, who’s sitting here beside me today—when we made that choice—it was a hard-felt decision for all of us, and not one of us took that decision lightly. But we took the choice and the decision that this was a health procedure—the only and last health procedure left in the Crimes Act—a health procedure which then enables us, each and every one of us, to make the choices alongside our family. And none of us should judge that.

There are so many progressive things, and I have this huge list of the things that we as a Government are doing, and I feel like I’ve talked only about something that affects us across the world, but I need to say this, I need to talk about this decision, because I feel fundamentally this brings into question—I have known this decision for 49 years of my 51 years, and I am so very afraid, and that is why I am so delighted that I sit in a Labour Government that is progressive, that stands up for the person—the little person, the women, those who do not have a voice—and we stand alongside them. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

SARAH PALLETT (Labour—Ilam): Thank you, Mr Speaker. If there’s one thing that the past week has shown us, it is that settled law can be overthrown. This week, we have seen Roe v Wade, which had been settled law for 49 years—49 years—overthrown by the Supreme Court in the United States of America. It was overthrown by judges who swore under oath that they regarded it as settled law.

So when I hear the leader of the National Party, a man who, let us not forget, told us that abortion, in his view, is tantamount to murder, a statement that renders a quarter of all women in Aotearoa who have had an abortion as tantamount to being murderers, and when Mr Luxon tells us that he considers that the abortion law reforms passed in 2020, two short years ago—not 49 years ago; two short years ago—is settled, I am not reassured. I am not reassured that our gains are secure.

I am not reassured, not when 13 of the 32 current National caucus members voted No to that abortion law reform in 2020, and not when nine of the current National caucus voted against even establishing a safe area around abortion providers, which is set to protect people seeking abortion care from harassment, intimidation, and threats. Nine of the National Party caucus voted against that legislation this year.

When almost all of the recent leaders of the National Party, with the exception of the Hon Judith Collins, who is sitting opposite—Mr Luxon, Dr Reti, Mr Bridges, Mr Muller, Mr English, and Mr Key voted or would have voted No to the abortion law reform that this Government shepherded through in 2020, please, let us realise that this is who they are. They are telling us very clearly where they stand and what they want to achieve.

Tell me again that I should not worry my little head around women and pregnant people retaining the fundamental rights to determine what happens to their own bodies, because my head, like most women’s heads, is actually capable of holding more than one concern in it at a time. I am concerned because I know that any National Party member can put a member’s bill in the tin, and if it is drawn from the biscuit tin, it will be put before the House when, I remind you, a third voted No to abortion law reform.

I am concerned too, because I know that legislation is not the only way to remove or reduce rights. Gains made can be easily lost. Reducing access to abortion does not reduce the number of abortions; it reduces the number of safe abortions. Roe v Wade being overturned will result in women, girls, and pregnant people dying, and that is not what I or anyone in Labour’s caucus would describe as a good day.

A good day was one that saw this progressive Government elected into the 53rd Parliament, and the 52nd, in coalition with the Green Party, a Government whose values of inclusion and support are seen in the legislation and policies and processes that we have enacted: abortion law reform, the safe areas amendment bill being passed, expanding bereavement leave to include stillbirths and miscarriages—thanks to our member of Parliament Ginny Andersen—free period products in schools, banning conversion therapy, funding rainbow health, creating the Māori Health Authority, consolidating 20 DHBs into Health New Zealand on Friday, and the first, beautiful Matariki holiday, the first indigenous, truly New Zealand public holiday. That is what I call a good day.

PENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I take this opportunity to speak on the appalling situation that’s unfolding for our vocational education sector, under the growing dominance of the Te Pūkenga monolith, created by Minister Hipkins to somehow magically fix the issues of the sector.

Don’t get me wrong, there were some issues: a small number of polytechnics not operating in a business-like manner; some too small to be viable on their own; a funding system not meeting needs; unhelpful competition between industry training organisations and industry training providers; and, most significantly, a multitude of different ways that funding had been stripped out of the polytech sector over successive years—base grants, degree top-ups, funding of clinical placements, adult and community education funding. The list goes on and on to amount to tens of millions of dollars taken out of the polytech sector until one day Minister Hipkins disingenuously said, “This sector is broken. I know how to fix it. I’ll amalgamate them all, cause enormous anxiety and disarray, even though I have done no modelling on how this will fix the problems, and the feedback from the consultation says, overwhelmingly, it will not.”

So let me list where the Minister has gone wrong. Firstly, the Minister took a $48 million net deficit problem in the sector pre-amalgamation and turned it into a $110 million net deficit forecast for the sector this year. And to achieve that outstandingly bad result, the Minister used $200 million of public money on consultants and transition costs to make the problem one and a half times worse. Now, be very sure to understand that that money wasn’t spent on students or staff or industries or communities but on consultants and head office.

Secondly, the Minister has caused such anxiety and uncertainty in this sector that the most experienced and high-performing managers have left the sector and, in at least some of the polytechnics, if not all, staff turnover has doubled.

Thirdly, we now hear there could be around 600 jobs lost from the actual polytechnics to address the financial problem, and to make room for the 450 Te Pūkenga head office non-teaching staff, that will take $100 million a year to run, in an entity that the Minister assured us would not be just adding another layer of bureaucracy to the system. Mind you, the Minister also assured us that the best from each polytechnic would be taken and used by Te Pūkenga, so I’m struggling to understand, with marketing departments and 16 polytechnics, why Te Pūkenga had to use an external marketing consultant.

Fourthly, the introduction of a new unified funding system without a technical system to deploy it will, from next year, give the Minister a whole lot more control to play favourites in the sector, with large contestable components of funding. At the same time, it will reduce the funding of those pesky private providers, which socialists so desperately despise, and will reduce the funding for distance delivery of education, the very mode of delivery which enables flexibility for students and employers and financial viability for campuses with small classes. Who would have imagined, in these times of COVID, a disincentive to use technology enabling flexibility?

Fifthly, allowing Te Pūkenga to establish an operating model with seven long silos ascending from grassroots up into the centre of the great controlling monolith—none of this nonsense of entities working together at a community level or making decisions in the region, but layer after layer after layer of non-teaching bodies in that great centre of Te Pūkenga.

And, now, Minister Hipkins, we wait with bated breath to see what will come of the regional skills leadership groups’ regional plans, which will probably duplicate the work of economic development agencies and actually tell us what any person walking down the street could tell us: we have skill shortages in most industries. But I’m sure they’ll recommend rationalisation and more direction from the centre.

If a business had done what Minister Hipkins has done, they would be out of business, and owing creditors millions. But, actually, he would never have been given that amount of money to fulfil an ideological dream without a sound business plan in the private sector, and therein lies the problem: it is so easy for this Government to waste other people’s money on ideological vanity projects.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister of Defence): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker, thank you very much. I want to begin my contribution by saying these words: Te hā o Hine-ahu-o [The dignity of women]. I thought the contributions made by the Hon Poto Williams, Angie Warren-Clark, Arena Williams, and Sarah Pallett speak for themselves. And I want to endorse their words from this side of the House and say: ka nui tēnā, tāne mā. Men, ka nui tēnā. [Men, that’s enough, that’s enough.] Tukuna ko ngā wāhine ki mua [Allow the women to come forward] and I support them wholeheartedly.

We heard today about a particular matter that was raised by Dr Reti with respect to the health sector. I would like to take him and the members on that side of the House on another journey, one that over decades has already pointed out to the current health system that the inequities were going to continue to compound and grow if we did not make systemic, fundamental change to our health sector. It was clear in Wai 2575, in the evidence that was produced to the Waitangi Tribunal, that if we did not make fundamental change to the health sector that the issues that plague Māori communities, Pacific communities, communities that have been underserved by our health sector will continue to grow and grow into the future.

The statistics have been very clear—very clear. In fact, the DHB system has been in place all of my life. And we have seen health statistics for Māori continue to fail our people. That’s why the report from the Waitangi Tribunal, the review that took place into the health and disability sector, was very clear. Tinkering around the edges would not work, so a fundamental change needed to happen. And I’m proud that on this side of the House, with respect to the health sector, we have made that fundamental change. It’s been one heck of a journey. And can I acknowledge the Hon Andrew Little for his leadership in this work to make sure that we not only continue to push on and forge on with these health and disability reforms but also to continue to bring largely the community at large on this particular journey.

Myself and my colleagues, led by the Hon Andrew Little, have been right around the country, and the optimism for changing the health sector is palpable. We can speak towards making sure that the Māori health sector continues to get more support to make sure it serves Māori communities. We made it clear that what we needed to do was have a stronger input on locality plans for our regions to make sure that they can drive the health needs that they deserve and, most importantly, ones that they design. We made it clear that we needed to invest in infrastructure. In the Budget just gone, we have already announced that we will build a new hospital in Whangārei. I can tell you, as a descendant from Te Tai Tokerau, Māori across Te Tai Tokerau call the Whangārei hospital “the departure lounge”. That’s because they did not get the care and service that they deserve. They did not go into a facility that they deserved. On this side of the House, the Government acknowledges it, recognises it, and, most importantly, has set out to rectify it.

I’m proud of the work that we’re doing to make sure that the health sector will grow according to the growth of New Zealand. This Friday, Mānawatia a Matariki gives us an opportunity on 1 July to launch Health New Zealand and the Māori Health Authority. This will recast health for our people into the future. If I think about our tamariki and mokopuna, I’m proud that we’ve done the groundwork to make sure that they get a health system they deserve.

The health reforms continue to not only address the inequities that are in our system; they remove the postcode lotteries that have impacted upon our country. Just recently, at the rural health meeting—actually hosted here in Parliament by myself and colleagues—it was interesting to note that they all agreed that it was a postcode lottery and that they were underserved. And we made it clear through the legislation and the health reform work that this progressive Government is making sure that they will be saved into the future.

I’m proud of the work that we’re doing, whether it’s histories in schools, whether it’s Matariki and an opportunity for this country to come together under one sky and the kaupapa looking forward to the future. I’m proud that we are going to continue to do this work, whether it be in housing—we’ve heard good kōrero here and good kaupapa presented by the Minister of Transport and also the newly minted Minister of Justice. I’m proud of the work that we’re doing, the leadership that we have, and what we’re doing for this country. I can’t speak more proudly on this side of the House, and can only look to the other side with disappointment.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The time for this debate has expired.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill.

Bills

Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Preliminary provisions

CHAIRPERSON (Ian McKelvie): Members, the House is in committee on the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill. I remind members—and I’ll do this because there are some off-site callers—that they’re able to participate remotely. If you’re on Zoom and want to take a call, please type “Call” into the chat. You should also use the chat if you want to raise a point of order. If we receive new tabled amendments, I will advise members so they can refresh the House papers page to see the new amendment. Finally, it would be helpful for members to ask multiple questions if they have them of the member in charge of the bill.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Mānawatia a Matariki. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I’m delighted to speak as the member in charge of this bill at its committee stage, Te Pire Kaunihera Taiao ki Waitaha. (Whakakanohitanga o Ngāi Tahu), the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill. This bill is a local bill. It has been brought to this House and promoted by Environment Canterbury, the regional council for the vast areas of lands from north of Kaikōura, all the way south to the Waitaki River. It is the largest geographic area of any regional council in Aotearoa and it encompasses a population second only to Auckland, a population of some 600,000 citizens.

This is a local bill. It has the wide support of the communities at large in the Canterbury regional district because this bill hasn’t just come along in the last five minutes. This bill is about reinstating Ngāi Tahu representation to Environment Canterbury. It is an arrangement that was put in place and it evolved over time. It started in 2010 when commissioners were appointed over the Canterbury region. Through that arrangement, it evolved to where, in 2016 when a transitional council was in place, the legislation which gave effect to that arrangement included the appointment by Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu to two representatives on Environment Canterbury. The National Party supported that arrangement—those provisions. It had broad support. I encourage National to actually put their support behind this bill once again, put their support behind the people of Canterbury and the Canterbury Regional Council with the reinstatement of Ngāi Tahu representation.

Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu is not just any other group within the South Island. Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu are the iwi, they are the prominent iwi and mana whenua of the whole of the district of Environment Canterbury. It has been recognised through past legislation that having that special status and that special association with the environment and having representation of Ngāi Tahu members on Environment Canterbury adds and enhances the quality of the decision making, the representation, and the good work of the council.

So the council has come here with this bill, which will make permanent the ability for Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu to add those two representatives to Environment Canterbury. I want to just state that elections at large for the 14 councillors of Environment Canterbury will still continue. There will still be 14 councillors from North Canterbury; all the way down to South Canterbury; and all of the north, south, east, and west in Christchurch. Fourteen councillors will continue to be elected at large, will continue to represent the people of Canterbury. What this bill does is it reinstates that those two Ngāi Tahu members that are appointed by Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu add their knowledge and expertise to the decision making and the good work that Environment Canterbury does.

This is about enhanced representation. This is about democracy-plus. This is an innovation which has worked, which the National Party implemented—it worked for nearly a decade. The quality of the decision making that occurred in the complex work that they undertook—whether it was fresh-water planning, some very complex works—having the mana whenua voice at the council table made a world of difference and enhanced the ability so much so that Environment Canterbury has come in here to make this a permanent arrangement. So I’m delighted to be the member in charge of this bill and I’m happy, as we examine it further, to further justify the great reasons in support of this bill. Kia ora.

CHAIRPERSON (Ian McKelvie): Members, just before I call the Hon Gerry Brownlee, we come first to Part 1. Part 1 is the debate on clauses 3 to 5A and Schedule 1, the preliminary provisions. The question is that Part 1 stand part. I did give the member some licence.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): Firstly, this is not a reinstatement bill. That is a misleading position being proffered by the sponsor of this local bill. The reality is that when Ngāi Tahu were appointed to those two positions, so was everybody else on the board appointed to their position. So it was not a case of saying that Ngāi Tahu had a particular preference; it was a recognition of the fact that in a broad community where there is going to be an appointed board put together by the Minister, then it’s only appropriate to go to the widest possible representation. But in a democracy that we live in, when there is an elected body, then everybody in the community has an equal opportunity to stand and ultimately become elected. I don’t think the claims made by the member that there is such widespread support for this in Canterbury can do anything other than support my view that should there be Ngāi Tahu candidates seeking election to this board, then they would be successful. And I think we’ve got to be very, very careful that we don’t get carried away by a small group of the community who currently have representatives on the council and who have decided that this is a good thing to do. So while I’m not opposed to the input that comes from Ngāi Tahu—indeed, I’m a very strong supporter of it, and I think the fact that as a Minister I was instrumental in making them statutory partners in the recovery of Christchurch and the Greater Christchurch area earlier in the last decade demonstrates this.

There are some questions that I think the member needs to answer fairly quickly in order for us to progress a reasonable debate on this particular bill. The first is: was this bill discussed inside the Labour caucus, much as the Rotorua bill was, given that the two of them are extremely similar? Second question is: did the Attorney-General issue a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act statement that was consistent with the statement issued on the Rotorua bill? And the third point would be: what was the reference that the current Environment Canterbury council membership took from their constituencies to advance this bill? Because as a ratepayer in Canterbury, I do not recall ever being asked by the current council what my view was. It probably would have been a very favourable one—along the lines of let’s get the democracy making the choices that would see this type of representation on the board, around the council table.

But as it stands, this structure would mean that those two Ngāi Tahu representatives virtually had a veto over council decisions. Think about the 14 members sitting around the table, look at their current political representation, and recognise that the majority of them could be overturned any time by the Ngāi Tahu representation. And I have to say to this House that the current representation of that particular council is not at all along the lines that my political view would like to see there, but I can see that it is not appropriate to have a veto power inserted into the council structure—inserted on to the council—that would be able to be exercised against the judgment of elected members. And I say, again, that given the member’s claims that there is such widespread support in Canterbury for this, then surely any candidate going into an election with the imprimatur from Ngāi Tahu would be successful in their quest.

I’d like those questions answered so that we can progress this debate. Was it discussed by the Labour caucus in the context of the Rotorua bill that that caucus rejected, and was there a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act statement consistent with the Rotorua bill from the Attorney-General?

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Thank you, Mr Chair. I acknowledge the contribution from the member opposite, but I do disagree with many of the points he has raised. Before I move to address those specific questions, I would just restate my position that this bill does reinstate Ngāi Tahu representatives, two members appointed by Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, to Environment Canterbury. If I could direct the member back to the 2016 legislation, it said, “Two of the members appointed … must be persons recommended by Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu.” That’s what the 2016 bill did, and if I come back to this bill, it does exactly the same thing: “[Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu] may appoint up to 2 members of the Council”. This bill does reinstate the appointment of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu’s right to put two members back on Environment Canterbury, so that is completely wrong, what the member was saying.

In terms of addressing the questions that were raised, whilst we do not divulge discussions that occur within caucus, what I can say is that the Labour members of this House, likewise the Greens and Te Paati Māori, have supported this bill throughout. So my role as the member in charge of the bill is to reach out and to garner as much support as possible in this House to progress this local bill—and this is a local bill; this is a local bill. This is a bill which is specific to the locality of the environment, Environment Canterbury, and there’s no point in terms of trying to make comparisons with another bill that is in this House, because that is an entirely different premise. It’s an entirely different purpose, an entirely different region, and there is no similarity at all between that other bill and this bill. So I would like this committee to come back to this bill and ensure that we can have a proper debate over its provisions.

The other aspect, in terms of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act assessment: yes, there was an assessment, which the Attorney-General did undertake on this bill, and I’m pleased to say that this bill did get a pass from the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Whilst it could be argued on the face of it that, yes, this bill could make a differentiation between citizens based on race, the Attorney-General said that notwithstanding that, the fact that this bill ensures that the status of the Treaty and the position of Ngāi Tahu and their association with their representation on the bill—the fact that they have that special association means that there is no other comparative group in the country. There’s no other comparative group, and therefore there is no discrimination, because we are not comparing anything else.

There is only one Ngāi Tahu, there is only one mana whenua, there is only one group that represents the iwi in the rohe, in the takiwā of Environment Canterbury, and so there’s no question of discrimination. The Attorney-General acknowledged that, and that’s why this bill has the endorsement from the Attorney-General that it is in compliance with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. There may have been another question—I’m not too sure—from the member, but I hope that that for now is sufficient to respond to the points that were raised.

CHAIRPERSON (Ian McKelvie): I’m going to call the Hon Gerry Brownlee again, but before I do I’m going to remind members, because I gave some latitude to the first two speakers, that we are speaking about Part 1 here, which are clauses 3 to 5A. Thank you.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): Thank you for that, Mr Chair, but the point is, so that everyone understands exactly what the bill is about, the minutiae of detail inside any particular section becomes somewhat irrelevant. It only gains its relevance from the wider understanding that people have of the bill. And I need to respond to the sponsoring member’s claim that I’m wrong about this bill being similar to the Rotorua bill, because this bill is, according to him, substantially different—I don’t see how that is—and I’m wrong in saying that this bill is not a reinstatement bill, and let me explain that last one, because the other points he makes are not explicable.

The bill that was passed in 2016 was putting commissioners into Environment Canterbury (ECan). It was denying the elected rights of those who were sitting on ECan and replacing them with Government appointees. And as part of that process, the bill enabled Ngāi Tahu to nominate people who might be useful in the structure of that appointed group of commissioners. It did not say—it definitely did not say—that Ngāi Tahu made the appointments. The member read that word for word from the legislation. It did not say that Ngāi Tahu appointed them. It said Ngāi Tahu recommended, and the appointments were made, effectively, by the Governor-General after a request for the Governor-General to do so, coming from Cabinet.

I have to tell the Minister that there were a range of people considered at that time, and that there was finally agreement on the two people who would be the representatives, and that they were appointed by the Governor-General. The attempt was to get as broad a mix of skills as possible into that group of commissioners. It was achieved largely because the two Ngāi Tahu representatives had skills well beyond their deep understanding of the tikanga of Ngāi Tahu and the area that they came from. But remember that they also did not represent every single hapū group inside Ngāi Tahu as well.

So he is wrong to say this is a reinstatement bill. This is new. It’s a stepping over the top of the democratic process and allowing an iwi group in this country to decide that they will put two particular representatives on to a board, effectively, whether we like to look at it any other way, giving that group—because, clearly, they will be reporting back to the people who appointed them—veto rights over the activities of that council. That is a substantial shift from the concept of appointing commissioners. In many ways, the argument put forward for this bill by the promoter, on behalf of the Canterbury regional council—ECan—is a justification and almost a call for the reappointment of commissioners in Canterbury. And I tell you what—there would be very widespread support for that, because the current ECan group is, to say the least, somewhat woolly, and if we look at the reason why those commissioners were put in place in the first instance, which is the argument in favour of this bill from the proponents, it was because ECan had failed for over 20 years to bring down a water plan for Canterbury. The commissioners did that—they did it very successfully.

But since we’ve gone back to the democratic process, there’s been a slowing of all sorts of things. There’s been a throwing into the mix of an extraordinary range of different things that are affecting and slowing opportunities in communities. And given that’s it’s a council that’s supposed to look at our local resources and protect them, then I see very little evidence that that is to the fore in their thinking. I’ve only had two meetings with ECan in the last two years, and both of those meetings showed that the councillors are not in charge of the process. It is in fact the bureaucrats of the council who completely run it, and so we would ask the question: how is this bill going to create progress on the many issues, the environmental issues, that face people in Canterbury? What we’ve got at the moment is a massive bureaucratic sort of approach to almost every aspect of their work and very little progress for the people who pay their rates.

I know that I’ll get emails and other things condemning what I’ve had to say and all the rest of it—explaining how hard it is and what they have to do and blah, blah, blah. Well, imagine the overlay that will be put on to that body with two members who have veto authority based on their experience as iwi representatives. If they are elected, then that’s fine, and let’s make no bones about it. Ngāi Tahu is a very, very strong organisation, a great organisation for Te Wai Pounamu, great for the South Island, great for our Canterbury district—no question about that. They are people who come together because of their birthright, you could say, and who will invest in our communities and not look to run off anywhere else. They are there for the long haul and have been for the long haul. I acknowledge all of that.

But when there is that huge power, both economically and, it would seem, increasingly in population if we are to believe the position put forward by the sponsor of the bill, then why be afraid of the democratic process? Because that gives a greater mandate to anyone sitting at that table wanting to do things. I think there’s a real question that needs to be asked about why that’s not something that Ngāi Tahu have embraced, rather than coming to us and saying, “Well, we’re not sure that we can get all our people to agree in sufficient numbers to actually get someone who wants to represent us on to the council, so would you just let us have our own representative?” That’s really the question that’s being answered in this bill and it’s not appropriate. It’s not at all appropriate.

It would be easy to say, “Well, are there other groups that are similar?” Personally, there aren’t. There are no groups similar to Ngāi Tahu in the Canterbury region. But if we were to say, “Well, let’s have an amalgamation of interests and then we’ll see if we can write a bill that might get them in there.”, it only takes one elected body at a time to decide that these could be good things. We could have transport lobbyists coming together and saying, “We should have one of our transport people on there.” And then any one of a range of other things could be on there. The fact is that farming interests, which are very much affected by ECan, are represented on the council via the elective process.

So for this bill, while you want to call us back to that particular clause, you’ve got to understand from the start what it’s setting out to do and why it is inappropriate for what is being claimed. If in fact there is widespread support, as the member said, then there would be widespread support through the electoral process at the ballot box. If there is no particular other interest that can be represented, then that would make the ballot box process all that much clearer to every one of those eligible among that 600,000 population down in our part of the world who may or may not vote on this.

Then when it comes to the question, “Was this discussed?”, I have to say that at least one prominent member of the sponsor’s caucus did not appear to know a great deal about this bill until very recently. So I think the quality of discussion might have been a little bit short, and I can’t help feeling that someone like Tāmati Coffey might be feeling a little aggrieved that he got knocked over but this one somehow gets through.

We will get to the substance of the bill, clause by clause, bits of it, but I think there is still that acknowledgment needed that this is not a reinstatement bill; it is new. What we had from 2016 was very different from what is proposed in this bill.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. Firstly, I’d like to acknowledge that the member Rino Tirikatene, who’s brought this local bill to the House, has done so on behalf of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu and Environment Canterbury. I want to acknowledge that the member does represent that iwi, and that they no doubt have concerns—around the performance of local government, and control over the way land and water is used in decision making—which they feel they need to have a voice on. I can understand why, because, for many, many years, local government, local councils disrespected the values of communities—particularly Māori communities—all over New Zealand, by building waste-water treatment plants in front of their marae, in places like Māngere in Auckland, by dumping all the rubbish in landfills and estuaries where communities collected shellfish and exercised their customary rights. So it’s quite understandable that Māori communities—whānau, hapū, and iwi—all around New Zealand have concerns about the performance of local government and the exercise of decision making over natural resources in particular.

So we can understand why there is a desire to have some control or some say over decisions about resource consenting. But that’s a problem that was solved by the Resource Management Act (RMA). Now, it hasn’t been solved particularly well, because the Resource Management Act, while it sets up controls and a framework to apply for consents for the things we still need, like waste-water treatment plants, like roads—which also happened to favour Māori land rather than the farmers’ land when land was taken under the Public Works Act; so I think it’s important to acknowledge that as well. The Resource Management Act sets up the framework whereby concerns about how land is managed, the effects on water quality, and the effects on communities can be discussed, can be negotiated, and, if necessary, can be litigated through the Environment Court and appealed to higher courts.

So what I would propose, and what the ACT Party proposes, is that, in the absence of the concerns which potentially underlie the purpose of this piece of legislation being effectively articulated, it’s not clear what the purpose of this legislation is to achieve. It’s quite clear the purpose says that it’s to have two members of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu appointed to Environment Canterbury—to an otherwise elected body—but it doesn’t say what the objective of that is. So I would ask the member: what’s the objective? Why is this necessary? Is it because Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu are concerned that, essentially, decisions about natural resources—fresh water, land use, for example—are being made and they don’t recognise their customary rights, they don’t recognise the cultural impacts? Because, if that’s the case, Mr Tirikatene, I would say, look, that’s what the Resource Management Act is for.

Now, the ACT Party believes that the RMA should actually be dumped and improved. But that’s not to say that the voices of iwi, hapū, and whānau would be ignored, because, of course, when it comes to matters of fresh water and discharges into fresh water of nutrients and all these other things that are of great concern to communities around New Zealand, there has to be a way of identifying what’s the best outcome for communities. So the member hasn’t articulated why this bill is necessary, and that is the obligation on elected members—not to come to the House and say “The House must vote for this bill because I say so; because some people down where I live told me to come here to the House and do it.” Environment Canterbury themselves don’t have a democratic mandate for this proposed legislation. They haven’t gone back to the voters of Canterbury and asked for their support.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Thank you, Mr Chair, and I note that we are on Part 1 of this bill—is that correct, sir? So Part 1 concerns the preliminary provisions and, granted, there is some latitude at the start of these debates to traverse a bit wider, but I would just draw the attention of the committee of the whole House to Part 1. But if I may, I just want to quickly respond to the points that Mr Brownlee and Mr Court have raised.

Firstly, we can agree to disagree in terms of the use of the language of reinstatement or not, but the end result is that from 2016 to 2019 there were Ngāi Tahu representatives on Environment Canterbury that were recommended and put through by Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu. They performed their jobs along with all the other elected councillors, because it was a hybrid transitional group at that point. They performed their roles just exactly the same as all the other members of the council at that time. So that is what this bill does.

That, really, goes on to the next point: what is the purpose, what is the objective of this bill? The objective of this bill: Environment Canterbury has come to this House to make some bespoke changes to the local government legislation which allows Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, the mana whenua, the group which has no comparison to any other group in Te Waipounamu, the Treaty partner, the ability to appoint two representatives to that council, and they have great experience of working together. It took place over a period of nearly 10 years. So that is the objective of this bill.

The reason why is because it works for Environment Canterbury. The quality of decision making, the knowledge and experience that the Ngāi Tahu representatives bring to the council table, actually led to better council decision-making and better outcomes in freshwater management and in other aspects of the environment. And why is that important? It is because Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu has a special connection to the environment, because Ngāi Tahu are the iwi, the mana whenua, the Treaty partner whose ancestral landscape is the Te Waipounamu; it is the whole region of Canterbury.

I am the member in charge of this bill. I’m very grateful that the promoter, Environment Canterbury, asked me to be the member in charge, but I don’t represent Ngāi Tahu. I’m the member for Te Tai Tonga. I am the member that is bringing this local bill to the House. I have Ngāi Tahu whakapapa but I represent all Māori who are on the Māori roll in Te Tai Tonga. I am not the member for Ngāi Tahu—just to clarify that point—but I’m very proud to be able to bring this bill to the House. I hope that addresses those concerns, and I ask the House that we get back to Part 1.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you to the member Rino Tirikatene for clarifying your role. I do appreciate it. But I want to come back to my question. I don’t understand why. You have rightly pointed out that Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, the iwi, do have a special connection to the land. They have a cultural connection, and also they’ve continuously occupied large parts of it. So let’s just assume, right, that’s a fact. But there are avenues for Ngāi Tahu to make clear their expectations around environmental management, to have the opportunity to submit to bills and submit on resource consents, for example. Also, under the previous arrangement where members of Ngāi Tahu were appointed to the transitional commissioner role, that was also an opportunity to give their view on matters that are important to Ngāi Tahu. So there is potentially still an opportunity. If the case the member wishes to make is that Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu require an extraordinary level of access into the elected members of Environment Canterbury by being able to sit around the table with them—and that’s an extraordinary level of access compared to, say, Federated Farmers or Irrigation New Zealand or Transporting New Zealand. It’s an extraordinary level of access.

Barbara Edmonds: Point of order. I just want to reiterate the point that was made by the member Rino Tirikatene, the sponsor of the bill. Part 1 is quite narrow in the sense that it’s purpose, interpretation, relationship. The points that the member is making—

CHAIRPERSON (Ian McKelvie): Order! Order! It’s not my business to point it out, but I’ll point out the very fact of the purpose is exactly what the member is talking about.

SIMON COURT: Thank you. So back to the purpose of the bill, for the benefit of that member, Barbara Edmonds. I’m asking: would the member sponsoring the bill please explain what the objectives are behind this purpose? If the objectives are that Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu seek to have an extraordinary opportunity over and above any other groups which have a longstanding connection to Te Wai Pounamu, the South Island, such as farmers, such as the transporting industry, such as the miners, the energy operators, then the member should make a case for that. And we haven’t heard that, because the purpose simply says to appoint up to two members of the council, so they can do elected council stuff. Well, it’s not clear why they need that opportunity and why they need those powers, which rightly should fall, under a liberal democracy, only to people who have sought to be elected.

So back to the purpose of the bill, for the benefit of that member, Barbara Edmonds—the purpose. What the ACT Party is asking is for the member sponsoring the bill to explain why Environment Canterbury thinks it’s so important that members of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu are appointed on to the council and have voting rights, and what objectives the purpose of this bill fulfils. Because it’s not clear.

If, as the member points out, there are cultural or customary connections with the land, there are many other avenues for Ngāi Tahu to demonstrate and actually to get influence over decision making, whether it’s through submissions through the resource consent process, or whether it’s, for example, taking their claim for rights and interests in fresh water to the Waitangi Tribunal. They currently have a claim before the Waitangi Tribunal, which I understand is on hold or awaiting the outcome, potentially, of the three waters legislation, which might give co-governance rights to iwi. Maybe that will solve the issue of freshwater rights.

But the member hasn’t made it clear what objectives this bill is trying to address, because if it’s around decision making over fresh water, well, then potentially Environment Canterbury should be saying to Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, “We look forward to what the Waitangi Tribunal says about your right to some fresh water.”, because guess what! Ngāi Tahu have evidence that they were the first people to sell water in New Zealand to some French sailors who turned up in Akaroa harbour, and they charged them a gold coin to re-victual their ship with fresh water. So if they do have rights and interests in fresh water and they think they should have extraordinary decision-making powers over natural resources, let them have their day in court. But I’d like the member to explain: if that’s not the purpose, what is the purpose and what is the objective? Thank you.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): In response to the member Simon Court, again, the purpose of this bill, the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill, is to ensure that mana whenua, Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, can appoint two representatives to Environment Canterbury. Why? Diversity of representation is important. It worked successfully in the Canterbury region for close to nine years. It was well supported by members at the time. That is why Environment Canterbury has brought this bill back to the House. It worked so well that they want to make it a permanent arrangement. And they have the support of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu. This process, as I mentioned earlier, has been going on for years. This bill came to the House a couple of years ago. So the work that Environment Canterbury has been doing amongst the wider region of Canterbury, in relation to this bill, is substantive.

I would also say that mana whenua have a different status than just a farmers’ group or Forest & Bird. We are talking about the Treaty partner here. We are talking about Environment Canterbury wanting to be a good extension of that Treaty partner through inviting and having that Treaty partner at the table of Environment Canterbury. I just want to also say that the two Ngāi Tahu representatives on Environment Canterbury are not veto rights. Two of 16 does not make a veto right. The decisions that the council makes are consensus decisions, they are for the benefit of the region as a whole, and so to say that it allows veto rights is just simply not the case. I hope that addresses those questions from the member.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Thank you very much, Mr Chair. Really grateful for the sponsor, Rino Tirikatene, pointing out why the bill is needed.

I suggest that Mr Court and some other members actually read some history, because the fact that the ACT Party was putting Ngāi Tahu on the same basis as Federated Farmers as a stakeholder shows a fundamental lack of understanding of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

It shows a fundamental failure to understand and read the Ngāi Tahu settlement and the recognition in that settlement which confirms the rangatiratanga and mana of Ngāi Tahu over their lands and affirmed the ability to have representatives of Ngāi Tahu—there’s a special adviser on the conservation boards, there are positions there for Ngāi Tahu; there was a relationship with Te Papa Atawhai over Te Waihora—Lake Ellesmere—and the statutory adviser position to the Department of Conservation.

So this comes from the settlement; this comes from Te Tiriti. It is recognising that mana whenua relationship because it is implicit in the bill, and what the National Party and ACT are totally confusing: equal representation with effective representation.

Part 1 of the bill refers to the Local Electoral Act. There are numerous instances around Aotearoa where you do not have equal representation. I am in the Banks Peninsula constituency of the Christchurch City Council. That constituency breaches the 10 percent plus or minus rule for the number of electors whom each councillor represents—by more than 61 percent. That is to recognise that the large size of the Banks Peninsula electorate requires one councillor, even if we don’t have the same number of electors as in some of the other constituencies in Christchurch.

Effective representation is about ensuring that there is a strong Ngāi Tahu voice as mana whenua around the council table. Mr Court referred to discharges. At Matariki, both Rino Tirikatene, myself, and Carmel Sepuloni and Tracey McLellan were at Takapūneke. That is illustrative of what happens when you don’t have mana whenua at the table.

We had the former Banks Peninsula District Council discharging sewage into Akaroa Harbour, establishing their waste-water plant adjacent to one of the most important sites in Aotearoa New Zealand history—at Takapūneke, where 200 people died because of Te Rauparaha’s use of the brig Elizabeth and the deceitful actions of Captain Thomas. That establishment of the waste-water plant—the establishment of the dump there—would not have happened if Ngāi Tahu had been at the table.

Environment Canterbury has a critical role in resource management—the land, the waters, the air, the coast. It is really important that they are represented in those decisions, and the misinformation that the National Party has been spreading by claiming that Part 1 of the bill—or Part 2—provides veto rights is an utter nonsense. The bill explicitly says that the Ngāi Tahu representatives have exactly the same functions and responsibilities as councillors.

This bill is about strengthening democracy. It’s about effective representation. It’s about recognising Te Tiriti o Waitangi and making it real at the regional council.

The nonsense that National and ACT are talking shows that they don’t appreciate history, they don’t appreciate the Treaty, and they don’t appreciate effective representation.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I want to start with a quote, and it talks to the clause around purpose, because we’re told that the purpose is about reinstatement. The quote here says “There was never any justification for why Canterbury should be the only region that doesn’t get to elect its regional council.” The only region. And that’s what will happen under this bill, it won’t get to elect its regional council. Is that statement from ACT? Is that a statement from National? That is a statement from Megan Woods in 2016. There was never any justification for why Canterbury should be the only region that doesn’t get to elect its regional council. “I urge all parties in Parliament to support this bill and restore democracy to Canterbury.” So you can’t have it both ways, Mr Tirikatene. Really, is that what you say in Opposition, but then you come to Government and then do something different? So under “purpose”, are you really saying this is about reinstatement of something that you fought hard to disestablish in Opposition, and now you are bringing in, in Government?

I want to return to the question that the Hon Gerry Brownlee asked, around whether this local bill had been to the Labour Party caucus. Quite rightly, Mr Tirikatene pointed out that conversations in caucus are for caucus, I don’t have an issue with that, but what we have here is a local bill. In Part 1, we have clause 5, “Relationship between this Act and other legislation applicable to local authorities”, so that’s why I’m asking the questions on this part. It is important to understand why it is a local bill, because even the Clerk’s Office says that a local bill can’t be about amending primary legislation. So that’s why this bill doesn’t amend primary legislation. So the question is, why is this not a Government bill that would amend primary legislation? And it comes back to that point: is it because a local bill did not have to go and seek support of the Labour caucus? Because we’re led to believe some Ministers in the Labour Cabinet said, in response to Tāmati Coffey’s bill being kicked out, they didn’t know how flawed it was because it hadn’t gone to the Labour caucus.

I was in an interview with Sarah Pallett on Newstalk ZB where she was directly asked by John MacDonald: did she see this bill go through the Labour caucus? She said she didn’t know, she wasn’t aware if it had. So the question is: why is this a local bill? Because, in fact, it’s a bill that has to be a workaround if it’s a local bill. It can’t amend primary legislation. So I think it is a very important question—why don’t Labour MPs know whether this bill has gone to the caucus, and why is it a local bill? We get told it’s a local bill because the local people asked for it. That’s what the Labour Government tells us. OK, if that’s true, I’d like to hear from the Minister what assurance and what evidence he saw from Environment Canterbury that they consulted local people in the formation of this bill. I’ll tell you what, Environment Canterbury (ECan) were all through the media when this bill came in to Parliament, and local people were very frustrated and ECan said, “Don’t worry, you’ll get your time to have your say in the select committee after the first reading.” That was the first time people in Canterbury had heard about this bill.

So some very clear questions. Can Rino Tirikatene tell us why his party advocated for one thing in Opposition and a different position in Government? Has this bill been through the caucus, and is that why it is a local bill—because it hasn’t? And, finally, we’d like to know what evidence he saw of local consultation.

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to ask the member about the purpose clause, which is to “appoint up to 2 members of the Council in accordance with this Act,” and it goes on in clause 4(1) to talk about “member in relation to a Council means——“(a) an elected member; or (b) an appointed member”. I want to ask the member why this bill is going to effectively remove 129 years of local government democracy. New Zealand has had 129 years where everyone in this country has what’s called equal suffrage, equal voting rights, regardless of gender, class, or ethnicity. It’s been a pillar of our democracy for 129 years, and I want to ask the member why.

I note that the member referred to the Attorney-General in the human rights analysis, saying it was consistent with that. I just want to ask the member a little bit more around that, because the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has been referred to at some length in association with things similar to this. Article 46 of that says “Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, people, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act contrary to the Charter of the United Nations or construed as authorizing or encouraging any action which would dismember or impair, totally or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and independent States.”

Then it says “In the exercise of the rights enunciated in the present Declaration, human rights and fundamental freedoms of all shall be respected. The exercise of the rights set forth in this Declaration shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law and in accordance with international human rights obligations.”—I draw a line under that: international human rights obligations—“Any such limitations shall be non-discriminatory and strictly necessary [and respect] for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and for meeting the just and most compelling requirements of a democratic society.”

It then says “The provisions set forth in this Declaration shall be interpreted in accordance with the principles of justice, democracy, respect for human rights, equality, non-discrimination, good governance and good faith.” Then, if I turn to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 21 says “Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.”—not appointed representatives, I note; freely chosen representatives. Just to underline that point, article 21 goes on to say “The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections”—not appointments, elections—“which shall be by universal and equal suffrage”—that’s equal voting rights—“and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.”

I turn back in the context of both of those international instruments to look at the purpose, which is to appoint two members, not elect two members. Both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples makes it very, very clear that human rights obligations and democracy are key, as is the right to elect those who govern us in this country. I ask the member: how on earth can this bill be consistent with those very clearly enunciated principles?

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Thank you for the opportunity. I just want to respond to the contributions, and I want to acknowledge the Hon Eugenie Sage for her support for the bill. She hit the nail right on the head—this bill is about recognising Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the role that the mana whenua Ngāī Tahu has. It goes back to the Ngāi Tahu settlement where, in that settlement, it recognises that this is about a new age of cooperation between the Crown and Ngāi Tahu. Environment Canterbury gets it. That’s why they have come to this House with this local bill to ensure that they can see the evolution of that age of cooperation through the appointment of Ngāi Tahu representatives to Environment Canterbury. So I want to acknowledge the member for her contribution in that respect.

In relation to Mr Doocey: again, no member divulges conversations that take place within caucus. But what I can say is that this local bill, as a local bill, has been through all internal processes, and that that is why it has the support of the Labour members of this House. My role, as the sponsor of the bill, is to ensure that I can get the support to ensure its passage. So the Labour members are in support of this bill. It is a local bill, so it has nothing to do with other bills that might be within various stages of this House. This is a specific local bill relating to Environment Canterbury.

I also want to say that, when we talk about the history of representation for Canterbury, we mustn’t forget that National took a top-down approach when it sacked Environment Canterbury back in 2010 and appointed commissioners. Yes, the Labour Party was vehemently opposed to that action by the Government at that time. But this arrangement is a silver lining that emerged from that arrangement when commissioners were in charge and when there were transitional arrangements in place. This was a silver lining that came through and it’s worked. That is why Environment Canterbury have brought it back to the House—they want to make it a permanent arrangement because it did work. Having the knowledge, expertise, and the contributions of Ngāi Tahu representatives at the council enhanced the decision making and made for better council decisions. That’s why they’ve come back to this House: to ensure that.

I can also go back to the Hansard of that 2016 legislation at the time, where I spoke—we all spoke—in support of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu having the right to appoint members, which, incidentally, was made express through the passage of that bill through the House. I even—thinking back to my contributions at that stage—said, “What is going to happen at the end of the transition period? That arrangement needs to continue on.” And here we are today, with this bill being brought back to the House to ensure that that arrangement can be put permanently into law.

In relation to Mr Mooney’s contribution: again, he was quoting from the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. That declaration is subject to domestic laws that we pass here, in this Parliament. That’s what we’re doing—this is a local bill which has come through. This legislation is its own piece of law, which is relevant for Environment Canterbury and the Canterbury region, and which recognises its mana whenua Treaty partner in Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu having the right to have its representatives at the council level. So that’s what we’re doing here, in terms of putting through this bespoke piece of legislation. This is only applicable to Canterbury—that is why it’s a local bill. It doesn’t apply anywhere else in Aotearoa. I struggle to think how it could, actually, because, for such a vast geographical area, there is only one single iwi mana whenua Treaty partner in Ngāi Tahu and that is why this arrangement can be brought through to this House, and that’s why Environment Canterbury are doing it through this local bill. I’ll just leave that at that, for now.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): If the member Rino Tirikatene’s assertion is correct and reasonable in all regards, and if the benefits of the appointed process are so great and so wonderful, why doesn’t he move to strike out clause 13, “Council may establish Māori constituencies”?

If we look back at the part that we’re actually discussing at the present time, there is an appointment of two Ngāi Tahu representatives. Now, given that that will raise the numbers around the council table to 16 and that, in order to create those Māori constituencies or anything else like that that might be of a particular desire to that group of the community, it’s straightaway two votes ahead, so why do we have to have, in this bill, that provision? This bill would be much more in line with the argument that’s being advanced by Environment Canterbury and by the sponsor of the bill if, in fact, the bill prohibited the council, once appointments are made, from taking any action under section 19Z(2) of the Local Government Act 2001. But it doesn’t.

Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order. I understand this bill is being taken part by part. Mr Brownlee is referring to Part 2, and we’re on Part 1. I’m happy for the bill to be taken as a single part and seek leave for that to be done if that helps.

CHAIRPERSON (Ian McKelvie): Order! Thank you.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Well, that is entirely up to them, but the point is that Part 1 of the bill goes right to the issue of the appointment of the two representatives from Ngāi Tahu, and it would seem illogical that we can’t refer to the consequences of that part reflected in other parts of the bill. So the very simple question to the sponsor of the bill: why has that dual situation been allowed?

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Chief Whip—Labour): Point of order. I seek leave for the bill to be considered as one part.

CHAIRPERSON (Ian McKelvie): Leave has been requested for that course of action. Is there any objection? There’s objection. I call Simon Court.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: What? No answer? I yielded time.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: How’s this supposed to work?

SIMON COURT: Oh, Mr Brownlee would like to continue his call. I’m happy to wait, otherwise—

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: That side is so confused. Sort yourselves out.

CHAIRPERSON (Ian McKelvie): Order! Simon Court, you have the call. If you don’t want it, we’ll move to the next step.

SIMON COURT: Thank you, Mr Chair.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Point of order, Mr Chair. Look, I was part of the group that actually devised this new process for the committee of the whole House to work, and the deal—

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: This is not a point of order.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Beg your pardon?

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: I’m not talking to you.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: You shouldn’t be talking at all.

Hon Willie Jackson: We’ll talk whenever we bloody like.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: What was that, Willie?

CHAIRPERSON (Ian McKelvie): Order! If you want to take a point of order, please take the point of order.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I am, but actually, the Standing Orders require that points of order are listened to in silence.

CHAIRPERSON (Ian McKelvie): Heard in silence. Quite right.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: So, Mr Chair, the arrangement was that while someone might have a call, they could ask a question, and if the person who was in the chair, effectively, on behalf of the bill—or the sponsor in this case—indicated that they wanted to respond, then you would yield to that position but then resume your call. And I saw Mr Tirikatene stand up, and, therefore, I—

CHAIRPERSON (Ian McKelvie): Well, I apologise if Mr Tirikatene did stand up. I didn’t see him stand up, and I called Simon Court as a result of it.

SIMON COURT: Thank you, Mr Chair. So I just want to reflect on answers that the member sponsoring the bill, Rino Tirikatene, has given to the member Eugenie Sage, who stood up and gave an effusive but basically nonsensical set of reasons why the purpose of the bill would achieve some stuff—

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: It made complete sense.

SIMON COURT: —under the Treaty of Waitangi. Well, it might make sense to the member Carmel Sepuloni because she’s used to hearing nonsense from within the Labour caucus, but it didn’t make any sense to people who sit on this side of the House.

I want to come back to the purpose and I want to ask the member: could he please explain some of the things that he said in response to Eugenie Sage’s statements, such as “The purpose of this bill fulfils the Crown obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi towards Ngāi Tahu.”? And, if so, I’d like him to tell us which ones, which obligations. Eugenie Sage also mentioned that they fulfilled the obligations of a Treaty settlement, in which case I would like, if the member agrees with these two statements by Eugenie Sage, the member to point out which clauses of the deed of the Treaty settlement, the deed, where it says that Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu should have members appointed to Environment Canterbury with voting rights. Because if he can’t point to the Treaty of Waitangi obligation which says Ngāi Tahu should have voting rights on the regional council, or to the Treaty settlement, the particular clause that says that, then we’ll have to assume that that is not a valid reason.

But I want to come back to the purpose. And again, the member and others who’ve spoken in support of the bill have pointed out that Environment Canterbury can’t do their job. They can’t make decisions about resource allocation, they can’t make decisions about matters that have a potential cultural impact on the iwi, Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, without having voting members of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu on the council. In fact, the member said quite clearly that without the input of Ngāi Tahu into decision making, how on earth would the council know. In fact, Eugenie Sage said the same thing: how would the council have known not to build a non-compliant waste-water treatment plant discharging effluent into Akaroa Harbour unless Ngāi Tahu told them so? Well, potentially what Environment Canterbury could do is ask an ecologist, ask an environmental scientist, or even ask Ngāi Tahu for a submission on what they think. But that doesn’t require that the iwi, that the rūnanga, have members appointed as voting members on to Environment Canterbury. It’s not possible to draw the conclusion that that’s necessary from the problem statement that the member or Eugenie Sage has described.

I would challenge any member of the committee: don’t leave this member Rino Tirikatene to stand up and have to defend this on his own. Many of you have degrees. In fact, I understand that the member Duncan Webb, he’s some kind of professor and he’s worked as a lawyer. So, potentially—

CHAIRPERSON (Ian McKelvie): Order! Order! Come back to the bill.

SIMON COURT: Thank you, Mr Chair. So, potentially, other members of the governing Labour Party could give some support to the member and help explain exactly why the purpose of the bill is described as to give voting rights to members of the runanga, Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, to give effect to, or fulfil, a Treaty obligation, or otherwise fulfil the condition of a Treaty settlement. Otherwise, we put a line through those two and we say, “That’s nonsense. Please continue to find a reason why this legislation is necessary and what objectives it will fulfil that can’t be fulfilled simply by writing to Ngāi Tahu and seeking advice, or by asking them ‘Could we procure your services to give advice on an ongoing basis because there’s difficult stuff that impacts you that we’d like more advice on.’” That simply doesn’t require that this bill provides for Environment Canterbury, through Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, to have their appointees given voting rights over resource allocations, decisions around land and water that affect everybody in Canterbury, not just Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu. I’d like the member to please explain, because we haven’t heard it yet.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you, Mr Chair. I wasn’t sure; I thought the member Rino Tirikatene may have been going to respond, but maybe we’ll back up all of our questions and let the sponsor of the bill have a good run next time.

I’d like to cut to the chase on the purpose. We’ve talked a lot about the purpose of this bill, but I want to get into the background of it and actually ask what it is we’re doing. The sponsor of the bill said before that the result of this bill will not apply anywhere else in the country. But my question to the member is: is this bill going to create a precedent that will be rolled out across the country, and is this particular piece of legislation the test case for that? The reason I ask that is because of a quote from Willie Jackson, when he was on Q+A not too long ago, telling the people of this country that the nature of democracy has changed. Now, if the nature of democracy has changed, stand up and tell the country, because they have a right to know if the democracy in this country is being changed. And if this is test case No. 1, get up and deny it, Willie Jackson; get up and deny it. We’ve already seen the Labour Government back up on the Rotorua bill. Is the Labour Government going to have the wherewithal to back up on this bill as well, because this is changing the democracy in this country. I believe that if Jacinda Ardern and her Ministers no longer think that New Zealanders should have equal voting rights, then simply say so and be open and honest with the country, rather than this slippery slide of changing democracy by stealth.

Now, what I want to know from the member in charge of this bill is what the purpose of this legislation is in contrast to simply having members of Ngāi Tahu sitting around the table. I can use a very local example, Mr Tirikatene. The Westland District Council has been building its relationship with Ngāi Tahu—Makaawhio, Ngāti Waewae—over many years, and they have been invited to sit round the council table, and they do. They are a treasured partner in the local democracy, and there is no issue that has come before that council where those representatives have been able to present their case in support or opposition, where the council has opposed their view. They are valued partners, their opinions matter, but they do not need the special privilege of having an appointment and a paid position on the council in order to influence. And that is because relationships have been built over time. It is not being done by stealth, and I think the democratic role that the other councillors play on the council gives credence to the voices of the public and it gives respect to Ngāti Waewae and Makaawhio, and I think that is how you govern together. But this, Mr Tirikatene—and the other alert that we had, which came up in the select committee, was a submission that was made by a Ngāi Tahu representative who said that this is the first step towards co-governance. And so I ask again: if this is the absolute purpose of this bill, have the honesty to stand up and say so to the people of this country, because they deserve to know where this is heading. Thank you, Madam Chair.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Thank you, Mr Chair, and I thank members for their contributions. In response firstly to Ms Pugh, look, I acknowledge the good work that is happening on the West Coast, but the mana whenua reps on the West Coast don’t have a vote, so it’s not equal. It’s not equal.

Maureen Pugh: They don’t need one. They don’t need one. Everyone agrees with them.

RINO TIRIKATENE: Well, that’s fantastic for the West Coast, but what Environment Canterbury are wanting to do here is take it even further, to the next level, by giving the mana whenua, Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, the right to appoint two representatives to Environment Canterbury.

In relation to the issue around precedent, look, this is a unique, bespoke piece of legislation only relevant to Canterbury. It only applies to Canterbury, and that’s why it is a local bill. What other areas or people think of the bill is up to them, but in terms of the history of this bill, in terms of how the relationship that was forged between Environment Canterbury and Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu came about, that was completely unique to the Canterbury region, and that’s why this is a local bill. So I wouldn’t even entertain any discussions around examples or precedents for anywhere else, because, as I’ve mentioned previously, I cannot foresee any equivalent scenario in any other region of the country which is equivalent to what Environment Canterbury and Ngāi Tahu have in the Canterbury region.

I want to pick up on the point around Māori constituencies or Māori wards. Yes, I’m proud that the Labour Government, our Government, has put in place the ability for local authorities around the country to create Māori wards. That was looked at by Environment Canterbury, but it was not the optimal solution to the issue that they had, but it’s important that that option remains, and that is a future possibility for a future council, that they may want to pick it up. That is a measure that we put in place as the Government to ensure that that can be applied right across the country, and that is an option which is available and which we would encourage councils to be able to adopt, but that is completely separate from this particular bill, which is, as I mentioned, a very bespoke solution which Environment Canterbury have brought to the House.

In relation to Mr Court, I have said many times why we have this bill, the purpose, the objectives of it, but what I would say is that Environment Canterbury are extending the recognition that the Crown has given to Ngāi Tahu, and I would invite the member to read the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act, and in particular the apology that’s contained in that Act. At the end of that apology, it talks about a new age of cooperation, and that’s what this bill reflects, and that is captured within its objects. Kia ora.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the member in the chair, Rino Tirikatene, for offering that perspective in a new spirit of cooperation. That sounds wonderful and it’s laudable, but it doesn’t explain why the purpose of the bill would give voting rights to members of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, voting rights which every other member of Environment Canterbury has to seek a mandate for from voters.

So the voters of Canterbury, who include many people, as you’ve pointed out, sir, many Māori people who are on the Māori electoral roll or on the general roll—Māori people are on the general roll, believe it or not—who are able to vote for their Environment Canterbury representative. Some of them might vote for representatives who are passionate about cycling and walking, taking out car parks, painting the roads blue, and generally trying to fulfil what they think are their climate obligations to the planet—not to the economy and society; just to the planet. They might choose to elect people who represent farming groups or other interest groups, and, of course, they may choose to elect people who whakapapa back to Ngāi Tahu.

Of course, that’s what democracy is. It gives the voters—the people who pay rates or, in our case, the people who pay taxes—the opportunity to vote for people to represent them in decision making over the way public funds are used to buy stuff that gives social benefits. So we elect people to make decisions about things that have social benefits using public funds—money collected from ratepayers in the case of Environment Canterbury—and that’s why we insist they have a democratic mandate: no taxation without representation.

But what the member is proposing, and what none of the other Labour MPs have been able to stand up and explain either—even Mr Willie Jackson, who had some comments I couldn’t quite hear, but I think he was supporting. He said “ACT had the answer.” He was pointing at it and—

Hon Willie Jackson: “No”, I was saying.

SIMON COURT: —he was saying, “ACT has the answers when it comes to democracy.”—that’s what I heard. But I haven’t heard anyone stand up on the Government side and say that it’s important that we give voting rights to people who are not elected to have decision making over the way public funds are used and spent on things that council procures for social goods.

So if the member sincerely believes that Environment Canterbury can’t make decisions and recognise, in the spirit of cooperation, in the spirit of all the things we’ve learnt since the Treaty of Waitangi was signed between two willing groups of people with their feet in the soil on the sandy beaches of New Zealand, who agreed willingly, in exchange of sovereignty for protection—

Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order, Madam Chairperson. This debate is on Part 1 of the bill, which is preliminary provisions. This—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you for that. Thank you—a good point of order to raise. However, I am listening very closely and following along with the bill. I am allowing a latitude as I want to in the committee stage, given this is a strongly debated issue. I thank the member for his point of order, but I am using my judgment in this.

SIMON COURT: Thank you, Madam Chair. So back to the purpose of the bill, which the member has described but he has not fully explained why or, in the spirit of cooperation that he described between Environment Canterbury and Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, what other forum are available to engage in this cooperation. Potentially, there are face-to-face meetings. Potentially, there is a request for Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu to give advice to Environment Canterbury on matters that are important to Environment Canterbury and to the community, and they feel that Ngāi Tahu can make a contribution.

In fact, in a previous role, before I hung up my hard hat and came to Parliament, I used to give presentations to the mana whenua representatives of Auckland—of Tāmaki Makaurau—on matters that were important to them around why we needed to fix old landfills that were built in coastal areas and that were contaminating the sea, and on why we needed to fix waste-water systems. So there are opportunities for cooperation.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The member will come back more closely to representation and elections.

SIMON COURT: So, as the member Rino Tirikatene pointed out, the intent is to improve cooperation. I would say that there are many opportunities for cooperation that do not require Ngāi Tahu to put non-elected members with voting rights on Environment Canterbury, and I would challenge the member to go around the country and explain to communities why this would be good for them, if—[Bell rung]

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The—

Rino Tirikatene: Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Oh, Rino Tirikatene—you’re just in time.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): In response to Mr Court, I guess, you know, we can agree to disagree, but my view and Environment Canterbury’s view of the Treaty and of the place that Ngāi Tahu has as the Treaty partner, in relation to the Canterbury region, they clearly differ, because this bill is about recognising that. I say that this bill is about democracy-plus. There is the ability for the citizens of Canterbury to elect their 14 regional councillors. They still have that ability. Across the seven ward districts, 14 councillors will still be elected, but what’s better is that there is now an enhanced representation on that council, which now, through this bill, will incorporate the experience, the knowledge, and the recognition of the Treaty partner, of the mana whenua at the council table. That is the purpose of this bill. We can agree to disagree, but that is very much what this bill stands for, and that is why Environment Canterbury has brought it to the House.

Mana whenua are the Treaty partner. There’s no comparison between a farmer group or a cycling interest group or a Forest & Bird. There is no comparator, and that was recognised by the Attorney-General, which is why this bill received a positive New Zealand Bill of Rights Act assessment. Kia ora.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to the member for agreeing that we can agree to disagree. That’s wonderful, because much of the debate around these matters can descend into vitriol, and it’s important that we all recognise that we come here representing our constituents and what we believe are their needs.

So, coming back to the purpose of the bill, if the purpose of the bill is to recognise that mana whenua—Ngāi Tahu in the South Island—have a special status and that that special status is so special that they require to have two members appointed to have voting rights over all the people of Canterbury, then it would be very difficult to not assume that that special status could be accorded to other iwi who could claim special status in other regions of New Zealand and seek to have the precedent—the special status precedent that the member describes—applied to other forms of local government, whether that be in Auckland, for example. It turns out that Auckland Council, when it was established, responded to the need to co-operate with and have an active engagement with mana whenua by having two members of mana whenua appointed to Auckland Council in just the role that the member describes Ngāi Tahu should have on Environment Canterbury. So there’s actually a precedent already set—in fact, it’s been demonstrated to work very effectively—to give a voice on Auckland Council for all of the mana whenua groups who are represented in Tāmaki-makau-rau.

Hon Willie Jackson: That’s right; it’s called co-governance.

SIMON COURT: And the Minister here, the member Mr Jackson, said that’s called co-governance. However, he’s completely wrong, because in Auckland Council—not only is he completely wrong, he’s completely wrong again, as my friend and colleague Chris Baillie points out—the mana whenua representatives do not vote. They do not vote. They are appointed to give advice on matters that are important to mana whenua. So co-governance indicates—and the member’s brought it up, and I’d like him to stand up and defend that. If he thinks that this bill is around co-governance, he should get up and explain why that’s good—

Hon Willie Jackson: I’d like to do that.

SIMON COURT: Well, he should. In fact, the member is offering to stand up, and we await his contribution. In fact, if the member wants to stand up and defend the purpose of the bill, he’d be the only Labour MP, apart from the member, who would be prepared to stand up and defend it. But so far all we’ve heard is crickets from that side of the House, apart from the valiant efforts of the member Rino Tirikatene. So let’s come back to the purpose. So there are clear precedents for mana whenua, like Ngāi Tahu, which has a special status as having taken over most of the South Island, and so that’s their rohe—special status. Auckland Council has a way around that. They have mana whenua appointees to the council. In fact, when an ACT member of Parliament proposed the Auckland super-city, that was one of the things that ACT said was a good idea.

So, to be clear to the member, and to be clear to Mr Jackson, who thinks that ACT has a problem with Māori having their voice or representation, we don’t; we supported the inclusion of mana whenua representatives on Auckland Council, because we think it’s really important that people who represent mana whenua get to have their say on matters that have cultural significance. And, in fact, if you think about all the opportunities for cooperation, all the opportunities to give effect to the purpose of this bill, that don’t require Ngāi Tahu to have non-elected members appointed to be able to, potentially, override decisions of a split vote on Environment Canterbury, to form their own alliances with elected members, and to therefore exert an undue influence on decision making—if the purpose of the bill is to address the needs of mana whenua, Ngāi Tahu, to be heard around resource consenting decisions, about matters that affect them in terms of cultural impacts, there are many other opportunities to do that.

That’s why the ACT Party says this bill is completely unnecessary, and the purpose you’ve described actually doesn’t fulfil objectives that can’t be met with all types of other mechanisms. So, with all due respect to the member, yes, we do disagree. I do not consider that you have made the case as to why this bill is necessary. And, to the member here Chlöe Swarbrick, who said that basically this is to address colonisation, well, I’m afraid, Chlöe Swarbrick, there was a Treaty of Waitangi signed between two willing parties, where two people with their feet in the sand and their feet in the soil signed the Treaty that said, in exchange for ceding sovereignty to Queen Victoria, we all get equal rights before the law, and our property must be protected, and decision making over property is the important thing here. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, Simon Court’s amendment to clause 4 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 176 is out of order as it is inconsistent with the principles and objects of the bill.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 1 be agreed to.

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.

Part 1 agreed to.

Part 2 TRoNT may appoint 2 members to Council

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, we come now to Part 2. This is the debate on clauses 6 to 13, where Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu may appoint two members to council, and the question is that Part 2 stand part.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Thank you, Madam Chair. Part 2 gets down into the nitty-gritty mechanics around the appointment of the Ngāi Tahu representatives. It’s very self-explanatory. There are only two parts to the bill. It also goes into the area of remuneration and that was an aspect that was considered very closely at select committee. The end result was that the remuneration of the councillors, including the Ngāi Tahu members, will be the same because the Ngāi Tahu remuneration will be left aside and it won’t go into the calculation of the remuneration for the 14 elected members. The reason is that the workload of the councillors on Environment Canterbury will not lessen; in fact, it will actually increase because the additional Ngāi Tahu perspectives that will be shared around the council table will actually encourage greater work, a bigger workload from the existing councillors. So there was no justification to penalise councillors, who are all upright councillors who have put themselves forward for council position to face a drop in their remuneration as a result.

As we have said, this bill is about enhancing the representation on the council. I am pleased that the Māori Affairs Committee left that provision as it is so that the remuneration across the council will still be the same and no members will be affected.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): Every contribution the sponsor of the bill has made on the bill appears to be a justification for its non-passing today. This has got to be a classic. So what I would—let me make it very clear—agree is that if anyone is sitting there with the full authority of a councillor, then they should receive the same remuneration as everybody else. That’s not really the issue.

The issue here, enunciated by the sponsor, is that this decision, if it is passed today, will see the workload of the council go up. Now, that can only be a commitment to greater bureaucracy and the sort of duck-shoving that people in Canterbury have to put up with every time they deal with the Canterbury Regional Council.

So I can’t understand how it is that a justification being advanced by the member for this bill is something that is going to bring Ngāi Tahu into somewhat of a conflicted position with the rest of the community that they’re seeking to serve. It’s utterly a ridiculous argument.

If the member stood up and said, “Well, this is going to shortcut a whole lot of processes and it’s going to make things easier, it’s going to make things clearer, and that those who are wanting to do things that require resource consents will not have to go to the extraordinary lengths that they do at the moment getting expensive buy-in from those who have an interest,” then that would be a useful thing in favour of this bill. Instead, he stands in the House and says, “Actually, this is going to increase the workload for everyone who sits on the Canterbury Regional Council.” That means it’s increasing the workload for the bureaucrats behind the scenes. It means they’ll have to increase the number of bureaucrats behind the scenes, and, ultimately, all of the costs related to that will fall back on the Environment Canterbury (ECan) ratepayers in Christchurch.

Most of us, frankly, who do pay that rate have got no idea what value we get out of ECan. We get these newsletters put in the letterbox every now and then. Long, verbose things that claim all sorts of interesting arrangements and outcomes, but really no direct connection for communities, particularly in the city, about what’s being achieved by them. Nothing at all.

Now, I see someone over on the other side there, who says, “No, they’re great, thanks. I love reading them.” Well, if you’ve got the time to sit around reading that, I’d ask about some of the other representation that should have been undertaken by people.

I have on the Table a tabled amendment. It deals with clause 13 of this bill. It is completely inconsistent, in my view, to come to this House and say, on behalf of ECan, “We want to have Ngāi Tahu representation appointed to our council and then retain the right to, at any time, an Act, section 19Z(2), of the Local Electoral Act, to create Māori constituencies.” What is the point of one if the other is a possibility? The mere fact that this clause is still in here gives absolute lie to the claim that the wider Canterbury community are happy with this bill, because, if they were, ECan would have done exactly as 19Z(2) of the Local Electoral Act allows them to do. But they haven’t; they’ve turned up and said, “We want a special bill that gives us the special authority to ask Ngāi Tahu to appoint two representatives to our council. We then want those councillors treated exactly as anybody else,”—and that part’s fair—“but we also want to retain the provision that would allow us to create Māori constituencies, should we see fit in the future.”

Remember that they start two votes up on that prospect the moment this bill passes. It is very anti-democratic, this particular bill, and people can dress it up all they like about Treaty rights and everything else. There is a simple principle inside the Treaty that affirms democracy in this country, and this rips it away.

My tabled amendment would change the heading of the clause to “The council may not establish Māori constituencies” and it would delete the words “nothing in” and simply read, “The Act prevents the Council from passing a resolution under section 19Z(2) of the Local Electoral Act 2001, which relates to the resolution to create one or more Māori constituencies.”

It’s quite a simple prospect. It’s one or the other. This bill confers two particular rights that I don’t think should be there.

SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and a pleasure to take a first call in regards to Part 2, referring to clause 10A(4), which is the similar section that the previous speaker, the Hon Gerry Brownlee, was referring to in regards to the remuneration elements and the aspects around the Remuneration Authority. My questions to the sponsor of the bill are as follows. So my understanding is that the total salary cost for the additional roles is in the region of just under $70,000 per role—so give or take 140 grand. As my previous colleague has noted in terms of the other costs that would be forming, no doubt, behind that, often you triple that number. But let’s say for the sake we just double it and say it’s a quarter of a million dollars of additional cost.

My question for the sponsor of the bill is: what process of consultation has been undertaken with the Canterbury community in regards to those additional costs that will, in effect, be borne by the ratepayers of the Canterbury region, some 600,000 or so individuals? And in the context of growing costs and the cost of living crisis and all of that, which all Kiwis are facing out there at the moment, what is the level of feedback that was received from that consultation? As any good local bill would do, they are generally, if not always, well consulted with in the community in which they are impacting. That’s good process. So I’d be looking forward to some clarity around the consultation around subclause (4) that I’m referring to there, and we’ll go on from there.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Thank you, Madam Chair. Just in response to the matters raised, as I mentioned in relation to Mr Brownlee’s amendment, we do not support the amendment. Environment Canterbury did consider a possible application of a Māori ward, but it wasn’t suitable for Environment Canterbury, and that’s why they have gone forward with this bill. However, the legislation and the bill as it is is about leaving that possibility open for future councils to consider. But at the moment, in terms of Environment Canterbury here in 2022, that is not the preferred option, and that is why they are seeking the passage of this bill to enable the Ngāi Tahu representatives to be appointed. But, again, those are potential decisions around Māori wards. That is something for a future council to decide.

In relation to the issue around consultation, I do know that Environment Canterbury has undertaken significant consultation, not only on this bill but on its predecessor, and also within its representation reviews that have been carried out over the past—I think it was 2018 or 2019. So there has been significant consultation around the issues, and the matter around remuneration, again, that has been included in the consultation that has long been running over the past several years.

The issue around remuneration is about ensuring, as I have said, that all members of the council are not affected and that they will maintain the same remuneration—those that are elected—as the Ngāi Tahu members will as well. So it’s about ensuring that they’re not penalised and to recognise the work that they actually do and to ensure that the extra perspectives that are added at the council table level through Ngāi Tahu are also rewarded and remunerated fairly as well.

I think, for too long, councils around the country have had Māori advisory boards or other different mechanisms in place, and for many of them there is no remuneration whatsoever for the important views that iwi, mana whenua, and hapū groups around the country make into those local government matters. So this puts in legislation the recognition that all members of Environment Canterbury will be remunerated equally.

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to ask the member some more questions around this issue of remuneration and the Māori constituencies. In clause 10A(4), it says “The Council must make the payments required … even if doing so exceeds any total amount payable to elected members of the Council determined by the Remuneration Authority.” At the Māori Affairs Committee, we heard from the chair of the Remuneration Authority, the Hon Dame Fran Wilde, who said that the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill had been designed with respect to the remuneration of the two new proposed appointed positions on the council. She said the bill is designed to protect the remuneration of elected members of the Canterbury Regional Council, and she made the point that it’s already the highest-paid regional council in New Zealand, and it would put that council in a privileged position that would be unfair to all other councils in the country.

She noted that if every council put in a member’s bill like this one that’s before the House today, it would unwind the whole process of having an independent decision on remuneration and would undermine the integrity of the Remuneration Authority. Why is it important to have an independent Remuneration Authority? Well, she’s outlined its role: it is to set the remuneration of all members of Parliament, all other elected officials including councillors, judges, and other key officeholders, including the Police Commissioner. Its independence is crucial to guarding against rates of pay being subject to political interference, which is an anti-corruption measure that has worked well in keeping New Zealand clean compared to other countries.

She dismissed remarks made earlier to the select committee by the chair of the Canterbury Regional Council that the Remuneration Authority’s governance pool had set up a barrier preventing councils making decisions on Māori constituencies, which I note is still available to the council in clause 13 of the present bill. The chair of the Remuneration Authority said that this was demonstrably untrue and pointed to examples of how other councils had already done it—i.e., put in place Māori constituencies. She emphasised that in her view, this bill’s remuneration clause had been designed to protect the financial position of elected members. She said Environment Canterbury was using it to circumvent the authority’s rules, basically wanting to have it both ways: have two extra members that are identical in every way to all other members, which she said, in her view, is how it should be, but who are somehow ring-fenced when it comes to deciding the council’s remuneration.

So my question is, to the member: why is this appropriate? Why should every other regional council in the country and every other council in the country have different rules but Environment Canterbury—which is the highest-paid regional council in the country—have an extra special provision enabling them to exceed the remuneration pool, when they can already establish Māori constituencies? Why do they have to appoint two members, and also have the option to establish Māori constituencies, when this is different from every other council in the country?

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank Mr Mooney for his contribution. I’m sure, as a member of the Māori Affairs Committee, he would have been able to hear from submitters and also express his views at the committee as well. But this bill is about Environment Canterbury getting its Treaty relationship right, and that’s why it is putting its priority toward Ngāi Tahu representation. It wants to get its Treaty relationship right before any other consideration. What may happen with Māori wards, that’s a consideration for councils in the future and, yes, that could be a possibility, but that, again, is just a provision of the law that we are leaving there. It’s not relevant to this particular measure in this bill, which is about putting Ngāi Tahu representation on the council to further the good work that was established between 2010 and 2019. That is the focus of this bill at this time.

In relation to the Remuneration Authority, Environment Canterbury had quite a lot of dialogue with Dame Fran Wilde and the Remuneration Authority on this very issue, and it goes back way before this bill was introduced to this House. Again, it’s an issue where Environment Canterbury and the Remuneration Authority disagree. Environment Canterbury, rightly, asserts that the workload with two additional Ngāi Tahu members, the workload of the council, does not decrease and therefore the remuneration should not decrease—and an example of that is the additional perspectives of mana whenua and of Ngāi Tahu around the council table. It requires more work from the whole council to be able to gain their understanding and engage with their communities around the concerns that Ngāi Tahu express at the council table. So it doesn’t involve a reduction in workload; arguably, it involves more. But, on that basis, it was an aspect where there was just disagreement in terms of reducing the remuneration based on the formulas that the Remuneration Authority applies towards elected council members across the country.

I think, hopefully, that addresses that matter. As I’ve said, the member would have heard this when he was a member on the Māori Affairs Committee, in their consideration of this bill, and Environment Canterbury, through this provision, want to ensure that quality candidates put their names forward and that quality representatives who are elected to this important office are able to be fairly remunerated for the work that they do.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a great concern to learn that, in fact, rather than the efforts of appointed Ngāi Tahu members to Environment Canterbury actually giving Environment Canterbury decision makers insights and knowledge that would enable them to be more efficient, what the member has said is that the appointment of these voting but unelected members of Ngāi Tahu is going to be like sawdust in the machine of local government. As if local government needed anything else to slow it down—but to have people appointed to local government who can’t actually help the organisation improve its delivery and improve its performance but rather create some kind of impediment to progress. Now, it’s remarkable that that’s the conclusion that the member supporting the bill proposed would result from having Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu members appointed to council.

I would have assumed—and this is based on my experience in presenting to mana whenua groups as an engineer at Auckland Council—that, actually, by engaging with people early and meaningfully and offering them an opportunity to comment on infrastructure or land development proposals or regulatory proposals, you actually clear out a whole lot of potential objections early in the process so that when you come back to the decision makers with your recommendations, they say, “That’s good. We understand all of that. Where do we sign?” In fact, what the member has proposed is that even after the council officers and potentially all the applicants for resource consents and people that want to develop land have made their case and they’ve been and they’ve talked to all the stakeholders and they’ve done the consultation and they’ve got everybody to sign off on the consultation that’s required under the resource management consenting process, and when it goes up to Environment Canterbury’s decision-making committees of the elected members and the two non-elected members, basically what they’ll say is “You, start again.”, because there will be things that the non-elected members, the representatives from Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, haven’t heard about before and they’ll be asking a whole lot of questions. Basically, that’s going to be like a massive handbrake on the decision making of Environment Canterbury. Who would have thought that the member representing Te Tai Tonga, supporting this bill, and having brought this local bill to the House would say that quiet part out loud? But there it is.

Now, one of the problems with elected members we have in New Zealand is sometimes they don’t perform well, but you can still get rid of them. You can vote them out next time. The problem with this legislation, and it’s a problem that we’ve seen in all places around New Zealand where you elect people, is that some of them have a single issue, and when they can’t get that issue over the line, then they don’t want to perform, they don’t want to turn up to meetings, and they don’t want to participate. In the case of Environment Canterbury, one of the reasons that they were stood down and had commissioners put in place in the past was because they couldn’t agree on a system for allocating water rights and managing land use. And so that actually required the intervention of central government.

Now, what I’m proposing in my Supplementary Order Paper 177 is to insert new clause 9A, which would give the voters who have a franchise, people who are over 18 and eligible to vote in Canterbury and to vote for Environment Canterbury, to give them the opportunity—because they can’t vote in or vote out the proposed Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu representative. They would be appointed, and the people of Canterbury wouldn’t have an opportunity to vote for them, to vote for their policies, to vote for the ethos of the person who is supposed to be making decisions about them even though they weren’t elected. So what I’m proposing here in this Supplementary Order Paper is that the voters of Canterbury should be able to—10 percent of them—deliver a petition to Environment Canterbury that recalls the appointee from Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu and removes them from office if 10 percent of the voters of Canterbury feel that their behaviour or their performance is egregious enough that you can get 10 percent of the voters to bring a petition to Environment Canterbury.

Look, even if this bill passes, if you took up the ACT Party amendment, it could give people in Canterbury a whole lot of confidence that if they were dissatisfied with the performance or behaviour or the character—or who knows what that representative might do in the future?—they could remove them.

So I ask the Minister: would you support my Supplementary Order Paper to include a recall provision so that the people of Canterbury, if these non-elected, appointed representatives turn up to be failing in their duties or to have failed the good character test, they could be removed? And, if not, I’d ask the member to describe exactly why it is.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): I thank the member Simon Court, but we won’t be supporting the Supplementary Order Paper that he has brought to the committee. The issue of remuneration, I’ve covered that previously, but I just wanted to make the point that Environment Canterbury has consulted widely on this bill in its earlier iterations as to its core elements, which is about Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu having the ability to appoint two representatives to Environment Canterbury. The issue about remuneration is one that has only come up on the iteration of this bill, so it hasn’t come up earlier. Whilst Environment Canterbury did not consult specifically on this bill, the select committee process was used to ensure that as many people as possible would be able to present their thoughts and make their submissions on the bill. So that was the process that Environment Canterbury followed.

What were the terms of the other aspect that Mr Court raised? Was it remuneration and—I think—

Simon Court: That’s it.

RINO TIRIKATENE: Yeah; that’s it. So that was just in response to Mr Court.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to clarify for the member, because I know it’s getting late in the day and he’s been left alone by his caucus to make the case for this piece of legislation. I’d just like to clarify that what I was proposing with this amendment was, in fact, that the voters of Canterbury, the citizens of Canterbury, those who have a franchise, should have the right to vote in or vote out people who sit on decision-making boards like Environment Canterbury, who make decisions about natural resources and about spending public money. So what my Supplementary Order Paper 177 proposes is that a clause is inserted into the bill, so that should 10 percent of the voters in Canterbury want to recall the appointed person from Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, they have the right to do so.

Look, as you’ve described “democracy plus” we would say in the ACT Party, in fact, what you’ve proposed is “democracy minus”. It’s an aberration. It’s an egregious assault on the notion of one person, one vote and liberal democracy. And, in fact, it was the values of liberal democracy that set aside the divine right of kings to rule over us. Nearly a thousand years ago, the Magna Carta, which actually allocated rights and property rights to the people of England who I whakapapa back to, and who came to New Zealand on sailing ships and offered all the lessons—

Chlöe Swarbrick: And colonised. And stole the land. And imposed rules.

SIMON COURT: That’s right. They offered all the lessons they had learnt in getting rid of kings and queens—getting rid of kings and queens—and coming up with a system called democracy, which was one person, one vote.

And so despite the concept of “democracy plus”—ACT says that’s “democracy minus”—you should not be appointing people—Madam Chair, the member, the Government, in fact, should not be creating legislation that allows for appointments of people into decision-making bodies that are otherwise made up of elected members, to make decisions about water rights, property rights, who gets to build stuff, and where they get to build it. And what’s particularly concerning, and I have a great deal of respect for the individuals who I’ve met at Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, those people who make decisions about investing in infrastructure, who manage 100,000 hectares of commercial forestry, who have interests in resource exploitation, and they don’t mean—it must be frightening for the Green Party to realise, and for the member who’s sitting here to realise, worried about colonisation still, as if it’s 2022—Chlöe Swarbrick, it’s not 1722. We had the Treaty of Waitangi. We’ve got the Treaty of Waitangi tribunal, a process to deal with breaches of contract. In fact, Ngāi Tahu have expressed, through the latest review of stewardship land in the South Island, that they would like to retain access to conservation land or Government-owned land held in stewardship for the purpose—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! The member’s getting a bit broad.

SIMON COURT: Coming back to the bill.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Grateful for that.

SIMON COURT: So, look, imagine that there are decisions that Environment Canterbury are faced with around who gets access to resources, who gets consents to do stuff like mining or quarrying, and who gets to get consents to build access roads, and if there is a potential conflict of interest between the appointed members of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, which is a massive conglomerate that operates somewhere maybe $700 million, maybe a billion dollars’ worth of property and infrastructure and operations. What I’d like the member to respond to is: what provision is there, what controls are there, on the risk of a perception of conflict of interest? Now, I’m not saying there is a potential conflict of interest but the perception of one. Where there are decisions that come to Environment Canterbury that materially affect the corporate and business interests of Ngāi Tahu, how on earth will this bill, any provision of this bill, address that perceived conflict of interest, and, therefore, decisions made by Environment Canterbury that, essentially, could undermine people’s trust and faith in local government to make decisions about resource allocation? This bill opens up a can of worms.

And we still haven’t heard from the member Mr Willie Jackson who offered to stand up and support you, member Rino Tirikatene, and give his views. We still haven’t heard, and so I’m assuming, sir, they’re leaving you on your own to answer this, but I’d love an answer to that. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break, and the House will resume at 7 p.m.

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

BARBARA EDMONDS (Junior Whip—Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for the patience of my colleagues on this side of the House while I just seek clarification on a few more questions from the member responsible for the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill, Rino Tirikatene.

Earlier in the evening, I think I made a convincing case that there is no justification for the bill, because the objectives that could be met through giving non-elected representatives of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu voting rights on Environment Canterbury could be fulfilled in other ways. But I just want to explore, in terms of Part 2, if the member could give some explanation of what qualifications the people of Canterbury and the staff of Environment Canterbury could expect people appointed to a role on a governing body to have that would make them suitable for the role.

I do know that Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu have a large amount of business and other corporate and community activity, where they have directors with a lot of experience in managing businesses and managing people, as a management role. But I’m wondering what qualifications the member might consider to be appropriate for people who are appointed to Environment Canterbury and what the expectations should be of staff at Environment Canterbury who are expected to provide what in other councils they might have called “democracy services”—in other words, staff who support the elected members, in the same way as we have Parliamentary Service staff supporting the elected members in the House, in Parliament.

So I’m wondering, firstly, what are the qualifications that Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu might consider appropriate for people that they want to appoint to Environment Canterbury, and that’s so that if the member wants people watching the debate tonight or reading about it tomorrow in a broadsheet or, potentially, a tabloid newspaper or even on the internet to understand exactly what they might get if this bill actually passes through subsequent stages and receives the Royal assent—which, at this stage, it’s still not clear whether that will happen. Just like the Rotorua representation bill, of course, which got to a certain point before it disappeared, we can only assume, into what I used to call file 13—the file under my desk. It was a circular-shaped file with an open top made of stainless steel, where things I never wanted to see again went. We called it file 13, or the rubbish bin.

So I’d ask the member to please clarify what are the qualifications for the Ngāi Tahu representatives. Do we expect them to be qualified as directors, do we expect them to have had experience serving in governance roles, and, because there is no current possibility that they could be voted out, in what way will they present their credentials that demonstrate they’re qualified to act in a governance role, having voting rights over the natural resources and the way that people use their land in Canterbury? So I want to understand a bit more about that.

Just thinking about what conditions might occur where Environment Canterbury would want to, say, if a staff member or an elected member might find that the conduct of a representative of Ngāi Tahu—if in a highly unlikely situation that conduct was found to be unsatisfactory, how do you see a process? Would it be a code of conduct process that councils currently operate, or would these appointed members be subject to code of conduct proceedings that have sometimes been used to call to account elected members who have breached the standing orders of their council or who have otherwise behaved in a way that’s considered egregious?

So I’d like the member to describe, firstly, what are the qualifications he expects these appointees to have, and on what basis can they be held to account through a code of conduct. Do you think they’ll be subject to the same rules as other elected councillors? Thank you.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): I thank the member Simon Court for his contribution and questions. I think I’m able to deal with these relatively quickly. Clause 7(3) of the bill requires the appointees to be qualified to be elected, so that’s having all the other basic requirements that are for anyone who stands for public office. They have to be qualified to be elected, but other than that, it’s up to Ngāi Tahu—it’s their rangatiratanga—to be able to run their processes and find the right, suitably qualified individuals who will take on the positions at the council table.

I know that Te Rūnanga has very rigorous internal processes. They do that, whether it’s electing their local papatipu representatives on Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu—and I know that the calibre of the individuals that have been, just looking at the predecessors, are highly qualified in tikanga Māori, in tribal history, tribal connection to the natural environment. Obviously, they are connected to the papatipu within the actual takiwā, within the region of the Canterbury Regional Council, but they also have outstanding professional skills in environmental resource management—highly academically qualified individuals. So, rest assured, the calibre and the quality of the individuals that Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu will put forward will be at the highest level and will be fantastic contributors to the council.

I just want to touch, also, briefly, on the code of conduct. Yes, Ngāi Tahu representatives are the same in terms of having to adhere to the code of conduct of Environment Canterbury. They also have to swear an oath or declaration to the role that they are taking on board. It’s the same as every other councillor. As we know, as members of Parliament, we have to take a solemn oath, and that’s a requirement for all members of Environment Canterbury, including the Ngāi Tahu representatives. Once in that role, they have to act in the best interests of the community. Yes, they come from a certain perspective in terms of the background that they bring and the skills that they will be able to bring to the council table, but that oath is to act in the interests of the council of the community of Canterbury as a whole.

In terms of the term, yes, the term of office parallels the term of elected officials. So, effectively, it runs for the same duration as the elected members.

There is no difference in terms of the expectations as to the behaviour and the quality of the work that they’re expected to do. I know for a fact that past representatives are—there’s obligations on reporting back to Ngāi Tahu in terms of the work that’s going on in their role, so that is probably more onerous than for other councillors in their reporting back to their respective wards that they represent. But they are high-calibre individuals that will enhance the decision making around the council table.

ANNA LORCK (Labour—Tukituki): I move, That the question be now put.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): I’m going to allow some more debate, but we are now beginning to move into the territory of becoming repetitive. We’ve been debating this bill so far for 2½ hours, so I’m now looking for focused, targeted interventions as it seems to me that the Part 2 debate is very much coming to a conclusion. However, Simon Court seeks the call.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you very much for your patience, Madam Chair, and for the patience of those on this side of the Chamber who want to see this bill fully explored. So the member in the chair described candidates who are of a high calibre, who are qualified in environmental disciplines, potentially legal disciplines, history, archaeology, and, of course, tikanga. Based on the personal experiences I’ve had in meeting representatives from Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu in their professional capacity, I would concur that those people would be suitable representatives to act in a governance role on any kind of organisation. In fact, the people that I know have such mana and appear so capable and competent, it strikes me as bizarre that Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, in conjunction with Environment Canterbury, would propose that they need to be appointed on to Environment Canterbury, because those are just the kinds of individuals of whom, were they to stand for election and to talk about the things that are important to their community and what they bring, I have no doubt would stand a very good chance of being elected.

So I just want to bring the member over to clause 13, “Council may establish Māori constituencies”, and just ask for a clarification. If these individuals of such great standing, professional people, competent people with a suitable track record to be in governance roles, then wouldn’t Environment Canterbury actually do more justice to the concept that they have representatives of the iwi’s takiwā—Te Wai Pounamu, the South Island—by actually saying we’re going to set up Māori constituencies, based on the Māori electoral role even? Or even whatever other electoral role they want to devise, whether that’s just Ngāi Tahu members—who knows what they might recommend.

But it seems remarkable that if these individuals—who I know and who I think the member might be describing, of such mana, standing, and competency. Wouldn’t it be far better for their personal credibility, for the credibility and integrity of Environment Canterbury, and, of course, local government as a whole, which has suffered terrible damage to its credibility over the past 18 months or so—particularly as some councils have taken the three waters bribe and others have said, “We’re not going to let out assets go”. Wouldn’t it be better for Ngāi Tahu and Environment Canterbury to say, “Look, how about we propose a Māori constituency and we hold an election where we put up some candidates we think are fine people, and actually give that constituency an opportunity to give them a mandate.”?

Does the member think that that mandate, having been elected, would confer greater mana and respect on those people taking a seat at Environment Canterbury, or is being appointed and having voting rights—does that indicate that they’re in fact more suitable than if they were elected? It’s quite confusing to understand even why these two elements are in the same bill: the opportunity to create a Māori constituency, and, of course, the extended membership rights, or special rights, accorded to those members of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu. So I would like the member to address that discrepancy.

Why is it that these fantastic-sounding individuals couldn’t put themselves up for election and be voted in on their own merits, because it sounds like they’d make fantastic candidates, just the kind of people we’d like to attract to local government. If that’s the case, wouldn’t it be better for everybody in the long run if they sought a democratic mandate, if Environment Canterbury dropped this proposal to appoint members with voting rights and went down the road of actually doing the hard work and establishing a Māori constituency? Thank you.

ANNA LORCK (Labour—Tukituki): I move, That the question be now put.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the motion be agreed to.

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.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Simon Court’s amendment to clause 6 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 176 is out of order as inconsistent with the principles and objectives of the bill.

The question is that Simon Court’s amendment to clause 7 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 176 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 10

ACT New Zealand 10.

Noes 109

New Zealand Labour 65; New Zealand National 32; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that Simon Court’s amendment inserting new clause 9A set out on Supplementary Order Paper 177 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 10

ACT New Zealand 10.

Noes 109

New Zealand Labour 65; New Zealand National 32; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the Hon Gerry Brownlee’s tabled amendment to clause 13 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

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.

Amendment not agreed to.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Where’s that voice coming from?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): I know that was a point of—well, it wasn’t a point of anything. Teanau Tuiono is voting remotely.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 2 be agreed to.

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.

Part 2 agreed to.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Why’s he not on the screen?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Voting will be conducted in silence.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Schedule 1 be agreed to.

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.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Clauses 1 and 2

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, we come now to our final debate: clauses 1 and 2, the title and commencement. The question is that clauses 1 and 2 stand part.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 1 be agreed to.

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

Clause 1 agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 2 be agreed to.

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

Clause 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Mr Speaker, the committee has considered the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

Bills

Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Amendment Bill

Second Reading

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I move, That the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

I rise as the sponsor for this local bill, which is being promoted by the Palmerston North City Council. It is a local bill that has been returned to the House from the Environment Committee, and I intend to talk a little bit more about that in a moment. But specifically, this piece of land is colloquially known as the Huia Street Reserve land, and it sits in central Palmerston North on the corner of Fitzherbert Avenue and Park Road. Actually, Fitzherbert Avenue gained a reference in the House yesterday as Minister Nash confirmed that 600 metres of it had been extended in light of the Provincial Growth Fund. So that’s where this particular piece of land does sit.

There are a number of Acts of Parliament that historically and currently manage the status of that particular land. I do want to just briefly touch on those, and the reason for that will become apparent in a moment. Firstly, in terms of its genesis, the Wellington Reserves Act of 1876 is the first piece of legislation that officials were able to identify that relates to this land. An amendment Act to that piece of legislation followed in 1877. The third is a piece of legislation called the Palmerston North Reserves Act of 1922, a 100-year-old piece of legislation. In 1966, there was the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Act, and, of course, the Reserves Act of 1977. All of those pieces of legislation, at some point in time, have been relevant to the Huia Street Reserve land.

The 1922 piece specifically identifies that this piece of land cannot be sold. The effect of the Act is that the council could build on the land, it could lease the land, but it simply could not sell the land. But it could, however, be sold under the 1966 Act, which is the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Act 1966, if it is specifically amended to include or add the Huia Street Reserve parcel into that Act by mentioning it or listing it in the schedule to enable potential sale. That’s, essentially, what this piece of proposed legislation does. It moves the management of that land clearly into the 1966 Act sole, rather than it being subject to a, I guess, conglomeration of other Acts in terms of its management.

I refer the House to those pieces of legislation because the select committee spent some time being very diligent, going through and identifying the specific pieces of legislation that apply at particular points in time. What it means is that sale of the land could be permissible under section 4A of the 1966 Act, and the select committee in its report notes that section 8 of that Act does require, however, that any proceeds of any sale are utilised for or towards public recreational reserves.

In my first reading contribution—actually, many heard about connections to Palmerston North; a fantastic electorate and fantastic city. I’m sure that those who will follow in contributions this evening may want to add to their recollections, perhaps. That was something that was factored into the select committee process. The select committee did receive 29 submissions, including that of the city council. I want to thank and acknowledge members of the Environment Committee. I was a member of that committee until last month, and I was able to participate in most aspects in terms of the passage and consideration of this bill. Can I also acknowledge the committee staff; the advisers, particularly from the Department of Conservation; and also the Parliamentary Counsel Office. There were many issues that they were able to provide advice on and work through. So that is appreciated.

I also want to acknowledge the Palmerston North City Council: Mr David Murphy, who has been an assistance through this process, and also Mr Nicholas Jessen, who was the legal adviser who was able to provide specific advice as part of this process, which was very, very helpful indeed. The committee was keen to undertake a site visit, which any local member will fully support. However, circumstances changed and the council was able to provide the committee with some detailed drone footage, some commentary that, I’m sure, select committee members may wish to comment on as well.

I want to acknowledge that there were some submitters who submitted in opposition to the proposed bill. The majority of their concerns were around the potential future of green space in Palmerston North. I guess, when we look at what’s on the record and what the select committee had in front of it, this piece of land is next to a tennis club, which is on a lease arrangement at the moment. If we look at the surrounds, we have the Manawaroa Park, which is used for cricket and also for the Manawatu Striders. We have Ongley Park, which is nearby—cricket and rugby are there. Wallace Park: football; my regular permit pop-up constituency clinic. I know that that happens on a Saturday because of the number of balls that hit the roof as part of that process. I know that it is a green space that is particularly well utilised and is near this area. Fitzherbert Park is nearby as well. Madam Speaker, you’re familiar with the place yourself. I could go on with the list, but the point there is that there are many green spaces that are in extremely close proximity to this Huia Street Reserve. So the select committee notes in its report that there are a number of other options available to the community.

This is a local issue, and I think if you were to talk to anyone on the streets of Palmerston North, if you were to talk about the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Amendment Bill, they may not know what that is, but if you talk about the future of the Huia Street Reserve land, they will know what it is. Some submitters raised concerns about the suitability of that site being developed. That is actually a matter for the council. In the select committee’s report, they indicate that—that the council, if they wish to pursue this further down the track, that there is still a process—or processes, actually—that the Palmerston North City Council will need to undertake to ensure that any changes are in accordance with the city’s district plan, that there are obligations as well. Palmerston North, for those who don’t know, is a tier 2 council. So within the last 12 months where this House has considered Resource Management Act enabling housing supply issues, obviously there are options available to the council.

So there are a number of concerns that were raised of that particular ilk. However, the select committee—in my view, rightly so—has indicated that those are not relevant considerations in terms of the determination that the select committee has reached, in terms of whether this bill should be passed or whether it should be amended, noting that the select committee are suggesting that no amendments take place, but also that the bill will be passed in its current form.

Many of the submitters that, effectively, were in favour of what the council is seeking to do talked about the fact that this piece of land has remained vacant for some 16 or 17 years, that, you know, there are surrounding recreational assets nearby, and that housing is an issue in any community and certainly in Palmerston North. I will say, and I commend the council on taking steps to address that in terms of rezoning parts of the city—Whakarongo, for example; Tamakuku Terrace; Papaioea Place—and, for the first time in 20 years, Kāinga Ora are starting to build houses in Palmerston North. So there is an opportunity there that the council will, no doubt, need to take on board.

One of the things that I did want to touch on, as I draw towards the end of my contribution, is that this is a bill that came in a similar fashion or form to the Parliament 15 years ago, and it was withdrawn by the member, the Hon Steve Maharey, because the select committee in its report were concerned that there were a number of process matters that gave rise to some suggestion that there was no community support, that the council perhaps had not followed a particular process and there had been a lack of engagement with local iwi. The committee in its report has covered off all of those aspects. It has talked about the fact that the council have been engaging with Rangitāne, and I see my colleague Mr McKelvie, whose electorate falls within some of the Palmerston North City Council boundary as well. I am sure that he would join me in suggesting that Rangitāne are very much aware that this proposal is on the table and that they have not submitted an opposition, nor have they expressed any huge opposition in terms of what the council is proposing around that.

In my first reading contribution, I indicated that my tentative position was that due process had been followed. The select committee has concluded its deliberations. It’s concluded its assessment of this local bill, and they have also confirmed that that is their view. So I think the appropriate way forward is for the House to give this bill the green light, to give the Palmerston North City Council the opportunity to make democratic local decisions, which is in their domain. And on that basis, I commend the bill to the House.

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

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the National Party and as the member of Parliament for Coromandel to support this second reading piece of legislation. The member for Rangitīkei wants to know where the Coromandel is. Well, maybe he should come and visit some time; he’d be delighted at the warm welcome that he would receive, and his eyes would be opened to the beauties of the Coromandel.

Just coming back to this bill, this legislation is, as the sponsor of the bill, the MP for Palmerston North, Tangi Utikere, has very fulsomely explained in his second reading speech, what’s known as a local bill—relatively rare in the processes of our Parliament, but quite an important tool for local government to sometimes address issues that are significant in terms of their inability to move things forward, or to make changes that have occurred over time and that are in need of change, largely due, in this case, to an historic legacy legislative environment that has precluded the Palmerston North council from actually moving forward on this piece of land—about 1.6 hectares of land—currently serving as a recreation reserve and known as the Huia Street Reserve.

So Tangi Utikere went through the history of it, but the situation is, essentially, that legislation dating back as far as 1876 is precluding the current council from administering this land in a way that is suitable for today’s modern needs, and from them exercising their prerogative as the locally democratically elected council. So this piece of legislation—this local bill—will change that. The sponsor of the bill, Tangi Utikere, made it clear that, in his view, as a result of the very fulsome select committee process, he was now satisfied that due process had been followed in terms of the passage of this piece of legislation through the House. I want to confirm and acknowledge that from this side of the House.

We too were impressed very much by the detailed work that the council prepared and submitted to select committee members and, notwithstanding the fact that we weren’t able to take up the generous offer to visit Palmerston North on this occasion—

Angie Warren-Clark: Why was that?

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: We were—well, it’s cold, and windy sometimes, so, actually, we took advantage of some of the very good modern technology that is available to us. We were able to reduce our carbon footprints by not attending in person, but to take advantage of an incredibly good piece of drone footage provided by the council that gave us literally a bird’s eye view, a land eye’s view, a ground eye’s view, a this way up view, a roundabout view, a complete view of the entire piece of land, of the surrounding properties, of the buildings and the trees and the pasture that was on it, the grass that was on it, the vacated bowling club buildings, and the neighbouring school, and all that sort of stuff. In fact, in many respects, I think the ability for select committee members to go and look at that drone footage, not once but multiple times if they wish, was actually in some ways almost better than being in the very fine city of Palmerston North.

So we were impressed, I think, as an Opposition, that the council had done a lot of work, and they’d clearly, I think, learnt from the mistakes that may have been made some years prior. I think the indication was that the Hon Steve Maharey had introduced legislation, or sponsored similar legislation some 15 years ago, that didn’t cross the threshold in terms of satisfaction, in terms of the select committee’s mind back then, that due process had been followed. On this occasion, I think we’re satisfied that it has been, and we are, as I say, supportive. I was particularly compelled by the submission of council. There were 29 submissions, some from local citizens and community groups who were concerned about what might happen to the land and what plans the council had. This piece of legislation actually doesn’t focus on, and is not intended to provide, a solution as to what will happen with the land. This piece of legislation simply allows the council to move forward into a position where a decision about the end purpose or use of that land can be made by council in due course. So this is a piece of legislation that is, effectively, freeing up a legacy historic legislative rule that has prevented them from doing so.

I noted, in particular, that the actual site has been, effectively, vacant since 2005 and that it’s not required by council to meet any of its recreational or reserve needs, and that the council, on the other hand, has some very significant and pressing demands in terms of providing space for residential building and development. Now, the council hasn’t yet come to any conclusion or decision about what kind of development may occur on the site, but, I think, if people are listening to this debate, and if those people who had had the opportunity to hear from submitters and also the council submission, they would have a reasonably clear indication about what might be council’s purposes and ideas for that site in the upcoming years. So the council, we were pleased to see, has actually completed all the required consultation under the Local Government Act of 2002, and they have come to this House via the local member to seek this bill’s passage.

There were a number of, I think, useful matters that the council raised and provided the select committee with a rationale for why this bill should be passed, not the least of which was that changing the potential that they have gives the council an opportunity to, at least, consider provision of this land for housing. It presents an opportunity for the current council to show leadership by supporting potentially medium housing density development that would support the change in the traditional housing typologies that have been delivered by the current marketplace. The land itself—the 1.6 hectares—is located in a very good location for potential medium-density housing development. It’s close to high amenity areas, services, and, indeed, to the central city. There are, of course—we were assured and shown—very significant public spaces available within close proximity to the Huia Street Reserve, and they will be maintained. So the proposal has the potential to provide the council with an alternative revenue source, which is something councils are always interested in. But the proposal, if this piece of legislation proceeds through the House, as I suspect it will, does not commit the council to immediately selling or developing the land.

In concluding my contribution on the second reading debate, I would also like to join with the member for Palmerston North in thanking the submitters, thanking the council, thanking officials and advisers to the select committee, to the select committee’s secretariat, and to my colleagues on the Environment Committee, who, I think, paid very careful and diligent attention to the provisions of this bill. We wanted to assure ourselves that it was the right thing to do, and it was the right thing to do for the current democratically elected council to make decisions and enable them to do so. So, on that basis, I’m happy to confirm that on this side of the House we support the second reading and will continue to support it through to conclusion.

ANAHILA KANONGATA‘A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to stand to make a contribution to the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Amendment Bill, which is a local bill and promoted by the Palmerston North City Council. Of course, I’d like to acknowledge the sponsor of this bill, the MP for Palmerston North, Tangi Utikere.

In my journey in this bill, I found out that Palmerston North has actually got a beautiful Māori name, referred to as Papaioea—Papai-oea; look how beautiful it is—which refers to the Manawatū.

Hon Member: Oh, so true.

ANAHILA KANONGATA‘A-SUISUIKI: Oh so true, yeah. So I just want to acknowledge the member for sponsoring this very important bill to Palmerston North.

Also want to acknowledge the chair—the leadership of our chair, the Hon Eugenie Sage; I’ve always had to tip my hat to her in the way that she conducts herself in our committee—and, of course, the members of our select committee. I want to acknowledge the member that has just stood down in terms of their support of this bill, the Hon Scott Simpson. I want to thank the submitters: the 29 individuals and organisations who made a submission to the bill, and it gave us an insight into what locals are thinking in Palmerston North about this bill.

So, as we’ve heard from the member—what is this bill all about? So the Palmerston North City Council currently holds certain land under the Palmerston North Reserves Act 1922. That’s 100 years, so this Act is 100 years old. Land that’s held under that Act cannot be sold.

So the council are the promoter—the Palmerston North council wishes to be able to sell the land for development if it becomes surplus to council’s requirements. As we’ve heard from both our two speakers, it’s been vacant for about 15 years. So this bill, as we are talking on the second reading, it is the mechanism for this by amending the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Act 1966—gives the mechanism for the council to be able to do that.

The bill would amend the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Act 1966 to enable the Palmerston North City Council to sell 1.6 hectares of land that currently serves as a recreation reserve, which I can see from the Manawatū Standard that it used to be the former bowling club. I’m not a local—a former bowling club that I’ve noticed here.

I know that there were attempts for us to visit personally Palmerston North to view the area, but through technology we were able to do that on our screens.

The last time that I was in Palmerston North, it will always be memorable for me. I was in Levin; my daughter is allergic to peanuts. The member for Ōtaki keeps going on and on how there is no emergency hospital in Ōtaki—in Levin—but I wasn’t really listening. So my daughter ate peanuts in Levin, so I needed to get to a doctor immediately. I rang the ambulance and they said, “You either have to drive to Palmerston North or wait there and we’ll send the ambulance.” So, of course, I drove to Palmerston North. So that’s why Palmerston North will always linger in my heart: they did a really good job and saved my daughter on that night.

Locals know this reserve as the Huia Street Reserve—located at the corner of Fitzherbert Ave and Park Road in Palmerston North. The submitters that we heard from: the submitters that opposed the bill were concerned about preserving green spaces for the future generations—as I’ve said before, that Act is 100 years old—the suitability of Huia Street as compared to other options in the city, so that they did say that there are other options in the city.

Those submissions that submitted in support of the bill—in favour of the bill—noted a pressing need for more housing in the area, in Palmerston North. They told us that the Huia Street Reserve has had limited recreation use for some years—and, as we’ve heard, over 15 years. They told us that there were other reserves close by that the council could use for recreational activities that it has.

We heard from the promoter, which is, as we’ve heard, from the Palmerston North City Council, that it has engaged closely with Rangitāne o Manawatū, which is its tangata whenua partner, about the bill’s progress. Furthermore, the Palmerston North City Council—and I quote what they have reported to us as a select committee—that “Rangitāne o Manawatū are satisfied with the process, which they have full knowledge of in terms of this process.” So we also heard from the sponsor, Tangi Utikere, and, of course, as I said, the promoter. Just want to remind that the promoter is the Palmerston North City Council.

So I just want to remind the House what the bill does and why we support it. In November 2020, the Palmerston North City Council approved a preferred option for future use of huia reserve to enable the development of Huia Street Reserve for housing, including the potential for a mixed housing development supporting recreational and small commercial activity.

From the report from the library, they did show us an artist’s impression of what it could look like in terms of medium-density homes. [Holds up piece of paper] I don’t know whether people at home can see it, but it’s beautiful. It will have a mix—medium-density homes with a lot of warm housing.

So the council have directed the chief executive to engage with the relevant Government agencies, and, of course, the office of the Palmerston North member of Parliament, which is Tangi Utikere, to initiate the amendments to the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Act 1966. Today, we are at its second reading.

So this is the first step that potentially allowed development for land for housing. The reason why I go into this depth: because as a select committee, we learnt a lot about this local bill and we’ve learnt a lot on how diligent the promoter, the Palmerston North City Council, is in engaging locals in a conversation on what to do with this land.

We heard that there are a variety of housing development scenarios proposed, including options of multi-unit, detached apartment-style housing. The decision to initiate this followed a formal council consultation process, and the community is broadly supportive of the development.

Palmerston North locals also had the opportunity to submit their views, which we’ve all heard so far. The sponsor of the bill, Tangi Utikere, referred to 2007 in terms—this is not new; the member Steve Maharey, who spoke in the Palmerston North local bill. I think it’s important that we hear the voices of the locals and that’s what I’ve learnt from this bill. But I’d like to refer back to Steve Maharey and what he stated in this House in 2007—which is 15 years ago: “It is parliamentary convention that local MPs sponsor bills of this nature through the House. It provides a mechanism whereby people can make sure that legislation is passed from a local point of view. In this case, it is Palmerston North City Council that wants this legislation to be passed, and it is my duty to ensure that it is advanced so it can be discussed.” That was the member Steve Maharey.

I want to congratulate the member—the current member, Tangi Utikere—and one day I will take up the option of visiting or look at how beautiful this place, Palmerston North, is, without being a choice of an ill child but actually a choice because I want to. So I look forward to visiting this. I look forward to the third reading of this bill, and I look forward to seeing what the Huia Street Reserve will look like in Palmerston North.

I also learnt a little something about Palmerston North. There’s conversations about naming of the Square—of the Square in Palmerston North. Perhaps that’s for a later time. Te Marae o Hine. Isn’t that a beautiful name? Daughter of Peace. Yeah, so I have been studying up—the member of Palmerston North often accuses me of not being well informed about Palmerston North, but this was an opportunity to do so.

I want to thank all the 29 submitters that submitted on this bill, and I again congratulate you, Tangi Utikere, for being the second MP from Palmerston North to bring this to Parliament. In that, I’d like to commend the local bill the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Amendment Bill to the House. Mālō.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): I always enjoy listening to the last speaker. She always makes a—I was going to say, “a boring subject very interesting”, but I can’t say this is a boring subject! I’ll get into a lot of trouble with the member for Palmerston North! And, just in reply to Scott Simpson, I’m very pleased that the last speaker, Anahila Kanongata‘a-Suisuiki, did point out to him that Palmerston North is a beautiful place. It beats the Coromandel any day! But a lot of what’s been said about this bill—

Nicola Willis: You’re not allowed to lie in Parliament, Ian!

IAN McKELVIE: —shh!—I don’t need to repeat, but there’s some very interesting stuff in respect of this bill. Of course, this bill was brought to Parliament, as Tangi Utikere said, some years ago. At that time, of course, the Palmerston North City was in nowhere near as good hands as it is now—having been the deputy mayor, previous to coming to Parliament, having been a very important part of that council’s structure. He did point out the very good submissions that he made on behalf of this bill when they introduced it, and I think they did too. And I think, when you get a person or an organisation wanting to promote a member’s bill or a local bill or whatever it is and it’s done very well, it makes it much easier for the select committee to find its way and navigate its way through that. I am sorry that they had to go to Palmerston North by Zoom, because I go there two or three times a week.

In response to Tangi Utikere’s clinics that he runs, or whatever he calls them, I run one at Ongley Park pretty near every Saturday, because by the time you get to Ongley Park and watch your grandchildren playing various forms of sport, you do your 10,000 steps no problem before you get out of there, and you talk to thousands of people. So it is a great location, but the point I’m making is that Ongley Park, the Esplanade, and a number of other parks are absolutely adjacent to the site. And one of the reasons that this is certainly not required as a recreational site in Palmerston North is because there’s such an opportunity, within that very vicinity, actually, for recreational use. There’s the river, of course, which has probably at least 20 kilometres of tracks and trails that you can walk or bike, even ride a horse on. So Palmerston North is blessed with a whole lot of opportunity for recreation that many cities don’t have. Many cities don’t have the same advantage, actually, and so they’re very fortunate in that respect. So I think, when bringing this bill to the Parliament, both the promoter of it and the city council would be very confident that whatever they were doing with this land in the future will not impact in any way on the recreational opportunities that Palmerston North has.

I think, if I remember rightly, the Huia reserve probably was—it was a bowling club. The Manawatū Bowling Club occupied it, and a tennis club as well, but when it was first, I think, taken out of the bowling club’s hands and put into the council’s full time—because they leased it originally—it was actually taken partly to be used as an expanded intersection, and so it increased the size of the intersection on the corner that it occupies. That was a very necessary development for Palmerston North. I think an earlier speaker mentioned the fact that this goes right back to an 1876 Act of Parliament that controlled this park. And, of course, Palmerston North, by comparative standards, is a relatively newly settled city in New Zealand, because I think it really was, prior to 1870, pretty much bush. So, when you look at the history of the Manawatū-Whanganui area and you think that Whanganui was really almost the capital of New Zealand at one stage—it was certainly the dominant city in my part of New Zealand. The Rangitīkei, of course, almost borders Whanganui and surrounds Palmerston North. All the business was done in Whanganui in those early days, and it took a long time for Palmerston North to get the upper hand. And, of course, it caused quite a lot of envy, a little bit like Napier and Hastings, you could say. It caused a lot of envy between the two cities, as progress was slowly made by Palmerston North.

It wasn’t until Massey University was located at Palmerston North that it finally tipped the balance, actually, in favour of Palmerston North. Whanganui took a long time to recover from that, and I don’t think the member for Whanganui is in here—or the members from Whanganui; neither of them are here today.

Barbara Kuriger: She is speaking later.

IAN McKELVIE: Oh, she’s coming in later. They might both come in. I know I’m not allowed to speak about whether they’re here or not, but it’s very important that they don’t criticise me for criticising Whanganui, because I’m not. But I do think it’s a bit important to understand the history of these things.

The other thing that’s absolutely relevant about this, because the Huia reserve is what we’re talking about—and there’s what I think is a very attractive Paul Dibble sculpture in Palmerston North, and it’s a huia, right in the centre of the Square in Palmerston North, a pretty amazing piece.

Rachel Boyack: Oh there is!

IAN McKELVIE: Exactly, Rachel! It’s an amazing piece of sculpture, and there’s some beautiful sculptures in Palmerston North as well as that.

But anyway, I think that the issue with Palmerston North—and, as I said earlier, the reason that this decision was probably comparatively easy for the select committee to make, and I certainly was only part of that select committee for one or two of their discussions on it, but it would have been interesting to have been there for the whole time. But the reason it would be easy to make is that Palmerston North is an extraordinarily well laid out city—or in the earlier days it was. Some of its planning in the 1970s mightn’t have been so good, but it’s come right again now. And, of course, right at its centre it’s got a 7 hectare square, which is a huge asset to the city. And, as I said a minute or two ago, that’s where the Paul Dibble huia is. There is also a number of other statues around that square, and I think it’s a very attractive part of the city.

The other question that came up in my time on the select committee, the short time I spent on it, was the relationship between Rangitāne and Raukawa, and the question as to whether Raukawa should have been the dominant force in Palmerston North. Certainly that would not go down well with Rangitāne, and that was resolved to the select committee’s satisfaction in the end, because certainly Rangitāne are a very integral part of everything that happens in Palmerston North and contribute a whole lot to what goes on there. And, of course, Pipi Te Awe Awe is also one of those statues that’s in the Square in Palmerston North, and his relations are still very much active in both local government and the community in Palmerston North even today. Some of them are quite characters.

So I think that these things are frustrating for councils because legislation, throughout our history, has been put in place to deal with things that probably, now, you would never put legislation in place to deal with and you’d let the local communities get on with their own governance. But we often find this, and we certainly find it in the racing industry as well, where racecourses—Awapuni is not one of them, actually, but Foxton is. Some racecourses are really tied up in legislative stuff that is extremely expensive to get out of, and difficult for local communities to then manage their assets, because they’re controlled by Acts of Parliament. This reserve is one of those. In fact, I think it was controlled by three Acts of Parliament in varying forms, at varying stages of its career. So it is necessary to put these bills through Parliament, but they’re also difficult to get through Parliament. I remember some years ago as a Mayor of Manawatū trying to shepherd the Manfeild Park bill through Parliament, because it involved a racecourse which needed to be taken out of whatever the Act was in 1907, and the showgrounds, which the A&P Act is also about, an 1892 Act or something like that, which controls a whole lot of agricultural and pastoral showgrounds around New Zealand.

So there’s a whole lot of things that would be much better if we’d never done them, but at the time they were absolutely appropriate that we did them. So now we’ve got to go through, I guess, the task of unwinding them, and this bill is a classic example of where we have gone through the pathway of unwinding a whole lot of intricate pieces of legislation, actually. So I think, for Palmerston North, this is a good result. I think, for the people of Palmerston North, it will in the long term prove to be a very good result, and I think those people who submitted in opposition to it will eventually be satisfied that the Parliament has made the right decision, assuming this bill gets through, and I’m sure it will. But they’ll be satisfied the Parliament has made the right decision. I think this is a good piece of work by Tangi Utikere and the Palmerston North City Council, and I think it deserves to go through the full course and make its way through Parliament, and probably, from Palmerston North’s situation, the sooner the better. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE (Labour): Mānawatia a Matariki. This bill, which the Environment Committee—the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Amendment Bill. I rise to support this local bill that is before the House, which member Tangi Utikere has sponsored, as promoted by the Palmerston North City Council, specifically to allow for the amendment of the legislation specific to this piece of land, with the ability to be able to provide the option which may result in selling the piece of land. And that is where it is up to.

As you’ve heard from my colleagues before me, currently there are a number of Acts of Parliament—namely, the Wellington Reserves Act 1876 Amendment Act 1877, the Palmerston North Reserves Act 1922, and the Reserves Act 1977—which hold this piece of land in Palmerston North, held in trust. And whilst these Acts had good intentions, it is still unable to rectify the current situation, and hence why member Utikere has brought it to the House.

It requires an amendment to that Act, and, as a territorial local authority, the Palmerston North City Council has considered the decision in 2020, with a preferred option to enable a possible future development; or, if it is supported, this piece of land could be sold for the development in that consideration. As we understand, the land spans 1.6 hectares and is overgrown, and, actually, in the last number of years—probably 15, 16 years—nothing has really happened to the reserve. So the amendment bill, when passed, provides the tool and corrective action as promoted by the Palmerston North City Council. We’ve heard from member Utikere that to move this forward, they would be required to have a sale of a recreational reserve known as the Huia Street Reserve, which currently is described as surplus to council requirements.

The Palmerston North City Council, under its current vision, requires a mandate to be able to consider what their options are to provide necessary plan requirements for land-use outcomes. Those outcomes could be land for housing, land for infrastructure, proper town planning, and built environment under the required legal processes. This could also include effective transport routes using district plan processes to achieve its overall outcomes. But it has to find that balance, and it has to ease the city’s planning for the local housing stock. And for that, it must have the legal mechanism in order to effect this.

The location of the Huia Street Reserve is a real prime piece of land, and, in its current form, a number of locals have opposed and utilised the processes. Under this select committee, for which I was not at the time there, the Palmerston North City Council continues to make informed decisions. But in order to do that legally, it does require this bill to be passed. So what’s important is that Palmerston North City Council strives to achieve the outcomes for the Palmerston North community in the balance of this housing shortage and future growth, which is located amongst its wider infrastructure plan. We have heard that there are those who oppose this arrangement to move forward, and then there are those who support this move, as we have seen in media articles in February of this year. The land is situated in a prime location. We’ve also heard that some residents have access to other nearby green spaces in walking distance, which is surrounding the current piece of land in question.

This bill will allow the right process to be followed and is a transformative step to tidying up the various pieces of legislation. It also allows the correct process and for Palmerston North City Council to follow the consultation process, to hear the wider views of local residents. It will be the progressive first step to allow the council to move forward in whatever its decision is around housing development. Currently, there is no power of sale in the Palmerston North Reserves Act 1922, and, at present, we’ve heard Palmerston North City Council is promoting this local bill to amend the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Act 1966.

“Empowering” is the key word. Over time, the population in Aotearoa has really grown, and the Labour Government is committed to ensuring it empowers local authorities to be able to have those mechanisms. For this particular reserve, there’s significant public space within the vicinity of Huia Street Reserve, with surrounding reserves to support that space accessible to locals. We know that local government plays an important role in our democratic system, giving people a voice in the leadership of their local communities and in the governance of services in publicly owned assets. Local councils are essential to maintaining and improving our wellbeing, and we need the right settings for them to do this. The Labour Government prioritises local democracy and local governance to evolve to fit for the future. In Aotearoa, it’s growing with some significant challenges being presented to us right now, like COVID-19, future population growth, and climate change.

In conclusion, I would just like to thank the Environment Committee, which I have joined recently, but I also want to thank the officers for all of their work within the select committee in helping bring the work together. This process will allow consultation to enable community views to be expressed and to be heard. Labour supports this bill, and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): E Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. The Green Party is supporting the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Amendment Bill. We’re supporting it because it does implement the principles of appropriate decision-making by allowing the council to make a decision about the future ownership and management of the reserve and, as others, including the bill’s promoter, Tangi Utikere, have explained, because the legislation at the moment, the 1922 Act, doesn’t allow the land to be sold, but bringing it under the 1966 Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Act would allow the council to sell the land, provided it does so pursuant to a resolution, it provides public notice of the time and place of the meeting at which that resolution is to be submitted to the council, and it gives 14 days’ notice.

So that is appropriate decision-making, but I have been conscious that a number of members of the House are supporting the use of reserves for housing. And I think we do need to be careful here, because we’re here in 2022. Think out 200 years into the future: the population of Aotearoa New Zealand will have continued to increase significantly. We need green space in our urban centres to provide for the mental health and wellbeing of people through the recreation that Ian McKelvie discussed—taking grandchildren and watching them at sport. We need these green spaces to cope with a change in climate, to reduce the urban heat island effect, and to help with ensuring that stormwater, which is discharged into the Manawatū River, potentially can go through a rain garden.

So it is quite short-sighted to just see public reserves as a convenient way of providing much-needed housing when the other option is, of course, to encourage medium- and high-density housing on the bulk of private land which exists in the city. Certainly, this site at the Huia Street Reserve, the 1.6 hectares, is very close to the city centre. Palmerston North Girls’ High School is located to the south of the reserve. It’s close to main traffic routes. So it may well be suitable for housing, but I was disappointed to see that one of the reasons the Palmerston North City Council is promoting this bill was because—as the Mayor, Grant Smith, said in his submission—“The proposal has the potential to provide the council with an alternative revenue source.” Councils should not be about selling off public space reserve land in order to generate revenue. This space, once gone, is not generally retrieved. It has a multitude of uses, so I hope the Palmerston North City Council does consult widely and is careful in its decision making about whether to sell the reserve, or it adopts a proposal—as other councils have done—and works to provide a different form of housing typology on the land in a joint venture with a private developer, community housing trust, or others so that the land ownership remains with the council and remains in public ownership to preserve the options for the future.

So we’re supporting it because it does allow the council to make that decision. The select committee, in terms of the scope of the bill—the bill itself is not about those decisions about the future use of the land. I hope that the council also works closely with Palmerston North Girls’ High School and their board because, although the board did not appear before the select committee, they have raised some concerns about increased density of housing on this site—because of the traffic movements where you’ve got 1,200 students and 140 staff going in and out of the site, and there’s quite a narrow access way. So however the site is determined to be used by the council in the future, it’s got to take into account the needs of others in the community—particularly the girls’ high school—and ensure that it’s not just being used as a revenue-raising venture in order to reduce the demand on rates. But the Green Party is supporting the bill. Thank you.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise and take a call on the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Amendment Bill, the second reading. It’s one of those interesting pieces of legislation, isn’t it? It’s a local bill, which is different from a private bill and different from a member’s bill.

I’d just like to acknowledge the member and thank the member Tangi Utikere for his sponsorship of this local bill, as the Labour elected MP for the community. Of note, we all know, and I think we’ve heard it in the House here tonight, that he has done previous service on the Palmerston North City Council as the deputy mayor as well. So there’s a nice synergy of him now as the member for the city bringing this bill to the House.

I also want to note that the Palmerston North City Council are the promoter. As I think other members have said, this, essentially, means that the bill has been progressed or asked to be passed on to the member in particular. However, there is no doubt that the member is very aware of the issues for this community and he is sponsoring the bill on the basis that that is his job as the local member, and the bill, therefore, is not in his name. Now, having said all of that, I know that the member is delighted to be doing this, I just wanted to make that reference as well.

I want to acknowledge the member the Hon Eugenie Sage, our chairperson, who is a really diligent chairperson, and we did progress, across the membership of the select committee, lots of detail about this bill. We had 29 submissions and we heard from eight of those, including from the sponsor himself and also from the promoter. So the bill came to the select committee on 8 December 2021 and submissions closed on 18 February. As I said, we heard eight oral submissions, and I think it’s really important, over that period of time, that I want to recognise and acknowledge the officials from the Department of Conservation (DOC), who supported us, and the Parliamentary Service and the Parliamentary Counsel Office as well.

Really useful, helpful submissions were given to us, and DOC wrote a particularly useful briefing for us on the bill. I want to just acknowledge one of the things—because it’s now been tabled in the House—for listeners out there, no doubt everyone is listening from home, from Palmerston North. There’s a really useful appendix—appendix II—that talks specifically about the types of legislation that this particular piece of land refers to. And there are nine pieces of legislation over the years from, as we have heard, 1876 onwards that refer to this little piece of land that we are considering here today. I think it’s really important to have a bit of a look at that, because that gives us some really tremendous history around some of the land in our country. Of course, this land became very simple land in 1876, but before that it also had a history, and I’d just like to acknowledge that.

So the former Palmerston North Reserves Act 1922 gave the initial protection to this land as a reserve so it could not be sold. This Act was superseded by the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Act in 1966, which became the principal Act. This empowering amendment bill supports the aim of the Palmerston North City Council to be able to sell the land if it becomes surplus to their requirement. And I think the member the Hon Eugenie Sage made good point and good reference to the fact that this is a piece of land that is able to be sold, but we here in the Environment Committee, the select committee members, we did not look into the decision as to whether that was right or wrong. We looked specifically at the process of moving that piece of land. There is a due process that needs to be followed in the city council process.

So the particular area of land, as we have heard, is known as the Huia Street Reserve and it’s located at the corner of Fitzherbert Avenue and Park Road in Palmerston North. To my shame, the last time I was in Palmerston North, the “Fitzy Tavern” was still open. I think that was back in my student union days, so it’s been quite some time. However, I was quite delighted—quite delighted—with the drone technology that we had to see what this particular site looked like. I thought, “That’s a place I might want to visit sometime soon.” So the member Tangi Utikere has graciously invited us, at any point, to come to his fair city. And I think I will be taking that up. And I’m sure I will not be visiting the “Fitzy” because I think they closed many, many years ago.

During our deliberations, we did struggle a bit to understand exactly where the reserve sat. And, in fact, even some of the submissions from some of the local people were quite confused about where that piece of land was. So it was very helpful to have the drones—it gave us the boundaries, it gave us what the trees were and, in fact, whether they were indigenous trees or introduced trees, what the amenities were, what their location looked like—really useful. A little bit disappointed we didn’t visit in person, but certainly we did save a few thousand kilometres of petrol and travel, etc.

Of the submissions received, no one spoke to the content of the bill. Unsurprisingly, that is because it has six clauses and the two substantial clauses are clause 4(a) and clause 4(b). Now, with your indulgence, Madam Speaker, I’ll just read what they say. So clause 4(a) is: “vest in the Palmerston North City Council the land described in the Schedule; and (b) enable the Council to sell that land if the land becomes surplus to the Council’s requirements.” And then the Schedule gives the legal description. That’s it. That is the entirety of this bill, and that is why I raise it in the House, because the bill is so simple but there is so much behind it. I think it’s important to raise that.

I also want to acknowledge that under the 1966 Act, section 8 requires that when any land is sold under the Act, the full proceeds must be used to acquire development land for public recreation reserves. So if the council decides to sell in the future, they have to use the proceeds for other pieces of recreational property. And I think that that too is a very useful thing. We don’t as a select committee express a view as to the merits of the sale or the development. I think it’s been clear in this House tonight that we—some of us—sit in different positions, and that sale or otherwise is a decision that is going to be made appropriately by the Palmerston North City councillors, and those councillors will be politically accountable to the voters of Palmerston North City. Our job here, quite simply, is whether, in fact, the processes have been followed appropriately for us to ensure that this piece of land can be moved out of that reserve.

So with that, I think it’s an interesting piece of legislation. It is an entry of good intent and I appreciate having worked on it. I commend this bill to the House.

SIMON COURT (ACT): I can promise you, I won’t read from the bill and you won’t get a PowerPoint from the ACT Party. The ACT Party supports this bill. The bill was considered by the Environment Committee. I want to give assurances to the people of New Zealand that ACT’s role, my role as the ACT member of the Environment Committee, was to make sure that the time taken to consider the bill was reduced as much as possible, because—when you consider the amount of effort, the cost, the time it’s taken for just a few hundred square metres of land to be removed from its title as a reserve and made available when this bill gets Royal assent, made available for the local council that owns this piece of land to do something better with it for its community.

Now, it turns out—I’ve done a bit of research—that the Act that actually controls this reserve was passed in 1966, and you have to say that 56 years later there may be a need in some communities to do something different with parcels of land that were once set aside as a reserve for reserve purposes. Now, the problem is that it’s not just a Palmerston North council but it’s councils all around New Zealand who struggle to get permission or to establish the legal authority to change the land use.

If you look at the different types of reserves—and I’ll give you an example in a moment of what this means—I found in a quick search scenic reserves, historic reserves, scientific reserves, recreational reserves, and I also found hospital reserves, because it turns out that at some point back in the 1800s, when a local town said, “We need a hospital.”, the Government passed a law to say, “Here’s some land which we reserve for the hospital.” Now, of course, we’ve got much more efficient planning instruments than that, like the Resource Management Act—I’m joking! But at least we don’t need specific Acts of Parliament any more to designate land or give planning permission for land to be used.

Local government actually has a really important role in delivering positive social outcomes to its communities. So when a piece of land is surplus, they should have maximum flexibility in how that land is used, and if it’s disposed of, that should be of no consequence. Despite what we’ve heard from the Green member today, that it’s a great worry that councils might want to sell a bit of land and use that revenue to put back into some other council asset—I mean, heaven forbid that they might want to sell an asset, get some money for it and invest in something the community actually wants, rather than a weed-infested piece of land down the road.

What Palmerston North council have pointed out, rightly, and what Tangi Utikere, the member sponsoring this local bill, has pointed out, is that this land actually is in an ideal location to support urban densification and actually increase the housing stock that Palmerston North needs in order to grow and develop. The ACT Party supports that 100 percent. But what this process highlights is that it takes an awful long time for local and central government to do stuff and, actually, regulation, laws, Government are more often the handbrake holding back communities, holding back business, and holding back New Zealand from being our best selves.

So for members who think they come to this House to pass laws, to make people’s lives better, well, there might have been a few of those that I’ve seen come through this House in the short time I’ve been here—at only 18 months—and this is one of them, but we have this legacy of hundreds and hundreds of pieces of legislation which were passed with good intent and which now are nothing but a hindrance to communities around New Zealand who want to use their land for better purposes.

I’ll give you an example. When I worked in Auckland, there was a piece of land that had once been a quarry and it was owned by local council. It was owned by local council. It had once been a quarry and they said, “We’re no longer going to dig rock out of it; we’ve got all the rock out. I know what we’ll do, we’ll turn it into a reserve and we’ll let the birds come back and we’ll let the bush come back.” Well, that’s fantastic, except a short time later another part of council said, “We’ve got hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of surplus fill we need to get rid of. We can either pay commercial rates or we can put it in the old quarry that we used to operate that you’ve now called a reserve.” Well, after some years of exploring the option, it was deemed impossible, because it would have required if not an Act of Parliament almost—just to get permission to backfill that quarry with surplus fill. Actually, it would have delivered a better environmental outcome and a better asset for council, because rather than a big dangerous hole in the ground with rocks falling into it that no one could use; it was actually fenced off, it could have been made into a level site and repurposed for alternative community uses.

So when we consider this bill, this simple piece of legislation, as the member Angie Warren-Clark rightly pointed out before she threated to give us a PowerPoint, actually what we should be doing is looking at all the pieces of legislation that we currently have on the statute book and saying, “Which one of these, if we deleted it, no one would notice?”—no one would notice. I can see the member Michael Woodhouse looking at me with a great deal of interest. I know the National Party sometimes loses their way when it comes to regulatory reform, but I can assure this House that the ACT Party is laser-focused on eliminating waste, on eliminating poor regulations, that actually hold New Zealand communities back, that stop our economy from thriving and our communities from becoming those places that we want to see grow and develop.

So, look, it did take from around 2005, we heard today. That’s about 16 or 17 years since the need to change the purpose or the use of this land was identified and now here we are today, hopefully going to all vote yes and support this bill passing through the House. But I just want to point out what the cost was, not just the cost in the member’s time while we considered it, not just the opportunity cost to Palmerston North City Council and its residents but also the costs of officials’ time. While the committee sat, we had officials from the Department of Conservation, experts in their field. They came to the committee and they presented about biodiversity and land ownership and the Reserves Act. We got down into all kinds of detail that people who don’t sit on select committees and aren’t members of Parliament, or don’t work in the Parliamentary Counsel Office, or in some Government department where the lanyard class goes to work every day—they wouldn’t understand it. They would have no idea how complex and how difficult it is actually to pass a piece of legislation to prove why it should be allowed to pass, to make the case, and then to draft the legislation and have it passed just so that Palmerston North can sell or otherwise dispose of a piece of land or simply choose to own it but change its land use. I mean, who knows? They might find oil in Palmerston North and they might come to the House and say, “We want a bill to overturn the ban on oil and gas exploration because, just like Jed from The Beverly Hillbillies, ‘We’ve found oil!’ ” But that’s very unlikely. However, they should be able to use their land for whatever purpose they see fit, and it shouldn’t be up to nimbys and others to say what council should do with their land and how they should use it, it’s best fit for the communities.

So, look, the ACT Party supports this piece of legislation, primarily because it makes it easier for local government, or an agency, to sell and dispose of land so that it can be better used by the community. And while it’s important to recognise that the Environment Committee spent time on this bill, there are also a whole lot of other people who submitted, who raised concerns. And, in fact, the committee has found unanimously that this bill should proceed.

So, on that note, I’d like to conclude by saying the ACT Party supports this bill. We want to see more bills that get rid of red tape. We want to see more bills that make it easier to do stuff in New Zealand and actually reduce the number of people who claim to have standing and want to make decisions about how other people use their land. So we look forward to seeing more great bills like this being brought to the House by Government members in particular, maybe resource management reforms that limit the number of people who can say “No” to you on how you use your land. But, of course, there’s a snowball out there somewhere in hell, slowly melting. We look forward to the day.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. Look, it’s a pleasure to take a call on the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Amendment Bill. Last time I spoke on this bill, I put my hand up and admitted that I am from the wonderful place of Palmerston North. There’s a few of us, I’ve discovered, in this House. Actually, Madam Speaker—and I know I’m not supposed to bring her into the debate, but I understand she was born in the mighty city of Palmerston North, as was, I understand, my colleague Anna Lorck. This may not be well known to people, but very good people have been born in Palmerston North, like my colleague Anna Lorck and the Deputy Prime Minister.

But I just acknowledge my colleague Tangi Utikere, who I went to school with in Palmerston North, for his fine work bringing this bill to the House. There’s a little phrase we use about Palmerston North. It’s a bit like family—maybe a bit like the ACT Party. You can only diss Palmerston North if you’re from Palmerston North, so I’m allowed to stand up here and give it a bit of a ribbing.

Now, one of the things my colleague Glen Bennett may say if he gets the opportunity to take a call later is that people often get Palmerston North and New Plymouth confused, and that was the bane of my existence. All my life growing up, people were asking me if I came from New Plymouth. But I guess what I would say now, as much as I do love Palmerston North, is I do love to be the MP for sunny Nelson, because we have a beach.

Glen Bennett: Not as sunny as New Plymouth.

RACHEL BOYACK: No, look, we are eventually going to take that, the sunniest city, back from you, Mr Bennett, I can assure you.

My colleague Ian McKelvie made some comments around the fantastic parts of Palmerston North and the Square, and he missed a few out. So I just wanted to note that there is the fantastic All Saints Church, where my mother is the organist, and that is currently closed to the public, unfortunately, due to it being earthquake-prone. There is also the second-ugliest city council building, the first most ugliest city council building belonging in my electorate of Nelson, and we’re very proud of that title. There was once a fantastic two-storey McDonald’s with a wonderful playground inside it, and I can see my colleague Mr Utikere having a bit of a giggle, because you’ll remember the playground and the McDonald’s in Palmerston North. But others have forgotten to mention that I think the best pub was High Flyers in the city. Unfortunately, it has suffered from a fire and is boarded up, but I would argue with my colleague Angie Warren-Clark about The Fitz and say, actually, in my view, it was High Flyers.

So look, I’ll get to the bill, as much as I’d love to spend 10 minutes talking about the fantastic place that is Palmerston North. The bill allows the Palmerston North City Council to sell reserve land for housing development. So it specifically does that. Look, a few weeks ago, I was in Palmerston North and I drove past this particular area. I made a point of slowing down and driving around just to specifically look at the area, and I’ll talk about the particular piece of land in a moment, because I know it quite well. This particular issue was brought to the House a few years ago. After I gave the speech in the first reading, I actually was heading back to Palmerston North and mentioned to my stepfather, who was a previous deputy mayor, and the deputy mayor at the time that Palmerston North City Council intended to bring this bill to the House previously—so I said to him, “Look, this bill is going back through the House.” He was very happy. He let out a sigh of deep frustration, and I understand that there were some real challenges there around the consultation. But this piece of land has had a part of it that was vacant since 2005. So for over 15 years, it’s been sitting there, and a huge lost opportunity, in my view, in terms of the ability for this land to be developed for housing.

The particular piece of land in question is the corner of Fitzherbert Avenue and Park Road. I just wanted to note, I guess, having grown up in Palmerston North, I went to Palmerston North Girls’ High School, which is literally right next to this piece of land. In fact, I was reminiscing with Mr Utikere earlier today about the time there was a sportsground next to it with a sports club, and, in my third-form year, we all ended up in that hall for a few hours after someone had made a bomb threat to the school. Some of my friends, unfortunately, had been doing PE that day and in very cold weather, so it wasn’t a great day. But look, it’s an area that I know very well, and I did just want to respond to some of the comments from the Green Party member Eugenie Sage, because, look, I do acknowledge we need to take some care around reserve land.

I disagree with Simon Court. I think, actually, we do need to ensure we’ve got proper processes around reserve land. Where I am in Nelson, I think it would cause us some challenge, because we don’t have as many large parks, and we’re quite constrained around land. Palmerston North is quite different. This piece of land is literally minuscule compared to enormous recreation areas right next to it. I’m talking less than 1 percent of the size. We’re not taking away any amenity value for the city. I have never used that vacant land at all. Fitzherbert Park next to it? Enormous. The Esplanade next to it? Also enormous. Just down the road is the Lido swimming pool. We have Manawatū River. Nearby, the botanical gardens. There is enormous amenity value in this area, and so I don’t think there should be any concern whatsoever from the community about losing a piece of land. In a point of principle, I do agree we need to take real care, but, in this particular instance, knowing the area intimately as I do, I think it makes complete sense.

In the Palmerston North City Council submission, which I enjoyed reading, they talked a little bit about potential that this could be potentially provided through social housing. That’s one of the potential options—in my view, probably the best option, but it is one of the options. They made a note here around some social housing that has been provided for in Papaioea Place, which is just around the corner from my family home. Last year, members of the Labour caucus visited these houses, which had been opened by the Prime Minister in Papaioea Place. They were fantastic. Look, I think that there would be a real benefit in being able to develop that housing of that style in this area. The amenity value, in my view, must be very high. It’s close to public transport, close to local schools—very good schools, like Palmerston North Girls’ High School. As I’ve already mentioned, it’s close to a very large number of recreation areas.

I just wanted to make a little note. I think, for the record, I’d like to get this into my speech. One of my colleagues mentioned trees, and there’s an interesting story around trees in this area. People who know Palmerston North well may remember that in 1997, in my seventh-form year at school, the trees were occupied by an activist who later became the Mayor of Palmerston North, Mark Bell-Booth. For a number of weeks, when they were looking to remove the plane trees down Fitzherbert Avenue, a number of activists were living in the trees all down Fitzherbert Avenue because they objected to having the trees removed for four-laning of the avenue. I used to cycle to school past a whole lot of Massey University students. All I could think about at the time, never knowing I’d become an activist at the time, is that they were students living in these trees and they’re probably very smelly. All I could think about was “Where would they have a shower?” But, look, there are trees growing in the area, and, look, it is a very lush, green area of the city.

In terms of one of the other comments that Ms Sage made that I just wanted to note as well was just around the access route down Huia Street. That was actually the smallest access point into the school, actually. There are main entrance gates along Fitzherbert Avenue, and that’s where people enter the school. I only used to enter that area—I was one of a small group of students that did enter down Huia Street, because I was a music student and the music department was at the back of Huia Street. So it was only really the naughty music students that would bike down Huia Street and enter that way. The vast bulk of the students would be entering through Fitzherbert Avenue and over by the science block area near the Blue Moon Dairy. So it’s useful to be able to look at these issues, having an intimate knowledge of the area. I think in principle, though, at the end of the day, this is a local bill.

So this is a bill that has been brought by the Palmerston North City Council. It’s not necessarily for us as parliamentarians, unless there’s a deep concern of some kind, to actually go against the wishes of the council. But I will put on record that I think people who are raising concerns—I don’t think those concerns in this case are valid. Having grown up in the area, knowing the need that we have for housing, this land has been vacant for over 15 years. It could be used to good effect. It’s a great place for social housing, right next to some of the best parks and recreation areas in the country, and so I commend Palmerston North City Council for bringing this bill to the House, alongside Tangi Utikere, the select committee, and officials. On that note, I commend this bill to the House.

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Amendment Bill. This is a good local bill which has been brought before the House. National is very happy to support this, as National stands up for councils as strong local voices that are essential to a thriving local democracy. This is a good example of this and I commend the member Tangi Utikere, who has brought this to the House as the local member for Palmerston North.

Palmerston North is a great city. I was there not that long ago, actually. It’s certainly come a long way from when I used to travel through there as a child, and it was a lot quieter a number of decades ago, but it’s grown a lot. This bill will actually help with some of those growth pains.

Palmerston North is experiencing significant growth. Over $7 billion in major public and private investment has been planned by the council. There’s strong demand for housing over the next 10 years, which is certainly an issue right across the country, including in my own electorate in Queenstown, Alexandra, Gore, and Winton—you name it, it’s a big issue across the country. But it’s certainly one that Palmerston North is experiencing acutely with an acute shortage of affordable housing, problems with rough sleepers, and high occupancy of emergency and transitional accommodation. Simply, more housing is needed. This bill will give the council more options and encourage the council to be innovative and think differently about increasing housing supply.

Another point is local government is facing a number of issues and in Palmerston North, the city council is no different. Some of the key issues are: increased rates, growing debt, infrastructure deficits, housing affordability, climate change, and changing recreational needs. This Huia Street Reserve was formerly occupied by the Manawatū Bowling Club. It hasn’t been used for about 15 years, so it’s just sitting there, effectively, unutilised by the local community. It gives an option for the Palmerston North City Council to do something different. It doesn’t commit the council to immediately selling or developing the land, but it does provide the opportunity for public consultation should the council move to rezone the land under the First Schedule of the Resource Management Act.

So I think I’ll leave it there. In conclusion, this is a great example of a local council doing something about a need in their community, and the National Party is happy to commend this bill to the House.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Kia ora e te Māngai o te Whare. It’s an absolute delight to get up to speak to this bill of my colleague and friend Mr Utikere on members’ night. For those watching, you will appreciate that tonight is the night that we gather to debate the bills that come not from the Government but from individual members of Parliament, and they throw up some gems, and this is one.

Here we are debating tonight just under 4 acres—1.6 hectares of land—that has been sitting vacant for about 15 years but, unfortunately, the council that owns it and would like to repurpose it, perhaps as much-needed housing, is unable to do so because a quirk in a quite elderly piece of legislation. We’re here to rectify that. We are riding to the defence of Palmerston North. But what I’m really reading in this, as I characterise Mr Utikere as a sort of parliamentary Lone Ranger upon his horse dashing forth—and I’m definitely picturing Ms Boyack in a similarly heroic role—what I’m really loving about this, as someone who comes from another small town, is the love story we are seeing to Palmerston North. No longer is it the poor relation and often sadly mistaken rival to New Plymouth, and I stand here with the MP for New Plymouth to my right. But, of course, I always go to the left, and Mr Utikere is Palmerston North, and he sits to my left tonight. When I think about these small towns—New Plymouth, Palmerston North—the joke is: “Who remembers which one is which, other than their respective residents?” When I think about Whangārei, where I’m from, and I think about what I would refer to, and Ngāpuhi, as Whanganui, which of course is W’anganui—we often get mistaken as well—it is a point of sadness and soreness for us provincial peoples that the wonder and uniqueness of our little towns is not remembered.

I do actually have to say, however, that the fine residents of Palmerston North—I do have some trauma of my own relating to Palmerston North, that has luckily been salved by the discussion and the warmth and the love we have heard for Palmerston North, and the development that will be enabled by this bill. When I was a little girl, there were two weddings in our family, to my twin uncles Richard and Simon, and Uncle Richard married Auntie Jenny in, wait for it, New Plymouth. It was a lovely wedding, I have to say—a very lovely wedding—and, as little girl, I was very taken with the entire thing. But then, Uncle Simon married Auntie Jenny in Palmerston North. And in Palmerston North, a terrible thing happened. It was a wonderful wedding, it was most delightful—again, very taken with the wedding dresses—but in Palmerston North, my little sister Georgie, who was playing on the jungle gym in Palmerston North—

Rachel Boyack: At the Esplanade?

Dr EMILY HENDERSON: It may well have been. It was a hoop arrangement, and Georgie, aged six, fell. She fell badly; she fell on to concrete. She broke her arm in two places. It was the first time any of us had actually known someone with a broken arm within our own family, so it was quite a traumatic moment. And I do note that Georgie does now live in New Plymouth. So the wonder and joy of small towns—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: As interesting as that all is, the member should relate those stories to the bill.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON: —resides in their local councils and their people’s ability to develop them in the way they want to, and to bring our New Plymouth brethren to Palmerston North, and give them the option, perhaps, of moving to Palmerston North, on the wonderful Huia reserve, which, if this goes through, we will enable the council to take back into its control, take it out of its current weedy, “wastey” state, and perhaps repurpose it as housing, which even, despite her trauma, my sister Georgie might consent to visit someday. I commend this bill to the House.

HARETE HIPANGO (National): Pō mārie, Mr Speaker, me koutou mā. [Good evening, Mr Speaker. Good evening everyone.] I stand, as the last speaker for the National Party, in support of the bill—and acknowledgment to Tangi Utikere, the member for Palmerston North. In my role as a list MP for the National Party from Whanganui, I’m of the neighbouring city. I’m going to speak in terms of my Māori development relationship role that I carry for the National Party and the ’hakapapa—that’s the genealogy—and the whanaungatanga—the relationships—that I have to Manawatū Palmerston North, Papaioea—that’s the Māori name for Palmerston North.

This bill, as has well been spoken to this evening, is about an amendment to the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Act 1966. The placement of the particular reserve is in a central part of Palmerston North, not far from the Manawatū River and not far from a kura that my oldest daughter attended, Tū Toa, which is at the Hokowhitu campus. Again, the correlation of the relationships of the people to the whenua: Rangitane are the mana whenua of this area.

In my Māori development spokesperson role, sitting on the Māori Affairs Committee this morning, we heard from the Minister for Māori Development talking about papa kāinga and Māori housing. Through that lens, I noted with particular interest that in the select committee bill the amendment—the bill will pass without amendment, and the emphasis and focus was to insert a provision there to enable the council to be able to sell this particular reserve. The member from Nelson said that the amendment would be to sell it for housing or development. My understanding is that the amendment bill doesn’t specifically state that; that was a preferred option of the council.

What I did note that hadn’t been noted within the select committee report—and I didn’t sit on the Environment Committee—is that there was no consideration, from the 29 submissions, eight of those that were heard, and from the members on that select committee, for an option for the gifting or the return of the land. I looked through the Rangitāne settlement Act of 2016, to go to the redress clauses within that bill and to see what arrangement, relationship association, Ngāti Rangitāne has with the local authority, and there’s none that covers this particular reserve. But through my Māori lens and, again, the ’hakapapa and the whanaungatanga, I questioned why there hadn’t been consideration for that provision, particularly when we know—and I don’t know the particular ’hakapapa of this whenua and how it came to be as a reserve. But the amendment is specific that it only enables the district council if the reserve is deemed surplus to sell. And there is a provision, also within the 1966 Act, section 4A, “Power of sale”, that specifically states under subsection (5) “No land shall be sold under this section for a price that is less than the capital value of the land”.

So this is the second reading. It’s supported by the National Party. I flag that because it limits the district council only to the specific provision of sale, as opposed to an opportunity or the discretion to gift. I did a little bit of Google research this evening, not knowing that I was speaking on this bill until later this afternoon, and I saw that the Tauranga Council, back in December 2019, made the decision to gift surplus land back to tangata whenua, stating that it was time to do the right thing. So I mention that because I’ve heard in the House this evening the significance and the importance of relationships, but those relationships must hearken back to the ’hakapapa of the whenua—that this particular reserve is now going to be deemed, under this amendment, as only for sale, and then the option for the district council to decide or deem for what particular use.

In finishing, I’ll just talk about some of my whakawhanaungatanga. I talked about, again, the correlation of this whenua to the school Tū Toa, which my daughter attended, and relationships. I spent a lot of time in Palmerston North in my younger days, netballing. The last time I was in Palmerston North was for the New Zealand Māori Netball Tournament earlier this year. Tū Toa: the origins of the school come from the Durie whānau, Nathan Durie with his wife Yvette McCausland-Durie, who have been mentors and exemplars for many of our Māori youth going through our education system. Tū Toa, now named Manukura—Tū Toa still exists, but the offspring of that is Manukura. Yvette McCausland-Durie has been an exemplar for our Māori youth in the sporting and in the academic domain, and, of course, Yvette is well known as the coach of the netball Pulse team. So those are relationships, and I remember in my younger days—and I know that my daughter, when she was at Tū Toa, now named Manukura, used to train around this area, through Ongley Park, Manawaroa Park, and around the Huia Street Reserve.

So, as I tend to, I will always make a correlation of a personal association, which I’ve done through those relationships. I acknowledge Ngāti Rangitane, I acknowledge the Palmerston North District Council and councillors and the member in the House this evening who’s sponsoring this bill through, Tangi Utikere. As this bill goes to third reading, perhaps those members on the select committee might turn their minds to possibly a Supplementary Order Paper, possibly not, but I look and I share and I express that there needs to be a diversity of how we look at these issues. Tēnā tātou katoa.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise to speak on this piece of legislation, and I acknowledge the previous speaker, Harete Hipango, and thank her for her thoughtful contribution. My hope is that Palmerston North City Council, as I know it would have, has done its work and has spoken with local hapū and iwi and has had conversations around that, and I’m sure that Mr Utikere would have done his due diligence and had conversations.

But it’s really good to bring us back to remind us about the land that we all get to live on, this space, and who the first people of this land were. I want to say mānawatia a Matariki. I said it yesterday in the House. Yeah, we’ve had the holiday, we’ve had the celebrations over the weekend, but it is the season of Matariki, and let us be reminded of what’s gone before us, what’s here now, and what is to come. I guess this piece of legislation and this piece of land are about that: acknowledging what has happened; acknowledging what’s there right now but also looking forward to the future.

Now, we’ve talked a lot about Tangi Utikere tonight, and so we should, because he’s a fabulous, wonderful member of Parliament for Palmerston North. Here’s also congratulations, Mr Utikere, for becoming a junior whip just recently, and I will keep my comments within time—I will behave, thank you very much. But I’m just grateful for my colleague from the year of 2020 to be in the whips team. Also, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will speak to the legislation, and I think it relates to you, sir, obviously as the member of Parliament for Te Tai Hauāuru. I believe that part of your electorate is Palmerston North, so we acknowledge you this evening as I know you listen with great interest to the oratory that is just pouring out of this House tonight.

There have been some jokes, obviously, and obviously there’s always the gag about New Plymouth - Palmerston North, but I want to move on from that. I think we’ve grown up; I think we’re beyond that now. But I did some research, because we all did, and I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a member of Parliament without Google, but, anyway, I’m sure that did exist. I’m sure people actually went to libraries and actually had real-life knowledge that they stored up for years and years.

But Palmerston North has an interesting history, because we think of Palmerston down South and we think of Palmerston North, but did you know that there were actually four Palmerstons back in the 19th century? Four—not one, not two, but four—and, of course, there was that big conclave of conversations back in about 1873, off the top of my head, where there was a lot of confusion in this country. Obviously, my ancestors who came here were very original: “North Island, South Island. Palmerston—what are we going to do because everyone’s really confused? I know: Palmerston North.”—which this piece of legislation is about; the very, very important Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Amendment Bill—very important.

So I just find it fascinating, but, thankfully, I’ve spent time in Palmerston. I was born in Dunedin, so Otago, and I have loved that small town, and the town of Palmerston North in the North Island I have. In fact, as I look at the map and look at this piece of land, it brings me home. Now, this is not home—I was not born here—but my mother actually is from Foxton. [Interruption] Yes, and my mother had the privilege of being an old girl of Palmerston North Girls’ High. She used to catch the bus every day from Foxton to Palmerston North, and it was obviously life changing because it set her up to have wonderful children that have ended up—one of them, at least—in this House. I’ll give her all the credit this evening.

I look at this piece of legislation and it just seems like a no-brainer. It seems basic and really simple. Obviously, this Huia Street Reserve does have a long history and, as was spoken of earlier, the bits of history that I have in front of me are of my ancestors; not of tangata whenua, to be bluntly honest. This reserve was actually given to the city of Palmerston North back in 1876 by the Wellington provincial Government. It was to be used as a public park or recreation ground or botanical gardens for the inhabitants’ enjoyment of Palmerston North.

Now, I really take the point that the Hon Eugenie Sage made. I know she is a competent and effective chair of the Environment Committee. When she talked about the importance of green space, she did talk very much about the importance of ensuring—whether it be around traffic movements, around waste water, around all those amenities—that we do have to look at this, and we do have to pay attention. It might seem like a momentary decision today to throw a few more houses up to meet housing needs, but what is the big picture? Where do we look for our descendants—where do we look?

But then, of course, in my continued research, I don’t have the knowledge or wisdom that my colleague the MP for Nelson, Rachel Boyack, who is from Palmerston North, has, but I do have a map.

Hon Member: A “power-pointer”.

GLEN BENNETT: It is a PowerPoint, which I always struggle with, to be honest. But when you look at the piece of land and then you look around in the vicinity, and if I had my little protractor or the bits of stuff you used to use in maths, you’d see there is many a green space in the near vicinity. They are very close. For me, our connection to nature, our connection to the environment, is important, so as I look at the green spaces available, I feel comfortable with the fact that this piece of green space, which has sat vacant since 2005, can actually be released, if this law comes into force, so that it can be committed to housing, to ensure that the good people of Palmerston North have places to live.

This piece of land on the corner of Fitzherbert Avenue and Park Road, also, as I heard earlier, was around traffic movements and there are some concerns about what that could look like. But, again, with town planners and the work that’s done in consenting, I know that it’s not just a “throw some houses up and hope like heck that it’s going to be OK”. There are obviously consents and processes that have to take place that will ensure that the roads are safe and that the roads will be able to be used in a convenient way. Again, as Rachel Boyack mentioned in her speech—in her very significant contribution that I’m still reflecting on, actually—the access way to Palmerston North Girls’ High won’t be affected by the change in land use on this piece of land.

Now, this local bill, the Palmerston North Reserves Empowering Amendment Bill, is small in nature in many ways, but it will be significant for the families who get to live in those dwellings. I truly believe that everyone deserves a place to call home, whatever that may look like, and having more housing in the wonderful city of Palmerston North is important.

As I said, my mother spent a lot of time in Palmerston North in her teen years. My first memory, actually, was when I was around 10 years old. We were living in Auckland. We bused, just like my mother, down to Palmerston North. [Interruption] Yes, I was in the church and, yes, it was for a music and creative weekend, and I did a really amazing job in terms of my theatrical expressions. It obviously didn’t go far. I have made several appearances on TV, but none you will remember. Yes, I was on Fair Go, but only as an actor in reconstructions—don’t worry—and nothing else.

This is important, and Palmerston North deserves pieces and parcels of land to be made available for housing. For myself, as the MP for New Plymouth, we have a similar situation with a piece of land, right in the centre of our CBD that sits vacant; it has, actually, since the year 2008. I’m really glad that just this week, there’s been an announcement around releasing that piece of land and removing the structures on that piece of land for the sake of our local tangata whenua—for Te Āti Awa—to do work to develop that space for the sake and benefit of New Plymouth, just as this piece of legislation is here for the sake and the benefit of the people of Palmerston North. It’s a great pleasure to stand this evening to speak and to commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) (Overseas Travel Reporting) Amendment Bill

First Reading

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I move, That the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) (Overseas Travel Reporting) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill.

Nothing raises the fears and anxiety of New Zealanders more than the knowledge that there are those in our society who, for any number of reasons, choose to sexually abuse children. These people, almost inevitably men, range from those with low intellect and poor or non-existent social skills and understanding of boundaries, to those who can be described as genuine predators who select their victims and work to place themselves in positions of trust and authority in order to sexually abuse those victims—often family members or those living in their household.

As a police detective, I dealt with many such offenders—and if I’m honest, rather than regarding them as sophisticated, manipulative individuals, I found the vast majority to be sad, socially isolated men, poorly equipped to deal with their sexual urges. Also, many had been victims of sexual abuse themselves and were perpetually perpetrating the cycle of abuse. I do have to say, though, that in researching for this bill, I wasn’t able to find evidence for the oft-repeated claim that all child sex offenders were victims themselves.

Sadly, the impact on the victims is the same, with the lives of these children permanently damaged physically and emotionally, especially as often the offending is only exposed some time after the offence is committed, with the damage on those victims permanently marring their lives for ever.

For this reason, society, through the criminal justice system, treats such offending extremely seriously. Those convicted of such crimes are subject to criminal sanctions which reflect both society’s abhorrence of such offending and the need to protect potential victims from such offenders.

There exists legislation such as extended supervision orders in the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Act to deal with the most serious offenders. But those provisions are limited to those most serious offenders who present an immediate risk. Corrections manage offenders while they’re sentenced to them, and the worst offenders usually remain with corrections.

However, Department of Corrections research usually shows that a characteristic in sexual offending is the compulsive behaviour which persists over the offender’s lifetime. So it is necessary to ensure that offenders who come off sentence are monitored.

It is, therefore, that desire to prevent further offending and to protect children from such offending that led to the passing of the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Act in 2016. The purpose of the Act was to establish a child sex offender register that will reduce sexual reoffending against child victims, and the risk posed by serious child sex offenders, by providing Government agencies with the information needed to monitor child sex offenders in the community—including after the completion of their sentence—and to provide up-to-date information that assists the police to more rapidly resolve cases of child sex offending.

A registerable offender is a person who has been convicted for a qualifying offence and has been sentenced to imprisonment or has been sentenced to a non-custodial sentence, and has been made subject to a registration order. A person is not a registerable offender if, at the time they committed the offence, they were under 18.

A qualifying offence is a class 1, class 2, class 3 offences as defined in the Crimes Act, and cover the full range of sexual offending as defined in the Crimes Act, where the victim is under 16 years of age.

Of note is that a corresponding registerable offender is a person who, as a consequence of a conviction in a foreign jurisdiction for a corresponding offence, has been sentenced to imprisonment or, essentially, would still be eligible for an equivalent child sex offender register in that jurisdiction.

The register imposes on offenders reporting obligations of a number of relevant pieces of personal information, particularly around his or her address or addresses, and importantly, the name, sex, and date of birth of each child who generally resides at the same household of which that offender resides. These provisions are laid out in section 16 of the Act.

An important part of the bill—and the basis of this amendment I am introducing today—is the section 21 provision of the Act, that the recent offender must have been intending to be away from their registered residential address within New Zealand and 48 hours before they travel, provide to police the details of each address in which the offender intends to stay; the dates on which the offender intends at each of those addresses; whether any child will or is likely to reside together with the offender at any of those addresses; and the date the registered offender intends to return to their registered residential address.

Under section 21(4), the registered offender can leave New Zealand, provided they provide the dates of their travel and the date their intent to return. However, unlike such travel within New Zealand, the registered offender is currently not obliged to supply police with their intended addresses in the country they will visit, and whether or not there will be children at the address.

The bill I’m introducing today is a relatively simple one, which requires that registered offenders must advise police of the names of all countries they will stay in for more than 48 hours; the addresses they intend to stay in in that country; the date they intend to travel to that country; and the date that intend to leave that country. It also requires them, if they do not intend to return to New Zealand, to provide details of the country they intend to reside in.

The bill also requires the registered offender to provide details of all their passports held, including the place of issue and the date of expiry of each valid passport, to prevent onward travel.

This is a very simple addition to the requirements of the registered Child Sex Offender Register, but it does provide protection for potential victims of child sex offenders who travel overseas in the places they will travel. This is a timely bill as international travel resumes, and it can be expected that sex tourism in Asia, in particular, will once again become common.

As I outlined at the beginning of my speech, the essence of child sex offending is the absolute breach of trust that those who offend against children break. The obvious, and most serious, breach of trust is against the child victim, where the inherent trust children have in adults is an enabler for their offending.

Having given context to the issue of child sex offenders, I now come to the rationale for this member’s bill and the gap in the law it seeks to remedy. Many child sex offenders have absolutely no desire to return to prison—such experience being a particularly harrowing experience as fellow prisoners regularly mete out their own justice to such offenders.

Speaking with those involved in administering the register, the overwhelming response is that many of those offenders welcome the protection provided by the disclosures they’re required to make, as it removes temptation by extending the reach of the register—as the bill intends.

These offenders, who are required to provide the same details to the police as they do in New Zealand, will have their opportunities for reoffending reduced. Most importantly, New Zealand will be providing the same level of protection to potential child victims outside New Zealand as the current Act provides to New Zealand children.

I must note, the Attorney-General has concluded that the bill appears inconsistent with section 25 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act; the basis of this is its being intended as an additional punishment. I believe that is not the case. As I have explained, the substantive Act and this amendment do, in my opinion, serve as a layer of security for the child sex offenders by providing them the protection from being in a situation where they will reoffend.

I’ll also be suggesting to the committee—and by the Police and Corrections—to advise on this bill to ensure it comes back from the committee in the best possible shape to provide the protection for potential child sex victims internationally.

The bill should also provide a safety net for offenders by ensuring they are reminded, when heading overseas, the likelihood of them returning to prison increases if they offend here in New Zealand or overseas.

In summary, I’m very pleased to be able to introduce the bill, which I hope will receive the support of all parties in the House as a strengthening of the primary piece of legislation, which is now well embedded not only in New Zealand statutes but also in the minds of child sex offenders, whose actions have devastated many lives, especially those of their victims, and who may be contemplating continuing such offending while overseas.

I note that my parliamentary colleague Erica Stanford has had her bill drawn, which is very complementary to my bill, dealing with notifications to other relevant agencies, including Customs, and Ms Stanford has graciously agreed to fold her bill into a Supplementary Order Paper, which the Justice Committee will work through.

Protecting children everywhere from sexual abuse is the goal of every legislator, and such co-operation is to be commended. I commend this bill to the House.

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

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s my pleasure to stand and take a call on this, the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) (Overseas Travel Reporting) Amendment Bill, first reading.

Can I acknowledge the member Greg O’Connor as a past member of our New Zealand Police and, as he said, a detective. Certainly, in that role, he would have had a front row seat, unfortunately, to the type of abuse and offending that went on. I remember from my time in the police that often detectives that worked in this area could only work there for a very limited period of time, normally only up to about two years, because of the stress that you take on having to deal with these types of cases.

I do agree with him, in some sense, that a lot of child sex offenders have been victims of sex abuse themselves. Some of them can be socially isolated and awkward. I agree with that. But I think more and more we see sophisticated, highly organised child sex offenders and it’s become an industry around the world. I think that we have to have legislation in place that actually can deal with that.

I noticed that in the Attorney-General’s report on the bill, he has highlighted the fact that there could be some breaches in relation to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I think that they can be sorted out on the select committee. I think that a bill like this—we all have to remember, as lawmakers, that actually our children are our most vulnerable. If we can’t, as lawmakers, step up and make sure that we can get legislation through that puts the best possible protection around them, then we’re not standing up and actually doing the job that people expect us to be able to do.

So it is a very good bill. I won’t go into it—it was a no-brainer. It was supported by our caucus. When I took it to caucus, immediately everyone could see the sense in it. It’s extending, really, what is domestic reporting, that happens now anyway, for international reporting and people that are travelling overseas. Although it’s a very short bill and it is a very small bill, going through it, I can actually see where there’s some places I think that, if we work as a committee with Mr O’Connor, we can actually strengthen it and maybe even make it a stronger bill.

I thank Mr O’Connor for acknowledging Erica Stanford, who approached me before going to Mr O’Connor about working together on this. I acknowledge him and thank Greg O’Connor for deciding that that was a good approach, a bipartisan approach between the parties, and both he and Erica Stanford have come to agreement whereby her bill has been tabled as a Supplementary Order Paper. It allows the committee now to work on that and bring the two together.

So I just want to wrap up and finish by saying that it is a very good bill. It is good that when these members’ bills come to the House, actually, parties genuinely sit down and look at them and see what the intent is and what we can do as a Parliament, as lawmakers, and we engage in that process in a positive way and in a bipartisan way to be able to make sure that we pass good law. So I recommend this bill to the House and I look forward to receiving it on the select committee. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour) (remote): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call and to speak in support of this bill through to select committee for consideration. It’s a select committee that I sit on, so I do look forward to considering all the issues that present in relation to this bill. I’d like to commend my colleague Greg O’Connor for championing an issue that is about protecting the rights of children, and I also want to recognise the work of other organisations like ECPAT Child Alert, who tirelessly work to end sex offending against children, including beyond New Zealand’s borders.

Earlier this year, I read an article published by World Nomads that began, “Early evening in Bangkok’s notorious Patpong Road district and tourists move through the heaving humidity, the chaos of clubs and holiday dreams. … there are two types of traveler, curious, unsuspecting visitors and more conspicuously, those [who] prowl, eager to select a girl by the number pinned on her brief costume. Just like circling the numbers on a lotto ticket but with less concern about the consequences.” It’s a story that’s being played out every night, not just in Thailand, not just in other countries, not just in developing nations. It’s an issue as complex as it is disturbing.

There is no place for sexual exploitation, especially of children, not here in Aotearoa and not anywhere overseas. Yet according to UNICEF, there are millions of children globally who are affected by sexual exploitation every year. We know that tourism isn’t the cause of child exploitation, but it can aggravate the problem. What can be additionally horrifying is the othering that sometimes happens as a justification of travelling to commit these offences. Again, don’t get me wrong, developing countries aren’t the only places where child sexual exploitation occurs, but they have become a magnet for child sex tourism. In addition to feeling that their offences may not be traceable, some might feel that part of the justification appears to be tied to the concept of othering of these children—sometimes on the basis of their race—allowing them to justify that their moral obligations might excuse those children from any crimes that they’re committing.

The truth is that in international spaces, more and more we see some of these patterns of source country travellers and those countries who might receive them, and so something must be done about that. Whereas some countries don’t accept the international accountabilities here, New Zealand does, and it’s something that we should be proud of. As part of the global community and as a party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, New Zealand takes the protection of children very seriously, and it’s one of several countries that have passed legislation enabling a New Zealander who is engaging in this kind of criminal activity overseas to be prosecuted in New Zealand. As a result of those laws, it’s an offence for New Zealand citizens and residents to engage in things like sexual conduct or activities with a child in another country, to pay for sexual services of someone who’s under the age of 18 in another country, or to help people travel overseas to have sex with children in another country.

This bill does seem small, but it is attached to our desire to accept that obligation to children globally and to consider what we can do about it. Again, as a member of the Justice Committee, I do think it’s important that the committee considers the bill in its entirety, including the detail of all rights at issue here. I would say that there are examples in other countries who have put very stringent rules in this place, and Australia is one example of this where they put in significant rules in 2017, but I am very much looking forward to assessing the bill. I do believe that children everywhere deserve to be free from violence and free from abuse, and, accordingly, I commend this bill through to select committee where I look forward with my colleagues to discussing it in robust detail.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green) (remote): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think it’s clear tonight, as it always should be, that all of us across this House, no matter the political party affiliation, care deeply about the wellbeing and welfare of our children. We all agree unanimously that children in New Zealand and across the globe deserve to live free from abuse and free from violence. We know as well that in Aotearoa New Zealand, there is an absolute epidemic level of violence against children and young people, family violence, and sexual exploitation and sexual violence. We know this well in the Green caucus, with the first ever Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence, the Hon Marama Davidson—and a quick hat tip to her for the work that she’s done in presenting and getting through the first ever national action plan on addressing this exact kind of violence.

So with that, and with the sad truth that this is a problem that all of us are responsible for solving and that our nation’s heart is broken for the children that suffer across the globe but, in particular, here, where we do have this very serious problem, I would say—and this comes from about a decade of working in the criminal justice system as well as on children’s rights here and across the world. Sometimes there’s a saying that “Bad cases make bad law”, which means that when our sympathies and our prejudices are most engaged, when things are most egregious and heartbreaking, sometimes we don’t necessarily come up with solutions that are best placed to resolve these issues in a way that upholds the rule of law and upholds human rights or are the most effective or evidence-based.

Unfortunately, and with full respect to the member who has brought this bill to the House and to those who support it, I would have to say that this isn’t the most effective way forward for us. For one thing, we know that child sex registers that introduce penalties after the penalty that’s come through sentencing processes in courts of law for the actual offending often, at best, do nothing to prevent further abuse in that society or community and, at worst, undermine rehabilitation and an effective reintegration of offenders into the community. So that’s the evidence that we’re moving forward from, and as much as we might think logically and from the outside that introducing more and more and more penalties through registers like this after someone has served their sentence is going to keep children safe, the sad truth is that that isn’t the case. We have the data on that, and we know it.

So, as lawmakers, we have a responsibility to react to that, and for that reason the Green Party will not be supporting this bill. We don’t believe in re-penalising people and creating registers that we know won’t work for, I guess, in effect, the process of making politicians feel better about our work. We’ve seen that “tough on crime” rhetoric come up within the Opposition more zealously than before as we approach election year across this House, and we know that that undermines effective, evidence-based, compassion-based, rehabilitation-focused justice policy. That isn’t going to keep our communities safe, but it is going to make politicians look tough on crime and feel better.

It is unfortunate, but we know that at least the Government does have an action plan and that we are introducing solutions that will work. We are introducing solutions that partner with community-based response organisations and with evidence-based institutions that have been doing the work of keeping children and young people safe on the ground, and keeping our responses to family and sexual violence at a point where we do focus on prevention and, in particular, on rehabilitation, because it’s recidivism that this bill is aimed at addressing and that child sex registers don’t address.

I do want to note that there’s actually a bill that’s been drawn in the name of Erica Stanford, which is far more likely to align with our kaupapa as Greens because it’s not aimed at re-penalising—

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

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Kia ora e te Māngai o te Whare. If any contrast could indicate the variation we have in members’ bills, the contrast between the last bill and now this one does that. I want first to commend Mr Greg O’Connor, whose bill this is, and also Ms Stanford, across the House, for her bill and for the fact that the two of them have decided to work together to bring together two related bills which will make each other stronger. It is my position that this bill needs to go to select committee and does deserve to go to select committee.

Sex offending is abhorrent, as we all know. It is also pervasive. The figures that over the last 40 years have been gathered consistently show offending rates against girls under 16 at about the rate of one in four, and about one in eight to one in nine boys under the same age. Most of those people—and I think this is a really, really important thing to bear in mind—most of the offenders we are talking about, are well-known to those children. Often, they are within their own families, and often, as Mr O’Connor said at the beginning, they are repetitive offenders.

I have spoken to one long-time treater of sex offenders who said that she began treating sex offenders in the 1980s, when she had her sixth child brought to her, offended against by the same man. It made no sense to continue to be the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. In her mind, she needed to become part of the solution and to look at how to stop sex offending. A sex offender register—and this is a bill and a Supplementary Order Paper that, effectively, extends the sex offender register we have—is one of our possible responses to sex offending. I look forward to discussing its efficacy and the efficacy of this extension in select committee.

The previous speaker from the Green Party, Golriz Ghahraman, is correct that there are differing opinions on the efficacy of sex offender registers, particularly the sort of behaviour that we see in the US, where they are aimed at naming and shaming. I do not see in my own research proof of the efficacy of a naming and shaming approach. But what people who treat sex offenders consistently say is that because this is compulsive behaviour, because it has very deep roots in the way the person sees their sexuality and the way they relate to others, it is necessary to continue to monitor that person and to keep them wrapped in layers of monitoring.

Now, a police monitoring may not always be the be all and end all, but it is certainly one of the ways that we can act as that person’s conscience, and to extend that to sex trafficking and to sex tourism, as my colleague Vanushi Walters so eloquently described the scourge that it is—that seems to me something that we really do need to consider. We will need to consider how then to activate and actualise the registration of a past offender’s intention to go overseas. That is where I think Ms Stanford’s bill, which talks about the mechanism by which that information can be conveyed to the intended destination, potentially patches and extends and encourages and makes better the original bill.

This is something we need to deal with. I think it is important that we acknowledge that disgust and emotional reaction is not the way we best design laws, but this is not that sort of law. This is not a gut reaction knee-jerk. This is one of a number of sensible, graduated measures that we can take to contain what is a scourge internationally, a crime against children that cannot be permitted. I commend this bill to the House.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand in support of Mr O’Connor’s bill, the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) (Overseas Travel Reporting) Amendment Bill. But before I start, I would like to make just a couple of comments on some speeches that have gone before me, including the one from the member from the Green Party Golriz Ghahraman, who actually made a comment about this bill re-penalising criminals. I’m a little bit confused by that because I actually don’t think it’s a re-penalising but rather an addition to the Act that’s already in place in regard to registration and extending it to an overseas jurisdiction. One of the other points that was made was that that member had said registers don’t appear to work. I’m a bit confused by that because there is support for a registry for firearms owners but not support for one for child sex offenders. I just have to wonder where the priorities are there. Also, some statements from across the House where the Labour members have talked about child sex offenders having compulsive behaviour and that they can’t control themselves—well, I can’t help but put in here that this is why we need to have three-strikes legislation in place to keep the worst of the worst in jail.

But let’s get back to this bill, shall we, in the name of Greg O’Connor. He and I have had quite a number of disagreements over the years, but I’m really glad to be able to support this bill in his name this evening. This bill will require registered sex offenders who intend to travel overseas to inform police of all the places that they intend to stay in for more than 48 hours while they are overseas. They also have to disclose their passport details and information within it, or them, like the passport number, where it was issued, and when it expires for any, and every, passport that they may hold, meaning that they could hold multiple passports, from multiple countries. There is a lot of information that is required: where they intend to stay, when they intend to travel overseas, and when they intend to return to New Zealand again. And, if they don’t intend to return to New Zealand, they need to provide details of which country they are intending to reside in. The important aspect here is that requirement is not for all criminals; it’s only for registered sex offenders who wish to travel overseas.

Sex tourism is an international problem. It is where overseas travel by sex offenders, who can do so, specifically for sex offending takes place. This bill will allow our agencies—the New Zealand Police and the New Zealand Customs Service—to utilise their networks together, working with each other to support identification of cases where sex tourism is expected. For those at home concerned at this prospect, let us assure you that only those two agencies at this stage should have access to the information on the sex offenders register. It should not be publicly available. This bill is extending some of the current provisions in the Act to include an international lens on registered sex offender activities—what they will be directed to do if they wish to travel overseas. It’s no different to what they already have to do here in New Zealand, except details of all passports held by registered sex offenders are added to the list of requirements once they seek to travel overseas. If they intend to travel away from their home for more than 48 hours, they must inform the register at least 48 hours before they travel away. And when children are involved, we need to do what we can to protect them, whether they are our tamariki or tamariki from around the world. When they are vulnerable, changes like this will make a difference to their safety.

There are a couple of concerns about the bill, though, that I’m sure can be clarified easily through the select committee process, and that’s around the storage of addresses that registered sex offenders visit—that is, if they visit the house or the business of a friend, family member, colleague, or even a stranger, we expect that those addresses will need to be recorded and stored somewhere as being a place of interest. So we want to make sure that that information can be stored securely. We also wonder whether or not this bill, in this current format, has enough teeth in it. What is the information going to be used for overseas? So we will support this bill to select committee and look forward to working through it over the upcoming months. Thank you.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Also joining us remotely, I call Willow-Jean Prime.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour—Northland) (remote): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Thank you very much for this opportunity to take a call on the member’s bill this evening. It is a pleasure to take a call on the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) (Overseas Travel Reporting) Amendment Bill, in the name of Greg O’Connor. I have listened to all of the contributions this evening, and want to thank all the members who have participated in the debates so far. What I think it has shown to me is that there is interest across the House in looking at all of the things that we can do to protect our tamariki, our taonga tuku iho, both here in New Zealand but also internationally.

I want to acknowledge the member whose name this bill is in, who has brought this issue forward from his experience, as we heard, as a detective and former police officer. And so with that experience, identifying that there is a gap in the current law, and proposing one tool that we can use to help address that gap.

I was concerned by the contribution from the Green Party member Golriz Ghahraman, in particular saying that registers don’t work. Yet, when we heard the contribution from Greg O’Connor, whose bill it is, he said, in talking with sex offenders, that the register removes temptations and opportunities. And so I look forward to receiving submissions as a member of the Justice Committee—hopefully a wide range of submissions. But also he said that we should invite the Police and Corrections to make submissions on this. And I look forward to that happening and to the contributions that they might make about it, particularly in light of some of the claims made in the debate this evening around the efficacy of registers. Regardless of that, though, I think that there is no harm in having in place additional tools that may help prevent further harm to children internationally, as we currently have that for children domestically.

I also want to commend the members Greg O’Connor and Erica Stanford for working together on their bills and identifying that they are potentially complementary to each other, and getting agreement that we will consider both of those together at the select committee. So I think that the invitation to Police and Corrections, as suggested by Greg O’Connor, perhaps we could add to that also Customs, which might provide us with information—talking to the member’s bill of Erica Stanford and as a potential Supplementary Order Paper.

So I just want to go back and say that I acknowledge Greg O’Connor for identifying a gap in the law, for identifying that there are further things that we could do here in Aotearoa New Zealand to protect children globally. And I want to thank Vanushi Walters for her contribution about our international commitments to protect children and to uphold the rights of children, and seeing this as yet another thing that we can do domestically as part of upholding that international obligation.

So what this bill simply provides is a clause 4 amendment to section 21 to align international reporting requirements with domestic travel; and where reporting requirements are not met without good reason, some penalties may apply. So I am honoured and privileged to be a member of the Justice Committee. Alongside of me are experts in child sex offending and Family Court issues like Dr Emily Henderson, experts in international human rights like Vanushi Walters. We look forward to scrutinising this bill and reporting back to the House with, hopefully, suggestions on how to make this the most appropriate piece of legislation.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. There were 14,047 photographs, images, videos, and pieces of objectionable material found in the possession of a 33-year-old man who was a travelling child sex offender in 2019; 14,000 moments in children’s lives in New Zealand and overseas where they were exploited, abused, where their trust was betrayed, where an adult did something to them that we cannot condone here in New Zealand or overseas—14,000 moments that were found by an investigation between Customs and the Police that wouldn’t have been uncovered if they hadn’t had the intelligence that they needed at that time.

Let me take the House through the factual specifics of that case, because this bill does not deal with a large range of cases, a large number of cases, but it does deal with some of the very worst offending that we must take action against. So in this case, in 2019, a 33-year-old Auckland man had been sentenced to 6½ years’ imprisonment for crimes relating to child exploitation images and videos, including the production of those images. The man was convicted on numerous charges and it’s relevant to note that here, because these sorts of protections that extend information on a child protection register to our international neighbours also go along with a number of other changes that people will be charged with in these situations that limit their freedoms in a much more significant way. So when we consider the extension of the child sex offender register to our overseas neighbours, we have to look at the other sorts of charges that someone in this situation will also be faced with.

In July 2018, Customs began an investigation after receiving information from an overseas agency that a New Zealander had uploaded or exported child sexual exploitation images to a Canadian based messenger app. Customs identified and searched the Auckland man’s home while he was present in August 2019. He was arrested after an interview where he admitted knowing the publications were illegal and investigators established that he had produced some of them.

In a situation like this, our current laws allow us to require information of a person who is charged with this kind of offending and limit their travel domestically. On this side of the House, and I acknowledge the member Greg O’Connor for bringing this bill, we would say that New Zealand has an obligation to make sure that children in New Zealand are protected from this kind of offending if it is someone in New Zealand, in the same way that children overseas are also protected from this kind of offending. Because in this case, it was important that we were able to cooperate with international neighbours to receive and act upon that information. It’s then on us as New Zealanders to make sure that our agencies have the tools that they need to be able to collect information from child sex offenders who intend to travel and be able to make that available to agencies in other jurisdictions to be able to use it in the same way that we did.

It is useful for us to cooperate on these types of crimes because they are cross border, because we know, and the evidence shows us, that people travel for this, that people exchange this sort of information over the internet, and that networks and linkages around the world exist to allow people to behave in this way. As New Zealanders we have an obligation to stop every single one of that type of offender, because when we stop one person, like the man who was charged in 2019, we stop those 14,000 moments that occurred to numerous children around the world. This isn’t the type of offending which has a small scope. It is global. It can affect children from many different countries and our own, and we have to do what we can to prohibit it.

Now, there’s been a lot of discussion in this House about the efficacy of child sex offender registers, and I look forward to the opportunity at the Justice Committee, which I’m a member of, to hear from submitters about whether these are working with a deterrence effect and whether they are actually working for people who are on them and changing their behaviour. My view is that they do change behaviour, and that makes it one of the useful tools that our agencies can use to implement this, but I look forward to exploring that more with my committee colleagues, and I commend this bill.

ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m very pleased to take a call on the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) (Overseas Travel Reporting) Amendment Bill.

Firstly, I just need to acknowledge Greg O’Connor for having his bill drawn and just make a comment on how serendipitous it is that both his bill and then my bill got drawn at a relatively similar time, given that they are quite similar. I also just want to echo the comments of others to say that it is really nice in this House to be able to work across party, to be able to not waste the House’s time but actually put two very similar bills together to make what is a very good bill, that’s been brought by the member Greg O’Connor to the House, even better.

I won’t go into the Green Party’s comments on the bill tonight in detail other than to say that the title of this bill is the child protection bill. It is not a “further penalising the offender bill”; this is a bill about protecting children. Greg O’Connor’s changes to the Act in his bill are thoroughly sensible. As has been traversed in this House, it makes perfect sense to align the domestic settings with international settings.

In fact, when you look at section 21 of the original Act and look at subsection (2) and subsection (4), you can see that they don’t align. We brought this bill back in 2015 but, looking back now, it doesn’t make sense that those two don’t align. That’s why this bill is so good. It means that, for those people travelling overseas, those people on the Child Sex Offender Register will have exactly the same criteria that they have to abide by, as if they were travelling domestically—making sure that there is an address that they give, where they’re staying, the dates on which they are staying at each of those addresses, and whether any children are likely to be there at that address.

Now, the part of the bill that is missing, and why I said earlier it was serendipitous that my bill was drawn at a similar time, is that the person on that register is supposed to, and is required to, tell the police when they travel. But, obviously, that isn’t always the case, and it has been possible for people on that register to travel overseas without having disclosed to the police where they have been.

So the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that I intend to seek leave for to move a motion without notice and without debate for the Justice Committee to consider at the same time—SOP 175 in my name—will make those changes to make sure that there is alignment with Customs and the Police so that there is more information sharing so that we can make sure that the offender on that register has indeed fulfilled their obligations and made it clear to the police when they are going, where they are going, and if any children are going to be present. That’s why it aligns so nicely with Mr O’Connor’s bill. So I will move that SOP at the required time.

I don’t need to say any more; this has been well traversed today. It’s an excellent bill. It tidies up a piece of law. It makes absolute sense. It was a no-brainer in our caucus, as Mr Mark Mitchell, previous to me, made comments on. I’m just so pleased that Greg O’Connor, who I always describe as my favourite Labour MP, was able to work with me on this bill, on such an important bill, to get the law tidied up so that we can continue to protect children—not just here in New Zealand but also overseas. So I’m very pleased to commend this bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members, this debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow. Pō Mārie.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.