Thursday, 30 June 2022

Volume 760

Sitting date: 30 June 2022

THURSDAY, 30 JUNE 2022

The Deputy Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

karakia/prayers

IAN McKELVIE (Assistant Speaker): Almighty God, we give thanks for the blessings which have been bestowed upon 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.

Business Statement

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Today, the House will adjourn until Tuesday, 26 July. In that week, the legislation that the House will consider will include the further stages of the Data and Statistics Bill and the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2); and the first readings of the Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill, the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill, and the United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement Legislation Bill. On Thursday, 28 July, there will be a special debate on a petition about digital exclusion, and there will be an extended sitting on the morning of Thursday, 28 July.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Leader of the House for his update and trust all members across the House will have a productive but perhaps less frenetic winter recess. The third week of that recess will mark the sixth anniversary of the return to this House of the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill, and I wonder if he could inform the House of the likelihood that that bill will progress before its seventh birthday?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): The member can live in hope! The Government, of course, has a very busy legislative programme, as he will see if he takes a glance at the Order Paper at the moment. There is an awful lot of legislation that will be making its way through the House between now and at the end of the year.

PETITIONS, PAPERS, SELECT COMMITTEE REPORTS, AND INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No select committee reports have been presented. A petition has been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

CLERK: Petition of Maggie Ross requesting that the House urge the Government to provide funding for all schools in New Zealand to have gender-neutral bathrooms.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That petition stands referred to the Petitions Committee. Ministers have delivered papers.

CLERK:

Statement of intent for 2022 to 2026 for the Department of Corrections

statement of performance expectations 2022/23 for the Transport Accident Investigation Commission and the Earthquake Commission, and

Public Service Commission, Enabling Active Citizenship: Public Participation in Government into the Future, Long-Term Insights Briefing.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I present the annual plan 2022/23 of the Controller and Auditor-General. Those papers are published under the authority of the House. The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of a bill.

CLERK: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Harm Minimisation) Amendment Bill, introduction.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That bill is set down for first reading.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Education

1. JO LUXTON (Labour—Rangitata) to the Minister of Education: What further COVID-19 support is the Government providing schools this winter?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): The Government is providing additional funding this winter to encourage schools and centre-based early childhood education services to maintain healthy levels of heating and ventilation. In addition, the Government has already provided every school in New Zealand with carbon dioxide monitors to help them identify the spaces where maintaining good ventilation can be proven to be more challenging, and we’ve purchased 12,500 air cleaners to help improve the ventilation in those areas. Every school has access to those air cleaners at no cost, if they need them, to help supplement their approach to ventilation this winter.

Jo Luxton: What has been the basis for this support, and why is it so important for schools?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: This work addresses concern that has been raised that some schools and services may be reluctant to maintain effective natural ventilation during winter due to potential heat loss. The Ministry of Education has researched international best practice and conducted joint studies of classroom ventilation with the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, and they’ve worked with the University of Canterbury to estimate potential heat loss due to improved ventilation. Good ventilation over winter can lead to some additional heat loss and higher heating bills. The winter energy payments that we’re making to schools will help to reassure schools and early childhood services that they can balance heating and ventilation while COVID-19 continues to circulate widely within the community without unaffordable energy bills.

Jo Luxton: What will be the eligibility for schools to be able to access this support?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: There will be $3.6 million allocated to schools, kura, teen parent units, and activity centres. The amounts will range from $200 up to a cap of $4,000. For most, it will amount to a 5 percent top-up of their annual heat, light, and water funding allocation. In addition, $1.4 million will go to centre-based early childhood education services. The Government doesn’t usually explicitly fund energy costs for these services, but the COVID-19 pandemic is a unique situation. We’ll also be providing an additional one-off payment to fund portable carbon dioxide monitors for centre-based early childhood services that serve disadvantaged communities.

Question No. 2—Finance

2. NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National) to the Minister of Finance: Does he agree with Westpac that “Consumer confidence has plummeted, as household budgets have been squeezed by higher mortgage rates and increases in living costs”, and when does he expect wage growth to catch up with price increases? I see you’re raring to go.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House) on behalf of the Minister of Finance: Buckle in! Given the increases in global inflation, which is tracking over 9 percent on average across the OECD, the ongoing disruptions to supply chains, and the impacts of the war in Ukraine, it’s not surprising that consumer confidence has been affected. The report referenced by the member also notes the factors contributing to the resilience of the New Zealand economy, such as the strength of the labour market, with unemployment at just 3.2 percent. In answer to the second part of the question, the global energy crisis that we are seeing has contributed to inflation outstripping wages in 2022. In terms of Treasury’s most recent forecasts, 2022 is the only year in which that is the case, and wage growth is expected to exceed inflation from 2023 onwards.

Nicola Willis: Is he concerned that, far from showing resilience, ANZ’s headline measure of business confidence, out today, is approaching record lows, and does he take any responsibility for the lack of confidence in the economy?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I think the member will be aware that around the world we are seeing consumer confidence reaching very low levels, and New Zealand, of course, is in line with that trend. This is not unique to New Zealand.

Nicola Willis: Can he confirm that, according to the business survey from ANZ, firms are increasingly pessimistic about the outlook for activity and profitability in New Zealand, and does he share their concerns?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I have seen the ANZ study, and as I’ve indicated before, it is in line with surveys around the world that are showing an increased degree of pessimism and lower confidence, both consumer confidence and business confidence, something the Government does, of course, take very seriously. It’s one of the reasons we are committed to addressing some of the underlying causes—for example, the cost of living pressures that New Zealand households face. Those are issues that we are very much focused on addressing.

Nicola Willis: Is he aware that, according to Westpac’s consumer survey, confidence in the economy is at its lowest level since 1988, and doesn’t that show that working New Zealanders have run out of confidence in the prospects for the New Zealand economy while Labour is in charge?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: If one scans across all of the different surveys out there at the moment, you could also find examples of where consumer confidence was lower after the global financial crisis, when the National Party was in Government. Overall, there is no question that consumer confidence is lower at the moment. Most people watch the TV news at night and will see what is happening around the rest of the world, and that of course is having an impact.

Nicola Willis: Isn’t it the case that, far from being about what’s happening around the world, the reality is that inflation has outstripped wage growth in New Zealand for 10 of the last 17 quarters, meaning New Zealanders’ real incomes are falling, and that’s why they lack confidence in his Government?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I don’t agree with the member’s assertion in her question. In fact, up until this year, wage growth has been outstripping inflation. After the global financial crisis, there were several periods where wage growth was being outstripped by inflation. That is not unusual when we see economic shocks of the type that we are experiencing at the moment. But the Treasury forecasts indicate that, by next year, we will be back into the position where wage growth will be running ahead of inflation.

Nicola Willis: With mortgage repayment hikes looming for many Kiwi families, what does he say to the New Zealanders who are tightening their belts and bracing for tough times yet are having to watch his Government spend up large at record high rates?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I say to the householders who are following interest rates very closely that they should be fortunate the ACT Party aren’t part of a National Government, because they’re arguing for even higher interest rates.

Nicola Willis: Has he seen the comment by Lance on the Labour Party Facebook page asking, “Why no tax cuts, then? It’s well overdue. The middle class is bleeding.”, and if so, why won’t he commit to giving Kiwis back more of their money so that they can better weather the cost of living crisis?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Before we go on, there was quite a bit of murmuring on this side while this question was being asked, and I’m going to ask members to stop it.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: If that member thinks that giving the highest-income New Zealanders a huge amount of additional funding and giving most working New Zealanders very, very little, which is what the tax cuts being proposed by both the National Party and the ACT Party would deliver, then I think she is utterly wrong.

Nicola Willis: Has he received advice on whether his continuing to claim the New Zealand economy is strong will eventually make it true?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The underlying fundamentals of the New Zealand economy are strong. They are stronger now than they were after the global financial crisis, when Bill English and John Key were calling it “a rock star economy”. There is no question that the cost of living is biting for New Zealanders. That is an international phenomenon. It is one the Government takes seriously.

Question No. 3—Disability Issues

3. TERISA NGOBI (Labour—Ōtaki) to the Minister for Disability Issues: What progress has the Government made in the delivery of the new Ministry for Disabled People?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister for Disability Issues): Budget 2022 underlined the Government’s commitment to deliver change for the disability community by funding the establishment of a new ministry. Tomorrow, I will launch the new Ministry for Disabled People at an event here at Parliament. This will be a historic day that has been 40 years in the making. This will be the first ministry of disabled people in any comparable jurisdiction. It will also be the first ministry with a New Zealand Sign Language name, as well as te reo Māori and English names. The launch of the ministry marks a new chapter for approximately 1.1 million disabled people in New Zealand and is a significant step towards realising true partnership between Government and disabled people—tāngata whaikaha—their whānau, carers, and supporters. It is a privilege to step into this role at such a crucial time for the community and to build on the incredible work of my colleague the Hon Carmel Sepuloni.

Terisa Ngobi: What does the new ministry mean for disabled people?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: The disabled community has waited decades for this moment. That’s why work will continue to ensure the new ministry has the time to get its people and systems established so that it’s well placed to get the transformation right. In the spirit of “Nothing About Us Without Us”, the new ministry will start the ball rolling with ensuring the ministry’s culture and values are mana-enhancing, the governance and partnership arrangements are meaningful, and the mechanisms that will give effect to disabled people’s voices are embedded. The new ministry will also progress transformation of the disability system by progressively applying the Enabling Good Lives approach to disability support services across New Zealand. The three current pilot sites provide an excellent base for a wider roll-out. Over time, more disabled people will have more choice and control, including over funding, to enable them to live great lives.

Terisa Ngobi: What other progress has the Government made to support disabled people?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: The Government’s commitment to supporting the disability community was demonstrated through Budget 2022, with over a billion dollars of new funding for the disability sector. This includes $100 million for the implementation of the Enabling Good Lives approach, $735 million for Disability Support Services, and over $4.8 million to strengthen New Zealand Sign Language and education. This funding marks another step towards creating—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The Minister has answered. Further remarks?

Question No. 4—Prime Minister

4. BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT) to the Acting Prime Minister: Does he consider that New Zealand is a worse country for young working New Zealanders struggling to pay bills than it was a year ago; if not, does he acknowledge that rents, mortgages, petrol, and grocery prices have increased from a year ago?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House) on behalf of the Acting Prime Minister: In answer to the first part of the question, the Government has been clear that New Zealand’s economy is facing an extremely tough time as global inflation pressures caused by the war in Ukraine, the Omicron outbreak, and COVID-19 supply chain disruptions push up prices around the globe and here in New Zealand. OECD inflation is averaging 9.2 percent to April, and that is having an impact here in New Zealand. In answer to the second part of the question, yes. Households are facing an extremely tough time due to the impact of these global inflationary pressures. That’s why the Government will continue to support young New Zealanders through targeted policies like the cost of living payment, half-price public transport, $25 increase a week to student allowances, and a reduction in fuel excise duty whilst we continue to invest in infrastructure, education, and health services that young New Zealanders rely on. As we covered in the House last week, in the midst of tough economic times globally, we are well placed. Unemployment is at record lows, and we are in a strong financial position. The easing of border restrictions and opening up to skilled workers and tourists will also help businesses and the economy rebuild.

Brooke van Velden: What are the improvements that outweigh rents increasing by $40 per week in one year under this Government?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As I mentioned before, the Government is very focused on supporting New Zealanders through the increased cost of living, and that includes things like raising the incomes of some of the lowest-paid and lowest-income New Zealanders, things like lifting the minimum wage, things like ensuring that student allowances have been increased—these things will have an impact, as will the winter energy payment and the cost of living payment. But there is no direct one-for-one there.

Brooke van Velden: Is a recent report from Deloitte showing that 45 percent of all New Zealand millennials expect the overall economic situation in New Zealand to worsen—up from 28 percent last year and higher than millennials internationally—a reflection of New Zealanders’ decreasing trust in this Government’s handling of the economy; if not, why not?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No. As I indicated in my answer to a previous question from another Opposition member, we are seeing an overall downward trend in consumer confidence and in people’s optimism about the future at the moment. That is not surprising when you consider the challenges that New Zealanders are facing around the rising cost of living and, of course, the fact that the global pandemic and the winter flu season is having a very significant impact at the moment.

Brooke van Velden: How are young working Kiwis better off this year in comparison to last year, considering new research by economics consultancy Infometrics has found that 2022 is the worst year to be a first-home buyer since 1957 due to house price inflation caused by this Government’s policies?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I say to those young New Zealanders who are affected by the spiralling cost of housing that they have a Government that is committed to addressing the underlying causes of that. For nine years, we had a Government that wasn’t focused on building houses and it denied there was a housing crisis. Our Government acknowledged when we became the Government that we have a housing crisis in New Zealand. That’s not something that you turn around overnight.

Brooke van Velden: Does the Government consider its borrowing and spending has pushed up the price of everything and might just push young working New Zealanders to leave the country?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The biggest driver of inflation is global inflation. In fact, New Zealand’s inflation rate is running below the OECD average.

Question No. 5—Immigration

5. ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays) to the Minister of Immigration: Does he believe Government immigration policy over the last two years has put New Zealand in a competitive position to be an attractive destination for migrant nurses; if so, why have more than 800 beds in the aged care sector been closed because of a lack of nurses?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health) on behalf of the Minister of Immigration: Yes, immigration policy allowed migrant nurses to cross the border when it was closed; around 2,300 nurses did so. Through the immigration rebalance, we are providing a simple and streamlined pathway to residency for nurses coming to New Zealand. For the first time in recent history, our Government has put hospital nurses on the fast track to residency. In answer to the second part of the question, there is no question that we are facing sustained pressure across our health workforce. This is a challenge many other countries are going through as well. As a Government, we recognise this, and through our immigration policy settings we are setting up our workforces for success in the long term.

Erica Stanford: Can the Minister explain how preventing migrant nurses working in New Zealand from reuniting with their partners and children for nearly 18 months while the borders were closed made New Zealand an attractive destination for migrant nurses?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: As I’ve just said, our borders were open to nurses from other parts of the world who wanted to come to work here. Even when the borders were closed, of the over 5,000 health workers who came to New Zealand while the borders were closed, more than 2,300 of them were nurses.

Erica Stanford: Point of order, Mr Speaker. My question was not around other nurses coming to New Zealand. It was around nurses in New Zealand being separated from their families—nothing to do with new nurses coming to New Zealand. He did not address the question.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker, the question was about the attractiveness of New Zealand to nurses from overseas. I addressed that question.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: OK. Well, I might have been distracted a little bit when the question was asked. Can you ask the question again.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: OK. I will get the Minister to respond again.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I have to repeat my answer: New Zealand was an attractive place for nurses, which is why, when the borders were closed, of the more than 5,000 healthcare workers who crossed the border as part of the immigration exemption, more than 2,300 nurses did so.

Erica Stanford: Can the Minister explain how providing dedicated managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) spots for entertainers, sports teams, and film makers but not nurses until November last year, a few months before MIQ was closed, made New Zealand a more competitive country for attracting migrant nurses?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Again, on behalf of the Minister, when MIQ started, shortly after it commenced operations, it did have places for health workers, including for nurses. It originally set aside a number of places. It was apparent by about the middle of last year—as a consequence of the advocacy of the Minister of Health, it became apparent that, actually, those places were not being set aside for healthcare workers and for nurses, and I’m very thankful for the advocacy of the Minister of Health that persuaded us that we had to get that system right, and we worked with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to make sure that we got 300 dedicated places for healthcare workers a month by the end of the year.

Erica Stanford: Can the Minister explain how New Zealand is a desirable destination when migrant nurses here completing their New Zealand nursing training on student visas in 2021 are now blocked from applying for the fast-track resident 2021 visa (R21), despite being now registered nurses working in our health system?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: On behalf of the Minister, the 2021 resident visa is open to those who spent a specified period of time here working in their particular profession. So for nurses or other health workers, it will be those particular professions that qualifies them for residency. If they haven’t worked for that specified period of time, then they won’t qualify, but they should continue to take advantage of the student options open to them and to try to seek work and qualify for residency in the way that they previously did.

Erica Stanford: What does he say to the migrant nurse who contacted me last night, who has been in New Zealand for 10 years, completed her nursing training here, is not eligible for R21 because she was on a student visa in September last year, who has now applied to move to Australia because she has to wait another two years for residence via the green list?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: On behalf of the Minister, there’s a hodgepodge of, sort of, facts there, some of which contradict each other. If the member wants to raise the case of a specific individual, I’m happy to look at it and consider it against the policy and the policies that have been well notified to all those who are seeking residency in New Zealand.

Erica Stanford: Does he think that there is any correlation between the fact that we are 4,000 nurses short, according to the health Minister, and the Government’s failure to prioritise nurses through immigration settings over the last two years?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: We have. This Government, I know for a fact from talking to the Minister of Health, has funded the health system so we have an additional 4,000 nurse places in our health system. There are a number of vacancies currently in the health system, and every effort is being made to recruit nurses into those vacancies from a number of sources—from overseas is one source; internally is another—and every other measure that we can, including graduate nurses being trained here in New Zealand. Every effort is being made to fill those vacancies.

Question No. 6—Economic and Regional Development

6. NAISI CHEN (Labour) to the Minister for Economic and Regional Development: What reports has he seen on developments in the New Zealand space sector?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister for Economic and Regional Development): On Tuesday night, Rocket Lab reported it had launched NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, or CAPSTONE, satellite to the moon’s orbit, using its own Electron rocket and Photon lunar spacecraft. This is an extraordinary achievement for Rocket Lab, and New Zealand now joins a very small group of countries that have launched missions to the moon. Peter Beck and the staff of Rocket Lab are a great example of an advanced manufacturing technology and excellence, coupled with entrepreneurial drive, which we have in this country. The tyranny of distance has been a blessing for space launch. With limited air and sea travel to the east, Rocket Lab chose magnificent Māhia Peninsula to establish the world’s first fully private orbital launch facility. I would like to congratulate Peter and the Rocket Lab team, on behalf of the Government, on this outstanding achievement.

Naisi Chen: What benefits, if any, will the CAPSTONE mission bring for New Zealand?

Hon STUART NASH: Other than being an international success story, based in New Zealand, continuing to put our name on the map and the magnificent example of a thriving sector supporting tens of thousands of high-wage jobs, the CAPSTONE mission also involves a new, bespoke collaboration with NASA that will enable a University of Canterbury - led research team to advance development of a technology to track moon-orbiting spacecraft. This is an excellent opportunity for a Kiwi university to lead a technology development project with international significance. The research will be increasingly important as more countries and private actors launch lunar missions. From observatories in Tekapō, our researchers will collaborate with NASA to improve the way we predict spacecraft trajectories.

Naisi Chen: Does the Government have any other collaborations with the space sector?

Hon STUART NASH: The Government has a $26 million investment in the MethaneSAT mission, which will launch a state of the art satellite to detect and measure anthropogenic methane emissions—

Hon Todd McClay: Nothing compared to the methane this member produces.

Hon STUART NASH: —and enable action on slowing climate change—Mr McClay. Rocket Lab will design and build the critical IT infrastructure required to task and position the satellite in space, as well as collect the science data from the satellite. It will also develop, and initially operate, the MethaneSAT mission operation centre, before responsibilities are handed over to the University of Auckland’s Space Institute. Once again, well done to Peter and the Rocket Lab team.

Question No. 7—Trade and Export Growth

7. Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) to the Minister for Trade and Export Growth: Will he advise the Prime Minister to instruct our free trade agreement negotiators to keep talking if the offer from the European Union for dairy and meat exporters is not commercially meaningful for New Zealand, rather than conclude the agreement in Brussels this week?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of State for Trade and Export Growth) on behalf of the Minister for Trade and Export Growth: New Zealand seeks the best possible overall outcome from the free-trade agreement (FTA) negotiations, which includes commercially meaningful outcomes for our exporters, including those in the dairy and meat sectors, and it’s worth noting that negotiations on our FTA with the European Union are not yet concluded.

Hon Todd McClay: Can he confirm, as widely reported in the media, that the EU offer for meat and dairy is worse than before negotiations started and is not acceptable to New Zealand?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: No, I can’t confirm that. The offer on the table now from the EU has progressed since 2020.

Hon Todd McClay: Is it the case that the current EU offer is for small quotas for dairy and meat exports, with high-end quota tariffs, and would mean that New Zealand dairy and meat would not be competitive in the EU market?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: No, I can’t confirm that, but what I can confirm is that our trade negotiations in Brussels right now—the team that’s there, assisted by the Minister and the Prime Minister—are fighting for the best possible deal for New Zealand, including for our major export sectors.

Hon Todd McClay: Isn’t it the case, as the Minister said in December last year, that New Zealand has agreed the EU’s request for geographical indicators, meaning we couldn’t produce our export foods named Parmesan or Gouda or Edam or Feta, for instance, and that we haven’t received any commercially meaningful gains for dairy meat exports in return?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: It’s well known that the European Union will not sign free-trade agreements that don’t include outcomes on geographical indicators. But I say to the member that our negotiating team will not sign a free-trade agreement that does not significantly advance the trading position of New Zealand, including in our major export sectors.

Hon Todd McClay: Is he aware that the EU has publicly consulted on banning New Zealanders using the name Kiwi Latina, and will the New Zealand Government agree to this restriction as part of an FTA?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, that’s for the EU to comment on; it’s not our position right now, in the middle of delicate negotiations, to comment on their position. I’ll just repeat for the member’s sake again that it’s necessary in any negotiations with the EU on an FTA these days to engage on the question of geographical indicators, but we’re interested in what the total package delivers for New Zealand, including for our major export sectors.

Hon Todd McClay: Does he agree the success of any FTA that New Zealand signs is judged on increased market access, especially for dairy and meat exports, and will he therefore commit to not concluding negotiations with the European Union until a commercially meaningful offer for dairy and meat has been agreed?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, I can tell the member again that we will not agree an FTA that doesn’t include commercially meaningful outcomes for dairy and meat exporters in New Zealand. But the EU FTA encompasses a lot more than that that will be valuable for our economy moving into the future.

Question No. 8—Veterans

8. IBRAHIM OMER (Labour) to the Minister for Veterans: What recent policy framework announcement has been made in support of New Zealand veterans affected by mental health and wellbeing issues?

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Minister for Veterans): I’m very pleased to announce to the House that, last night, Veterans’ Affairs launched the Veteran, Family and Whānau Mental Health and Wellbeing Policy Framework—Te Arataki mō te Hauora Ngākau mō ngā Mōrehu a Tū me ō rātou Whānau. The policy framework examines the mental health and wellbeing of Aotearoa New Zealand’s veterans, and I congratulate the round table that developed this valuable resource. This document synthesises health and defence evidence and expert knowledge and experiences, and identifies what needs to be done to advance the mental health and wellbeing of veterans and their whānau and family. The 2018 He Ara Oranga report on the Government’s inquiry into mental health and addiction identified New Zealand veterans as being a vulnerable group. However, a framework was never developed to address our veterans’ needs. In 2021, Veterans’ Affairs began the process, bringing together key defence and health organisations, veteran advocacy groups, health practitioners, and veterans to focus on the mental health and wellbeing of veterans and their families. We acknowledge there are mental health problems for our veterans, and we wanted to look at the evidence and identify what New Zealand can do to improve support for the mental health and wellbeing of our veterans and their whānau.

Ibrahim Omer: What does this mean for veterans and their whānau?

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: This policy framework has been developed with six effective responses for veterans and their whānau: (1) first focus on the prevention and wellbeing promotion; (2) streamline cross-agency responses; (3) increase health provider awareness and education; (4) maintain military connections; (5) meet the needs of the whole family and whānau, not just the veteran; and, (6) support diversity and cultural needs. This resource will help the more than 140,000 veterans, of which a small number will face significant problems resulting from their service: mental health and/or addiction issues, social withdrawal, poverty, homelessness, violence, and suicide. This policy framework will allow Veterans’ Affairs, the Ministry of Health, ACC, Corrections, the Ministry of Social Development, and others to coordinate their response to meet the needs of the veteran and their families.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That was far too long, that answer.

Ibrahim Omer: Who is this policy framework for?

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: We encourage a wide range of organisations I’ve listed to utilise this resource. Our veterans do face those personal challenges during their service and the transition to civilian life can be complex compared to life in the service. Most veterans will experience good mental health and make a successful and safe transition; a small number will not. This resource recognises veterans and their families, understands their shared and individually unique experiences, and supports them to maintain and build their mental health and wellbeing.

Question No. 9—Environment (Biodiversity)

9. MARK CAMERON (ACT) to the Associate Minister for the Environment (Biodiversity): Can he confirm that the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity exposure draft contains specific requirements in relation to significant natural areas on Māori land; if so, will these requirements allow more development to take place on Māori land than non-Māori land?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Minister for Emergency Management) on behalf of the Associate Minister for the Environment (Biodiversity): Yes, and there are also specific requirements for other types of land such as the maintenance of pasture, forestry, and geothermal areas, and all of these allow for existing uses to continue.

Mark Cameron: Why has the Minister established special requirements for significant natural areas on Māori land?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: On behalf of the Associate Minister, there are specific requirements for other types of land also, including the maintenance of pasture, forestry, and geothermal areas, and all of these allow for existing uses to continue.

Mark Cameron: What advice has the Minister received, if any, indicating that his Government’s policies would devalue land determined to be a Significant Natural Area?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: On behalf of the Associate Minister, I’m not in a position to answer any questions about advice on Government policy. The primary question was about the exposure draft which, on the top of it, says “Not Government policy”.

Mark Cameron: Does the Minister agree that all New Zealanders should be able to develop their lands whether it is Māori land or not?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: On behalf of the Associate Minister, questions in general around the use of Māori land are more appropriately asked to the Minister for Māori Development.

Mark Cameron: Point of order, Mr Speaker. The question as framed was whether it was for Māori land or not. What about the other half of that?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can you read the question again to me.

Mark Cameron: Thank you, Mr Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I’m not asking you to ask it; I want to hear it again so I can make a ruling. Sorry.

Mark Cameron: My apologies. I was trying to make the determination whether the member over there had defined in his answer whether it was Māori land or not, and he spoke to one half of that.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: He’s definitely addressed that.

Mark Cameron: What would the Minister say to Greg, a Tasman farmer who spoke to me about his 600-acre farm, which his family has owned for more than a hundred years, that could be rezoned because of this Government’s proposals, and future generations might lose their right to care for that land?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: On behalf of the Associate Minister, I’d say “Gidday, Greg.” and I’d say thank you for the question, and I would say that the member can be reassured, just like his colleagues and other farmers across the county, that existing land use will continue under these proposals.

Question No. 10—Emergency Management

10. RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson) to the Minister for Emergency Management: What recent announcements has he made about helping to keep families and communities in Aotearoa New Zealand safer from natural disasters?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Minister for Emergency Management): This week, I launched the new Monitoring, Alerting and Reporting (MAR) Centre at the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). New Zealand is prone to many natural hazards, the frequency of which is becoming more regular due to climate change. It is important that we reassure communities and families that the system is robust and there to keep them safe. We need, therefore, 24/7 monitoring of the threats. The new MAR system will monitor, scan, and gather information on emerging threats. It will alert the public, regional civil defence groups, and emergency services and report that information to the Government.

Rachel Boyack: What prompted the Government to establish the centre, and by when?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: The 2018 ministerial review into better responses to natural disasters and other emergencies included a recommendation for a 24/7 emergency response monitoring system. The previous Minister, the Hon Kris Faafoi, made that commitment and found funding through the Budget, and the process was commenced. It was originally planned to be completed by 2024, but due to the hard work of the NEMA team, that has been brought forward by two years, ahead of schedule and on budget.

Rachel Boyack: How will it make New Zealand safer?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: Whilst the system has always been robust and has delivered excellent service to New Zealanders, it has relied on an on-call system. This placed an unfair burden on those staff, who had to do a full day’s work, then deal with personal circumstances and realities, and then be on call throughout the night. They delivered that with excellent commitment and dedication, but the time has come for a dedicated, 24/7 monitoring system, which is now, as I say, fully funded and, I’m pleased to say, fully staffed. I’d like to acknowledge the hard work of NEMA for getting this centre up and running ahead of schedule. We thank them very much for their efforts.

Question No. 11—Foreign Affairs

11. Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs: Does she consider that her statement earlier this month that deep sea mining “has caused some division between member States of Pacific nation Governments and NGO organisations within their own countries” is now out of date in light of the Governments of Palau, Samoa, and Fiji announcing the Alliance Against Deep Sea Mining at the United Nations Oceans Conference; if not, why not?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Foreign Affairs): I stand by the statement earlier this month. All countries, like New Zealand, are focused on ensuring high standards of environmental protection, and improving our understanding of the deep sea to facilitate this. Palau, Samoa, and Fiji have gone through their own internal processes to reach their position, but they’re not the only countries in the Pacific with an interest in this issue. It is worth reiterating that Pacific Island countries do have differing perspectives on a moratorium.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Has the Minister updated Aotearoa New Zealand’s negotiating mandate ahead of the next International Seabed Authority (ISA) meeting in July; if not, can the Minister confirm to the House that she will do so?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: New Zealand’s approach to the ISA negotiations, which sees us calling for no deep-sea mining to occur without high environmental standards in place, has not changed. We are part of a coalition of members arguing for the highest possible standards of environmental protection. In light of the declarations of Palau, Samoa, and Fiji, we expect this view to be reflected at the July ISA meetings. We remain committed to a multilateral process that is under way at ISA as the best possible chance to deliver. New Zealand’s full and good-faith engagement in ISA processes at this stage provides us with the best chance to influence an effective outcome for the environment that is respected by all States. If the ISA is not able to deliver the highest standards of environmental protection, then we will be calling for no deep-sea mining to occur. As I’ve previously indicated, after the meeting in July, which will be the second round of negotiations, it will be the most appropriate time to undertake a review and review our mandate.

Teanau Tuiono (remote): Does she stand by officials’ advice in 2021 that our approach to deep-sea mining must recognise the mana of each Pacific Island country, and, if so, does she agree that New Zealand’s opposition to an international moratorium on deep-sea mining is now out of step with that advice and needs to be revised?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: Yes, the negotiations at the ISA are still in their early stages, and I want to ensure that we’re keeping a watching brief on what is being said across the Pacific in relation to the issues of a moratorium. It remains difficult to assess what is likely to happen as this process continues, but, again, we maintain a watching brief. New Zealand is engaging actively in the ISA processes, with a view to ensuring the effective protection of the marine environment in accordance with the obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It will be very important to see what progress can be made at the next July ISA meeting. At this early stage, we remain focused on engaging fully and in good faith to push for an effective outcome for the environment that is respected by all States.

Teanau Tuiono: Does the Minister consider the growing call of Pacific States for a global moratorium on deep-sea mining a request for assistance from their international partners, and, if so, does she consider Aotearoa has an obligation to support and uphold the interests of our Pacific relatives?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: We respect the views across the Pacific and know how important this issue is. We also recognise, at this point, that there’s no consensus amongst Pacific nations on this issue of a moratorium on deep-sea mining. Notwithstanding that, New Zealand’s focus is on communicating the risks we see around deep-sea mining, and building on those matters in the region that we can agree on, especially how we ensure key knowledge gaps in our understanding of the deep sea are filled. We consider the first step in filling these gaps is to work as a region to clearly articulate the region’s ocean science priorities to ensure funding and research effort is best targeted. We already fund the Pacific Community Centre for Ocean Science based within the Pacific community and are discussing with them how to do more in this particular area.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Does the Minister agree that international waters outside of any State’s domestic jurisdiction should be protected from environmental destruction for the common good of everyone on the planet, and if so, will she commit Aotearoa New Zealand to supporting a moratorium of deep-sea mining under the high seas?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: UNCLOS sets out the legal framework within which all activities in the oceans and seas must be carried out. New Zealand has a longstanding in-principle commitment to UNCLOS, which we view as vital to the security and prosperity of New Zealand and the wider Pacific region. UNCLOS provides that deep-sea mining cannot take place unless the effective protection of the marine environment can be ensured. We’re engaging actively in the ISA processes with a view to ensuring the effective protection of the marine environment in accordance with the obligations under UNCLOS. To that end, we’ve been vocal in our calls for no deep-sea meaning to proceed without robust environmental protections. As I’ve said previously, once a number of considerations have taken place, once we understand the broadening position of the Pacific on these matters, I’ll seek to review our position and mandate in July.

Question No. 12—Justice

12. CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi) to the Minister of Justice: Does she stand by all her actions and statements?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): Yes, I do, and in particular I stand by my statement earlier this week that money talks. And money talks when it comes to investments, and investments that this Government has made, particularly when it comes to victims. Over the last four Budgets, this side of the House has invested a total amount of $130.183 million in support for our victims. Over the last four Budgets of National—Budget ’17, nil; Budget ’16, nil; Budget ’15, nil; Budget ’14, nil. On this side of the House, yes, we believe in the rights of victims, and we’re prepared to put our money where our mouth is.

Chris Penk: Does the Minister think that she’ll be more successful in obtaining support services funding for victims than previous Ministers of Justice under this Government?

Hon Chris Hipkins: Certainly under the last Government!

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: Certainly more than the last Government.

Chris Penk: Point of order. My question was very specifically in relation to previous Ministers of Justice under this Government. I don’t believe that was even nearly addressed.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: You can ask it again.

Chris Penk: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Same supplementary: does the Minister think that she will have more success in advocating for funding for supporting victims than the previous Ministers of Justice under this Government?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: The previous Ministers of Justice on this side of the House—as I’ve said, incrementally, every single year, there has been an uplift in the amount of funding that has gone to victims. Budget ’18, $13.467 million; Budget ’19, $43.986 million; Budget 2020, $3.038 million; Budget 2022, $66.6 million. I go back to the ACT and National record on investment into victims: Budget ’17, nil—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The Minister has answered.

Chris Penk: How is it that the Minister can claim that her Government has provided better services for victims when court cases lasting longer than 16 months involving victims of serious crime have leapt from 900 to approximately 3,000, more than tripling under this Government?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: Look, as I’ve said, the focus on victims is critical, and we are taking an all-of-Government approach to the way that we are dealing particularly with victims of serious crime, but what I will note just briefly is that one of the biggest issues that has pillared and impinged upon the courts’ ability to be able to do what they need to do to process victims through the courts has been the impacts of COVID.

Chris Penk: Why should non-fatal strangulation victims be assured by her statement that “The focus of this Government is to join up the siloed parts of the justice system.” when over 1,600 missed out on support due to the Government’s failure to deliver a cross-agency strangulation initiative, as announced in Budget 2020?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: As the member will be well aware, there has been significant investment by this Government to ensure that there is an all-of-Government response to victims of crime, whether that’s in the way we are approaching the way that we deal with victims when it comes to their experiences through the court. We’ve had a significant uplift in terms of victim support advisers going through the court. There’s been significant uplift in terms of the amount of funding that is going directly to victims of crime. There’s been a focus on the way that we’re ensuring all agencies come into the courtroom and provide support through experiences, and that’s in particular through Te Ao Mārama. So, to his point, I refute the proposition in his question.

Chris Penk: Why does the Minister think the outcomes for victims have been getting worse under this Government, including prior to the period of COVID-19 disruption?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: There’s no evidence to show that that’s the case.

Chris Penk: Point of order. I did point out a number of different statistics that the Minister has accepted. So I don’t believe that she’s addressed the question in merely rejecting the premise of the question.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think it has actually been addressed, in my opinion.

Parliamentary Service Commission

Membership

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I move, That under section 15(1)(d) of the Parliamentary Service Act 2000, Dr Duncan Webb be appointed as a member of the Parliamentary Service Commission.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill

First Reading

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): I present a legislative statement on the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative—[Interruption] Order! Would those members leaving please do so quietly. That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I move, That the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 3 November 2022.

This bill responds to concerns raised in recent years about constraints on the right of Māori voters to choose between the general roll and the Māori roll. It provides Māori with flexibility and promotes participation in New Zealand’s democracy.

The Māori electoral option is a four-month period that occurs every four to six years, where some voters can choose to move between the general and Māori electoral rolls. It is the only time when Māori voters can change their roll choice. The last Māori electoral option was in 2018, and the next one is due to be in 2024. This timing means that without changes being made, Māori will be locked in to their roll choice for two general elections: the first in 2020, and then for the upcoming 2023 general election.

In our targeted consultation, the overwhelming response was that the current option creates barriers to participation in electoral processes. This is because Māori are unable to change the electoral roll they are on to reflect their electoral preferences leading up to an election. We heard repeatedly that the current arrangements are unjustified, unfair, and often difficult to understand.

The bill reduces the barriers that exist when it comes to choosing whether a person wants to be on the general electoral roll or the Māori electoral roll. It amends the Electoral Act 1993 to implement a new, continuous option model to allow Māori voters to freely exercise their right to choose their preferred electoral roll. This change does not introduce any electoral advantages to Māori; it simply allows Māori to more easily exercise their vote on the electoral roll which reflects their roll preference. It will help ensure a more workable and voter-friendly electoral system.

I need to point out an exception to the new, continuous model. In order to help protect against roll changes by election voting which does not reflect an elector’s general election roll preference, changing of rolls will not be permitted for electors who reside in an electorate where there is a parliamentary by-election during that period for that by-election. The recent by-election in Tauranga, for example, would have been just that kind of case. This exception will not, however, apply in the rare circumstance where a parliamentary by-election happens to take place during the period of the triennial local elections. This is to ensure that Māori voters can exercise their choice of roll preference for local elections separately from that for parliamentary elections.

The change to a continuous model has important consequences for how the Māori electoral population and, by extension, the number of Māori seats are calculated. The bill amends the Electoral Act to decouple the calculation from their Māori electoral option and aligns it with the census, but otherwise substantively mirrors the current methodology set out in the Electoral Act. This means that the Māori electoral population will be calculated based on numbers as at census day, or, where the census and the general election are in the same year, 1 April in the following year.

The Māori electoral population and the general electoral population, which is calculated as the population from the last census minus the Māori electoral population, is calculated by the Government Statistician. The Government Statistician then uses those calculations to determine how many Māori and general electorates there should be for the following two general elections. This information is then provided to the independent Representation Commission to conduct a boundary review, which takes place every five or six years. During the boundary review, the Representation Commission considers the Government Statistician’s report alongside other factors such as existing boundaries, community interests, and public submissions. While the new date for calculation of the Māori electoral population necessitates some minor amendments to reserve provisions of the Electoral Act—in particular, section 35 relating to boundary reviews—the intention of these provisions is retained.

The decision of Māori as to whether they wish to be enrolled on the general roll or the Māori roll is not the same decision as to whether they wish to identify as Māori in the census. During engagement on the Māori electoral option, there was a clear view that in order to be able to express their preferences in terms of candidates and parties, they needed the ability to choose the electoral roll which best reflected those preferences without undue restriction.

This bill is an omnibus bill. It also makes amendments to the Local Electoral Act to reflect the changes made to the Electoral Act, and consequential changes to the Bay of Plenty Regional Council (Māori Constituency Empowering) Act which are necessary to retain consistency with the Local Electoral Act. It is part of a broader programme to update New Zealand’s electoral framework.

In October of last year, the former Minister of Justice the Hon Kris Faafoi announced an independent review of electoral law to ensure the rules remain fit for purpose and meet the needs of the next generation of voters. We have established a bipartisan, independent panel of experts to undertake this review, and I look forward to the active engagement of all members across this House in that independent review.

Yesterday, I was pleased to announce the Government’s proposal to introduce an electoral amendment bill which further seeks to support participation in parliamentary elections and improve public trust and confidence in New Zealand’s electoral system. This includes changes to the political donations framework to increase public disclosure about party funding, and so improve the transparency of our political donations and loan rules. The bill also extends the overseas voter eligibility in light of the COVID-19 - related travel restrictions, meaning more New Zealanders living overseas will be able to vote in the 2023 general election.

I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill, and to allow these changes to be brought into effect before the 2023 general election, I propose that the committee report the bill back to the House by 3 December 2022 and complete the remaining parliamentary stages by 16 November 2022. I commend this bill to the House.

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

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and I acknowledge the Minister of Justice, with whom I’ve been spending a lot of time today between select committee, question time, and now engaging in at least one bill before the Parliament. Of course, the first reading of this bill, the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill, is in her name and it is at its heart seeking to design a system that improves representation for Māori in general elections.

I should start by saying that we have been clear in the National Party that we are happy to consider a system whereby more flexible arrangements for Māori voters—those who identify as such—could be contemplated. We’re not averse to that, and, at a more fundamental level still, we make no issue with the existence of a regime whereby a person can identify as one or t’other and be placed on one roll or the other, according to their wish. The question mark in our minds, of course, and we’ve been reasonably clear about this in public statements recently, I think it’s fair to say, in the media through our justice spokesperson, the Hon Paul Goldsmith, but also in other ultimately public forums such as select committee reports—our position has been pretty clear, I think, that we do not support a system whereby there is an opportunity for what’s referred to somewhat coyly as tactical roll-switching. I do note that the Government itself and the Minister’s speech just now has confirmed that view that this is something to be avoided.

In the case of by-elections, quite rightly, the bill will not allow electors to transfer from one roll to another, with the objection being, no doubt, that to do so would allow a system where someone could choose to be on one roll or the other at an opportune moment and an opportune place—that is to say, where a by-election is taking place—and thereby gain some advantage. We don’t know how widespread such a practice would be if allowed. In the case of by-elections, of course, we don’t always know when by-elections will take place, and that’s the nature of them, of course. But the possibility of such a practice and the existence of legislation that would allow that is something that this House should resist. So, pleasingly—and I give credit where it’s due—in the case of the by-elections, the Government has acknowledged this possibility and has moved to guard against it.

That exception in itself is subject to an exception whereby it seems that there will be an ability for an elector to switch, notwithstanding the fact that a by-election is taking place, if it just so happens that there is also a local government election taking place. I think that the Government’s proposal in that space rather defeats its own logic elsewhere in the bill, so I’d be very interested to see what the select committee may have to say about that in terms of the anomaly and the illogical basis for that exception to the exception, even according to the Government’s own statement of intent—namely, that by-elections should not be subject to the possibility of tactical roll-switching.

Of course, there is a bigger question as well that we’ve again highlighted, which is about the possibility that voters would be able to switch from one roll to the other up to and including the period in which a general election is being taken. Now, anticipating the objections of those who say that that would be different from the case of a by-election because in an MMP environment, every vote everywhere is worth the same and, therefore, there is no such thing as a seat of particular significance, in fact, the winning or losing of individual electorate seats can be significant. The reason for that includes some of the peculiarities of our MMP system, and for those who regard them as peculiar, they are, nevertheless, part of the system’s design, which is that an overhang in the Parliament can be created if more electorate seats—that is, constituency seats, as they’re referred to in the UK—are obtained than a party’s share of the party vote. When they get, of course, the benefit of the higher of those two numbers and an overhang in the Parliament is created, this isn’t a fanciful notion. Indeed, it has taken place before in relation to terms of the Parliament before my arrival in this place, but I think I’m right in saying—well, in any case, it was during the three terms of the last National Government that the Māori Party obtained, I think I’m right in saying, two electorate seats but a smaller share of the party vote than would have equated to two seats in this House.

So for that reason those were significant, and for the similar but reverse situation whereby a party might outperform along the lines of the party vote its result in electorate seats and it might be able to gain one electorate seat but, let us say, 4.9 percent of the party vote, of course under the rules of MMP as they currently are, they wouldn’t gain any seats in the House by virtue of their 4.9 percent, except that the significance of winning a particular electorate seat would allow that to be so, and of course they’d get the five or six seats that would be afforded to them at that point. So it is significant to contemplate the result in an individual seat, and a combination of such motive and such opportunity as afforded to the bill—namely, the roll-switching at any time up to and including the conduct of a general election—means that we can’t support the bill.

I do want to acknowledge that the Minister has been prepared to engage with us on this particular point. My colleague and friend the Hon Paul Goldsmith is our justice spokesperson, and so would continue those conversations, no doubt, and of course at select committee we will engage in good faith with those who submit, those who provide official advice, and anyone else for that matter who may wish to provide some advice or opinion in this space.

The electoral system is of crucial importance to all of us, not only all of us here, the 120 souls, if there are 120 souls—there are 120 people anyway; we can say that much. I’m sort of—

Dr Duncan Webb: Are you saying you’re soulless, Mr Penk?

CHRIS PENK: Yeah, that’s right. I’m getting some legal advice from across the House not to self-incriminate, I think.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Privileged, of course.

CHRIS PENK: Yeah, that’s right. I’m reminded of that classic saying, and I want to attribute to Sir Winston Churchill because, of course, that’s always pretty safe, whether it was him or not. He said witheringly of an opponent that an empty car pulled up and the Leader of the Opposition got out, or whoever it was who was the target of his opprobrium at the time—so anyway, I’ve gone down a rabbit hole, but suffice to say that there are 120 people in this House who are directly affected by these kinds of matters. There are—

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Bonus points for quoting Winston Churchill, though.

CHRIS PENK: Yes, that’s right. Always bonus points for quoting Winston Churchill—thank you, the Hon Michael Woodhouse. So there are many more who want to be in these 120 seats, and I say good luck to them.

Next year, it will be important that we have a democratic process that enables everyone to have a fair and equal and equitable opportunity to enter this place. As I’ve said, our nervousness isn’t around either the idea that there could be more flexible arrangements for Māori voters to identify one way or the other, nor, indeed, the basis of the two separate rolls, but rather the possibility of illogical opportunities to be provided.

I did just want to actually point out as well, of course, that the existing arrangements are in place for a particular reason. They are afforded to voters who are entitled to identify either as Māori or non-Māori for the purposes of the electoral roll, coinciding with the quinquennial exercise that is the census, and the census is the basis for understanding the ethnic make-up of our country at that moment in time. The significance of that is manifold, and one is, of course, the provision of services. They might be allocated to different areas where geographical lines are appropriate to ensure that resources are placed in different parts of the country, and so on.

Similarly, we rely on those figures to understand how many of the New Zealand population at that moment in time might be said to be belonging to one roll or the other, such that we can have a number of Māori seats and have the remainder being general—that reflects that. So that’s the integrity of that system, and by saying that the bill doesn’t maintain that integrity, I don’t mean that in an ugly way, but it would be a departure from that logical basis on which the arrangements are currently made, along with the other calculations that go into the mix in terms of the number of geographical seats versus list seats, and so forth.

So for those reasons, I think I’ve made it reasonably clear that we don’t support the bill in its current form. We will look forward to engaging further and, in particular, with the possibility that the wrinkles that I’ve identified can be ironed out at select committee or in any other forum.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Well, that’s 10 minutes of my life that I won’t be getting back in a hurry, but thank you very much. It was really good, by the end of that speech, to understand that National won’t be supporting the bill, because I couldn’t understand throughout that speech what their position was.

So I think it’s important to get the debate back on track and to outline what this bill actually does. The bill will let Māori voters change rolls at any time, up to and including polling on the day. That is specifically subject to a particular area, which the member Chris Penk had outlined yet still indicates they won’t support, and that’s by-elections. So those are particularly carved out. Māori voters will not be able to change between the Māori and the general rolls during a by-election if that change would place the voter in the electorate where the by-election is occurring, and that is to make sure that this is robust.

The main aim for this bill is to make sure we increase voter participation and we increase access to having an operating, democratic society in New Zealand. So it’s really disheartening that those members opposite don’t support the underlying principles of this bill.

The timing of the Māori electoral option creates a barrier for Māori voters, and we know that through the research and the analysis that has been undertaken to date by justice officials. This is because the option only occurs every five to six years. Aside from when they first enrol, it’s the only time when Māori voters are able to exercise the option to move rolls. This bill will, in fact, remove that barrier, allowing voters to change rolls at any time—as I’ve already indicated—up to and including on the day of actually voting, and that’s what we’ve seen in the past. Building up to the election date, we get a lot of inquiries about those who want to change their electoral roll and that creates confusion, and that uncertainty and confusion can be a real barrier to those people wanting to vote and participate.

We welcome the select committee stage and really look forward to receiving a wide range of submissions to fully understand how we can further strengthen this bill, and I look forward to reading those submissions when they come in. The Ministry of Justice has undertaken targeted engagement on this particular option since mid-2021, and the feedback overwhelmingly supports the implementation of a continuous option like the one contained in the bill.

This is a good bill. It promotes voting, it promotes democracy, and it enables those Māori voters to have the flexibility that they should deserve in terms of being able to engage with our democratic system. I commend it to the House.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, that’s two minutes and 27 seconds of my life that I’ll never get back, but it really felt like 30. It was the political equivalent of having your wisdom teeth pulled without anaesthetic. If that’s the best the first, lead-off speaker for the Labour Party could do, they’re all obviously wanting to head out the door and they think they’re a bit too busy and important to be debating the meaningful electoral law changes that this Government is putting up.

One of the things that has underpinned our parliamentary system over 180-odd years is the fact that electoral law reform has generally had two very important characteristics: (a) it is carefully thought through after consultation, and (b) it’s largely bipartisan. Not always—we don’t always agree. What we have at the moment is a very piecemeal approach to electoral law reform. This is the second—well, this is the first bill, but we had an announcement earlier this week on donations transparency, and now we’re doing Māori electoral roll changes. We’ve got a number of other things in the pipeline.

This was done after what I would describe as targeted consultation, and it was interesting to know who the targets of that consultation were. The donations policy changes that the Government wants to put through: targeted policy changes.

We have a Justice Committee review of elections every year. We, apparently, have a much larger review of electoral law going on right now, and what surprises me is that we’re not actually taking a more measured approach to the connection between all of the changes that the Government wants to do. It’s being drip-fed out, one by one by one, and that is poor policy. It’s not bipartisan. It’s not with the level of consultation that I think these sorts of reforms should have. Yes, certain Māori stakeholders and academics have been consulted, according to the departmental disclosure statement, but I think this is a bit more important and requires a broader stakeholder engagement process than that, and I hope we get that through the select committee process. As my colleague and friend Mr Penk has said, while we oppose this bill at first reading, that will not detract from our contribution to a really important and meaningful conversation that should take place about, actually, whether this is even necessary.

Of course, the Māori electorates have had quite an interesting history. They’ve been around for 155 years, but when the legislation was first passed to give effect to them, it was only meant to last for five years. It was extended for another five years and then made permanent in the 1870s, and throughout the remaining period of time, there have been a number of reflections and challenges to whether the Māori electorates even needed to exist. There have been several reviews.

Stuart Smith: MMP.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The most significant one—that’s right, Mr Smith—of them was in 1986 with the royal commission into alternative electoral voting systems, which recommended a number of choices that the public, basically, made through a referendum, and MMP came out on top. Now, when the royal commission made its recommendations, it recommended that the case for having Māori electorates no longer existed. Of course, we were in a very different country in the 1860s, and we certainly didn’t have universal franchise. Women could not vote until 1893, men that did not own property—and not even any property; there had to be a minimum amount of property, as I recall—were not able to vote either, and, of course, because of the way Māori land was held in common te ture whenua Māori, it was a very, very significant barrier to Māori participating in our democratic process, and so it was right for that time. But, as the royal commission pointed out in 1986, its time had passed.

What’s interesting about the introduction and deliberation on the bill that gave effect to our mixed member proportional system was that when it was introduced, it did propose the elimination of the Māori electorates, and both the National Party and the Labour Party supported that. But in the face of very strong opposition from Māori in the country, that was dispensed with before the final Act was passed. Now, the National Party has a view that it had then, but we certainly support the position that was taken by the previous National Government that that is a matter for Māori to deal with, and, of course, because of our proportional system—and we all know here that what determines Government and our representation is the party vote—the influence of the electorates is perhaps less so than it once was under first past the post.

Now, the Minister talked about constraints on the freedom to move and said that this was unjustified and unfair. I don’t agree with that. I think the question that we need to consider is that either this is such an important and material issue that a widespread move of Māori from one roll to another would have a disproportionate and a distortionary effect on electoral boundaries—in which case there are representation risks with this bill—or it is so minor and inconsequential that the case for this bill has not been made, and, actually, my submission is that it’s the latter. This is not a material issue, and if one looks at the practice over the last 25 years when Māori have had the option to move from one roll to the other, there’s a very intensive four-month period where the taxpayer funds a significant advertising and marketing campaign to encourage Māori to understand what their options are and to make informed choices. In 1997, the net movement on to the Māori roll was 2,664.

Hon Member: Wow!

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Oh, sorry, that was the gross movement. The net movement was that there were far more Māori—two to one—who actually went from the general roll to the Māori roll, but half of that number went from the Māori roll to the general roll, and that was 25 years ago. That was probably the zenith of the movement and the exercise of this discretion.

Four years ago, when the last option to move was taken, the net effect on the Māori roll was 1,200—1,200. So we have somewhere in the region of half a million people who identify as Māori and a net movement in that whole campaign was 1,200 on to the Māori roll, and, actually, because of the number of younger Māori, there was actually a bigger impact of 4,000 going on to the general roll, which I think is quite interesting in terms of what our young are doing.

So 25 years ago, 54 percent of Māori were on the Māori roll and 46 percent were on the general roll, and 25 years later, it’s 52 percent on the Māori roll and 47.5 percent on the general roll. So for all of the campaigning and for all of the case being made that this is about unfairness and unjustified restrictions on the movement of Māori, Māori are voting literally to either stay or to go on to the general roll. They have that ability.

So my strong view is that this is a solution looking for a problem. This is not the most material issue facing Māori right now. It’s certainly not the most material issue in terms of electoral law. If one wanted to look at the list of things that could be considered, one could go to Golriz Ghahraman’s member’s bill, which I think we will be debating in a few short weeks. It is a pot-pourri of options for how we change electoral law in this country, many of them I don’t agree with and a couple of them have actually been picked up by the Government already since the bill was drafted.

But what I would say is that there seems to be a Golriz Ghahraman approach to electoral law reform by the Government, which is this pot-pourri of “Let’s put a bill in here on Māori and let’s put a bill in there on donations transparency.” Actually, this requires a much more considered, carefully thought through and consultative process to carefully change our electoral laws and, preferably, with bipartisan support. That hasn’t happened in this case, but in any event the very case for these changes has not been made.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): My old PhD supervisor used to say “There’s many a good article in a bad book and there’s many a good note in a bad article”, and I would suggest that there’s many a good statement in an overly long speech to Parliament. So I will keep this short and sweet.

As a sixth-generation Pākehā, I fully support this bill. I see no reason that Māori should be penalised to a four-month period, and I look forward to debating it in the select committee as part of the Justice Committee.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to begin by congratulating the new Minister of Justice, the Hon Kiri Allan.

Hon Willie Jackson: She’s going great guns—going great guns.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: Sorry, I’m being heckled already! This is a historic day. It’s a historic day because Māori are being given a right that they should always have had. They are being afforded a right that’s been repeatedly recommended by the Electoral Commission, that’s been campaigned for by various groups, and that has been consulted upon—despite what we’ve heard from the Opposition—including by expert bodies, our leading expert body on electoral reform. The change, despite having been recommended in those processes repeatedly, has been ignored and buried by successive Governments.

So if we’re going to look at where it came from in terms of an independent recommendation, we could look at the Electoral Commission’s 2009, or 2012 recommendation—well, there were two, but let’s look at the last one—on strengthening MMP. The last speaker talked a lot about our mixed-member Parliament and one vote per person, and the National Party’s commitment to upholding independent electoral reform that was recommended in terms of upholding our system. Well, that’s where this came from. It came from the Electoral Commission’s recommendations. They were thorough. They followed two rounds of consultations in which in one round, just over 2,000 people submitted, and in another round, almost 3,000 people submitted. The recommendations, including this change, were then buried by the then Minister of Justice, the Hon Judith Collins, and we didn’t see them again.

So I want to congratulate this Minister and I want to congratulate all the voters that this change will impact. We know that Māori are a group that is less engaged with our democracy, less likely to be enrolled to vote, and less likely to vote even when enrolled, so it is important that we do everything we can to uphold the rights of Māori voters and to engage that community. It’s odd to say that this isn’t a material change when one is speaking from the perspective of a community that’s not impacted by this limitation—this arbitrary limitation—that was always baseless.

Since numbers are being quoted in terms of once 25 years ago, and another in the last round when the option to change opened, I note that in the last round, I think the number was quoted as being 1,200 people. So 1,200 people’s rights were breached that time. But let’s look at how many Māori attempt to change rolls in the years when they’re not able to. Well, in 2020, 24,000 Māori voters attempted to change rolls and they weren’t able to. That’s not quite right; that is a material issue, actually.

So this is a good day. It is a day that that increases inclusivity and equality in our system, but the bill doesn’t quite go far enough. A Green Party change would lift the limitation on by-elections, in terms of when Māori can change rolls. We don’t see why that should be. We note that when the Electoral Commission recommended this change, they recommended ways that this could be done to prevent the fear of gerrymandering from being real. They are the Electoral Commission, they had heard the submissions, they had heard from experts, and they themselves are experts. So to say that they are wrong is disingenuous from the Opposition, but also to attempt to address an issue outside of the parameters of what the Electoral Commission has set out as being the necessary safeguards, I think, goes too far in terms of what the Government has proposed. We do look forward to engaging with that and why that limitation was adopted by the Government and why it’s being seen as being necessary in this bill, and, hopefully, we’ll come to a place where the change is made that Māori are able to elect a roll based on their preference at any time.

I do want to talk about democracy. My bill was put into the ballot in 2018, so we’ve been campaigning on this change and other changes that would engage Māori voters and that would uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi but also would actually strengthen our democracy in lots of ways. The Minister pointed to the other electoral reform around donations that was announced this past week, which is also historic and which is also opposed by the Opposition, and that is to bring more transparency to our donation systems. We know that like this change in the bill, which is around equality and our democracy, getting big money—especially when it’s donated in secret—out of our democracy will go a long way to ensure that one vote per person democracy that we want and that inclusivity and that equality that we want in our system.

Of course, there is a pot-pourri of changes in my bill, and there have been other aspects of it that have been adopted since 2018 to today, which I do want to congratulate the last Government and this Government on. But the idea is that behind every aspect of the changes proposed, we go back to our independent bodies: the Electoral Commission, the Justice Committee, the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal. All of those changes come from independent, expert bodies, and it’s about taking party politics out of electoral reform and looking at what is best and healthiest for our democracy as a House of Representatives.

So it is a good day to see the Government finally pick this up. It’s also disappointing to see the Opposition play party politics with it rather than look at the facts and the evidence. But it’s a good day for voters, so I do commend the bill to the House.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand on behalf of ACT to speak to the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill.

Before I start, I just want to pick up on something that my colleague across the room there—Michael Woodhouse—said when he gave a bit of a history lesson about Māori voting and when they started, and it made me reflect. What my reflection was on was how often we come into the House and we hear stories about how hard-done-by Māori are and how we need to give Māori options all the time and we need to lift them up, and I think sometimes this is done at the expense of not acknowledging some of the very good achievements that Māori have made—and do—throughout the years that this House has been sitting, at least. It made me reflect on the fact that Māori men who were determined to be landowners actually got the vote here in New Zealand before many of the European settlers that came here, purely for the fact that they were landowners. So they have been exercising the right to vote for a very long time and, in some respects, for much longer than some of our European settlers.

The ACT Party also opposes this bill, but we’re not opposing it for opposition’s sake. We’re opposing it because we have got real concerns about it—concerns that we think actually can be fixed—and it’s not about politicking Māoridom at all. It’s actually about making sure that we have a fair and just system as we move forward. We agree with the concept and we agree with the reasoning; we just don’t agree with the time frames that are being implemented. Māori voters should have the same rights as everyone else when it comes to voting, and we across the House can all agree on that. Being locked into two general election cycles is inflexible and it is impractical, and we can all agree on that too.

The current set-up we have for elections is where you enrol to vote on either the general or the Māori electoral roll. You’ve got that small four-month period every five to six years within which Māori voters can move between the rolls, and there was genuine reason for this. It was to align those electorate boundaries with the information received from the five-yearly census, and this is to make sure that each electorate has around the same number of people in it, giving equal representation within Parliament. It also allows for the boundary reviews to occur, making sure that there are enough electorates for the population.

The South Island has 16 electorates, the North Island increased from 48 to 49 electorates in 2020, and the Māori electorates number seven. The population quotas for those electorates are 65,400 people for the South Island, 64,900 for the North Island—that’s under the general electorates—and 67,500 people for the Māori electorates. So where the people are situated will determine how those boundaries are managed and whether electorates will increase or decrease, and how many Māori electorates they will have. I’m explaining all of this for the people at home in case they’re wondering why this is an issue and why we have opposition to it and what the problem is here.

The Government Statistician’s report will be used to conduct the boundary review that changes the boundaries for those electorates so that it does align with where the population is, and so that was part of their reasoning for having it align with the census. But we all agree, as I said, that having that window of four months every five to six years so a voter can change which roll they’re on is absolutely ridiculous, and, as I mentioned earlier, it is inflexible and it is impractical. To be stuck on a roll when a voter wants to change for two electoral periods in the row just does not make sense.

It’s easy to agree across this House that we all want more people to participate in both general and local elections. However, ACT doesn’t agree with having the ability for anyone to be able to swap electoral rolls at any time up to and including the actual polling day.

Should the Minister decide to amend the bill to allow a change in roll to occur only at the same time as a general election so that it’s every three years, then we can support that as it means that everyone eligible to vote in New Zealand has the same options for eligibility and sign-up at the same time. More importantly, no one group is singled out as having any advantage over another. It’s a recipe for further division within our communities that is not wanted or warranted, and this can be alleviated if there is consistency in how everyone here in New Zealand registers their interest to vote. Allow that move once per election cycle, with sign-up conducted at the same time for both rolls.

We would further suggest that in keeping with section 74 of the current Act, a voter’s choice of roll should be made at least one month before a polling day. I sit on the Justice Committee and we’ve heard the frustration of voters who cannot either get on or get off the Māori roll in time for an election, and some voters who I have spoken to that are on the Māori roll wanted to get off it to vote in the 2020 general election, participating on the general roll, but they were unable to do so. I expect that as co-governance issues continue to raise the ire amongst some in our community, there will be both Māori wanting to move off and those wanting to move on to the Māori roll.

Everyone should be given the opportunity to choose, but that opportunity should occur for every voter in New Zealand and at the same time. The Government has already pointed out within their bill that a change in electoral roll should not be able to occur in the lead-up to any by-election, and we do agree with that. Changing rolls continuously is not only not fair on those who can’t but it potentially gives one person two votes. In a fair and democratic society, we want to enable people to be able to vote and have their say, but to do so equally.

In life, when you make decisions, you often have to live with the outcome of those. There are many Labour supporters who are apologising to us for their voting decision in 2020, but their choice was made and they are living with that decision and the consequences of it until they get to change it in 2023, and that should be the same for everyone. If the Government could show some consistency here and change their bill to address our concerns, then we can change our position and support it at future readings.

ACT believes that at each general election, a voter should have the ability to choose their roll, make their choice with the options available to them, and, if they want to change again, they do so every three years. Democratic consistency here is the key.

Every person eligible to vote should have the opportunity to contribute by voting on the roll of their choice and not have to wait five to six years in order to change those rolls. Voters should be able to join a roll that they are comfortable on and that will allow them to vote for the person or the party who will help get their electorate to become a thriving community, especially when crime is so rampant across the country—a person and party they can vote for that will help restore our economy so that it’s healthy again, with our kids not paying decades of debt—and how can they do it without a national debate ensuing over co-governance, unfairness, and undemocratic processes, because, really, Māori just want to be able to vote. We want to encourage that, but it needs to be fair for all. So, at this stage of this bill, ACT cannot support it.

JO LUXTON (Labour—Rangitata): Thank you, Mr Speaker. As someone who is directly impacted and whose children are directly impacted by this piece of legislation, I am pleased to see it before the House today. I see this piece of legislation as being one that encourages participation and removes barriers for people to participate in their democratic ability to vote for Governments going forward.

Reducing barriers is an important part of ensuring that people come along and vote at their local government and general elections. Anything that we can do to encourage participation and remove barriers, I say, is a good move, and I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): I call Maureen Pugh—five minutes.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It’s been an interesting event, the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill this afternoon in its first reading. We’ve heard a range of opinions across the House, but I think what we are seeing here is a pattern of behaviour.

The issue here that the Labour is trying to fix, or the problem it’s trying to find, is the option for switching in and out of the Māori roll and on to the general roll, or from the general roll on to the Māori roll. That can happen at any time in the electoral cycle and it has no restrictions on the number of times that voters—electors—can choose to switch on those rolls. It seems to me that there’s a recipe for disaster—what a mess it’s going to be.

The other issue that raised its head was the cost of this, and I expect that the select committee will turn its mind to it. How many people is the Electoral Commission going to have to employ to manage the constant switching in and out of the rolls, especially as it gets closer to a by-election or to the general election? I can see it turning into an absolute disaster, especially when it goes right up to election day. So there is plenty of room for mistakes to be made there.

The rationale behind the current system is based around the census. The reason that’s important is because the census sets the population positions across the country, and then those locations are used to define boundaries and they’re also used for the representation reviews for local government. So local government needs to know exactly where people are, within plus or minus 10 percent, so that they can set the representation in their wards. Those wards have very fluid boundaries, so having confidence in those electoral rolls and the location of people is really critical to being able to do that.

The problem, I believe, is not the rolls; it’s actually the voter turnout. I would suggest that the Government would do better to use some of its hundreds of comms staff that it’s got employed across the public sector to run a campaign and educate people about when the census is happening so as to get themselves on the roll that they feel they want to be on but also to get out there and vote. The get out and vote campaign, as we all know, runs prior to the general elections, and if there is a problem with people exercising their votes, then let’s engage the comms teams to do that.

But what amazes me is how much time this Government has devoted to tweaking voters’ behaviour or electoral rules across this country in the time that they’ve been in Government. We’ve seen Māori wards; we’ve seen Environment Canterbury, and just yesterday we were debating that; we’ve seen the Rotorua bill—well, that turned into a mess, and that’s somewhere in abeyance—and now we’ve got this new electoral roll. It’s like the Labour Government doesn’t have faith in its support base enough that it can just leave the electoral regime alone—this pillar of our democracy in this country. We’ve got to have faith and confidence in our democratic system, and the voting system is an absolute no-go zone, in my book—you do not play with the electoral system.

Now, the other thing that amazes me is how much time this Government devotes to it. Wouldn’t you think that they would do better to focus their legislative programme on things that are actually going to make a difference to people in this country and will drive the productivity of the country up? Things that lift children out of poverty perhaps, or things that get children out of hotels into homes—there’s a novel idea—or maybe build homes. Or here’s another idea: things that deliver on KiwiBuild. That would be great—that would be great.

So what we want to do is ensure that the country has a stable democracy and that people have confidence in the electoral system. This won’t do it.

RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori) (remote): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā tātou e te Whare. Well, I tell you what, quite disturbing are the messages coming out from both National and ACT on this particular kaupapa. To continuously work towards continuing to silence Māori in this world-class democracy is an absolute disgrace. Our electoral law is discriminatory, it is anti-democratic, and it is downright racist. When we hear about voter suppression and the undermining of voters’ rights, we usually think about corrupt countries like the USA, who pass law after law to make it harder for black Americans to cast their vote, and let’s not talk about their forgotten tangata whenua and the rights to vote there.

E ki e ki, National and ACT have spoken like true pro - Hobson’s Pledge supporters. The very reason why Māori have bigger issues is because of racist laws like this. You lock us out and you make sure that it is your superiority that controls the democracy in this country, and it must stop.

The country is watching, but voter suppression is very much alive and well in Aotearoa. In fact, it has always been the reality for tangata whenua, going right back to 1867. Electoral participation and basic rights for Māori to exercise in Aotearoa are guaranteed in article 3 of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. There should be no barriers for Māori participating in the electoral process. Currently there are only two opportunities for Māori to choose electoral roles, either at the time of initial enrolment or during the Māori electoral option period. The last one was in 2018, so they missed the opportunity to participate in the last election on the roll of their choice, and, I can tell you what, there are more wanting to swap from the general roll to the Māori roll. The statistics are there, so let’s not make up things in the ACT Party about more wanting to go from the general to the Māori—it’s rubbish.

They will miss the next election because the next electoral option is 2024, so the next election to vote on the roll of their choice is 2026. Come on! This is 2022. We must do better as a country to ensure that Māori rights, under Te Tiriti o Waitangi and as the tangata whenua of this country, are upheld and that we do not have the lockouts that we have currently in the legislation that is before us. What this does, in effect, is lock us out. Indigenous people, tangata whenua—it’s the only legislation in the world that does it for fully participating in this world-class democracy for up to eight years. It’s an eight-year lockout. This is a stain on this country’s democracy and it’s a disgrace.

Thousands of Māori request to change electoral rolls every year. This has likely led to thousands of Māori disengaging from the electoral process, although I don’t blame them.

Since 2011, the Electoral Commission has proposed legislative changes which would address the issues, and in the 2017 report on the general election recommended that voters of Māori descent be able to change roll types at any time as this would better meet the needs of Māori voters. Māori, tangata whenua, have been pushing for this for much longer. For decades, our calls have fallen on deaf ears, and it sounds like there are still deaf ears in this House.

That is why last year I entered my member’s bill into the biscuit tin: the Electoral (Right to Switch Rolls Freely) Amendment Bill. With amazing timing, my bill was drawn last week at exactly the same time as the Government released this bill. I wish I could have been there to see the face on Willie Jackson.

Anyway, we are supporting this bill at first reading as it would—like my bill—enable Māori voters to switch between the Māori and non-Māori electoral rolls at any time. However, we call on this House to also support my bill through to select committee to enable a debate. There are a number of differences in this bill that concern us. We believe Māori electoral boundaries should be redrawn after each election based on current enrolled voters, not after every census—that’s another five-year locking-out. So Labour is proposing to transfer the lockout of tangata whenua to another part of the electoral law, which continues to tighten the colonial noose around our necks and lock us out for another five-year period when it comes to electoral boundaries. Come on!

We also think there should be a legislative requirement that if someone stipulates they are Māori when enrolling but doesn’t choose an electoral roll, they are placed on the Māori roll—simple.

Our bill would also change the name of the general electoral district to non-Māori electoral district, as Māori are always made to feel like the other. You have the general roll and then you have the general elections. Come on! These are some of the things you all need to be looking at, because it places Māori as the other.

We agree to stopping people from changing rolls before a by-election, maybe three months before—I agree with that. But Pākehā and non-Māori shouldn’t be able to change their addresses to their holiday homes and baches that they own and also to their family addresses during a by-election to skew or influence the outcome of by-elections, which we all know happens.

I look forward to the opportunities to engage with colleagues from across the House to make this legislation a reality for our people. Let’s get this racism and voter suppression—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): The member’s time is up.

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Tēnā koe. Ngā mihi nui. Mr Speaker, thank you. I rise in support of this. I want to acknowledge my colleague Minister Allan for bringing this to the House. She has already identified this afternoon that it’s within the context of a suite of wider electoral considerations around the nation’s funding and, obviously, people internationally overseas during COVID time in terms of elections. But, as we’ve heard already, this proposed law applies to those Māori who are already registered to vote. Therefore, they are entitled to the element of choice, and this bill seeks to address the anomaly that lies with that.

This is an issue of fairness. We all know that the electoral periods are in three-year chunks, yet for some electors who have gone through due process and have registered to vote, they potentially could not have the choice to change that, even though they wish to—and the stats and data indicates that—for five years and, in some cases six years for when that option comes along. It is the right thing to do. The Justice Committee will hear submissions from the community. I commend this bill to the House.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Well, thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak on this bill, although we are not supporting this bill to select committee. It’ll pass, probably, anyway, I’d have to say, but it will be very interesting when it gets to select committee, because I think what will be a key task of the select committee is to actually look into what policy work went in behind this bill. How did they arrive at this particular policy that underpinned this bill and what process did they go through to look at various options around, because there were lots of potential options here. The four-month prior to a by-election lockout has not been carried through to a normal election. What was the rationale for that, because I think that if the rationale is that it could be used, potentially, to stack a particular seat, then why wouldn’t that carry also as true through a general election?

It’ll be quite interesting, but I suspect, like many other of the bills that come before this House, the policy work will be found on the back of an envelope somewhere. That’ll be about the extent of the work that went into it.

What we’re talking about here is that the census plays a very key role in this, and I have to agree with and share the frustration of some of the members on the other side of the House, in particular, about that. But look, James Shaw—the truth be known—made such a hash of the last census. I know that in my electorate, we were one of the larger electorates that had—particularly in Marlborough—such a very low turnout for the census. They never made the effort to do it properly, and that’s just what happens when the Greens run anything. We had people—particularly in the Sounds—that don’t have access easily to get into town to get on the census and get their records recorded, and that meant a significant disadvantage for that electorate. It has a significant impact because of the health funding and all those sorts of things based on that census data but also electorate sizes, and I think that that’s something on which they did a great disservice for us.

But it does carry over to this particular bill as well. How do we know—as has been suggested before by the Māori Party speaker Rawiri Whaitiri—that they should be able to just change after any election, based on those registered voters within an electorate, but what about the people on the general roll as well? Are we actually going to change electorate boundaries? Some of those electorates grow or decline quite significantly. If we’re going to change one section—the Māori seats—why wouldn’t we be looking at the general roll as well? I think that that would have to be the same. If we’re talking about fairness, fairness goes for everyone—isn’t what it means? Fair being equal, colour-blind, ethnic-blind, gender-blind, just being fair to everyone.

Maureen Pugh: Age-blind.

STUART SMITH: Age-blind. What we also learnt from the Green speaker Golriz Ghahraman was that she’s actually in favour of abolishing the Māori seats completely. This is clearly news to me that the Green Party are supporting the abolition of Māori seats.

Jan Logie: What?

STUART SMITH: Well, she quite clearly said that it was scientific: what the Electoral Commission says about electoral rules should be followed religiously. Well, the Electoral Commission said that when MMP came in, the Māori seats should be abolished, so, clearly, the Green Party supports the abolition of the Māori seats. So I look forward to debating through the election next year with the Green candidate about the abolition of Māori seats, because I suspect most people aren’t aware of that.

Jan Logie: Neither are we.

STUART SMITH: Well, perhaps you should have been listening.

I also wonder about self-declaration. I do remember reading in the legislation that came through the House about the unemployment insurance, where in the schedule in that bill, it’s quite clearly stated that one of the things that the ACC should be recording and looking for was ethnicity and self-declared ethnicity, so we now have in legislation self-declared ethnicity. So does that apply for people going on to the Māori roll? Can you self-declare as a Māori and go on to the electoral roll?

Now, I’ve had a quick look at the law and it doesn’t appear that way, but now we’ve got legislation that contradicts that. That could actually be the case that people could do that, so we could have a scenario here where people could declare that they were Māori and go on to the Māori roll to stack a by-election, for example. Quite clearly, this legislation allows that. Given the clause that allows “except when a local election is being held”, when you can actually change across, there is a way to stack, let’s say, a local government by-election for whatever reason. It could easily be done, so that’s what really underlines my point about the policy work being on the back of an envelope. They haven’t actually thought about this. They haven’t gone through it properly.

I think it really comes now to the difficult things, which is something that I think all New Zealanders increasingly are being concerned about, which is the moves by the Labour Government to play around with electoral laws, as long as they don’t have to have the supermajority, to try and chip away at democracy by not having to go through the supermajority process that they would have to do. So this is one example. Another example is, of course, three waters, with all of the 50 percent control of that going to Māori. There is also, of course, the local government review, or the future of our local government, which talks quite a lot about giving 50 percent of control to Māori ratepayers.

There may be a debate that we could have about this, but it should be a supermajority. Actually, it should go to a referendum so all New Zealanders have a say on what is going to dramatically change our electoral laws; in fact, it’s going to make them Third World, as far as I can see. I think it is absolutely outrageous that they are trying to chip away at our democracy in the way that they are. It’s like the boiling frog: you don’t realise that it’s just being chipped away, and, before you know it, it’s gone.

Then, of course, we’ve got nepotism rife on the other side of the House. I mean, nepotism came from the practice of popes and bishops appointing so-called nephews into roles, and that’s exactly what we’re getting here. Well, this goes to the electoral laws that are being quite gerrymandered, in my view, and I think they should put these things to a supermajority, or they should have the courage to put it to the people of New Zealand. They don’t have the courage to do that.

Chris Penk: That’s the other option.

STUART SMITH: Yes, absolutely. So we have plenty of opportunity for electoral laws to be looked at. We have a review of that going through select committee at the moment. This bill is unnecessary. It’s poorly thought out. It is actually quite outrageous, and I condemn it to the House.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister for Broadcasting and Media): Just a very quick call. I want to compliment my colleague Kiritapu Allan for this. This is a brilliant bill—something that Māori have been asking for for some time.

I’m going to clarify for Maureen Pugh what our new democracy is. Democracy changed in 1996. It was called MMP, and that’s when the new democracy came in. It meant that we got more Māori, more Pasifika, more Rastafarians, more women, and more minorities in Parliament—that is what you call a new democracy.

It also changed somewhat in 2011, when their fabulous Prime Minister did a dirty, rotten deal in Epsom with the ACT Party and made sure that Rodney Hide became a member. I’m just interested in what they would call that in 2011, when we had a clear change in terms of democracy as we know it. So the National Party and ACT are compliant in terms of turning around democracy when it suits them, and that’s what you call a new way and a new day.

So I just want to say well done to Kiritapu Allan, well done to us, and I support this bill going forward. Kia ora tātou.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 77

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

Noes 42

New Zealand National 32; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is, That the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill be considered by the Justice Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Justice Committee.

Instruction to Justice Committee

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister for Māori Development) on behalf of the Minister of Justice: I move, That the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill be reported to the House by 3 November 2022.

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.

Bills

Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Bill

First Reading

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister for Broadcasting and Media): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I present a legislative statement on the Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Bill.

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

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I move, That the Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 10 November 2022 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, during any evening on a day on which there’s been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

I’m excited to introduce the Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Bill today. The creation of this new entity will strength the delivery of New Zealand’s public media services for future generations. That is our key objective: that public media in Aotearoa New Zealand is strong and that it endures. With increasing levels of misinformation around the world, a rapidly changing media landscape, and declining commercial revenues projected, New Zealand needs strong, independent public media more than ever. It’s critical to the functioning of a healthy democracy. We need a public media entity that can inform, entertain, and educate in a uniquely Kiwi manner. We need strong, independent journalism that holds Government and those in power to account. We need all the people and voices of Aotearoa to be represented not just on our screens but in the development and delivery of our public media content and services. We need a public media entity with the flexibility to meet audiences where they are, utilising the platforms New Zealanders are choosing. We need a sustainable funding model that ensures our public media doesn’t just survive but can thrive in its pursuit of public media outcomes.

This bill provides a foundation to deliver exactly that. It will create Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media, which builds on the best of RNZ—Radio New Zealand—and Television New Zealand. It will keep what audiences currently value, but it will be focused on future possibilities, and we will be better placed to take those opportunities. Both TVNZ and RNZ are providing high-quality content and strong, independent journalism. They have professional and dedicated staff who are taking on the challenge the media sector currently faces. However, they were set up for a different world, one that was focused on traditional linear broadcast methods within the constraints of their existing legislation. Though they have done what they can to change, modernise, and adapt to meet the significant challenges facing the sector, a change is needed, and this bill sets the foundation for Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media to flourish in the future.

Current audiences will still be able to enjoy the same services they do now via linear TV and radio, with current commercial-free offerings remaining commercial-free. What’s critical is that new audiences, those not engaged with current public media, including our young people, will also be catered for. Underserved audiences will have a better chance of seeing and hearing themselves and finding content that engages them. This is not an aspirational idea but a function the bill requires the entity to provide for to ensure our system is fairer, our culture better reflected, and all New Zealanders are being represented. I want to be clear that this means there will be a variety of content, just as there is across TVNZ and Radio New Zealand now. Some will have mass appeal; some will be more niche. And we need it to be available to people on the platforms and technology they’re now using—so, on TV and radio and smartphones and laptops and streaming services and in any other ways that might develop.

The bill establishes a single multi-platform public media entity. The entity will be an autonomous Crown entity with complete editorial independence. I’d like to touch briefly on some of the main features of this bill. Editorial independence has to be at its core. New Zealanders must have confidence in this entity’s ability to provide an independent voice, hold power to account, and be a trusted source of news and information. The bill also recognises and respects the Crown’s responsibility to give effect to the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It sets out the charter under which the entity will operate to ensure it delivers benefits for all Kiwis. The charter takes a principles-based approach to set clear expectations. The entity will be held to account on the delivery of its charter. We want to see collaboration. The entity will not work against or in isolation to the rest of the media sector and has a broader obligation to collaborate. It will be a mixed funding model, which makes the entity more sustainable and ensures we get the most out of the Crown’s investment.

Crown funding has been substantially increased to provide funding stability and certainty: an extra $109 million in Crown funding. Finally, the bill will also provide transitional arrangements. These will see RNZ and TVNZ staff, assets, and contracts transferred to the new entity when it is formed next year. This bill makes me excited for the future of public media in New Zealand. The possibilities of Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media are endless when it has its audiences at heart, a consistent focus, and flexible, modern legislation. Kia ora anō tātau.

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

MELISSA LEE (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to, first of all, acknowledge the Minister who has brought this bill to the House, the Hon Willie Jackson, and congratulations, once again, on him taking on the role of Minister of Broadcasting.

This bill actually does exactly what the Minister wants. It is very simple. It, basically, gets rid of TVNZ and RNZ—two very loved entities in New Zealand—and creates a new public media entity. However, I don’t think it actually does what the Minister hopes. The Minister hopes that this is going to be aspirational and bring about trust in the media sector. I think it is probably very helpful if we go to the genesis of how this bill actually began. Before I do that, I’d like to sort of mention that Aotearoa New Zealand public media is not exactly something that inspires or creates an imagery in one’s mind of amazing entertainment or amazing news or a trusted news entity, which we hope that the new public media entity will be—and I hope there will be a name for the entity; I’m not quite sure how that’s going to be achieved.

The explanatory note of the bill, basically, says that it seeks to strengthen the delivery of public media services to New Zealanders by establishing a new public media. Yep—this bill actually does that. But it goes on to say that the media landscape is changing rapidly: the trends are of increasing competition around the world in terms of where people are actually getting their news or entertainment or sport. It’s actually changing: people are not going to the traditional linear television or radio that they used to listen to and watch; they’re going to streaming services, they’re going to other—I won’t name all of them, but things like YouTube. Young people are forever watching YouTube, for example. They go to social media to get their news.

Over the years of COVID lockdowns, over the last couple of years, the trust factor in media has actually gone down dramatically, and part of the reason was the Public Interest Journalism Fund and the very fact that there was a perception that the Government was giving media a kind of a bribe. So media should not be trusted because they were literally being a mouthpiece for the Government. So how will this new public media entity—which, effectively, as the Minister actually said, what was non-commercial will still stay non-commercial, what was linear television will still remain linear television, what was digital will still remain digital. So what is the new vision for this new entity? What is the challenge for this new entity to provide for the vast majority of New Zealanders, who are hungry for new New Zealand content?

Considering the fact that this genesis comes from the former Minister of Broadcasting, the Hon Clare Curran, who actually began the process thinking that we needed a change—she wanted to turn RNZ—Radio New Zealand—into a television station as well. I always used to think that Radio New Zealand does radio well; it doesn’t quite do TV very well; we already have an existing TVNZ that does it very, very well. The commercial imperative that TVNZ has provides the Crown with money where they actually profit from their enterprise. And I’m just wondering why the Minister is turning this new entity, ANZPM—let’s just call it that; Aoteroa New Zealand Public Media is quite a long thing—into an autonomous Crown entity. Why the change, Minister? What an autonomous Crown entity actually means is that, and I quote, it “has to give regard to Government policy when directed by the responsible Minister”.

If that is the case, how will the public trust this new entity to be a step removed from Government policy or the dictation by the Ministers to do whatever they actually want the media to do. Where will that trust factor go? It is already down. I can’t imagine it getting any better as a result. So I wonder if the select committee could consider potentially making this an independent Crown entity which perhaps says that it means that it is generally independent of Government policy, or something that is actually independent of the Minister dictating to the entity what to do. I know the Ministers are not supposed to dictate what kind of content the entities are supposed to produce, but the thing is that there are so many different ways: the Ministers actually appoint the board members—there is influence there. I think that anything that we can actually do to remove the Government hand from the news media and the new public media entity would be a good thing.

The other aspect of it is that I read this bill and it was very straightforward that it gets rid of the two entities, all of the assets, and everything in it becomes the new entity. So in that aspect, it is actually very straightforward and very simple. But the thing that I could not understand in this bill is the very notion that when Radio New Zealand, a big entity, and Television New Zealand—TVNZ—a bigger entity, merges, comes together, to create one, there’s not going to be a single redundancy. Are you kidding me? Has anyone ever seen a merger where there are absolutely no redundancies? Well, it looks like the Government’s actually starting a trend. They merge two big entities and they are thinking there are not going to be any redundancies. Well, good luck. I would like to see that actually happen, but I feel very, very sorry for the two entities who actually are going through a very stressful time, because this has been going on ever since the Labour Government came to power, and, for five years, they have been wondering what their entity was going to be—whether it was going to be “Radio New Zealand Plus”, whether it was going to be a merger, and all that. In a way, finally, there is a new entity, and, apparently, all of your jobs are safe, so, in a sense, maybe you should actually breathe a sigh of relief.

The other aspect of it is that one of the reasons why sometimes I actually question the role of charter—there are charters and there are charters. When we were reviewing the Radio New Zealand charter recently in the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, we weren’t going to get an opportunity to review it, because this merged entity legislation was going to come to the House, and I felt that because it was legislated, every five years the RNZ Charter had to be reviewed and we needed to actually do our duty as a Parliament to review it.

But, you know, we were told that charters are aspirational. And when you consider the fact that the business case that this merger is a result of, the business case where numerous consultants and numerous working groups and people have actually worked on this—which literally cost the taxpayers close to $20 million—which was given before even the 2022 Budget, this is an aspirational document, the charter, and it doesn’t give any prescriptive discussions or, I guess, a hope from the Minister or wishes of the Minister of how the charter or the entity should operate to create the kind of media entity that the Minister hopes this will be. It’s like when we actually got rid of the previous TVNZ charter because it really did nothing apart from lip service—this almost sounds like it.

There is going to be six to nine board members appointed, and, among them, two will have Te Ao Māori and tikanga Māori understanding in order to be appointed to the board. I think, you know, when you actually consider the fact that we have a cost of living crisis, we have a Government who spends $327 million to create a megastructure and has given no indication as to how the entity may make $306 million over the next six years—that is $50 million a year—by tying their hands behind their back. I’m not so sure if this is going to work. I oppose this bill.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): This broadcasting bill is bringing in the biggest shake-up to media in 30 years. It’s really timely. We’ve seen with the change in behaviours of people moving from mainstream platforms to digital platforms that we need to be able to have fit for purpose media and platforms and public media. We’ve also seen the destruction and the polarisation that can happen when misinformation is broadcast and when people get into vortexes of algorithms and so on. There is an urgent need at the moment to protect public media. The business case has been put together by a panel of media experts and is being led by two Ministers, the former Minister, and now the current Minister, Willie Jackson, who both know the broadcasting landscape really well, and that’s really important.

I just want to respond to the previous member Melissa Lee’s comments about the journalism fund. What an easy thing to bag. It’s such an easy thing to criticise, to say, “Oh, the funding’s come from Government, therefore it is just propaganda.” But, actually, what about the private sector and the market forces that are at play there; the hero, villain paradigms; some of the political influences on those media? The research shows that, actually, the public do trust the public media more than private media—in fact, in New Zealand, the trust in news has gone up to 48 percent from previous years, and that is 10 percent more than in Australia and the UK.

There’s much more I could say, but I commend the Ministers for tackling this really important issue. Media is a cornerstone of democracy. It is one of the four estates of power. It is often the last bastion of justice, overseeing the whole political and judicial process. Public media is now more important than ever and there has been great care taken by this Government to ensure that it is not the Government but an independent board that will design how that is delivered. I commend the bill to the House.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): There was one point that the member who’s resumed her seat, Ingrid Leary, has made that I can agree with, and that is that independent media is extremely important. It’s a cornerstone of our democracy. That’s why it actually needs to be independent. I don’t think that the sort of charter and the sort of rule-making that this Government has shown itself capable of doing, particularly around the public media fund, otherwise known as the media slush fund of $55 million a year, is actually something that we could say is indicative of independent media. We’ve seen blog-sters getting it, we’ve seen it all the way through, and we’ve seen a recurring theme of control of the media, and this bill will not lessen that. In fact, it will increase it, because instead of having two publicly owned entities, in TVNZ and Radio New Zealand, it will now be one. So there is actually another removal of another source of information.

I don’t agree with the previous speaker that this is the biggest shake-up in media that we’ve seen. The biggest shake-up in the media is actually social media, and there’s a reason that people go to YouTube; there’s a reason that people go to social media. It’s that there is now a general distrust of the mainstream media information. When the member cited—what was it?—48 percent of people who replied to a poll said they trusted the news, well, that’s not 50 percent, or 58 percent, or 100 percent; it is actually 48 percent. It’s less than half. That is actually a damning indictment on the fact that mainstream media has lost a lot of credibility, and particularly during the last few years. It has been incumbent on social media to provide alternative views. And it actually gives me almost the chills to hear the member speaking about misinformation. Well, I’ve heard a lot of misinformation this week in the House. I’ve heard misinformation on mainstream media, on Radio New Zealand, on Television New Zealand, other media, attacking and saying what the National Government would be doing around certain laws. Well, that’s just absolute garbage, and they know that, and yet they still repeat it, and that’s your mainstream media for you.

When we look at things like, for instance, Radio New Zealand, how many people now listen to Morning Report, people under the age of 30? How many people under the age of 40 listen to Morning Report? In my office, I might have coined the phrase “Moaning Report”, but that’s actually because most people want to have a more upbeat view of the world, and they want to be able to see about all the wonderful things in New Zealand, including our wonderful environment, our mostly lovely people, and our opportunities that we don’t have in many other parts of the world. And, yes, they might be wanting to complain about the current Government, but generally most people in New Zealand are a pretty content lot in terms of their acceptance that we have a three-year election cycle and that they can actually do something about it if they don’t like it. They don’t have to riot; they can just go off and wait a few years and sort it all out. But does this bill really come back to what the purpose is, which is creating this new, fit for purpose—I mean, looking at Moaning—Morning Report, I should say; I correct myself. Morning Report on TV is not going to do it. Does this mean that there is no more Morning Report? Does this mean that we won’t have to have that? That’s not that bad, I suppose. That’s a good side! But is there going to be something worse? What is going to be the result? Does that mean we’re not going to have breakfast TV—absolute trivia that gets popped out on that?

Who are these people that people mostly trust in the media? Well, actually, Mike Hosking. I find him good to listen to in the morning. I find him good to listen to, and the thing is he has the ability, and the people who pay to listen to him—in other words, the commercial providers—can tell him they don’t like him, and he loses his job if they don’t like him. That’s not something that this new entity, at the vast cost of over $300 million, is going to do. I mean, who’s in this?

I just heard before that nobody is going to be made redundant in this merger. Actually, Melissa Lee has said that she’s not sure that that could possibly be true, but I think she’s possibly wrong. Yes, nobody will be made redundant; in fact, more people will be employed to service the new entity, because they absolutely could not bring any discipline that the private sector would. When we look at most mergers and acquisitions, they actually fail, and they fail when we take two dysfunctional organisations and put them together and then expect that, magically, a better culture and work environment will result from that. It doesn’t work like that. Two negatives will not make a positive; they will make another negative, and that’s what this will be.

And we like to think an idea of Clare Curran’s might actually have had its time—a long time ago, possibly, and it didn’t go very far. Now it has come back again finally, after—what?—five years of talking about it, into this new thing. And we’ll always remember the Carol Hirschfeld - Clare Curran thing about this, which Melissa Lee did a very good job of highlighting. Then, apparently, this is going to be truly independent. Oh really? A board appointed by this Government? I see even the working group thing—whatever it is they call them these days—setting it up. There’s so much vested interest in there—so much vested interest in what’s going on. It is really important for people to remember that media, if it wants to be relevant, has to be modernised. This is not modernising it. It has to be something that people want to watch. When people who are 30—40 even—get their news off Aljazeera, or some of us a bit older than that also, and other overseas—

Hon Member: Sky TV?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: —yes, Sky TV, and all of those; the BBC, even—it’s because we actually want to have real stories, like actually news, not trivia, not what somebody’s child did today, not what somebody wore today. I don’t care about that. I don’t think many people do. What I do want to know is what’s going to happen to our country, what’s happening in the economy, what’s happening for opportunities, what’s happening in technology—you know, really interesting stories.

Is this going to deliver it? You look at the charter—no. The charter that this Government has put through in their public media fund—aka the slush fund—what that has actually done is even more trivialise the media. Look at the rubbish that we see in Stuff. Look at the rubbish we see in the New Zealand Herald. Look at that. And, yes, there are some shiny examples of brilliance that we see, with people like Anne Gibson and a few people like her, but when we have the sort of nonsense that we see as media, where are they looking at some of the big issues that the Government could be confronting? When are they asking about child poverty? When are they asking about housing? Why are they not putting the blowtorch on the Government? Why are they always putting the blowtorch on the Opposition? It’s very hard for people to say that there is any independence in the mainstream media, currently paid for by the taxpayer. And the only way to get it—and I’m pleased that they’re going to be able to, apparently, now sell some commercials. Good luck with that! It’s really important, though, that people understand that—why should they be able to sell commercials and still get backed up via the taxpayer? I don’t understand that. They’re competing on an entirely unlevel playing field.

And I know that the Labour Party is all upset because they think it’s a brilliant idea. If it was so brilliant, why didn’t they try it five years ago? It shouldn’t just be because it was the Hon Clare Curran’s.

Dr Deborah Russell: Let Clare Curran go.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: The member Deborah Russell suggests that I let Clare Curran go. Well, I certainly have, and so did they. That’s fine. She’s a lovely human being, but let’s just focus on this.

Dr Deborah Russell: Move on—move on.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Move on? All right, I’m moving on. This is a ridiculous bill. It is a solution looking for a problem, and the problem in this case is the fact that the mainstream media, particularly those owned by the taxpayer, the public sector—New Zealanders have left them. And the reason that they’re leaving them is because they’re no longer seen as relevant, because they’re not seen as unbiased, because they are seen as being, basically, puppets to the Government, and when they consistently and totally go down those lines, they’re going to continue to lose more people. If they’re not relevant now to 20-year-olds or 23-year-olds or 26-year-olds or 36-year-olds, they’re not going to be relevant in another 20 years’ time.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Times they are a changing, and we’ve got to change with them. Now, back in the 1990s, I actually worked for TVNZ and worked on a show called McPhail & Gadsby. I’m sure we’ve all heard of it. Glad they’re not around any more, but that’s OK. But I used to be the production assistant, I used to go down to a tobacconist’s—Cerritos Tobacco—and get the newspapers on a Saturday morning. They were the newspapers from every single city and town around the country. I’d deliver them, and the writers would go through these newspapers and figure out what the great stories and what the great gags of the coming week were going to be on their TV show.

Now, that tobacconist no longer exists. Many of those newspapers no longer exist. Things are changing, and this piece of legislation, working with our media to be ready and fit for a coming 21st century, is what we need. I commend this bill to the House.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Listening to the contributions in the House this afternoon, I couldn’t tell the general public what this bill actually does, bar the contribution earlier from the Minister outlining precisely what this board and the disestablishment of Radio New Zealand Ltd (RNZ) and TVNZ is and the creation of this board. In fact, we’ve heard contributions talking about the preferred morning shows and talkback radio hosts from Opposition MPs and we’ve heard some really confused contributions where we’ve heard that, on the one side, they want more Government influence over the types of content that New Zealanders receive and, on the other side, that they want less influence over the types of content that the public are receiving. We’ve also heard a lot of talk about younger people and what younger people want. Whilst I am not, necessarily, all too young any more—I’m now 28 years old—

Damien Smith: You’re over the hill, Chlöe!

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —I came into this place when I was 23—Matariki birthday, Damien Smith. So, to that effect, I am still the youngest in this House, and I don’t think that I can do the job of representing all people across this country, but I can offer some hope of a perspective to that effect.

So to bring it down to what this bill actually does—which would be a novel contribution in this debate this afternoon!—the Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Bill, effectively, disestablishes RNZ and TVNZ as they currently exist and sets up this new entity.

All of us seem to agree that something has to be done, but there doesn’t, unfortunately, seem to be all too much agreement or consensus on what it is that has to be done. I implore members of the Opposition to stand up and talk about the kinds of vision that they would like to see, because they agree, seemingly, from the contribution of their spokesperson, that they want to see something happen in this space and that things are changing, and I’m not quite sure if they want more or less public funding, but, none the less, something has to happen. Therefore, I’d like to hear a positive vision for what that would be or what that might look like.

That is why the Greens will be supporting this through to select committee, because, while there are quite a few questions, actually, that still need to be answered, and we think that there is a good place to do that in select committee, I think that with the likes of, for example, some pretty vague phrasing in the legislation around the likes of “predominantly” free-of-charge content out there—what does “predominantly” actually mean? Are we leaning more towards a TVNZ model or are we leaning more towards an RNZ model? We do need to work through those specifics with members of the public. I dare say that members of the public might have some more coherent contributions than members of Parliament in this House today.

I’d also just point to the consistent point raised by members of the National Party who speak about the $55 million COVID-19 fund. The speaker who spoke just before—the Hon Judith Collins—was raging about the fact that bloggers got it. Again, I think, therein is yet another example of where the National Party seem relatively confused about where they want, perhaps, more editorial control from the Government, but then, on the other hand, they keep saying that they want less. So, again, I’d really implore them to add some clarity to their debate, because, I think, that that would ultimately benefit the process of this bill through Parliament and shaping up what this media institution looks like.

There’s also been a lot of discussion about trust, and trust in institutions. Trust in democracy is one thing; trust in our media institutions is another thing, but, of course, they are interrelated. I might say to those that are pointing out that trust in our public media is declining, trust in this Parliament has not been very high for a very long time now.

To that effect, when we’re talking about media and talking about the kind of content that media produces, we’re talking about a mediation of reality, we’re talking about the fact that we have broadcasters and journalists who are representative of those of us across this country who then go out and choose what stories to report on, and, in doing so, choose the people to speak to, to help to tell that story, and, in choosing those people to speak to, they then choose what quotes they take from those interviews. Whilst all of us would like to say that in a perfect world that entire process is free of bias, of course that’s not the case in reality. All of us come with bias. All of us come with ideologies. All of us come with a belief system that is informed by our life experiences.

So if we want to talk about building up trust in our media, then we need to talk about building up representation in our media. By representation, I’m not just talking about people’s characteristics of ethnicity or religion or geographical background or what have you; I’m also talking about representation of different viewpoints, which, I think, is something, hopefully, that members of the National Party would agree with. I think that that’s the kind of feedback loop that we’re trying to get to here: that with greater representation, you, in turn, get greater engagement from the general public, and then you get that feedback loop of engagement, representation, and then potentially action on the things that people want to see. That, of course, feeds into and is a component part of the health and the strength of our democracy.

So, I think, again, as other speakers have also raised, this is, again, fundamentally, about the sustainability of our news media, particularly on the point of funding. Again, I’m yet to see a clear viewpoint from the National Party about whether they want to see more or less funding for public interest journalism; I’m not quite sure where the Government sits on this one either. So I’d like to see it more clearly articulated. Again, these are the things that the Greens want to see fully worked through, through that select committee process.

I also think that it’s really important that we do start to unpack the reality of sustainability of public interest journalism, because whilst the National Party were talking about things that they want to see more of in the news, the likes of these upbeat views, the reality is that there is always a tension between what some of us are going to see as important for the sake of people to understand what’s happening inside of our democracy—for example, the Election Access Fund Bill, which, I think, was one of the best pieces of legislation passed through this place in recent years did not receive anywhere near as much coverage as, for example, the likes of the cannabis referendum debate. That, again, goes to, perhaps, some of those tensions between the things that are controversial and the things that are important—of course they’re not mutually exclusive but, once again, it raises the reality that members of Parliament should not be interfering in the types of content that a public media is producing. Again, I think that that really goes to the heart of contributions from the National Party, who do not quite seem clear on whether they want more or less intervention or dictation.

Which takes us to the point of the charter. The National Party have consistently raised that they think that there are issues within the charter, that they think that there’s problems with the fact that the current charters of our media institutions are aspirational. So they seem to want more dictation and more control from the Government but then they simultaneously seem to want less. So, again, I implore them to offer a clear vision; on the same hand, I ask the Government to be clearer about how all of those interfacing parts around the likes of, particularly, how funding may operate in the future and whether we err more towards that RNZ model or more towards that TVNZ model.

Just finally, as other contributors to this debate have also raised, the social media question is still outstanding. There has been a lot of discussion about the fact that we now get more and more of our news from social media; this, of course, is largely determined by algorithms and therefore means that sometimes we might not see things that are fundamentally important to, for example, engaging in our democracy, but we are more likely to be fed things that the algorithms think that we want. So what that takes us down to is: how does this Aotearoa New Zealand public media entity engage with and participate with social media? So you have this kind of tension between that public and that private space, but then also with social media. I’d say that this very much aligns with the work that’s being done by a number of Ministers at present on the potential for greater regulation of social media, which of course is not just a domestic issue but one internationally.

The Greens support this bill going through to select committee. It’s really important that we flesh out what our vision is for the future of public media in this country. But, again, I think that those core questions remain outstanding. Thank you.

DAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure on behalf of the ACT Party to stand today and present our vision about this madcap Labour scheme, and we hope Chlöe does not get cancelled by this new entity, because that would be a shame for the young people of Aotearoa, and we’d need to bring the Hon Judith Collins on at night to talk sense into the nation.

First Kris Faafoi and now Willie Jackson want to merge RNZ and TVNZ. Kris couldn’t see it through, so Willie’s picked it up, and he’s got the mantle. I wonder if Kris saw what a mess this was all about to be—

Tangi Utikere: Point of order, Mr Speaker. There’s an expectation that members referring to current or former parliamentarians use their full name, and I’d invite the member to do so.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Absolutely correct. I have noticed that creeping in quite a lot and the dropping of the honorific as well, so I will encourage the member—in fact, I will instruct the member—to use the correct names when he’s addressing the House.

DAMIEN SMITH: OK. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Today, we saw what it was about. ACT believes that the provision of media isn’t the role of the Government, especially with broadcasting Minister the Hon Willie Jackson highlighting that at the core of this, democracy has changed. ACT would apply the mixed-ownership model to this entity, and we’ll give you the reasons why: because this is a poorly defined merger. If the Government is going to do it, it’s got to do it right. We already have a somewhat functional public media, and this bill is not doing it right.

The former TVNZ CEO Kevin Kenrick said, in 2019, that the business case for a new public entity would need to be focused on substance—substance, Mr Speaker. Now, I’ve had a look, and I regret to inform you that I can’t really find any in this framework. Big platitudes are, unfortunately, no substitute for substance.

So what is Minister Jackson proposing? Let’s chuck all the shares of Radio New Zealand and TVNZ into a big Crown entity pot, add 38 million bucks and a woke agenda, cross your fingers, and hope for the best. Three hundred and twenty-seven million has been allocated to this merger at a time when Kiwis are coming to grips with the cost of living crisis, and inflation, for the Hon Mr Hipkins, is caused by money supply, large money supply, going into the economy, and this is another example where savings could be made.

To counteract Ms Leary, the $55 million Public Interest Journalism Fund has increased public concern about what is happening in terms of democratic media. So what does the Government do? It decides to double down. The Hon Kris Faafoi got up and said, “It’s digital content. We need more streaming to keep up with Netflix. We can’t let the people stream if we don’t merge.” That sounds reasonable, right? Loosen up the focus so the public media can get on with the times. Well, the last I checked, the TVNZ OnDemand website was live, and it still is.

I asked my esteemed colleague Sam Purchas to check too, and he said, “Yeah, they’re already streaming. It’s great—and have been for a while.” Not only that but they must be printing money on demand with the number of ads they’re running. TVNZ states, itself, that it remains focused on ensuring digital growth outpaces any declines in broadcasts. They’re already doing it, but the Minister wants to spend $38 million to let them do it. So this rationale is clearly nonsense. Secondly, I think the Minister may be labouring under some misconceptions if he thinks that this merger is magically going to make our public media the new Netflix.

So what are we dealing with here? We’ve got RNZ and TVNZ. TVNZ seems to be doing pretty well. They’re turning a profit: 15 million bucks in 2022—in fact, after achieving a record result the year before. Radio New Zealand, not so much. This one seems to be hanging out—50 million bucks in a hole. So why wouldn’t we just let TVNZ keep getting on with the job? They’ve been doing OK, and I think that if we start getting to why Labour is so excited to merge them, it’s because they love to see successful and the profitable kneecapped with financial burdens. Merging RNZ and TVNZ is like trying to put an anvil on an athlete.

I can see Minister Jackson is just so thrilled at the thought of TVNZ’s financial performance being anchored down. In fact, that whole side of the House seems horrified to see anyone turning a profit—except for themselves, that is. They’re turning a record profit every year. It’s a great business model: where your customers don’t give you whatever amount of money you declare, they get locked up.

So it’s no wonder, with the tax and drive philosophy over on that side of the House, the Government keeps turning record profits from hard-working Kiwis and they’ve figured out they can just keep writing bigger numbers on productive New Zealanders who owe them. All Kiwis are worse off under this Labour Government. They’ve let inflation get out of control, which negates recent payments to consider tax cuts.

Dr Deborah Russell: Come back to the bill.

DAMIEN SMITH: I’m coming back to the bill. This Government is happy with this business model. They don’t understand that this is how value is created in society. It’s not how the world works. Most businesses can’t do it that way. This new public media entity seems to have lucked out, though. The TVNZ board might be a bit concerned about what’s going to happen when Radio New Zealand moves in. But to the new board: fear not. You’re not going to have to boost revenue to make up for the sudden $50 million liability, says the Cabinet paper. This new entity would not be expected to maximise its commercial revenues. This is the Labour dream. So how is the Minister going to ensure he gets value for money out of this? I don’t think value for money has even crossed this Government’s mind and certainly hasn’t under this framework. They’ve appropriated 38 million bucks, the $390 million just to establish this new entity, and ACT says that’s a waste.

This is a mouthful of a name as well. And let’s hope there’s a contest and that the people of New Zealand are included in the naming rights of this entity, because we have two very trusted brands, as has been stated before. Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media, ANZPM—I thought ANZPM was John Key. That’s where he ended up, wasn’t it? And it’s a touching tribute for Willie to name this after him, and I never knew you were such a fan of John Key! Or perhaps Willie’s angling for a spot on the ANZ board one day, too.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Another reminder about the names.

DAMIEN SMITH: Back to the merger. No one on that side of the House can answer what they’re going to do with this, but we can see what’s motivating it. They want to push their ideology or, as we now call it, “democracy has changed” approach. They’ve never forgiven National or ACT for scrapping the TVNZ charter in 2011 and I think they’ve been holding a grudge ever since. They’ve copied and pasted the charter and dialled up the ideology and dialled down the reasons. Strangely enough, things almost looked promising for a bit with the new public media entity. But the Cabinet paper now says it must demonstrate editorial independence, impartiality, and balance, particularly in delivery of news and current affairs. But they seem to be a bit confused over that side of the House. New Zealand on Air’s document Te Tiriti Framework for News Media says that we live in a society that perpetuates racism and inequalities for news media. It’s not simply a matter of reporting fairly but of constructively contributing to Treaty relations and social justice. I wonder if the Minister will ask his new State media to reject this advice from New Zealand on Air. If impartial imbalance, particularly in the delivery of news or current affairs, is so important to him, he will have to.

So this Labour Government is just obsessed with pushing this co-governance agenda. Two of the board members must be appointed in consultation with the Minister for Māori Development. I’d love to see these two conversations between the Minister of broadcasting and the Minister for Māori Development! I’d like to think it would be just Willie Jackson himself angrily—sorry, the Hon Willie Jackson himself—muttering to himself about David Seymour being a useless Māori. One great ratings programme would be to have Mr Jackson on TVNZ with Mr Seymour to debate co-governance, but his party won’t allow him, and that is a shame for the outstanding broadcasting potential that that could have.

The other four to seven members of the board are appointed in agreement with the Minister of Finance, and we all know that’s quite worrying. So we have this merger. There’s no justification. Perhaps if this merger had been clearly set out as a modernisation and streamlining of services, we could have got behind it. And $340 million later—no justification—raid Radio New Zealand, TVNZ, who were doing pretty good jobs in different ways, seemed to be making a bit of money, now seems to be spending a lot.

I’d like to be clear about the content of the bill. We wish Simon Power all the luck. Even if he’s the CEO of TVNZ, because he doesn’t know what the Politburo plan is either. We will be opposing this bill and it’s not a good deal for the taxpayers of New Zealand.

ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): It is an honour to take a call and support the first step in delivering public media service reforms that will make wonderful changes and enable our public’s media to thrive into the future. We’ve heard, actually, that TVNZ has already been able to innovate and live stream, which is great, and I want to reflect on that a bit more in a moment. But I also heard from the other side of the House that our public media services are not inspiring, and I also want to respond to that.

The new structure and improved investment will make it easier to continue to innovate. Public broadcasting is always changing. We’ve heard about the move to on demand and capturing and sharing on multiple platforms. This is not new. Bruce Mason wrote a play—The Pohutukawa Tree—which was a stage play, and it got recorded at Broadcasting House in 1960; the first step to on demand, because you could only actually go and see it live until it was recorded. And multi-platform—not just on stage but on radio, and it has, of course, been turned into a movie since then. And it did give access to a wider audience. I know that, because it remains a magical performance that I used to cherish sharing with my students and my theatre students in a secondary school.

People say, “Oh, people only watch things on YouTube.” Well, the magic of closing your eyes and listening to a radio play and hearing our stories, our voices, our languages, our accents coming through, and those treasures that Radio New Zealand and TVNZ have been able to do over the years will be able to be done even better into the future. So I commend this bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members, this debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 26 July 2022. Pō mārie.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 4.55 p.m.