Thursday, 28 July 2022
Volume 761
Sitting date: 28 July 2022
THURSDAY, 28 JULY 2022
THURSDAY, 28 JULY 2022
The Deputy Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.
KARAKIA/PRAYERS
KARAKIA/PRAYERS
Hon JACQUI DEAN (Assistant Speaker): Almighty God, we give thanks for the blessings which have been bestowed on us. Laying aside all personal interests, we acknowledge the Queen and pray for guidance in our deliberations that we may conduct the affairs of this House with wisdom, justice, mercy, and humility for the welfare and peace of New Zealand. Amen.
Business Statement
Business Statement
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Legislation to be considered next week will include the first readings of the Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill, the Family Court (Family Court Associates) Legislation Bill, and the Local Government Electoral Legislation Bill; the committee stages of the Three Strikes Legislation Repeal Bill and the New Zealand Bill of Rights (Declarations of Inconsistency) Amendment Bill; and the third reading of the Data and Statistics Bill. There will be an extended sitting on the morning of Wednesday, 3 August. The balance of Wednesday will be a members’ day.
CHRIS BISHOP (National): I thank the Leader of the House for that. I wonder whether he could give the House an update on the time line for the Water Services Entities Bill, given the very, very, very large number of public submissions on that bill.
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): That’ll be a matter for the select committee.
Hon JAMES SHAW (Green): Thank you. I noticed that the Organic Products Bill has dropped from No. 8 on the Order Paper the last time we discussed this, to No. 12 on the Order Paper now. Last time we asked how that was going, he said it would depend on how fast the House moved, but, obviously, if it’s dropping back on the Order Paper, that’s going to mean it’s going to take even longer. So I just wondered if he had any insight into when that might come to the House.
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I’m very happy to offer the member some hope and to say to him that I do think it’s likely we’ll make some progress on the bill in the next few months.
PETITIONS, PAPERS, SELECT COMMITTEE REPORTS, AND INTRODUCTION OF BILLS
PETITIONS, PAPERS, SELECT COMMITTEE REPORTS, AND INTRODUCTION OF BILLS
DEPUTY SPEAKER: No petitions have been presented. A paper has been delivered for presentation.
CLERK: Lakes District Health Board, 2021-22 annual plan, incorporation statement of performance expectations.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: That paper is published under the authority of the House. Select committee reports have been delivered for presentation. There are quite a few of them.
CLERK:
Reports of the Education and Workforce Committee on the 2022/23 Estimates for Vote Education, Vote Education Review Office, Vote Tertiary Education, and Vote Labour Market.
reports of the Environment Committee on the 2022/23 Estimates for Vote Conservation, Vote Environment, and for Vote Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.
reports of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the 2022/23 Estimates for Vote Audit, Vote Finance, Fiscal Strategy Report 2022, and Budget Economic and Fiscal Update 2022, and for Vote Revenue.
reports of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee on the 2022/23 Estimates for Vote Customs, Vote Defence, Vote Defence Force, and Vote Foreign Affairs.
report of the Health Committee on the 2022/23 Estimates for Vote Health, and for appropriation within Vote Building and Construction, isolation and quarantine management.
reports of the Justice Committee on the 2022/23 Estimates for Vote Justice, Vote Police, and Vote Serious Fraud
reports of the Māori Affairs Committee on the 2022-23 Estimates for Vote Māori Development and Vote Te Arawhiti
reports of the Regulations Review Committee on the examination of COVID-19 Orders presented on 27 June 2022
reports of the Social Services and Community Committee on the 2022/23 appropriation within Vote Public Service – supporting implementation of a Social Wellbeing Approach
2022-23 appropriations within Vote Internal Affairs that are the responsibility of the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, and the Minister for Diversity, Inclusion and Ethnic Communities
2022/23 Estimates for Vote Arts, Culture and Heritage
2022/23 Estimates for Vote Housing and Urban Development
2022/23 Estimates for Vote Oranga Tamariki
2022/23 Estimates for Vote Pacific Peoples
2022/23 Estimates for Vote Social Development
2022/23 Estimates for Vote Sport and Recreation
2022/23 Estimates for Vote Women
reports of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee on the 2022/23 Estimates for Vote Building and Construction, excluding the Isolation and Quarantine Management appropriation
2022/23 Estimates for Vote Transport.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: The report of the Regulations Review Committee is set down for consideration. The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of a bill.
CLERK: Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill, introduction.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: That bill is set down for first reading.
Oral Questions
Questions to Ministers
Question No. 1—Education
1. CAMILLA BELICH (Labour) to the Minister of Education: What reports has he seen about trends in training and apprenticeships?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Good news. I’ve seen the latest figures from the very successful Apprenticeship Boost initiative, part of our COVID-19 support initiatives that have been helping employers to keep their early stage apprentices employed and in training: 18,507 employers have now been engaged, 26,000 apprentices are currently eligible for an Apprenticeship Boost payment, and, in total, 49,000 apprentices have so far benefited from the scheme. As part of this year’s Budget, Apprenticeship Boost has now been extended through to December next year.
Camilla Belich: Is the overall number of apprentices increasing, and, if so, by how much?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Even more good news. I’m advised that there are now 56,965 active apprentices. That’s a 61 percent increase on June 2019, prior to the pandemic, and a 90 percent increase since June 2017. Vocational education is back on the mat and it is thriving in New Zealand.
Camilla Belich: What other information has he received on other vocational COVID support initiatives that the Government has put in place?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As a temporary measure until the end of this year, we put in place free vocational training and apprenticeships under the Targeted Training and Apprenticeship Fund. The latest enrolment data shows that 215,375 people have been supported though that fund since July of 2020; that includes 98,000 apprentices. The Targeted Training and Apprenticeship Fund makes a range of qualifications in targeted areas and all apprenticeships free until 31 December this year. It is another example of the real work that this Government is doing to tackle the skill shortages that we inherited.
Question No. 2—Transport
2. SIMON COURT (ACT) to the Minister of Transport: Does he stand by his statement, “I regularly reinforce my expectations that Waka Kotahi and other agencies spend money in a proportionate and reasonable way”; if so, in which cases, if any, has this expectation not been met?
Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): I certainly stand by my statement, and across the investments that Waka Kotahi makes. I am confident that the agency delivers expenditure that is responsible and delivers benefits for New Zealand through investments, such as the two-laning of the previously one-lane Motu Bridge on State Highway 2 at Gisborne; the investment in the Tamaki cycleway that we recently reopened; the investment in the State Highway 5 safety improvements outside of Rotorua; and, of course, bringing home Transmission Gully, which the previous Government goofed up so badly on. Of course, across a $4.5 billion spend every year from a statutorily independent agency, there will, from time to time, be expenditure that is not in accordance with my expectations. I’ve recently spoken about some of that expenditure across the Road to Zero programme, and I continue, as other Ministers do, to talk with my agencies to make sure that all expenditure is appropriate.
Simon Court: Does the Minister agree that it is proportionate and reasonable to spend up to $311 million on a 4½ kilometre shared path between Pētone and Ngauranga, at a cost of $69,000 per metre, and is this the most expensive cycleway in New Zealand?
Hon MICHAEL WOOD: The Ngauranga to Pētone cycleway, which I joined with local government leaders to sign the documents on earlier this week, is one of the most keenly awaited infrastructure projects in the Wellington region. It will provide safe walking and cycling options for people to connect between Lower Hutt and Wellington City. It has been widely supported, in fact, across the House, across central government and local government, and across people right across this region. Our Government is one that invests across a range of transport infrastructure. The old days of just investing in roads will not get us where we need to be in terms of a safe, resilient, and low-carbon network. I know that’s the thinking of the ACT Party, but our Government will make sure that all New Zealanders, including people here in Wellington, have real and safe transport choices.
David Seymour: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question was clearly about the Minister’s view about the acceptability of the price of the cycleway per metre, and he did not address that at all. He just talked about the cycleway and various people’s attitudes to it.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, in my opinion he has addressed it—quite clearly addressed it as well.
Simon Court: Does he believe that it’s proportionate and reasonable to spend $44,000 on an engineering review of two giant spinning top sculptures on the Waikato Expressway, and how much did the spinning tops themselves cost?
Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I do think it’s appropriate for the agency to have engineering reviews to ensure the safety of any large structures that it installs. I think it would be bizarre to suggest the Transport Agency should not do that.
Simeon Brown: Does he think it is proportionate and reasonable for the New Zealand Transport Agency to spend $25 million on fitting out its new, plush Wellington office at a cost of $2,870 per square metre, or could any of that money have been better spent repairing the potholes peppering our highways?
Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I think it is entirely reasonable for any significant delivery agency to have adequate office space for its staff. In the case of Waka Kotahi, it’s been canvassed in this House in written questions. The current two premises have to be moved on from because of the end of lease periods and earthquake requirements. The new premises have gone through a standard procurement process. And I will stand by our Government’s investment in road maintenance, which has increased by 40 percent since we inherited Government, as opposed to the previous Government, which flat-lined investment in road maintenance to fund its pet projects in the transport portfolio.
Simon Court: Does he believe that it’s proportionate and reasonable to have spent $370,000 on an opening ceremony for the Transmission Gully motorway, and does he agree with the Mayor of Porirua who said, “That money would fill a lot of potholes.”?
Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I think it is reasonable when these significant transport projects are finished, that have had a degree of large disruption for communities, for communities to be brought together to celebrate those events. After that event, I did convey to Waka Kotahi that I believe it is important that costs are minimised as much as possible, which is why I was very pleased that for the opening event for the Waikato Expressway last week, which our Government has delivered, less than $100,000 was spent on that, which compares very favourably indeed to the $1.1 million the previous National Government spent on the Waterview Tunnel opening event.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Everyone knows that questions are asked in silence.
Simon Court: Does he believe that it is proportionate and reasonable for Waka Kotahi to spend taxpayer funds to research and identify Māori experiences, expectations, and priorities for transport in New Zealand, and how is this more important than fixing unsafe roads for all New Zealanders?
Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I do believe that it is important that the transport network delivers on the aspirations and needs of all New Zealanders, and that is why Waka Kotahi has undertaken that piece of work. In respect to the second part of the member’s question, as I’ve outlined already, under our Government, the funding for road maintenance has increased by over 40 percent from what the previous National-ACT Government provided when it was in office.
Simon Court: Does the Minister believe that it is proportionate and reasonable for Waka Kotahi to spend over $72 million of its share of the Let’s Get Wellington Moving business case, and how is taking three years to prepare a $120 million business case proportionate and reasonable?
Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I do fully accept that the other side of the House wrote Wellington City off as a “dying city” when it was in Government, but that is not the approach of our Government. We believe that it is time to make decisive investments in a low-carbon transport network. [Interruption] Those were Mr Key’s comments, which that member supported at the time, I’m quite sure, even if he doesn’t now. We are going to make the investments in safe walking and cycling, a high-frequency, high-capacity mass rapid transit, to finally decongest the city and give Wellingtonians the transport choices that they have lacked for so many years. I understand there’s a lack of ambition on that side of the House for transport in Wellington, but we’re getting on with the job.
Question No. 3—Social Development and Employment
3. TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: What announcements has she made regarding He Poutama Rangatahi?
Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I recently announced that funding has been approved for nine new He Poutama Rangatahi programmes across the North Island. These programmes will work with 880 young people who are not in education, employment, or training and are at risk of long-term benefit dependency. The Government is focused on helping our rangatahi get the skills and support they need to choose a career and life pathway that gives them and their whānau a better future. We recognise that some of our rangatahi need more support than others. He Poutama Rangatahi is unique and it works.
Tangi Utikere: What results has she seen from He Poutama Rangatahi?
Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: The basic principle of He Poutama Rangatahi is that local communities are best placed to reach our rangatahi and help them work through the barriers they face to move forward with their lives. Since it was launched by my colleague the Hon Willie Jackson in 2018, 8,378 rangatahi have enrolled in the programme, with only 12 percent having withdrawn or unenrolled. The programme has also seen 3,869 rangatahi move into employment, education, or training, with many more still enrolled in the programme and working towards achieving their goals. Additionally, 76 percent of the young people on the programme are Māori, emphasising the importance of that local approach.
Tangi Utikere: What other Government initiatives will have an impact on people participating in He Poutama Rangatahi?
Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Of the 8,378 people enrolled in He Poutama Rangatahi, only 35 percent have a driver’s licence at the time of their enrolment. We know that having a driver’s licence is a basic prerequisite for up to 70 percent of jobs. Additionally, not having a driver’s licence is frequently a young person’s first interaction with the justice system. This is why the Government invested $86.5 million into helping 64,000 people obtain driver’s licences as part of Budget 2022. This important investment will help many people, but it will particularly help our rangatahi on their journey to achieving their full potential.
Question No. 4—Finance
4. NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National) to the Minister of Finance: Does he consider that fiscal and monetary policy decisions in the past two years have in any way exacerbated the cost of living crisis; if so, how?
Hon DAVID PARKER (Acting Minister of Finance): The fiscal and monetary measures enacted in early 2020 were in response to a pandemic-related one-in-100-year economic shock. This was a time of considerable uncertainty, with unemployment forecast to reach significant levels. I consider our economic response has been instrumental in the record low levels of unemployment we now have. If we did not provide that support, the economic consequences for New Zealanders were dire. In all likelihood, the households still managing the inflationary impacts of global energy prices now, many of them would also be out of work. New Zealand’s response was in line with the rest of the advanced world, and was generally supported by Opposition parties at the time. We are now seeing tighter constraints on the supply side of the economy, and both monetary policy and fiscal policy are responding accordingly. Fiscal policy is also supporting New Zealand households through the current inflationary spike through targeted, temporary support.
Nicola Willis: Does he agree with Arthur Grimes, former Reserve Bank chair, that the current Reserve Bank’s “least regrets” policy on unemployment meant they were paying no attention to inflation over the past two years?
Hon DAVID PARKER: No, I prefer the comments in the editorial in the Dominion Post, which says the Reserve Bank of New Zealand did a creditable job during the pandemic.
Nicola Willis: Who does he think knows more about monetary policy, a former chair of the Reserve Bank or the editor of the Dominion Post?
Hon DAVID PARKER: I’m sure that the former chair of the Reserve Bank knows more about monetary policy than either I do or the member does, but he would know no more about it than the current chief executive or chair of the Reserve Bank, who the Dominion Post judged did a creditable job.
Nicola Willis: Does he agree with former Reserve Bank chair Arthur Grimes that the Government’s decision to change the Reserve Bank’s focus to a dual mandate was a mistake and has helped lead to record high inflation?
Hon DAVID PARKER: No, and I would observe that the dual mandate is common overseas.
Nicola Willis: Has he seen reports that one in four New Zealanders are now struggling to make ends meet on a monthly basis, and does he acknowledge that if the Reserve Bank hadn’t unleashed such a tidal wave of cash, then things could be different?
Hon DAVID PARKER: The Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister have, on many occasions, acknowledged cost of living pressures. I would observe that Treasury forecasts are for wage growth to exceed inflation in every one of the next four years, as they have in the prior years under this administration. In respect of the current pressures, of course, there is a payment on 1 August going to 2.1 million eligible New Zealanders, which will assist with those pressures.
Nicola Willis: Does he agree with economist Dennis Wesselbaum, who says, “While there was way too much money put into the system by the Reserve Bank, most of the blame for the current inflation situation should be placed at the feet of the Government’s response.”?
Hon DAVID PARKER: I would agree with Todd Muller, who on 26 May said, “This is a time in our history where money needs to be spent.”, and with Paul Goldsmith on 11 May 2020, who said, “No Government could have stopped COVID-19 creating huge economic problems … credit where credit is due. The Government’s speed at getting the wage subsidy scheme up and running reduced early economic calamity.” I would also agree with similar comments from Simon Bridges, who, of course, said that it was too little by saying that the wage subsidy had helped employees for 12 weeks, but it hasn’t helped businesses with zero revenue pay overheads like rent, power, and stock. I would not agree with captains of hindsight.
Nicola Willis: Will he support members of Parliament from all parties except Labour to encourage Labour MPs to agree to an inquiry at the Finance and Expenditure Committee into the economic response to COVID-19, or is it his position that the Government did everything perfectly?
Hon DAVID PARKER: We won’t be agreeing with that suggestion of a separate inquiry in addition to all of the other processes that enable inquiry into those same issues. One of the reasons why I don’t think I like the National Party’s approach to independence of the Reserve Bank is that, of course, it was a former leader of the National Party, the Hon Don Brash, who, whilst head of the Reserve Bank, colluded with the National Party to obtain an electable place on the Labour Party list whilst he was Governor of the Reserve Bank—appalling practice.
David Seymour: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I think that sort of accusation of corruption against a member of the public, a former member of his House, someone who does not have the ability now to defend himself in this House, is exactly the sort of thing that brings this House of Representatives into disrepute, and if you’d like to uphold the reputation of the House, I think you should ask that member to withdraw and apologise for those comments.
Hon Chris Hipkins: Speaking to the point of order, if any member of the public who is not present in the House has an objection to something that is being said about them in the House, there is a process that they can follow.
Hon DAVID PARKER: Further speaking to the point of order, the very strong word that was used by the leader of the ACT Party was not used by me. It was his description.
David Seymour: Speaking to the point of order, the accusation was that someone in high public office used their power to gain personal political favours. If that’s not an accusation of corruption, nothing is. He’s now dancing on the head of a pin.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: What I will say is that I listened carefully to the answer. The Minister doesn’t actually have responsibility for part of that answer. That’s one thing. The former member is able to apply to respond to what has been said—Standing Order 160. I think every member, in my opinion, should be careful about what they say even if we do have privilege in this House. We’ll go on to the next question.
Question No. 5—Revenue
5. GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth) to the Minister of Revenue: How can eligible New Zealanders ensure they receive the first Cost of Living Payment on 1 August?
Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Revenue): The Government’s cost of living payments are the latest step we’re taking to help New Zealanders pay their bills. The first of three monthly cost of living payments is due to be made on Monday at around $116. Around 2.1 million people are eligible to receive the payment if they earned $70,000 or less in the 2022 tax year and are not entitled to the winter energy payment. There is no need to apply for the payment, and it will occur automatically if Inland Revenue has the recipient’s bank account details. Therefore, I’m urging people to make sure Inland Revenue has their up-to-date bank details. I encourage all eligible New Zealanders to log into myIR on the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) website and check their bank account details are up to date. This will ensure they receive the payment on 1 August if they’re eligible.
Glen Bennett: How many people are eligible for the cost of living payments, and when will the payments be made?
Hon DAVID PARKER: There are an estimated 2.1 million Kiwis eligible for the cost of living payment. This sits alongside the Government’s winter energy payment, and together these payments will support 81 percent of New Zealanders aged 18 and over with their bills this year. For eligible New Zealanders that have lodged their bank account details with IRD, the three main payment dates are 1 August, 1 September, and 3 October. Each payment is $116 roughly, totalling $350. This equates to a $27-a-week increase in take-home income for 2.1 million New Zealanders over this three-month period.
Glen Bennett: Will people still receive the payment if they lodge their bank account details with IRD after 1 August?
Hon DAVID PARKER: We already have bank account details for 90 percent of those eligible, but we’re seeking details for the rest. If, for some reason, eligible people do not get their bank account details lodged with IRD before Monday, they will still receive the $350 worth of payments if they provide bank account details at a later date. While eligible New Zealanders will have until 31 March next year to provide their bank account details, I would encourage eligible people to do this soon—it’s not compulsory, but it is encouraged—either online at ird.govt.nz through their myIR account, or by phone.
Question No. 6—Housing
6. CHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Minister of Housing: What was Kāinga Ora’s net surplus or deficit after tax for the third quarter of the 2021-22 financial year compared to forecast, and is she satisfied with the performance of Kāinga Ora?
Hon PEENI HENARE (Associate Minister of Housing (Māori Housing)) on behalf of the Minister of Housing: I am advised that for the third quarter of the 2021-22 financial year, Kāinga Ora had an actual deficit of $13.6 million compared to a forecast deficit of $46.8 million. I am advised, for the actual year to date, as at 31 March 2022, Kāinga Ora’s net deficit after tax was $82 million compared to a forecast net deficit of $115 million. This is $33 million better than forecast. In answer to the second part of the question, yes.
Chris Bishop: What actions has she taken, if any, in response of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development report to her showing that Kāinga Ora is projected to record a $662 million deficit for the 2023-24 year and that, by 2025, interest costs will be 39 percent of its rental cash flow for the year?
Hon PEENI HENARE: We continue to look at the settings that continue to inform the work that Kāinga Ora does in the housing programme of this Government. What we do know is that as a result of the challenges through the pandemic, we’ve already changed a number of those settings not just through Kāinga Ora but, of course, some of the other schemes that allow us to (1) build more houses and (2) get more people to buy their first house. So we’ll continue to monitor that as we head into the coming year and beyond, and make sure that the settings are right to make sure that we can answer the housing crisis that we’re dealing with.
Chris Bishop: Why has Kāinga Ora only built 21 net new State houses in the last year?
Hon PEENI HENARE: I want to continue to push back on the assertion from that member that we’ve only built so few houses. The actual number is approximately 1,815 new houses in the past year, ending 30 June. And, if I can, in the primary question the member asks about the most recent quarter of the last financial year, and I can tell that member that over 215 new net homes have been built in that period. So I continue to push back against the numbers that that member continues to persist with.
Hon Chris Hipkins: Can the Minister confirm that to build new houses, particularly where we’re aiming to increase the intensity of the houses, you first have to demolish the houses that were sitting there?
Hon PEENI HENARE: On behalf of the Minister, I can indeed confirm that. As we look across the housing footprint for Kāinga Ora, as we’ve looked to expand the housing portfolio and the number of houses that we have available for people, that work is currently under way in a number of cities, and in particular in Auckland, where we see an exponential growth in houses. And, of course, as I said in my previous answer, the net numbers that that member continues to persist with in this House are clearly incorrect.
Chris Bishop: In relation to his remark just now about pushing back at apparently my erroneous assertion, is he saying that the Government’s own housing dashboard does not show that from June 2021 to May 2022, the net increase in new State houses built by Kāinga Ora is just 21 houses?
Hon PEENI HENARE: Yes, I am pushing back on the numbers that that member continues to place in this House, and I continue to say that this Government has a strong and proud record of delivering homes.
Chris Bishop: Is she satisfied with Kāinga Ora spending $24 million on an office fit-out at a time when it has built just 21 net new State houses in the last year?
Hon PEENI HENARE: The process undertaken to house Kāinga Ora saw a number of sites being brought into one in both Auckland and Wellington, and I support the work that’s been done there and also, if I can, acknowledge the comments made by the Minister of Transport, who said that the procurement process that was undertaken to do that, “I am completely satisfied with.”
Chris Bishop: Has she told her officials to only give her oral briefings on Kāinga Ora financial performance because she is worried that written briefings about Kāinga Ora get leaked to me and the media?
Hon PEENI HENARE: Look, I can’t exactly say what she has said to her officials. And with respect to the assertion made by that member about the leak, look, on this side of the House, we’re focused on building homes.
Question No. 7—Conservation
7. RACHEL BROOKING (Labour) to the Minister of Conservation: What recent announcements has she made regarding the Milford Opportunities Project?
Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister of Conservation): Today marks the next step in the delivery of a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape how we do tourism in Piopiotahi / Milford Sound. The mass tourism approach of pre-COVID times, with 870,000 visitors in 2019, was putting the natural environment and infrastructure at this UNESCO World Heritage site under significant pressure. Today we have announced an impressive line-up of experts to drive the project forward, grounded in conservation and cultural values.
Rachel Brooking: Who has been appointed to the Milford Opportunities board, and what skills do they bring to the table?
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sorry. Can I ask Joseph Mooney to stand, withdraw, and apologise. Your conversation was so loud I did not even hear the question being asked.
Joseph Mooney: Withdraw and apologise.
David Seymour: Point of order. Mr Speaker, how can someone be asked to withdraw and apologise for being too loud but not for accusing a member of the public of corruption?
DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have addressed the former issue and that is concluded. The member knows the rules. When Mr Mooney has withdrawn and apologised, David Seymour will withdraw and apologise.
David Seymour: I withdraw and apologise. Point of order. Mr Speaker, I ask you to reflect on the consistency of those three rulings when you have a chance.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: You can leave the Chamber, please.
David Seymour withdrew from the Chamber.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’ll get Rachel Brooking to ask that question again.
Rachel Brooking: Who has been appointed to the Milford Opportunities board, and what skills do they bring to the table?
Hon POTO WILLIAMS: As the jewel in the crown of New Zealand’s conservation estate and arguably the eighth wonder of the world, we can’t afford to get this wrong. That is why I’m excited to announce this impressive line-up of experts who will help drive this project. This includes mana whenua representatives Muriel Johnstone and Michael Skerrett, as well as Michelle Trapski, Bill Day, and Andrew Patterson, who collectively have extensive knowledge in sustainable tourism, design, and management. The board will be chaired by Dr Keith Turner, who has decades of experience in economic and environmental policy. The board will also be supported by local government representatives from Southland District Council and Environment Southland.
Chris Bishop: Point of order. This question is essentially the Minister reading out board appointments, which she issued a press release about. Is this seriously what the Government is using its parliamentary questions for today?
DEPUTY SPEAKER: And your point of order is what?
Hon Jacqui Dean: Does the Minister intend that the Milford airstrip be closed as part of this process?
Hon POTO WILLIAMS: We are now engaged in a feasibility process, which is being managed by the board and the project manager, who will soon be appointed. As part of the master plan, that is a feature that the board and project leader will be looking at. However, as Government we will wait until we see the results and the report from the project before we make any decisions.
Rachel Brooking: What are the other next steps for the project?
Hon POTO WILLIAMS: With the ministerial advisory board in place and the Milford Opportunities Project unit being established, they will undertake the feasibility testing of the master plan recommendations, including getting feedback from key stakeholders and international visitors.
Question No. 8—Education
8. PENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill) to the Minister of Education: Does he agree with comments made by the former chief executive of Otago Polytechnic, Phil Ker, about the Government’s polytechnic reform that “Not a single dollar has been put into improving outcomes for learners, not a single dollar to strengthening the regional providers, and so the issues that we had before Mr Hipkins started this misguided venture are not only still there, they’re worse”?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I respect Phil Ker, and I do recognise his considerable contribution to vocational education in New Zealand, and I respectfully disagree with him. I note that he was not a fan of the vocational education reforms from the beginning. The model of vocational education that we had in New Zealand wasn’t sustainable, and it wasn’t delivering the skills that our employers are crying out for. We hear examples of that every single day, with employers complaining that they cannot get access to the skilled labour that they need. That is a sign that our vocational education system has been under delivering for New Zealand for a long time—not to mention the fact that most of our polytechs were in a great degree of financial difficulty that was getting worse. I absolutely reject the assertion that additional funding hasn’t gone to improving outcomes for learners, particularly coming from the National Party, who are arguing we’re spending too much money.
Penny Simmonds: Has the Minister seen further comments by Phil Ker “You can’t address the problems of the magnitude we have in this sector at the moment without redundancies.”; and does the Minister consider those redundancies should occur at the head office of Te Pūkenga, where there are no teaching staff, or out in the polytechnics?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: In answer to the first part of the question, yes.
Penny Simmonds: Does the Minister agree with the statement in the 2018 Government commissioned ITP Roadmap 2020, which stated, “Examination of economies and mergers suggests that few, if any, recurrent savings result.”; and, if so, why did the Minister then proceed with the merger of the polytechnics and industry training organisations, which has only caused disarray and a significantly larger deficit?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: In answer to the first part of the question, no. In regard to the second part of the question, the member is wrong in her assertion. The deficits that the consolidated polytechs are producing at the moment are actually lower than some of the projected deficits that we were expecting to see without reform.
Hon Damien O’Connor: Can the Minister confirm that when we came into Government, the state of the polytech sector was such that not only were they not delivering on the trainees and tradespeople that we needed but their financial situation was dire, to the point where a cheque had to be written out for $33 million to save Tai Poutini Polytech on the West Coast from absolute failure and disaster?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I can confirm that. And I can confirm that Tai Poutini were not the only ones; in fact, Unitec would have had to completely shut its doors had the Government not stepped in and provided them with the cash flow they needed to keep operating on a day-to-day basis. WelTec and Whitireia were in a great degree of financial difficulty, and if we’d not intervened there, the capital city would have lost its polytech provision as well. Those are just some examples, and, in fact, the situation was continuing to get worse for the majority of our polytechs.
Penny Simmonds: Why did the Minister write on the recently released TEC monitoring report on Te Pūkenga, “I’d like to see a plan for some early wins re network efficiencies ASAP.”? And isn’t this because all he has achieved to date is disarray and a significantly larger deficit?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No, it recognises the fact that enrolments at Te Pūkenga have declined significantly this year, and they do need to make sure they’re responding to that, as they would have had to do regardless of whether or not Te Pūkenga had been established.
Penny Simmonds: Which of the following statements does the Minister consider best describes Te Pūkenga, his mega merger of the vocational education sector: Phil Ker’s comments “Simply an ego trip on the Minister’s part” or Merran Davis’ comment “Everyone is in Disneyland.”?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Neither of the above, and, in fact, the two people that the member has quoted have almost opposite concerns about the process. Phil Ker was opposed to the process from the beginning. Merran Davis was in favour of the process at the beginning and, in fact, was concerned that not enough progress was being made fast enough.
Question No. 9—Transport
9. Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) to the Minister of Transport: Does he stand by his statement, “The time for fine words on climate change is over, we actually need to start the transition”; if so, how does the Government’s transport policy reflect this?
Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): Yes, I do. I stand by my full statement that “Getting more Kiwis into clean cars is a hugely important part of reducing our emissions. The time for fine words on climate change is over, we actually need to start the transition.” And the good news is that we are making progress. The Clean Car Discount has seen more than 57,000 light electric and non - plug-in hybrid vehicles registered, resulting in significant emissions reductions across cars coming into New Zealand, with a roughly tripling of the numbers of zero-emissions vehicles month on month, and a 15 percent reduction in the emissions intensity of new vehicles coming in. Combined with other measures, including the Government’s $1.2 billion climate emergency response fund, this means that across transport, the Government is on track to meet its first carbon budget under the emissions reduction plan.
Hon Julie Anne Genter: What is the precise increase in carbon emissions from the Government’s over $1 billion fuel tax cut, as determined by the Climate implications of policy assessment?
Hon MICHAEL WOOD: The advice that I have been provided is that the total possible impact on emissions that is modelled is between 0.7 percent and 1.2 percent as a result of that particular policy. Now, of course, our overall goal is to continue reducing emissions, and that’s why it’s important to note that we remain on track, across transport, to reach our emissions reduction targets in the first carbon budget period, but in this case, the Government did believe it was very important to provide critical support to Kiwi families facing those cost of living pressures. Of course, we have also balanced up that investment with half-price public transport.
Hon Julie Anne Genter: Wouldn’t spending over $1 billion on targeted support for people who are struggling, with larger cash payments or benefit increases, be of more help to them and the climate than fossil fuel subsidies that also benefit rich people, petrol companies, and hurt the climate?
Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Of course, the Government has made investments across that whole spectrum. We have made the investment to ensure that people are buffered from the increase in petrol prices that have been experienced. We have made the investment in half-price public transport, and, while it’s not in my portfolio area, we have, in fact, made investments via direct payments to people below the median income, which will be starting to come into effect from early August.
Hon Julie Anne Genter: Why is the Government spending more than $1 billion on fossil fuel tax cuts when it could not find $360 million in Budget 2022 to fund hybrid electric trains to preserve and increase inter-regional rail services that reduce our dependency on fossil fuels?
Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Because, in any Budget, the Government always has choices to make about the investments that it might wish to make. In Budget 2022, I note that $1.2 billion was invested through the Climate Emergency Response Fund, including hundreds of millions of dollars in building a more resilient rail network, including a $350 million transport choices package to help more Kiwis access public transport and safe walking and cycling options, and we continue to work with Greater Wellington Regional Council around their proposals for improved rail services, as the member reflects on in her question.
Hon Julie Anne Genter: Can he confirm the Infrastructure Commission review of the evidence produced for Let’s Get Wellington Moving in early May said that option 4, not option 1, as the Government has announced, was the best choice from both a climate and economic perspective?
Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I can confirm that Te Waihanga made that assessment based on the base urban development cases that were presented at that stage, and that the preferred option of option 1, that Cabinet selected, was based on a significantly higher model of urban intensification, to ensure that there were greater carbon reduction benefits achieved.
Hon Julie Anne Genter: What is the date and title of the advice he’s just referred to about increased intensification from option 1, and why was it not provided to the Infrastructure Commission before they undertook their review?
Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I don’t have the precise date and title to hand, but I’m happy to provide it to the member. I’m referring to advice that Cabinet received to inform its decision making at the time that it did.
Question No. 10—Transport
10. SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote) to the Minister of Transport: What recent announcements has the Government made about supporting public transport users?
Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): The Government recently announced an extension to cost of living support for Kiwi commuters through the extension of half-price public transport and continued reductions to fuel excise duty and road-user charges. The cut to fuel excise reduces the cost of filling up a 40 litre tank of petrol by over $11, and for a 60 litre tank, over $17. Half-price public transport sees an average person who pays two $5 dollar fares a day save $25 a week. Inflation is rising across the world, and cost of living pressures are making it tough for New Zealanders right now. As a Government we continue to recognise and respond to the level of need; in this case, I’m very pleased that we’re particularly able to support those New Zealanders with the increased transport costs they face.
Shanan Halbert: How is the cost of living support consistent with the Government’s response to the climate crisis?
Hon MICHAEL WOOD: It is important that the transition to a low-emissions, high-productivity economy is fair and equitable for all New Zealanders.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: This is so wide of the wickets.
Hon MICHAEL WOOD: By reducing the cost barrier for using public transport, we’re demonstrating a commitment to providing New Zealanders with more options for how they live, work, and move around. In doing so, we’re providing more opportunities to embrace mode shift and to tackle the climate crisis head on by making a dent in our transport emissions. And I’ve received very good feedback when I was using the buses in Christchurch last week, Mr Brownlee, when everyone was enjoying those half-price public transport fares. [Interruption]
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Order!
Shanan Halbert: What continued support will the Government provide to promote increased use of public transport?
Hon MICHAEL WOOD: From the beginning of February, Community Connect will be available nationwide and permanently, enabling those people with community services cards to access half-price public transport. This will mean around about 1 million Kiwis will have access to cheaper transport, and it will also help us to reach our climate change targets. This is a Government committed to investing in accessible, affordable, and convenient public transport services right across New Zealand.
Question No. 11—Local Government
11. SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore) to the Minister of Local Government: Does she agree with the Prime Minister’s statement that “it will not be the policy of any government I lead to embark on another substantial reform of local government or governance unless it is sought and unless there is broad consensus amongst local government about the need for and the direction of change”; if so, does she believe there is broad consensus among local government on her Three Waters reforms?
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Local Government): Yes, I absolutely agree with the Prime Minister’s statement in the context in which it was given. On the second part of the question, I draw the member’s attention to the statement from Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) on 25 July which said, “The local government sector has been advocating for water reforms for decades. While each council will have their own view on the proposed model, everyone is unified on the need for reforms of some kind. LGNZ is committed to a pragmatic approach to the reforms, because we know if reforms don’t go through now, it will be back to the political too hard basket.”
Simon Watts: If the Government is committed to only undertake reform of local government if it is sought, why won’t she allow councils to opt out of her three waters proposal instead of legislating a compulsory transfer of water assets?
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: This reform has been taking place over at least the last 4½ years. And once the economic modelling had shown the huge cost burden that would weigh down on councils who have reached their debt ceiling limits, that was the point at which it was just unsustainable to accept the status quo, and an opt out model would not provide a way forward for councils.
Simon Watts: Why has advertising for executive positions in the water services entities already begun before a single submission on the bill has been heard?
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: Because momentum is taking place and councils want certainty that there is a transition plan to successfully ensure that once the water service entities are stood up, there is movement already in place to ensure successful implementation.
Simon Watts: So what does she say to the people who submitted on three waters, expecting their voices to be heard, only to see decisions like appointing executives are already being made?
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: That there is a plan in place and that’s it really important to ensure successful transition towards the water reform that we are proposing.
Hon Kieran McAnulty: Thank you, Mr Speaker. To the Minister, what advice has she received on the impact on ratepayers, especially rural ratepayers, if reform is not followed through in water services?
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: That the burden of cost will fall to ratepayers and, especially in rural, provincial areas, it will be too unaffordable for them. We need to find a different way forward. That’s what this Government is doing rather than accepting the status quo that the Opposition is promoting.
Simon Watts: What will she do to reassure New Zealanders that their voices will be heard on three waters, and that this won’t be a repeat of the consultations with councils, which took place after Cabinet had already made decisions behind closed doors?
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: The bill currently before the Finance and Expenditure Committee enables the public to have a successful conversation around what the reforms are promoting—they will be heard. The select committee is going to be engaging with the great number of submitters who have already proposed their views around the reforms.
Barbara Edmonds: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Is the Minister aware that the Finance and Expenditure Committee has plans to travel throughout the country to hear submissions on the Water Services Entities Bill?
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: I am, and I support fully the parliamentary process to go out and engage with the public and hear the submitters and their views on this particular set of proposed changes.
Question No. 12—Youth
12. Dr ANAE NERU LEAVASA (Labour—Takanini) to the Minister for Youth: What recent announcements has she made about Youth Parliament?
Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Minister for Youth): Recently, I announced the commencement of the tenth Youth Parliament. While this is a six-month programme, the two days that participants spend here in Parliament is a crucial component of that and often cited as a highlight. Last week, almost 140 young people aged between 16 and 23 travelled to Wellington to participate in mock debates, caucus meetings, select committees, and oral question time. These were all our Youth MPs, Youth Parliament press gallery members, and, for the first time ever, a Youth Clerk. I just want to recognise the contribution of the young people who travelled from across the motu, members from across this House who supported them, the press gallery, and the staff from the Ministry of Youth Development and the Office of the Clerk for the tremendous effort that collectively has been put in to making Youth Parliament 2022 a success.
Dr Anae Neru Leavasa: Why is Youth Parliament such an important event?
Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: I’ve met many young people who are incredibly passionate about a number of issues that impact them. Youth Parliament gives them the opportunity to better understand how Parliament’s processes work and for their views to be heard by decision makers, other young people, and the general public. It’s an excellent way to encourage an apolitical civic engagement with youth across the motu. I met with many of them while they were here and listened to their speeches, and I’m pleased to report that the future of our democracy looks bright.
Dr Anae Neru Leavasa: What has the Minister heard about the diversity of this year’s Youth Parliament?
Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: From the start I wanted us to collectively ensure that young people from a range of diverse backgrounds had the opportunity to be part of Youth Parliament. This year’s Youth Parliament was one of the most, if not the most, diverse Youth Parliaments in the event’s 30-year history, with around 35 percent of participants either Māori or Pasifika, 23 percent identifying with an ethnic community, 48 percent female, and 6 percent identifying as gender diverse. This is an increase all round from the Youth Parliament held in 2019. I understand from conversations with the Minister for Diversity, Inclusion and Ethnic Communities that she was also very pleased with the diversity of this event.
Special Debates
Petitions Committee, Report—Petition of Citizens Advice Bureau New Zealand: Leave no-one behind – Campaign to address digital exclusion
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Before I call the Hon Jacqui Dean, I’m going to ask all members who are standing on the floor having conversations to, please, leave if you’re leaving. Hon Carmel Sepuloni, you need to take your kōrero outside, please. Thank you.
Hon JACQUI DEAN (Chairperson of the Petitions Committee): I move, That the House take note of the report of the Petitions Committee on the Petition of Citizens Advice Bureau New Zealand: Leave no-one behind—Campaign to address digital exclusion.
This is a rare and exciting day for the Petitions Committee—the mighty Petitions Committee. This is our second special debate on an issue that the committee has determined to be of sufficient national interest and importance that we have recommended that a special debate be undertaken. I would like, and I do hope I’m not going too far out of the Standing Orders, to welcome and acknowledge the members of Citizens Advice Bureau New Zealand (CAB) to the House. I want to welcome them all. I want to thank them very much for providing the Petitions Committee and Parliament with such a comprehensive and well-thought-out petition. I’ll just remind them that they’re not allowed to lean on the—just not allowed. Yeah, you’ll get told off! It is a big day for us because it allows us, on the floor of this Parliament, to debate some pretty critical issues, which go wider even than digital inclusion, the issue of digital inclusion. This issue goes much wider than, for example, being able to access Government information online. Yes, that’s one part of it, but the issue of digital inclusion and those people who are not included, who feel they are falling behind, leads to a number of problems for those very people.
I’m now going to reference my sister, Sarah, who is a disabled lady. She’s lovely. She lives in a retirement village because she’s a bit vulnerable. She is the most wonderful person, who’s spent so much time helping residents in her community with online matters simply because a number of older New Zealanders, whether they are in their own homes or whether they are in communities, do have trouble accessing services online. I want to thank my sister, Rah—that’s her name—and all of those people in our community who do give of their time to support their friends and their neighbours so that those people can engage online, for the very simple things like contacting Inland Revenue, like contacting the Ministry of Social Development, or it might be wider than that. In fact, it can be doing a bit of online grocery shopping, and particularly now in these COVID times where older folk are rightly nervous around going to the supermarket or going to the chemist or going to do their jobs in town. The ability to order online is important to them. But what if they don’t have a device? What if they don’t have the connectivity? What if they don’t have the confidence to go online? That is digital exclusion.
So, back directly to the CAB’s petition, I’m going to read it out. I think it’s very important to put on the record of this House just what the Citizens Advice Bureau of New Zealand are asking for: “That the House of Representatives urge the Government to address digital exclusion so that no-one is left behind because they can’t or don’t wish to engage online.” Citizens Advice wish “to implement accessibility and inclusion standards for public services that include offline channels”; and they also wish “to ensure Citizens Advice Bureau is resourced to address the impacts of public services going online”.
In our deliberations in the committee and in my reflection before speaking today, one simple question occurred to me, which, of course, had been raised in this very good submission. That is: what are we trying to achieve on moving to an online basis? And are we taking everyone in New Zealand with us? I think that is the critical question here. Having an online presence is marvellous for people like me who are relatively competent online. Goodness me, I was even able to apply for a new passport! It took a while; it wasn’t that easy. I reflected at the time, “This is going to take me a long time. I know I can save and I can dip back in, I can save and I can dip back in.” That level of digital literacy isn’t consistent across New Zealand. So what does everybody else do? And what does a Government agency do to meet that need. I would argue: not enough.
I was astounded to hear today in question time, at question No. 5, the Hon David Parker, in the context of a question around how eligible New Zealanders can ensure they receive the first cost of living payment on 1 August—that was the question to the Minister. The Minister answered, and it’ll be in the Hansard, that he recommended people log on to myIR to check whether the Government’s cost of living payment was in their bank account. Well, that is exactly—exactly—the problem that many New Zealanders are having, and if those New Zealanders are some of those who are eligible for the Government’s cost of living payment—which is a one-off payment; very good—but they’re not able to access myIR by themselves, where do they go? It is consistent across other Government departments.
So the challenge for the Government, and the challenge for the next National Government, which is a challenge that we are very happy to take up, and I know my colleague Melissa Lee will speak more on this point, is that it is imperative that the Government meet the need—not their need. It’s very nice having myIR; it’s all very well, but meet the need that exists in our community. And I do not see that happening. The reason I don’t see it happening is that I have an endless of stream of folk coming into my electorate office and who I meet with throughout my electorate who are struggling to access Government services online.
So what do people do? Who meets this unmet need? Well, of course, it’s Citizens Advice Bureau—of course it is—and Citizens Advice Bureau fully acknowledge that that is their role, and thank goodness for that. The question that the Citizens Advice Bureau are asking us to say is “You’ve just shifted the problem. You’ve gone online, you’ve created a need, and you’re not meeting that need.” So, by having Citizens Advice, they just pick up the pieces—and so, by the way, do MPs’ offices. And, yes, that is part of our role, and we are very glad to meet that need.
I think that Citizens Advice Bureau have raised a very important matter that we in the House and the Government need to take note of. Simply what needs to happen is that the Government of the day needs to decide to meet the need of all New Zealanders, not just those who are digitally literate. How do they do that? Please don’t form another working group. Just don’t do that. What is needed are concrete steps into developing a way for the Government to once again step out and do what it should be doing, and that is to support the vulnerable, the visually impaired, the disabled, the minority groups who are struggling to access digital services. It’s all very well intentioned, and we must keep going with moving on to a digital platform, but the Government needs to support the people in New Zealand. Thank you, Mr Speaker.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): The question is that the motion be agreed to.
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister for the Digital Economy and Communications): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Kia ora koutou. I would like to acknowledge the Citizens Advice Bureau’s (CAB’s) longstanding advocacy for New Zealanders who are digitally excluded and, can I add from the outset, socially excluded. Last year, I had the privilege of receiving a petition from the CAB on the steps of Parliament, and I have really appreciated the ongoing constructive engagement with the Citizens Advice Bureau from that time and even until now. I acknowledge those who are in the gallery. Our most recent meeting was in fact yesterday, and I do want to thank CEO Kerry Dalton, Deputy CE Andrew Hubbard, and National Adviser Strategic and Legal Sacha Green for their time when we met.
Community organisations like CAB play a critical role in providing a voice for the people they represent, enabling their thousands of volunteers to strengthen and enrich New Zealand communities. Their volunteers hear the stories of those who feel excluded from society because they feel they cannot easily access the services they need to fully participate. Yesterday in our meeting, we agreed, I think, that if CAB had their time again, they may have lodged a petition on social inclusion more explicitly to reflect the broader concern, including from those who simply don’t want to engage online. A lot of the debate around this has focused on digital exclusion with the implicit intention that those who are excluded necessarily want to be digitally included, whereas some simply do not.
I just say that for context, because I think it is important. The burden of my contribution will focus on the digital aspects of inclusion, which is, I guess, a direct response to the petition as it stands, but I think that context is incredibly important, and COVID has shown us that digital exclusion affects a variety of people. It’s kind of underlined that or underscored that, and we’ve seen how profound the impacts of that exclusion can be. It’s important to me and to the Government that all New Zealanders have the tools, skills, and confidence to participate in our society, a society that’s increasingly digital, should they wish to be involved in that digital aspect, and that digital infrastructure, content, and services that are provided meet diverse needs.
The Government does have a vision for digital transformation of Aotearoa, and that includes expanding digital inclusion to address gaps that have been emphasised through recent events like the COVID-19 lockdowns. However, as I’ve already noted, I also recognise the need to maintain choice in the way people interact with public services, particularly in offering non-digital options. Can I stress upfront: this is not about beating up the Public Service. Our Public Service is known internationally for their integrity, for their effectiveness. Research shows that New Zealanders generally have a higher trust in their public servants than we see in overseas jurisdictions, and high satisfaction as a consequence. Despite this, we know that we need to raise the bar, and we will unapologetically look to raise the bar for delivery of public services and acknowledge that there’s a reform journey to have there to make sure that our Public Service remains able to deliver for New Zealanders and maintain their trust in the future.
The Public Service Act 2020 has been an important step on this journey, basing in law our vision for a unified Public Service that is more adaptive, agile, and collaborative, that can more effectively meet the needs of New Zealanders. A spirit of service is now fundamental to the Public Service and public servants. We reflected actually yesterday in our meeting on the fact that there were digital Public Service targets under the previous Government which focused public servants very, very firmly on getting the number of people engaged online, and that, actually, what we as a Government here are keen to stress is that we want all people to be included. Yes, we want things to be convenient, available for those who want to be online. We want it to be inclusive for those who want to be online, but we also want to make sure everybody is included, not just narrowly focused on achieving one target but actually focused on that broader spirit of public service, making sure that services are available for all New Zealanders.
Government and Government agencies on the inclusion side are working towards that focus for digital inclusion of including all people, of making our services available for those who want them online, and the strategy for a digital Public Service and the digital strategy for Aotearoa guide the Government’s future work to support that goal. The strategy for a digital Public Service sets the direction to develop a modern, user-centred digital Public Service and to ensure that New Zealanders’ experiences with Government are inclusive and accessible, responsive to their needs, and meet their expectations. We will soon release the digital strategy for Aotearoa that will extend that vision for digital transformation beyond the public sector. It will be New Zealand’s first digital strategy, and those who have engaged with the consultation documents—and again I want to acknowledge industry, iwi, community organisations, those who engaged online, those who did not, and particularly want to acknowledge the CAB’s contribution to the development of that strategy, and the submissions that were made.
That strategy will still be based on the pillars that were publicly consulted on: Mahi Tika, Mahi Tahi, and Mahi Ake. You know, personally, I think that Mahi Tika, the trust pillar, is so critically important if we want people to be able to engage online should they want to. They need to feel it’s trustworthy and safe to do so. And Mahi Tahi, the inclusion piece, is, of course, focused quite neatly and clearly as one of our three key priorities in that strategy so that we have an inclusive development of that digital space. And then growth speaks for itself. I won’t dwell too much on that in this particular contribution. In the development of that strategy, we held lots of hui. We had the input from Māori leaders, innovators, Pasifika youth, disability community, and the consultation process showed very strong support for a digital strategy for Aotearoa, with many commending the work done so far and commending the improved focus on digital inclusion and suggestions as to how to improve that into the future.
The strategy, when it will be announced, will cover many things, but there are already some things that will be broadly covered in that strategy that are already under way—things like an initiative on internet connectivity both nationally and rurally. Successive Governments have invested around $2.4 billion in the national internet infrastructure network, delivering fibre to around 1.8 million homes, connecting 563 marae. Rural connectivity has also improved for over 370,000 households, and I know Kieran McAnulty was very keen—just looking to see whether I can catch his eye—that I mention rural connectivity and the big strides that we’ve taken in that respect, because many isolated communities of course are rural, and the improvement that we have made there is, I think, something that we should all be proud of, which isn’t to say there isn’t more work to be done. By the end of 2023, 99.8 percent of New Zealanders will have access to improved broadband through Government investment.
The Government’s also in the process of designing a new scheme to help provide coverage for up to 5,200 remote households who have no broadband coverage at all at this stage. Another initiative is student learning. The Ministry of Education is currently supporting 60,000 learners and their households by improving devices and an internet connection into the home. Then there’s the essential digital skills uplift, supporting 20,000 individuals and whānau through the Manaiakalani programme, which goes into decile 1 schools, and we’ve got the Toloa strategy, aiming to shift Pacific people into opportunities for employment in science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics, and the Better Later Life strategy to look at the opportunities for seniors. There is a firm plan that will be rolled out and be seen when the digital strategy is released to improve inclusion for all communities. Of course, I can mention welfare support. I’m mindful of time, but I want to say again that non-government organisations are also delivering in this area. The Digital Equity Coalition Aotearoa supports community collaboration. The Recycle a Device scheme teaches students to refurbish devices, and, of course, the Citizens Advice Bureau themselves provide vital community services. There are private sector contributions too.
There is a lot of work still under way. I want to acknowledge the work that the public sector is doing, but I also want to agree that there is plenty more work to be done, and I think it’s important that we continue to explore how to further strengthen our overall response to be more strategic, coordinated, and impactful. The Government will continue to work with trusted community partners like the Citizens Advice Bureau to support successful delivery of services and initiatives, and we welcome this debate here today to draw attention to the importance of social inclusion.
Debate interrupted.
Amended Answers to Oral Questions
Question No. 4 to Minister
Hon DAVID PARKER (Associate Minister of Finance): Point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to correct an answer.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): Leave is requested for that purpose. Any objection? There is none.
Hon DAVID PARKER: Thank you, Mr Speaker. In answer to a supplementary on question No. 4, I made reference to a former Governor of the Reserve Bank reaching an arrangement in respect of a party list. In a slip of the tongue I said the Labour Party being the party. That was incorrect. It was the National Party.
Special Debates
Petitions Committee, Report—Petition of Citizens Advice Bureau New Zealand: Leave no-one behind – Campaign to address digital exclusion
Debate resumed.
JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to rise and speak, as briefly as it is, on behalf of the Green Party in this special debate. I too want to thank the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) for prompting this debate with a petition, but, before that, the research and analysis that led to the petition, which showed three months of client engagements that had 4,379 interactions involving digital exclusion—giving us quantitative data, I think, for the first time around the breadth of this problem in our communities and the work that’s been picked up by our community organisations because of that. Such an important conversation for our Parliament.
Today I’m going to focus not on the digital aspect but the public service aspect, the social inclusion aspect, because I think that is crucially important. I want to note that while I really thank CAB for bringing this, they’re not the first organisation to have been raising concerns about disconnection from Government and people. I speak most recently having participated in an amazing meeting in Porirua led by Ngāti Toa Rangatira chief executive Helmut Modlik, bringing 100 community leaders together to discuss how as a community we might help shape our services to meet the needs of people. He was saying in that meeting about how he’d been at a workshop in the Ministry of Health in 2020 to figure out how to boost vaccination rates, and when they were thinking about that, they were thinking, “Well, what Government initiative in the past has reached everybody in the population?” and could not come up with one single initiative that had reached everyone.
We have a one-size-fits-all approach, and the digital approach across Government has been another example of that. It systematically fails significant groups of people. The CAB research has shown us that it’s failing people who lack access to computers and internet, or who don’t have digital literacy. They’re possibly the obvious groups we’d think might struggle in a digital approach, as well as those with low incomes, who can’t afford fancy computers that go fast or can’t afford the internet access; but also people with literacy challenges, and people where English is not their first language, and people with disabilities that make reading or processing the information and being able to communicate their own needs in a written way difficult, and those who have no desire to be online—and viva those people.
As an introvert, I am super keen on the online approach, as deeply frustrating as I find it, but I want to acknowledge too that there’s been nothing in the communications from CAB or anybody else that’s saying we want to get rid of that. It’s just saying it needs to improve, to be more accessible, but also we have to have options that work, that are tailored for our diversity as people. The starting point for Public Service—recognising that the Government has legal obligations in its provision of public services to ensure that it does not exclude people—is to find out, actually, how do people engage? How do people want to engage? And how can the Government meet them where they are at rather than the starting point of what is easy for the organisation, the bureaucracy. Too often that has been our starting point.
I want to, too, just clearly put on record that this is not having a go at our public servants. I note that the Public Service Association has a charter that clearly says they want public services to be easy to use, to be there when people need them, and for communities to have a say in the shape of those services. People have been calling for this. Māori have been calling for this. This piece of research and this petition gives us some quantitative data to really challenge us. I’m so grateful for this Parliament to have the opportunity today to be able to have this discussion, because it’s absolutely core to whether anything we discuss in this House has any chance of success, because if it’s not for our people, what is it for? So thank you, CAB.
NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) have been operating for 52 years, they have 80 branches around the motu, and they see around 482,000 clients every single year. They’re asking for our help. They started asking for our help three years ago, but they’re not being heard. So they started a petition and they’re calling for no one to be left behind in the digital spectrum that we’re moving into. And they’ve received nearly 8,000 signatures, possibly more since I last looked.
But they’re asking for three things. One is to exclude no one from accessing digital services—actually, exclude no one from accessing services full stop, especially the Government services, because they are not digitally literate for some people. The second thing is to make sure that there’s paper-based form filling available without cost or expense, either to the person trying to fill in the form or to the CAB themselves. And the third thing is to fund the CAB to meet demand for the help that they are experiencing.
While many of us upskill and upgrade as technology changes, a good many of us are unable to, can’t afford to, or simply just don’t want to. That’s their choice, and we should respect it, not shove it down their throats as the only possible available option to people. The CAB are pointing out that in many cases, especially with Government departments, digital is the only option that is offered to people in many cases. And by excluding people who do not access digital services, we end up excluding some of our most vulnerable in our society: the disabled, the elderly, and the poor.
Research shows that there is a range of barriers, including people who can’t afford devices, those who only have a phone and not a computer. They don’t know how to scan documents or even how to send them back. They don’t have an email account, or perhaps they don’t even have a credit card to make payments. They can’t afford an internet plan. They can’t afford a data top-up on their phones. The form is online, but they can’t possibly fill it out or fill it out and save it somewhere before they can send it in an email, and they don’t have anywhere to save it to, let alone have an email. And this is really concerning.
The 2018 Census told us that 14 percent of Kiwis do not have access to the internet. And a 2022 survey found that 249,000 people do not use the internet. BNZ has produced a digital skills report in 2021 which told us 20 percent of Kiwis lack the digital skills deemed essential for modern life, citing income, education, and disabilities as main factors for who and why.
Our Government departments are some of the worst perpetrators of this move to digital. I recently helped a person who could not download an IR4 for their end of year tax reporting—they just couldn’t find it. And that was after we figured out how to stop the pop-up blockers from working. And it’s not just IRD. It’s the Tenancy Tribunal, employment mediation, social housing, and even New Zealand Police—they put their firearms licensing into a digital format and publicly told people that if they don’t comply digitally they may have to wait longer for their licences to be processed. Maybe they’re in the category of those already waiting two years.
People are severely and actively being punished for not being computer literate. In a written parliamentary question replied to this month, we asked the Minister for Digital Economy and Communications whether the Public Service and non - Public Service agencies met the New Zealand Government Web Accessibility Standard 1.1; and, if not, why not? The answer from the Hon Dr David Clark was that performance of compliance with the standard implementation and monitoring is the responsibility of each service, whether public or not. So the Minister doesn’t know if his own agencies are conforming or not. It looks like they’re not, Minister.
The CAB have also told us that a lot of their inquiries are from immigrants trying to navigate our Government departments. English is not their first language. And I was dismayed to hear that in December 2018 New Zealand Immigration discontinued their funding for the dedicated multilingual services called Language Connect. That service was seeing 14,000 inquiries every year. Luckily for these immigrants, they have CAB to help, but where’s the help for CAB? These decisions have hugely impacted their ability to work.
And I have a lot more here to say, but I only have 15 more seconds. So I’m just going to cut to the chase: if you’re going to change the ways of a lifetime to have good policy on any change, we need to make sure we can take the people with us. Because when you don’t, you exclude them. CAB are asking for our help. The Government needs to not exclude them too. Thank you, Mr Speaker.
JAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East): I appreciate the opportunity to take a call in this debate. Like previous speakers have done, I acknowledge the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB), many of whom are in the gallery today, and the work they have done over many, many years to support New Zealanders. From a local perspective, I regularly attend the annual general meetings of the Hamilton Citizens Advice Bureau in Victoria Street. In fact, there’s one coming up in about two weeks. I fully appreciate the challenges that they face at times and the important work they do.
In many ways, it is similar to the work members of Parliament do. When people, for whatever reason, can’t engage, they come to a Citizens Advice Bureau or they come to members of Parliament or other services in order to unlock the services they need. Listening carefully to the debate, it dawns on me that it appears that what’s at the heart of this debate is around having a human-centred approach. A human-centred approach can exist online. Traditionally, it exists face to face. It could exist on the phone, and it will be different for each person in terms of how they engage and how they’re able to engage, but it is really important that regardless of what form the services take in New Zealand, there is always a human-centred approach, a personal touch, and that personal touch will help to support social inclusion, in my view.
I grew up in a small town called Pirongia, with less than a thousand people. I know it was less than a thousand people because our phone number was 650—it only had three digits. That was in the early 1990s. It was a rural town. There was no internet back then—my children can’t believe it.
Nicola Grigg: You’re showing your age.
JAMIE STRANGE: I am showing my age—I am; there’s a few grey hairs. It was a rural part of the New Zealand and it was a different world to the world we’re in now. However, we did have access to services. We could pick up the phone or travel to a neighbouring town—in that case, Te Awamutu or Hamilton, in order to get those services. As society has evolved and technology has evolved, many of these services have now gone online, on to the internet. I’ve just had an example today where I phoned a business—I won’t say what business—needing some service, and went through the numbers. I pressed No. 1, I pressed No. 4, No 6, No 8, and finally I got to a point where they basically said, “Go to an online chat and ask your question on the online chat.” I didn’t know how to do that so I didn’t, and I still haven’t done it. I guess the point I’m trying to raise is that there are significant logistical benefits to online services. We see businesses use them, we are seeing Government agencies use them, and it’s important for us to continue to consider, as we develop these benefits, that they are accessible and that there is that human touch. Like I said right at the start, that human touch can take different forms, and I acknowledge that as a society we do continue to evolve and we do continue to bring in new technologies, but it’s important that we continue to have that human touch.
Just in terms of the internet aspect and some of the comments that the Minister mentioned in terms of access to the internet, it is certainly improving, and I acknowledge the previous Government for the work they did as well. It has really been cross-party in terms of the rolling out of the broadband. Certainly as a Government we continue to do that in terms of reaching a large portion of New Zealand. There are two challenges with the internet in terms of what I read in the submissions. There are those who can’t access the internet and there are those who don’t wish to access the internet.
Firstly, in terms of those who can’t, it was quite clearly outlined by the Minister—and other speakers may also mention it—that the Government is making good progress in terms of that accessibility. It is very difficult in the extremely remote parts in terms of the challenge of the cost—there is that fiscal aspect to it. But with Elon Musk and others in terms of Starlink, there are options.
I see I’m rapidly running out of time, but in terms of those who don’t wish to use the internet, it’s important that public services continue to actively work in terms of supporting those who don’t wish to go online. The Minister outlined some of those programmes that are happening, and it is important that we continue to work hard on those.
MELISSA LEE (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a great pleasure to rise to participate in this debate this afternoon. I’d like to, first of all, acknowledge the gallery upstairs, with all of the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) people. It is their petition, which, basically, calls for the Leave no-one behind campaign to address digital exclusion. Earlier when the Minister actually got up and said that this should actually be talking about social inclusion—well, I actually disagree. Digital exclusion is right. The reason why they are digitally excluded sometimes when they refuse to participate is because they actually protest against the Government’s move to being completely digital, with no front-facing services available for some of these people who have disabilities, who are aged, or who are unable to afford technology. I think it is right—they are digitally excluded, and, as a result of being digitally excluded, they are also socially excluded as well. I applaud your petition, which I was privileged to participate in, and we now have a special debate because I called for one—I’ll take credit for that one.
All of the members who have actually brought similar petitions from their own communities are, in fact, having difficulties. With New Zealand, and, actually, the world, increasingly shifting to the digital world, where services and deliveries are done online, many people, particularly people, as I mentioned, who might have disabilities, who have language difficulties, who may not be able to afford technology, who have learning difficulties, or who may be illiterate cannot participate in the everyday function of democracy—where they desire or they need to have information from the Government, they’re not able to do that, and if the means to contact and fill in forms, for example, is only available online, they’re not able to. They will have to print it off at home, and if they don’t have a printer, how are they supposed to actually submit their forms?
If they don’t have the finances to afford a printer to print something from the online form, then they have to rely on services like the Citizens Advice Bureau, and is anyone supporting the cost—the extra cost—that is incurred by social services like CAB and, actually, often MPs’ offices as well, because often we have constituents who come who need some of those services as well. I know that many of our social services do, in fact, incur these extra costs, which are not funded for, and I think that’s something that the Minister should potentially consider.
The loss of easy access to non – digitally-based services, particularly in small towns in rural New Zealand, has really amplified the digital exclusion situation for our rural communities where front-facing offices have closed. Like many MPs, we do regional visits, and I was on the West Coast with my colleague Maureen Pugh—it was Westport. If someone, for example, gets a new EFTPOS card from their bank in the mail—snail mail—they open it—
Naisi Chen: Snail mail?
MELISSA LEE: —yes—but they have to activate it at the bank, and in places like Westport, every single bank is closed. How are they supposed to activate it? It is really, really difficult for those people to activate those bankcards.
Similarly, when Government departments only have 0800 numbers—I know it is actually free; 0800 numbers are free—when you have to wait two hours for someone to answer the phone, how is it possible that we can declare to New Zealanders that we are providing the service? National was the only party that included in our technology policy—we actually had a technology policy in the election. We wanted to zero-rate data for all of the Government departments so that when people wanted to connect to Government, it was cost-free for them because the data cost was not going to be paid for by people who contacted the Government.
One of the things that I feel very, very strongly is that the Government must explore better relationships with satellite broadband services, particularly for rural communities, where rural connectivity is so bad and the only option is for them to have satellite. It should give Crown Infrastructure Partners more ways to look at delivering fibre, recommend that local government is required to advise Crown Infrastructure Partners on new large-scale developments; and look at digital—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): The member’s time is up.
MELISSA LEE: —exclusion of people in our rural communities and in the cities.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): You’ve lost a minute, Naisi!
NAISI CHEN (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The year 1983 was the year that the internet was invented; I think this House has banned me from referring to how many years that was before I was born—11, for the record. However, this year, 2022, we’re here in the New Zealand Parliament debating this petition—a very important petition brought to us by the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) of “Leave no-one behind”. We need to talk about this issue of digital exclusion.
I know for a fact that the internet has become a default gateway interaction from our people, the people of New Zealand, with our Government agencies. However, not everyone is accommodated by this means of communication, and often most people, including my own—despite being a millennial, being brought up in the day and age of the internet, I often still have frustrations; I’m stressed out and I’ve obviously been excluded from some services on the internet as well. So can I please start by acknowledging the CAB. This is a very important purpose that you have come to Parliament with, and I think this is really important that you’re seeing cross-party support for this kaupapa.
In New Zealand, we have a very, very diverse community, and the fact that digital exclusion happens in our society, in our community, I think often is a result of different intersectionality as well. We know for a fact, for instance, that Māori and Pacific people are disproportionately disadvantaged. We know, for instance, that people with disabilities do not access services as easily online as well, and also just the fact that being young doesn’t make you excluded from digital exclusion—sorry for the double negative right there!
But also, we know that as our day and age progresses, technology also actually offers us many, many good advantages as well. There’s lots and lots of efficiencies that we can achieve. But I think, at the end of the day, my big word today for this speech is equity—making sure that there is equal opportunity for everyone to access the services that they deserve and they expect from their Government, but also from other social services and other charity services as well.
Can I just really highlight something that’s really close to my heart, and I thank all of the speakers before me who have mentioned this as well. It is actually something that was mentioned in the CAB’s report and this graph I’m holding was actually featured in the CAB’s report: areas of inquiry from digitally excluded clients. The top one was citizenship and immigration. I know that when new migrants come to this country, they’re often facing not only digital exclusion but, compounded with that, also barriers in terms of their language and culture and understanding how New Zealand as a democratic Government works, and lots of that actually adds to the stress of applying for citizenship, on top of—as I’ve heard many times in my office—financial hardship as well. More often than not, this leads to inequitable outcomes in their journey to becoming citizens in New Zealand and their access to justice.
So this is something really, really important, and can I just add, for the record, the second one is rental housing—often, also, our most deprived parts of our community—and income support, legal services, and relationships, and the list goes on.
Can I also just acknowledge the Minister for the Digital Economy and Communications, the Hon Dr David Clark, in terms of his strategy for our country in terms of making sure that everyone is included in terms of all of the investment that we’ve put into seniors. We’ve put in $600,000 over three years to provide free digital literacy training for seniors nationwide. It’s those steps that we’ll take to make sure that we are not leaving anyone behind. But can I please, as a call-out to all of Government agencies as well, remind people that this Government’s strategy for a digital Public Service recognises that some people can’t or don’t want to engage online or use digital services. Digital transformation is about how we meet everyone’s needs through better design and collaboration, whether online, face to face, or through others, or by the phone.
My final plea is to the community of New Zealand, and I want to just start by a quick recognition of the Pakuranga CAB, and my next-door neighbour Pam, who’s been a long-term volunteer there at that CAB. I know for a fact that we need to help each other in this digital day and age; often, I know, I get called into my own family to help out with my grandparents’ digital needs. So can you please, those who have cell phones, those who have computers and access, reach out to those in need as well. Thank you, Mr Speaker.
NICOLA GRIGG (National—Selwyn): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Like many others in the Chamber this afternoon, I, too, would like to acknowledge the members of the Citizens Advice Bureau and all the hard work you have done, and I’d like to offer a huge congratulations, actually. I’m not sure if you’re quite aware of your achievement in getting the Minister responsible here to listen to these concerns today, because trust me when I tell you, as the MP for Selwyn, that I have written dozens and dozens and dozens of times drawing his attention to the issues of connectivity and, therefore, digital exclusion in this part of Canterbury specifically. Well done to you all for taking this initiative, because when we talk about digital exclusion across New Zealand, yes, of course we do talk about web-based services and online services, particularly Government services, but I’d like to concentrate my comments this afternoon on the infrastructure that is absolutely essential to provide these services.
I think the theme of leaving no one behind is very, very pertinent here. I represent a region of about 72,000 people, and increasingly, due to the massive growth in our region, more and more and more people are being left behind and it’s really starting to hurt, it is really starting to bite. No matter how many times I have written to the Minister responsible, or indeed the CEOs of the various telcos involved, we’ve had very, very little response and very little uptake. So the plea from this side of the House is to see some massive investment into that infrastructure and architecture in this country that will provide these services.
The Minister is shaking his head at me but I can absolutely confirm there has been no investment in the region of Selwyn. Every week I hear from locals who are not able to make phone calls, receive texts in their homes, get online, run their businesses, have their kids learning online or anything else, and that’s irrespective of whether they live in the Canterbury high country, in the Malvern foothills, or in the middle of Rolleston or Lincoln, which are big, fast-growing urban towns. I think the example that really strikes at my heart is the Lincoln Volunteer Fire Brigade, which operates in one of Selwyn’s largest towns. It has such bad coverage that every time the emergency siren goes off, there has to be a phone tree—a ring around of landlines to make sure that all the guys and girls get the call and turn up at the station to attend the emergency event. I think that is a very raw, a very real example of where digital inclusion for all is fundamental to our society.
If I look further across my electorate and up the Rākaia Gorge, there’s an extraordinary scenarios going on there where, on the north side of the river, the locals have banded together to work with the Rural Connectivity Group to put up a cell tower and they have coverage. On the other side of the river, in the line of sight of that tower, there are about 10 families who are still operating on old analogue radios. Now, I put it to the Rural Connectivity Group from Vodafone recently that one day there will be a fatality up that valley and that is because there is a vast amount of trampers, fishers, farmers, tourists—all sorts of vehicles going up and down those roads. There are scrub fires, there are avalanches, there are floods, and there are rock falls. There have already been two scenarios where a gentleman has had to be medevaced out of there because they had a radio telephone system because he got in farm accidents. It is not good enough in this day and age that there are rural isolated communities who are excluded from digital services that are essential to running this country.
The consistent message from locals across the region, whether they are in town or whether they are in the countryside, is that they need to be included, they need to have equity in services irrespective of where their address is, and they need to be able to contribute, engage, and function in society on an equal footing. So, again, I just thank and I acknowledge the Citizens Advice Bureau for their work, for drawing attention to this. I congratulate you for getting the Government to listen, and we on this side of the House do what we can to continue to endorse your work and push the Government for results in this space.
ANNA LORCK (Labour—Tukituki): Good afternoon, Mr Speaker, and may I say a huge thankyou for your work. Thank you, Citizens Advice Bureau, for doing the work that needs to be done in making sure that the voice of the people, the issues on the ground, get to Parliament and also get to your Government representatives. As the member for the Tukituki electorate in Hastings, I too hear from people in my community who feel excluded or unable to connect into the internet in various ways, to be able to engage in many, many activities. I can think even of a couple myself where even my young daughter, when I think about the banks—and I think when we talk about public service, we also have to talk about business and banks that also play a role.
Now, to get a bank account opened, you have to go to a bank and you have to go in and you have to meet with someone in the bank. But then after that, the banks don’t want to see you. The banks want you to do everything online and digitally. We’ve seen in our community banks who have been closing branches and then trying to get people to go online to do their banking. Yes, they can telebank, but everything is moving towards the digital era. I live just three kilometres from Hastings—actually, Waipatu settlement. In Waipatu settlement, we don’t have broadband and we are literally three kilometres from Hastings. I am hoping that through the Government’s investment into marae and enabling marae, we will actually be able to connect into the broadband services. So it’s touching many, many of us in many different ways.
I just wanted to refer to a couple of points, because there has been, while we all support this and everybody’s working together, some negativity projected from the National Party. Public Service driven by National towards a digital-only environment called “A Better Public Service” had the outdated siloes of the State Sector Act from the 1980s—Labour has changed that. Labour has changed the framework and accountability through doing away with the Better Public Services targets and refocusing the public sector through the spirit of good public service. Yes, there is a lot to do.
I also wanted to just pick up on the member for Selwyn saying she hadn’t seen any digital enablement and investment, yet the Enable network was funded through the Crown infrastructure investments—
Nicola Grigg: In Christchurch city.
ANNA LORCK: —and that was part of delivering of ultra-fast—do your research. Do your research. When you can actually work on this side, in Government, one of the beauties that we have, one of the things is we don’t need to write letters; we can talk to our Ministers. The conversations that I’ve had with the Minister have been about “We want to do more. We are working with you.” We have an open door. It is because of that engagement that your voice can be heard louder and more. But I have one thing to put out there to you: keep going. Don’t just finish with this petition; hold us to account. Hold us to account and make sure we keep doing the mahi, because we are your representatives. We are the people that you need to keep going to. Pick up the phone to your local MP. Continue to do that. I know the Minister will absolutely keep engaging, and we will do the work and investment that we can to make sure that digital exclusion isn’t something that we want to continue and we enable you all to engage in a society without the problems of equity that Naisi Chen mentioned.
Motion agreed to.
Report noted.
Bills
Electoral Amendment Bill
First Reading
Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): I present a legislative statement on the Electoral Amendment Bill.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.
Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I move, That the Electoral Amendment 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 5 December 2022.
This bill makes a number of changes to the Electoral Act 1993. These changes will increase public trust in the transparency of the political donations and loans framework and extend the eligibility of overseas voters to enrol to vote in the 2023 general election. This bill makes various changes to the political donations and loans framework, and also increases public disclosure about party funding. These amendments improve the transparency of party funding by providing the public with more information about the sources of political donations.
The increased reporting requirements support the clear results from public and targeted consultation. New Zealanders want greater transparency about how our political parties and candidates are funded. Seventy percent of respondents to a recent Victoria University of Wellington survey indicated they did not trust the political funding framework. This bill will increase transparency and, therefore, trust in our democracy.
The bill lowers the threshold for disclosing the identity of party donors from $15,000 to $5,000. The new $5,000 threshold provides a careful balance, increasing the amount of information publicly available about party donations whilst not providing an overload of information and respecting donor privacy for smaller donation sums. The bill amends the rule currently requiring disclosure of a donor’s identity within 10 working days when their donations to a party exceed $30,000 in the previous 12 months.
Under the bill, a party secretary may now disclose a donor’s identity within 10 working days when their donations to a party exceed $20,000, but only during an election year. This change increases the information disclosed during election years, when it is likely to be most important to voters, and, of course, the public. It also reduces administrative complexity, particularly for smaller parties.
The bill requires party secretaries to annually disclose the number and total value of non-anonymous donations under $1,500 that they receive. This means parties’ annual donation returns will, for the first time, provide the full picture of donations received. The bill also requires parties to annually disclose the proportion of their total donations that are in-kind non-monetary donations. This will provide greater transparency around the funds parties receive from fundraising dinners and auctions, for example.
The bill also requires candidates to disclose loans received to support their campaign, but this only applies to loans from unregistered lenders. This is because candidates must be able to keep their personal debts private, such as, of course, mortgages and credit card balances. This approach also acknowledges that unregistered lenders are more likely to be in a position to influence candidates.
Coupled with the changes to political donations and loan settings, the bill also requires all registered parties to disclose their annual financial statements. This will provide greater transparency about all income sources for parties, as well as their key expenditure categories and their capital asset base. This has the support of over 85 percent of respondents to the same Victoria University survey from last year. There should be minimal compliance costs associated with this requirement, since almost every registered party already prepares financial statements in some form.
Another important change sees the bill temporarily extend overseas voter eligibility for the 2023 general election in light of COVID-19 - related travel restrictions. Citizens and permanent residents will now retain their ability to enrol to vote if they haven’t returned to New Zealand for up to six and four years respectively. Currently, the maximum periods are three years without returning to New Zealand for citizens and 12 months for permanent residents. Overseas voters will still face considerable financial, travel, health, and logistical barriers to returning home. Extending their eligibility to vote upholds the democratic rights of thousands of New Zealand citizens and permanent residents.
In addition to various minor and technical changes, the bill also addresses the scenario where there is a change in polling day once the regulated period has started. This occurred in the lead-up to the 2020 general election. The bill provides that the new regulated period is the shorter of two possible periods, either the period from the day after the announcement of the change of polling day until the new polling day, or three months before the new polling day.
Alongside amendments improving the Māori electoral option introduced to the House last month, this bill forms part of a broader reform programme to update New Zealand’s electoral legislation. In October last year, the former Minister of Justice, 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. As part of this work, the panel will consider our electoral finance framework more broadly, along with whether there should be permanent changes to overseas voting eligibility. I’m looking forward to the active engagement of all members across the House with the independent review panel on these and other matters of importance to our democracy.
I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the Electoral Amendment Bill. I propose that the committee report the bill back to the House by 5 December 2022 and complete the remaining stages by 15 December 2022. I commend this bill to the House.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. We won’t be agreeing to the proposal and we won’t be agreeing to this piece of legislation, the Electoral Amendment Bill. This is a piece of legislation that sets out to change the rules around the elections in regard to funding of political parties. Generally, in a good state of affairs, you would expect that there would be some measure of agreement across the House around the rules of the game, and that the Government of the day would seek to enjoy some sort of consensus over these issues. But that certainly is not the approach of this Government or of that Minister, Kiritapu Allan, who has decided instead to ram through some changes in the face of clear opposition from the National Party and from this side of the House.
I just want to read a quote that, funnily enough, came up in Question No. 10 today, a quote from the Prime Minister, where she said, “It will not be the policy of any Government I lead”—she said very gravely at the local government conference—“It won’t be the policy of any Government I lead to embark on another substantial reform of local government or governance unless it is sought and unless there is a broad consensus amongst local government about the need for and the direction of change.” Well, that approach certainly is not being applied by this Government when it comes to electoral reform. They have made no attempt to bring any consensus to the table, and they certainly haven’t consulted the public on any of these things. It seems the only justification that the Minister came up with is the results of some survey done by a university, and I’m not disparaging that, but it is hardly rock solid.
So what’s going on here is that the Government has decided that there are concerns around the funding of parties and money involved in politics. We agree. There are concerns in the public—no question about that. We absolutely agree that the New Zealand electoral system needs to have clear rules that are rigorously enforced to ensure that the public has interest in the way that parties are funded and that elections are carried out. It’s quite appropriate that that is reconsidered from time to time, and we’ve seen some prominent cases, and they have raised concerns.
The difficulty is, of course, that this bill is not dealing with those issues. The primary issue that is being raised in many of the cases, which was raised in the regulatory impact statement of this bill, is concern about people splitting donations, keeping it just below the threshold, and doing multiple donations—that’s the allegation. This bill does nothing around that. It doesn’t deal with that. It doesn’t deal with those issues at all. The Minister is sort of pointing to a problem and then introducing a bill that deals with other matters as if it’s some kind of solution to the problem, which it isn’t.
So in the meantime the Government has set up an external working group, which is incorrectly—and the Minister again said it was a bipartisan external review. It’s not bipartisan. The National Party didn’t agree with the members on the independent panel. Some of them have actually made some very strong statements showing a clear prior view of the issues that they’re dealing with. There’s nothing bipartisan about it. But they’ve put it up and it’s going to be considering broad electoral review after the Government. That’s the appropriate way to do it in order to reassure New Zealanders around these issues. We’ve got no problem with that.
But in the meantime, while that is still being considered, they are trying to ram through this legislation prior to the 2023 election. What is the purpose of it? The broad purpose of it is to make it more difficult for political parties to raise funds—that is the purpose—by doing two things: one, by lowering the threshold by which donations are disclosed from $15,000, where it has been since 2008. So if you had adjusted it for inflation back then, it would be closer to $20,000, but it’s $15,000. They’re going to reduce that to $5,000.
Now, secondly, they’re going to significantly increase the administration required for what are, effectively, volunteer organisations. So there’ll be a lot more information required to be collected—and just think for a moment. There are thousands and thousands of small donations made to political parties, and a lot more of them have to be individually itemised and reports drawn up and a whole lot of work done by voluntary organisations. That makes life actually more difficult for what are voluntary organisations.
By making it more difficult for political parties to raise funds, what is the logical outcome of all that? Because parties need funds to campaign. Democracy needs parties to be funded to campaign, to have a contest of ideas, to hold the Government of the day to account, and to offer the opportunity of change, or for Governments to make their case. It costs money. So if it’s more and more difficult for parties to raise those funds voluntarily from people in the public, the obvious alternative is public taxpayer funding of political parties, and that’s where this Government is trying to take us. It’s where the Green Party certainly wants to take us. And we don’t agree with it. We fundamentally don’t agree with it. We don’t think it is better for taxpayers to be funding parties for political purposes. Now, that’s what the Government is trying to take us towards, and we fundamentally don’t agree with it.
There’s no perfect system for funding political parties anywhere around the world. Certainly, if you shifted it from fund-raising in the private sector to taxpayers funding it, well, there are real consequences for that, of course, and the most obvious one is that it’s very difficult to design a system which doesn’t favour incumbent parties, parties that are already there, against new parties that want to form. It’s very difficult to arrange a system that doesn’t make it tougher for them. Of course, taxpayers are getting sick of paying for all these sorts of things. They pay for more than enough as it is.
When it comes to actually making the case for change, there is no evidence anywhere in the regulatory impact statement that reducing the threshold of donations being declared from $15,000 to $5,000 is going to change anything. Is there any evidence that there is undue influence being bought on the New Zealand political scene by people donating between $5,000 and $15,000 anonymously? Why would people want to do that? Well, there’s very good reasons why people might want to donate anonymously, as outlined in the regulatory impact statement. There are a lot of reasons given, particularly concern around people being targeted, concern about perceived risk to the safety of the family and employment and business interests, and some people are concerned that being associated with a particular party could adversely impact their ability to secure Government contracts. We know that this Government is very vindictive when it comes to people who are critical towards them, and people are quite naturally worried about being disclosed as donating to another party in small limits.
But you’ve got to remember, of course, that a donation of around $15,000 would represent less than one half of a percent of the total funds available to be spent or allowed to be spent by a party during an election. So if anybody is seriously saying that somebody donating less than half of one percent of the overall amount that a party could spend is going to influence the policy direction of that party, I think it’s a very hard argument to justify, and there’s no evidence of it that’s been put forward.
What there is concern about is if somebody was able to do multiple donations under that threshold and get away with doing that and then having a very significant donation to a political party and then having an influence—that is a concern. If this bill was setting out to fix that by dealing with those issues more effectively—if indeed there is a problem with the law as it stands at the moment, but that’s an open question and it’s being considered by the courts at the moment, and we should probably wait to hear the logical outcome of that—then we would be in support of that, but that’s not what is being dealt with in this bill.
There are some elements, just finally, of the bill that we do broadly support, such as bringing loans into the system. We’ve got no problem with that. We’d agree with that. But we do not agree with the overall thrust of this bill, which is fundamentally about making it more difficult for parties to raise funds to campaign. I think the objective of this Government is clear, which is to push us towards taxpayer funding of political parties, and we don’t agree with that. Ultimately, New Zealanders do want to see a robust political system with clear rules and clear accountability, but they don’t necessarily want to be paying for political parties.
GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Kia ora. Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Electoral Amendment Bill makes a number of changes and the basis of that is to increase public trust and transparency in political donations and the donations framework, and, also, on top of that, to extend voter eligibility to those people who have been overseas, in order for them to be able to enrol and vote in the next general election. When we look at the purpose and reason why we’re undertaking this exercise, it is critically important that appropriately regulated political donations and loans underpin public trust, the trust that the public have in us as politicians and the integrity of our electoral system. And these institutions are at the very core of the importance of democracy in New Zealand. So it really strikes me that the member who just spoke, Paul Goldsmith, would quibble over the drag of having increased paperwork when what we are talking about are some of the most fundamental facets of our democracy. There is no problem in terms of increased transparency and paperwork if this gives us a more open and fair democracy where the members of the public have a greater level of trust in the work that we do and the way that we are funded.
So what this bill does is it does a range of things. Actually, one other point I’ll make about the previous member’s speech, which I’d like to point out, is that there were some claims I recall hearing: that this legislation was in fact being rushed through by the Minister. What I’d like to highlight to that member is that the Justice Committee over the past five years have undertaken two thorough reviews of the previous election and the 2017 general election. The issue of donations and how donations are funnelled and split and treated was thoroughly examined by the Justice Committee, and that full report was reported back to the House. Subsequently, this term’s Justice Committee has also undertaken a complete review of the 2020 general election, and the interim report of that undertaking has already been delivered to the House. So I would like to highlight that there has been substantial consideration and ample opportunity for members of the public to submit and give their views on the donations process, and all of those submissions and views have been taken into account into getting to this point in time.
So what this bill does is it lowers the public disclosure threshold for donations and contributions to political parties from $15,000 to $5,000 to make sure that those bigger donations—people are able to see where they are coming from. It also amends the reporting requirements for donations by reducing the threshold from $30,000 to $20,000, and it requires disclosures of donations above this threshold within 10 working days within a general election year. It also requires party secretaries—and this is where I understand the annoyance comes with increased paperwork—to report donations under $1,500 that are not made anonymously, and there are small donations that are made right across the board for many political parties. It also requires party secretaries to disclose their annual financial statements. It requires a return of party donations to specify the total amount of all donations received in money and the total amount of all donations received other than in money—so those other items that might have been provided as a gift, in a sense, that has a value. It also requires candidates to publicly report on loans from unregistered lenders received to support their campaign—another important way we’re increasing transparency in our democratic process.
So it saddens me that the National Party will not be supporting a bill that undertakes to try and prevent political donations from having an improper influence on electoral outcomes. It saddens me that they do not want to support a bill that preserves the freedom of political expression and to be able to support any eligible candidate or party. We want to encourage that, and this bill gets that balance right.
It is also important that we ensure political parties can raise the funds they need to play a robust role within our MMP political system, and that’s what this bill will endeavour to do—he need for rules to be efficient and practical for participants, such as candidates, such as parties, and also promoters; that we can understand our rules clearly and so that they are clear for not only those who are having to abide by them, but also by those people who are voting in our democracy.
Lowering the public disclosure threshold for donations and contributions to political parties is a very important point: $15,000 to $5,000. That’s going to have a really big impact on the way that things are done and have been done in the past. It’s important that through requiring party secretaries to disclose their annual financial statements and also requiring a return of party donations to specify the total amount of all donations received in money and the total of all donations received other than money as dated—these are important parts to increase, yes, paperwork, but also transparency.
One other matter that I would like to speak to is the importance of acknowledging the impact that COVID has had upon our voting system and our democracy. Under the current law, New Zealand citizens and permanent residents lose their eligibility to vote if they remain overseas beyond three years for New Zealand citizens and just one year for permanent residents. There have been some very unique challenges that we are well aware of, and citizens and permanent residents who haven’t been able to return home over the past two years, including COVID-19 travel restrictions and mandatory isolation requirements. While many of these requirements have been lifted, overseas voters still face consideration financial, travel, health, and logistical barriers to returning home, including the risk of further COVID-19 restrictions. So by making sure that we extend the eligibility of the period for overseas voters to six years for citizens and four years for permanent residents, this is a temporary measure for the 2023 general election.
This is a bill that looks at our current rules and updates those to make sure we are constantly examining how our transparency works, and to give greater faith to those people who turn up to vote on the day that we have a system that’s fair and transparent. We’re also doing a bunch of wider work in terms of electoral reform. And it’s important to touch on that, because it relates to some of these changes. Alongside these amendments, we’re also improving the Māori electoral option, and we introduced that bill to the House last month, and it’s currently at the Justice Committee.
In October last year, the Government announced an independent review of electoral law to ensure the rules remain fit for purpose and also meet the needs for the next generation of voters. We’ve established a bipartisan, independent panel of experts to undertake this review, and I look forward to seeing what they report back on, and also what comes out of that review. As part of this work, the panel will consider our electoral finance framework far more broadly than what this bill does; and, along with this, whether there should be permanent changes to our overseas voting eligibility.
This is a good bill, and I’m proud to stand by it to see these changes take place. I hope it not only increases the transparency within our democratic system but encourages more voters than ever to vote in the next general election. I commend it to the House.
CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Thanks for the opportunity to speak to the Electoral Amendment Bill. Let me start off where the previous contributor finished, and, on a relatively bipartisan note, we’ve said that we think that it it’s helpful for the Government to allow those who’ve been stranded overseas for reasons with which we’re all familiar to be able to exercise their vote in the next general election, notwithstanding that they are outside the time frames that would otherwise apply to be required to be in New Zealand for those periods of time, according to whether they’re citizens or permanent residents. I actually commented on that very issue in a report that I wrote in my capacity as shadow Attorney-General on the bigger question about managed isolation and quarantine, and the inability of New Zealanders to exercise their right under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act to return to this country and it is an issue that we prosecuted, I think, on this side of the House very diligently on behalf of those overseas-based Kiwis, including through my friend and colleague Mr Chris Bishop as our spokesperson in that space.
On the subject of electoral law, however, in relation to the rest of the bill, we have said—as my colleague and friend Paul Goldsmith has made very plain—that we don’t support either the approach or the specific provisions that are in this bill as proposed by the Government. We certainly hope that the issue will get a better hearing at the select committee than the contribution of the Justice Committee chair just now has indicated. Her own treatment of the subject I thought was limited at best, and I’m being as kind and parliamentary as I can at this late stage of a long week in the House—
David Seymour: It’s only Thursday.
CHRIS PENK: —and I think, for example—it’s only Thursday. Well, that’s true. It is now Thursday, whereas earlier in the day it was Wednesday, in a funny kind of extended hours sort of way. But those who are not familiar with parliamentary procedure will probably think that I’m going mad, and some of those who are familiar with it probably would have the same view.
In any case, the point that the member made, as though to suggest transparency in itself was an absolute good and not to be weighed against other considerations—some might find that ironic, given the lack of transparency in funding arrangements around her electoral office and related parties. But others will make up their own mind on that and whether that’s an entirely consistent practice with her statements in relation to this bill.
Transparency is a good thing as far as it goes, but so too is the right to privacy, and so too is participation in a democracy, as we would expect, alongside that right and freedom known as freedom of association. Whereas it might be attractive to the other side of politics to claim in support of this bill that members of the public when asked whether there should there be more transparency in relation to political donations, it’s a question that if you frame it in those terms, of course it’s likely to receive some measure of approval. But I think, without acknowledging the extent to which we already have measures for transparency, we already have a disclosure regime, and a pretty modest one at that—and we’ll come back to that—and, as Paul Goldsmith said, the bigger question and the trajectory that we have to ask the Government about, which we look forward to asking the Government about in due course on behalf of the humble but long-suffering taxpayer of this country, is whether there’s an agenda to have greater taxpayer funding of political parties. I don’t imagine that the answer to that question will be one that the political left will necessarily wish to endorse and would regard as any kind of approval for the steps that they are making in this direction.
Of course, no doubt some would say that such comments would go beyond the scope of the bill—and thank you for not making that charge yourself, Mr Speaker—because, of course, what we are concerned with is an existing regime that they’re looking to tighten up. But the natural effect of saying that it becomes harder and harder for individuals freely to make donations to political parties is that in order to have political campaigns that are meaningful in any way, the parties do need to be able to spend money and participate in other ways. If they are not able to do that in a way that they currently are because the law is tightened to a point of suffocation, then of course then there must be some commensurate increase in funding from some other source.
Amounts of $15,000 or $5,000 are very small in the context of a nationwide election campaign. I think people overseas would regard it as quaint to the point of amusing or bemusing that we are arguing the toss over such small amounts—I mean, of course, with the current Government’s record on inflation, $15,000 even is not much these days, and the $5,000 that they want to make the disclosure limit will get you only a couple of tanks of gas at the current rate, or maybe one sheet of Gib board. So, obviously, we’re talking about pretty small amounts, and certainly, if you weigh that up against the negative effects of restricting participation, then we suddenly start to question what the purpose of the bill is.
The chilling effect—you know, we do want people to be able to participate in a democracy in lots of different ways, and there are ways of contributing to a political campaign. Some donate their labour, which is to say their time, their energy, their effort, and, of course, that’s very laudable and I think everyone in this House would state their appreciation for those who participate not only for their own campaigns but also more generally recognising the benefit to democracy as a whole. But there are other ways of participating too. Some people don’t have the time, the energy, to participate in that way, and if some of them wish to put their money where their mouth is, so to speak, then I say good luck to them, to whichever party they are contributing. And if they want to do that in a way that’s consistent with the law, then they should be allowed and, indeed, encouraged to do so. If they do that outside the current regime, then we have a court system that is perfectly capable of prosecuting such cases. I don’t want to comment. It would be inappropriate on any such cases that are before or have recently been before the New Zealand courts, but suffice to say that the existence or the fact of cases being brought before the courts in the electoral law space doesn’t mean that the line is drawn in the wrong place. It may only mean—and I emphasise that it may only mean—that, you know, a line has been crossed in a given case, and we’ll find that out soon enough in relation to matters presently before the courts.
The previous speakers on the Government side have talked about a broader reform programme in the space of electoral law, and they’re right to acknowledge that. We find it strange that there should be a reform programme that is broader than this, that does encompass these kinds of issues, but notwithstanding that more quickly and separately to that a law change is being pushed through now in a way that aims to beat the clock on that. Of course, what I mean by that is they want these law changes to apply in time for the next election. Again, going back to the point about New Zealand voters who are currently overseas—that’s appropriate, at least as a temporary measure, but in order to restrict the donations regime ahead of the next election in the current political environment, it may be viewed as cynical by some—
Simon O’Connor: Mischief.
CHRIS PENK: —as mischief indeed, Mr O’Connor, and so it’s difficult to escape the conclusion that there’s a possibility of convenience being applied to the subject of law reform, and that’s pretty unattractive in any sense but certainly in the realm of electoral law. It’s a matter potentially of conflict of interest, and any time in this House that we’re considering electoral law, there’s a possibility—or, indeed, inevitability—that we are judges in our own courts, so those are instances where we need to be particularly careful to be above board, to be consultative, collaborative, and it’s not merely enough to write to the Opposition and announce that a panel is being set up, to seek the input, not necessarily to pay regard to such input, and to proceed with a programme of so-called reform and then, outside that, to push through other changes in a quicker fashion than that. We think that’s not the right way to approach our constitution and these matters that are important not only for political parties but actually, more to the point, for everyday Kiwis. It’s to them that the political system belongs in a democracy. It is to the people that the system belongs, and so we must never forget that in this House when we talk about the rights, the responsibilities, the interests of political parties. It’s not only incumbent parties or those that wish to come in here—and acknowledging that bias towards incumbency that any system one would design of taxpayer funding would have—but to the people of New Zealand that we must consider.
Finally, of course, the detail’s going to be really important, and I’ll just put one challenge forward to the Minister and the select committee colleagues who will be considering this. We have a particular provision relating to disclosure in the year of a general election, which is different. But in any given year, you don’t know that it’s going to be an election year or not, necessarily. This year, for example, could be a general election year, and we could have to be playing by those rules even now. That’s in the hands of the Prime Minister. Next year could be a general election year, but the following one could also be, under the Electoral Act, if members opposite would care to look that up. So we don’t support this bill, and I think most New Zealanders would not either.
VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I’m a little bit disheartened by the contributions from Opposition members on this bill. I do think that when it comes to electoral reform in particular, there are times when we’re asked to rise to the challenge of stepping outside our own interest and protecting the integrity of electoral process.
So let me start with where I think we agree. Ginny Andersen spoke earlier about the balance. She spoke repeatedly about a balance, but Opposition members have also spoken about the balance. There’s no intention to shift the dial totally one way or totally the other. The question is where the dial ought to sit at any given moment in time, given changes to how the online space operates and given changes to trust, which I’ll talk about in a moment. But the appropriate place to talk about where balance sits is at select committee.
And I guess what I’m perplexed with is that Opposition members have spoken about a number of items contained within this bill to which they agree. And the thing to do in those cases is to refer the bill to select committee so that we can have that appropriate discussion at select committee. If no other bill requires it, it is a bill about our electoral process which requires that due process. There’s a saying that goes “Democracy is the most faith-fuelled activity there is.” And for me, if you substitute the word “trust” for the word “faith”, I believe that’s true: trust is the currency of the modern world, and while it can’t be denied that our institutions like Parliament are the bricks, the mortar, it’s really that sense of trust that people have in those systems. Trust in the space of democracy and politics is about protecting transparency, to demonstrate that there’s a fair competition of ideas.
And, again, we recognise that there’s a need to balance. There are some circumstances where, very validly, we’re protecting both the right of political expression—and I absolutely agree that people should be able to contribute not just their volunteerism but also their finances to support causes that they believe in, but it is a balance. And where there is no public interest in sharing that information, it shouldn’t be shared. It’s a balance. We need to discuss it; we need to give it robust intention.
So what’s the need? What is the state of political trust in New Zealand? Well, we know internationally that we’ve had reports from the Edelman Trust Barometer that haven’t shown a retreat in trust, but they’ve certainly seen a decrease in political trust. And even Opposition members have referred to the survey undertaken by Victoria University which showed that almost 70 percent of respondents indicated they didn’t have a reasonable amount of trust in party funding. This was specific research, along with the Ministry of Justice research, where the respondents asked for greater transparency. It is a balance, it is a balance—it is a balance. The Opposition members acknowledge this, so they should acknowledge that where that discussion needs to happen is at select committee.
I’m not going to speak about the detail of the bill. I believe we will have time to do that at select committee. And, also, those provisions were covered by Ginny Andersen, but it includes lowering the thresholds in terms of when reporting obligations apply. They are not lowered to zero. Again, this is demonstrative of it being a balance. But the lowering of those thresholds is not the totality of the bill; Opposition members have acknowledged that. There are other things that are in this bill that need to be acted on. I hope Opposition members acknowledge that there are New Zealanders who are citizens, who are residents, who would, or may, if this bill does not proceed, lose the opportunity to vote in the next elections because of COVID travel-related circumstances that are happening in today’s world. I hope the Opposition members would acknowledge that there is utility in legislative certainty around when an election period applies as well.
The Opposition members agree with many points in this bill; they have said so—they have said so this afternoon. It is time to take it to select committee so that we can demonstrate our whole of Parliament effort to demonstrate integrity in this space. I commend this bill to the House.
GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise today, on this Thursday afternoon, to talk about democracy. In particular, for me, it’s a subject matter very close to my heart, and I do have a bill on strengthening democracy that has been drawn from the ballot coming up before the House that does engage with exactly the issues that the Government bill today engages with. So I am proud, and I congratulate the Minister, the Hon Kiritapu Allan, for picking up an important aspect of my bill in part, which is the lowering of the anonymity threshold for political donations. As a previous member who’s just resumed her seat, Vanushi Walters, pointed out, this was something that surveys and studies repeatedly have shown New Zealanders are concerned about and their concerns should be taken seriously.
I want to pick up on something that a member from the Opposition pointed out, which is to say that electoral reform should be done in good faith and not through party politicking. The way that we do that is to listen to things like academic studies; recommendations of the Electoral Commission, an expert body that regularly does consult, writes reports, and tells us what is missing from our democracy; and our Justice Committee that regularly reviews the experience and outcomes of general elections, which was of course done after the 2020 general election. So I will answer the question that the Hon Paul Goldsmith put, which is to say: where did this idea come from, that lowering the anonymity threshold of political donations will address the issue of people bypassing our electoral laws by chopping up donations? It came from the Electoral Commission’s recommendations repeatedly to different Justice Committees. It came from the Serious Fraud Office itself. It came from New Zealand Police. It came from those who are entrusted with investigating cases where people do chop up electoral donations to go below the thresholds that we as a Parliament and a public in a democratic society decided should be declared.
So they’ve asked for the tools to investigate, effectively, and apply the existing law by making transparency more apparent in our electoral rules. I do note also that when I first put my strengthening democracy member’s bill into the ballot last term, I was told repeatedly that electoral reform wasn’t a priority because we were all waiting for some consensus around all of that. What politicking looks like is the former Government, and I think that was under the Hon Judith Collins as Justice Minister, burying reports of the Electoral Commission on strengthening MMP, ignoring findings of the Supreme Court and the Waitangi Tribunal on the need for electoral reform in specific issues. The Electoral Commission in its MMP review consulted with over 4,000 New Zealanders and experts. If you’re willing to bury the outcomes of inquiries like that and expert recommendations like that, then that is the party playing politics with electoral reform.
So it has become a priority because three of the five elected parliamentary parties in the previous Government last term did come into question in terms of the types of systems they had in place when they took electoral donations—and I’m using all of these words euphemistically, because, actually, two of them came to be investigated by the Serious Fraud Office for criminal activity when it comes to electoral donations. And as others have said, we don’t comment on the outcomes of court cases in here. That is to say we don’t say where the court case outcomes are good or bad, but it would be remiss of us to ignore when issues are highlighted through the courts, to prioritise addressing those issues, and to open them for debate through a select committee process. So this bill does that with lowering the anonymity threshold. I would say that the Green Party states our position through my bill that the threshold should be lowered even further to $1,000 rather than $5,000, but this is a good start and that is something that will be heard in select committee.
What I would say, though, is that the Government does now need to add to this bill the loopholes that have been recently uncovered through the New Zealand First Foundation case in court so that those issues can be rightly considered by this House and through select committee, where donations can be made to entities other than political parties to bypass electoral law. That’s an issue. It’s an issue because we have as a nation decided on a one vote per person democracy. Democracy lends itself to equality, inclusion, and access. None of that works when our democracy, our fundamental human rights, are for sale on the free market.
What we’ve heard from a former National Party leader—that was the Hon Simon Bridges last term when he was asked about political donations before that party got in trouble itself and was investigated by the Serious Fraud Office for its acts around accepting possibly foreign political donations in circumstances where that investigation was necessitated. Before that, when he spoke about the need for limits on political donations, limits to curtail interference by big money in our democracy, he said, “Well, that’s a free speech issue.” Imagine thinking that rights like the freedom of speech, let alone democracy, should be up for sale to the highest bidder. That is the ethos that has hindered electoral reform in this House, through successive Governments, because it favours the big parties. And we do know—we do know—that, of the $1.4 million in donations that the National Party accepted last election, 71 percent were done in secret.
Who is taking a stake in our democracy? Who gets more of a vote than somebody else? We know that New Zealand First, because that was leaked through emails, they actually interfered with the Government’s plan to put cameras on boats, on commercial fishing boats, to enforce our fisheries laws—a huge issue in combating the biodiversity crisis—because of their donations and their seen link in the favour they owed to major commercial fishery donors. What else has been sunk in this House and through successive Governments because of secret big money donations? What about the capital gains tax? What about rent controls? Who is hindering climate action? We know overseas that this happens. We’ve seen the gun lobby in the US. We’ve seen the big oil companies taking a stake in slowing climate action. And New Zealanders deserve better than that.
I will say that one of the things that the Hon Paul Goldsmith got wrong, and a few I’ve corrected in this, was to say that the line taken that actually we need to limit political donations severely and look at public funding of political donations was the Green Party’s. It was actually the former National Party Prime Minister Jim Bolger who came out with that idea. So this seems to be a different National Party, it does seem to be one that’s a bit more cynical.
Chris Bishop: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I’ve been listening very carefully to Miss Ghahraman’s contribution and I do worry, sir, that she is running the risk of breaching Speaker’s ruling 53/2, which is a ruling of Chairperson Robertson—out of order to suggest a member takes payment to act in a certain way—and the member must be careful not to do that. Some of the remarks by Miss Ghahraman have come very close to the line; in fact, I would argue have crossed it, in relation to alleging that particular actions by members of the past Parliament and the current Parliament have taken place because of payments or donations to political parties. I just ask you, sir, to warn her in relation to that, because to impugn the motives of a member of this House is a very, very serious allegation.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: I thank the member for the point of order. I, too, was listening very carefully. I have to say, you know, the difference between making comment about members and party—I actually think there was a moment there when the member did come very close. I’m going to ask the member to desist in taking those lines. The member’s very close to being completely out of order. So I thank Chris Bishop for raising it and I warn the member about it.
GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: Thanks, sir. To come back to the bill, this is a good bill. It’s a good start. It allows us to look at what we mean when we say that we have a fair, equal, and inclusive democracy. It allows a debate on the issue of anonymity of political donations, in select committee, as the public would expect. What I would call upon the Government to do is to look more carefully at all of the range of electoral reforms that are enumerated in my Electoral (Strengthening Democracy) Amendment Bill, a member’s bill. All of them have come from a place of having been already heard, or commented upon, or recommended strongly by either the Electoral Commission, the Justice Committee, the Supreme Court, the Waitangi Tribunal, or the Court of Appeal after vast consideration. It is time that, while the Working Group on Democracy considers other new issues, we address the delay in the issues that have hindered our democracy, according to the independent experts, without party politicking, and allow the public to have its say, allow them to regain trust in our already very strong democracy. So thank you.
DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in opposition to this Electoral Amendment Bill. I’m afraid to say that what we’ve heard from the Green member and the Labour members confirms everything I was concerned about with this legislation. None of them have been able to answer the simple question: why is a $5,000 declaration limit better than a $15,000 declaration limit? Because apart from some mainly administrative matters, that’s what’s at stake in this bill—besides one very important measure of allowing Kiwis trapped overseas due to COVID and our Government’s closure of the border and various other inconveniences, allowing them to cast a vote and not be caught under the clause of having been out of the country for three years when they may not have otherwise chosen to be. We think that those people should be given dispensation to vote, but the question is: what kind of democracy are they coming back to vote in?
This particular law is an absolute abomination. It is introduced by a Labour Party to be passed, having won one election, to change the rules for the next one. People at home may wonder what’s wrong with that. Well, what’s wrong with that is that traditionally, in New Zealand, we have had both sides of the House come together and agree about what the electoral laws should be, and, for really big changes such as the shift to the MMP voting system, ask the people in a referendum. Once this Parliament starts a tradition where one side comes in and changes the law without consulting or getting the agreement or consensus of the other, then we find ourselves with a political system that would be a lot more familiar to Americans, a lot more familiar to people who live in a political system where one side literally gets to change the electoral boundaries to their advantage when they win power. The other side, when it gets in, tries to change them back, but often doesn’t because the playing field is already tilted against them. That is how you have people losing faith in an electoral system.
So if this Labour Party wants to grow people’s faith in democracy, if this Green Party is sincere about trust in our democracy, then the first thing they should do is taihoa, hang back, and wait until they’ve got some consensus on this law. They’re not going to do that. And some people might say, “Ah, but this is so important. It’s so evidently and clearly the right thing to do that it doesn’t matter if there’s consensus. It doesn’t matter if half the Parliament disagrees. As long as it gets done, it doesn’t matter if it screws the scrum before the next election, as long as it gets done, that’s in the public good.”
Well, now I turn to whether or not this law change is in the public good. I refer to a letter—
Hon Julie Anne Genter: Nothing to hide, nothing to fear.
DAVID SEYMOUR: —that I received from the Hon Kris Faafoi, and that is preventing political donations. I just heard from Julie Anne Genter, saying, “Nothing to hide, nothing to fear.” Does she know that she’s quoting Goebbels? Bet she didn’t.
Kris Faafoi said that regulation of political donations therefore needs to weigh up competing factors—needs to weigh up competing factors—such as preventing political donations from having an improper influence on electoral outcomes. Well that is something that we should all want. It then says another competing factor is preserving freedom of political expression; i.e., freedom to support any eligible candidate or party one chooses, and, in association, donors’ right to privacy. And another important issue is ensuring political parties can access financial support to play a robust role within an MMP system.
So there you have it. You need to make sure there’s no improper influence on political parties, make sure that people have freedom of expression to give what they want to give so long as they’re not improperly influencing it, and ensure political parties are properly funded. That is the fundamental trade-off when setting a disclosure level, when the Parliament decides how much you should be able to give a political party before you will be publicly named.
What this bill is saying is that they would like to drop that to make sure that all people who give more than $5,000 will be publicly named. No longer $15,000; $5,000 and you’ll have to be publicly named. And why is that a problem? Well, the problem is that nobody is currently getting any undue influence over a political party for $15,000. Now, there’s some members in the Labour Party who think that’s possible. The member in the Green Party thought that maybe someone was getting undue influence on a political party for $15,000, but they don’t think there’ll be undue influence at $5,000. Well, there’s two problems with that. Number one is what it reveals about their thinking. Measuring the minds of others by their own, they think that there is a price you could be bought for—and pretty low by the sounds of it.
Then the next question is that they actually think that price will apply at $15,000, but not at $5,000. Well, I can tell you, Mr Speaker, I have been the chief fundraiser for the ACT Party for the last eight years—and pretty successful, I’ve got to say.
Chris Bishop: Ha! OK.
DAVID SEYMOUR: And I have to say—well, the National Party are guffawing. Well, they copy my techniques.
Chris Bishop: No, no!
DAVID SEYMOUR: That’s right. Yeah, he admits it.
Now, here’s the thing: you don’t buy undue influence over a political party for any amount, in ACT’s view, and certainly not for $15,000. So what will be the effect of dropping this disclosure threshold? Well, I can tell you that people will not give or they will not give as much, because the first question donors ask is, “Will this be published? Will my name be put up in lights?” And people say, “Look, I support what you do. I agree with your party, but my business has Government contracts and I think the guys in there right now are vindictive.” Sorry to say it, but the one-term wonders on the backbench who no amount of campaign contribution will save in 18 months’ time should be thinking about it. That’s what their Government stands for. That’s how people feel under their Government. They fear retribution and vindictiveness from this Government; I hear it frequently. So they will not give over the disclosure limit. What it means is that if everyone who gave between $5,000 and $15,000 in 2020 dropped their donation to $5,000, you know what would happen? There would be $1.2 million less donated to political parties.
And that was that other objective: ensuring political parties can access financial support to play a robust role within an MMP system. Something, interestingly, that is not featured at all in the Ministry of Justice regulatory impact statement. I have to wonder who’s writing these. Maybe someone in the Ministry of Justice is trying to get a list position in the Labour Party and is fudging it. You have to wonder, don’t you? I think that we need to ask ourselves: how is it possible that the Labour Party thinks this is a good idea? Why would they want less funding for political parties? Why would they want to make it harder for political parties to raise money so they can hold meetings and put out advertising and put videos on social media and do things to express to voters what they would like for this country so that more voters can choose? Why would they want to reduce that funding?
Well, the clue is in the composition of donations returned by each party. You see, if you look at how much each party raised between $5,000 and $15,000, it’s not a good picture for Labour and the Greens. You know, people don’t give them that much. What they want to do is hackle at donations attracted by ACT and National, because, of that $1.2 million of donations given between $5,000 and $15,000 that would be affected by this rule change, $300,000 was given to ACT, about $575,000 was given to National, about $147,000 to Labour, and only $68,000 to the Greens. Well, the problem they have is that ACT actually raised more money in that category than the Greens and Labour combined. And that’s not our problem; that’s their problem. There’s no undue influence. It’s fund-raising. It’s people freely expressing their political views in privacy, without any undue influence whatsoever, if these people knew anything about it. What this is, is the Labour Party using the political mandate that they won at the last election to screw the scrum, affect their opponents’ funding, and try and tip the balance of the next election in their favour.
What I’ll say to the one-term wonders on the backbenches of the Labour Party, those ones that usually only get to speak for one minute because, you know, the Ministers have got lots of work to do—well, I’ll tell you what, they ain’t going to be here for much longer and no amount of donations is going to save them, I’m sorry to say. This law won’t save them. But they should ask themselves, when they’re gone, “Did I stand up for sound public policy, good problem definition, and strengthening our democracy genuinely, or was I a partisan hack?” And I think they know what the answer is. Thank you, Mr Speaker.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 2 August 2022. Kia ora.
Debate interrupted.
The House adjourned at 5 p.m.