Tuesday, 9 August 2022

TUESDAY, 9 AUGUST 2022

TUESDAY, 9 AUGUST 2022

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia/Prayers

Karakia/Prayers

ADRIAN RURAWHE (Deputy Speaker): E te Atua kaha rawa, ka tuku whakamoemiti atu mātou, mō ngā karakia kua waihotia mai ki runga i a mātou. Ka waiho i ō mātou pānga whaiaro katoa ki te taha. Ka mihi ki te Kuīni, me te inoi atu mō te ārahitanga i roto i ō mātou whakaaroarohanga, kia mōhio ai, kia whakaiti ai tā mātou whakahaere i ngā take o te Whare nei, mō te oranga, te maungārongo, me te aroha o Aotearoa. Āmene.

[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 and humility, for the welfare, peace, and compassion of New Zealand. Amen.]

Motions

New Zealand Commonwealth Games Team—Congratulations

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister for Sport and Recreation): I seek leave to move a motion without notice to congratulate the New Zealand Commonwealth Games Team.

SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is none.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I move, That this House congratulate the New Zealand Commonwealth Games Team for their outstanding achievements in Birmingham, including winning our country’s largest ever gold medal haul at a Commonwealth Games and our largest medal total at an offshore Commonwealth Games.

It was an absolute privilege as the Minister for Sport and Recreation to be able to attend some of the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham to support our athletes and to see them perform so well. The team has made New Zealanders proud. Across the full 11 days of the games, our team has shown exceptional talent, determination, and resilience. They have also upheld our values as ambassadors of our country, exhibiting fairness, humility, and empathy.

It has been a truly exceptional games for New Zealand. The team has won an incredible 49 medals, including 20 gold medals, 12 silver, and 17 bronze. This is all the more remarkable against the backdrop of COVID, which has disrupted the preparations of most athletes over the last two years—and much more recently in some cases. The performances of our athletes to win medals across such a variety of sports, including mountain biking, track cycling, road cycling, swimming, athletics, squash, judo, bowls, boxing, triathlon, wrestling, weightlifting, rugby, cricket, and netball, has been nothing short of remarkable. It has also been truly inspiring and exciting to see so much young talent coming through and medalling in their sport or achieving personal bests.

Singling out athletes in this team is hard, but I do need to acknowledge the staggering performance of our closing ceremony flag-bearer, Aaron Gate, who won four gold medals, the most by an individual New Zealand athlete at any games. He was part of an exceptional performance by our cyclists—13 medals won in the velodrome—and mountain bikers Sam Gaze and Ben Oliver, who won gold and silver respectively, as well as Georgia Williams’ bronze in the time trial and Aaron’s brilliant gold in the road cycling, making it 17 medals overall for our cycling team.

Our New Zealand swimmers also rose brilliantly to the occasion, winning nine medals, five of which were gold, swimming’s highest gold medal total at a games. Lewis Clareburt was the star performer, winning two gold and one bronze. He, along with cyclist Ellesse Andrews, equalled the previous record for an individual athlete of three medals at a games.

We watched other athletes make history, with Hamish Kerr becoming the first New Zealander to win gold in the men’s high jump, and then Paul Coll becoming the first New Zealander to win gold in the men’s singles squash—backing it up with gold in the mixed doubles alongside Joelle King, who became our most decorated female Commonwealth Games athlete, picking up gold in the women’s doubles and mixed doubles.

The games also saw a huge number of New Zealand records broken and personal bests set. For me, a highlight was witnessing Sam Tanner run the second-fastest-ever 1,500 metres by a New Zealander, and a personal best by three seconds. As Sam described himself, as the “Happiest sixth-place getter ever”, he was representative of a number of performances by younger athletes that bode well for the future. The team’s value and spirit were also on full display during these games. Just one example for me was witnessing Jacko Gill going around and shaking hands and thanking every official who had worked on the shotput event before he began any celebrations for his silver medal. This was a superb example of true humility and sportsmanship.

I want to thank and acknowledge the leadership of the New Zealand team—in particular, the chef de mission, Nigel Avery; New Zealand Olympic Committee president, Mike Stanley; chief executive Nicki Nichol; and High Performance Sport New Zealand leadership and their teams. There was a renewed focus on athlete wellbeing during these games, both before and during the event, and I believe it is a model for how a team can be looked after.

I also want to make a special acknowledgment of Tā Derek Lardelli and his whānau, who provided cultural leadership and supported the strong sense of manaakitanga that has guided the team.

Finally, I want to acknowledge the coaches, trainers, whānau, and friends who supported our athletes, not just at the games themselves but over their lifetimes, often making significant sacrifices to support them in their sporting endeavours. I extend my thanks and congratulations to the New Zealand Commonwealth Games team and to the Birmingham 2022 organisers for the terrific effort they did in putting the games on. The games have given us such joy and pride over the last 11 days; well done to each and every one of the New Zealand team on a truly inspiring campaign.

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

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. On behalf of the New Zealand National Party, it’s my great pleasure to join with the Minister in his congratulations for our athletes and to strongly support this motion. As a young boy, I have a strong memory of huddling around a 14-inch TV with about thirty other people as the whole country stopped and watched the opening ceremony of the Christchurch Commonwealth Games in 1974, and then, of course, seeing that fantastic 10,000-metre event won by New Zealand’s Dick Tayler. It’s a lifetime memory, and I’ve got no doubt that it sparked a passion in young athletes to be like him and those athletes, and compete for New Zealand on the world stage.

I reckon there are a lot of youngsters around the country this week who have been similarly inspired by the fantastic performances of our team at Birmingham in 2022, and boy, wasn’t there a lot to inspire us: from the cycling team who did so phenomenally well, to our swimmers, shotputters, squash players, cricketers, boxers, bowlers. There’s so much that I can’t go through them all, but I do want to single out a few of them, starting with the whole cycling team.

Now, cycling has had a pretty torrid time over the past few years, and to perform so consistently well throughout the Games, both on the track and on the road, is, I hope, a sign that things are changing there. Both the Minister and I agree that we owe it to the Podmore family and to Olivia’s memory for that to occur, and if Birmingham is anything to go by, we are heading very much in the right direction, not just for winning but for the obvious joy in competing and the support that they showed each other that was on display. Cyclist Aaron Gate comes home as our most successful individual competitor at any Commonwealth Games, wining an amazing four golds in his cycling races, and he was deservedly awarded the honour of carrying the flag last night at the closing ceremony.

The swimmers were great. In Lewis Clareburt, Joshua Willmur, Sophie Pascoe, Andrew Jeffcoat, and others we have genuine world-beaters. But it’s not just the gold medals we should acknowledge. I love watching the women’s pole vault: Imogen Ayris, our 21-year-old pole vaulter, bringing home bronze. We learnt afterwards that not only was she competing with a broken hand that she knew of; she was competing with a broken foot that she didn’t know about, and that’s an amazing feat of resilience and character. After the disappointment of the T20 semi-final loss to Australia, the White Ferns delivered what I think was one of the most imperious performances against the highly fancied home team, England. While not winning, the bowls team brought home nine bronze medals, and, as the Minister said, Sam Tanner’s self-assessment of his personal best in the 1,500 metres really summed up those games.

I join with the Minister in thanking all of those who have supported the athletes in Birmingham, but also to their family members at home and the tremendous amount of community support that is provided to our athletes as they train tirelessly hour after hour after hour. They’ve no doubt lit a fire in so many young Kiwis, and for that they deserve our heartiest thanks and congratulations.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a privilege to rise on behalf of the Greens to congratulate Aotearoa’s athletes who participated in the 2022 Commonwealth Games. I reiterate the very wholesome list of athletes presented by the previous speakers and just acknowledge their amazing work. As with the previous speakers, I want to also acknowledge the athletes’ family members and the support staff who were there for them and who are a core part of the team. It’s been heartening to hear that athlete wellbeing was such a big focus for the New Zealand team in Birmingham, and I hope that this emphasis continues in future games and in other spaces.

It was also great to note the wide range of diversity represented in the games: 54 percent, or 125, of our athletes were women, which is the highest representation in New Zealand Commonwealth or Olympic history. The team members came from a wide range of cultural backgrounds, including athletes from Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands, Fiji, the Philippines, China, and Australia, and people from African heritage as well. There were 46 Māori athletes selected too. I also want to note that, compared to the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games are the only multisport event of their kind with an integrated parasport programme. I do hope that the Olympics and other multisport events move towards this approach in the future.

I also want to reflect on the shared history of colonisation and dispossession of indigenous peoples that we have with so many other nations participating in the games. It was called the British Empire Games until the 1950s, after all. But, as we move forward, I also think we can find solidarity with each other in the work that is happening across so many nations who are fighting for justice and healing from the harms of this shared history. I want to shout out to the activists, the athletes, and the indigenous groups who have long demonstrated during the games and aptly called them the “Stolenwealth Games”. I want to recognise that today is International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.

Another aspect that I want to reflect on as part of this motion is how we can best ensure that the public has access to the broadcasts of the games in a way that is ethical and does not contribute to harm. I was somewhat disappointed to hear the Minister of Finance say on Morning Report this morning that he wanted to maintain the ability for broadcast sport—

SPEAKER: Order! The member will come back to the motion, please.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: Well, I do think that for the wellbeing of our athletes and the sporting—

SPEAKER: Order! The member will come back to the motion. There’s another matter which is before the House at some stage in the future—it’s not now.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: Ngā mihi. Well, I will end, then, just putting a hearty congratulations to all the athletes, and that we can all work together towards a better, fairer Aotearoa. Thank you.

DAMIEN SMITH (ACT): I rise on behalf of ACT as sports spokesperson and a most obvious and proud Kiwi. I’d like to congratulate, on behalf of the party, all of the 232 athletes we sent to the 2022 Commonwealth Games under the chef de mission, Nigel Avery. The total haul was 20 gold medals, 12 silver, 17 bronze—that’s 49 medals in total, ranking fifth overall—and congratulations must go to the Indian community, who pipped us to be fourth in the rankings.

Ten of the gold medals were in cycling and, as my colleague said, it’s great to see cycling taking off again and getting some positive recognition and a positive light, considering past experiences. We got a few golds in swimming too, and well done. And my other colleague Ricardo Menéndez March is right, it was called the British Empire Games, and it’s great the Commonwealth Games were successful in Birmingham in 2022 and New Zealand did its bit. Next, the games will be held in Victoria—the first games in history held in a decentralised way across four cities in Victoria, from 17 to 29 March 2026, so let’s all book our flights for that one.

The ceremony included the handover of the Commonwealth Games flag to the Australians, who are the next hosts, and after a record-breaking games, it was a pleasure to see Aaron Gate take on the role as the country’s flagbearer. Gate won four gold medals at the games—three at the velodrome and one on the road. The New Zealand flag was held high. The 31-year-old Aucklander being named Te Pou Hapai, the flagbearer, was the icing on the cake of the successful games. Gate, who also competed at Delhi in 2010 and Glasgow 2014, as well as the Tokyo and Rio Olympics, follows in the footsteps of Joelle King and Tom Walsh, who carried the flag at the opening ceremony.

Congrats to all those involved, especially the paralympians, and, on behalf of the ACT Party, we think it is a wonderful event across those countries.

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori) (remote): Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Te Paati Māori supports this motion to congratulate the Aotearoa Commonwealth Games team for their outstanding achievements and record-breaking success at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games.

Kā tū ahau hei tō whaea ki te whakanui ki tā tātou tīma i kōkiri i te mana o Aotearoa i ngā hākinakina o te ao.

[As your aunt, I would wholeheartedly like to celebrate our team who championed the prestige of New Zealand at the Commonwealth Games.]

I want to begin by acknowledging all our sportspeople who competed at this year’s Commonwealth Games.

E mihi nui ki tā tātou whā tekau mā ono ngā kaipara ki ōu whakapapa.

[A huge acknowledgment to our 46 athletes, to your ancestry.]

And those who have won medals during this campaign, you all did us extremely proud. In particular, I want to mihi to squash competitor Joelle King, of Ngāti Porou, who became Aotearoa’s most-decorated female Commonwealth Games athlete, picking up gold in the women’s doubles and mixed doubles.

Ka nui te mihi kei a koutou Ngāti Porou.

[A huge acknowledgment to you, Ngāti Porou.]

For someone whose whānau wakes up early and takes our mokopuna to their sporting competitions every weekend, it’s truly inspiring to show them what is possible, and we truly appreciate you all.

Finally, I want to mihi to their whānau, communities, and supporters who believed in them to get to this point, and may you continue to inspire them in their up-and-coming future, and may our Governments continue to invest more in sports to make all that happen. Nō reira, tēnā tātou katoa.

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

Motion agreed to.

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

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

SPEAKER: No petitions have been presented. No bills have been introduced. Ministers have delivered papers.

CLERK:

Office of the Health and Disability Commissioner Statement of Performance Expectations 2022-2023

New Zealand Film Commission Statement of Performance Expectations 2021-2022 and Annual Report 2020-2021.

SPEAKER: Those papers are published under the authority of the House. Select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.

CLERK:

Report of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee on the international treaty examination of the revisions to the radio regulations adopted by the Final Acts of the World Radiocommunication Conference 2019

report of the Environment Committee on the Petition of Tara Shepherd

report of the Governance and Administration Committee on the Statutes Amendment Bill

reports of the Petitions Committee on the petitions of

Ava Simeon

Chained Dog Awareness NZ Trust

Christine McCarthy, and

Michael Kampkes.

SPEAKER: The bill on the international treaty examination is set down for consideration.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Finance

1. GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has he seen on the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Activity in the services sector expanded to above its long-term average—for the second successive month—in June, with the seasonally adjusted BNZ-Business New Zealand Performance of Services Index at 55.4, new orders at 61.7, and sales at 56.5 remained at healthy levels, while employment rose. The BNZ economists said the positive result indicated that the economy had momentum in the June quarter. There is further opportunity for growth in the services sector, with the opening of borders and the prospect of a strong tourism season this summer, including the arrival of cruise ships, which begin this week. Nevertheless, we do know that 2022 is continuing to be a tough year for many households and businesses, and we will continue our support for them through this period.

Greg O’Connor: What other reports has he seen on the economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The latest Xero Small Business Index has shown that businesses continue to be resilient. Sales grew 3.3 percent year on year, while jobs also grew 4.4 percent. Wage growth was 6.8 percent. Overall, the index jumped to 146, the highest level since the series began in 2017. Xero said that while the sector appears in reasonable shape, small businesses are operating in a challenging global environment. This is why the Government continues to support small businesses, including through the Small Business Cashflow (Loan) Scheme; the provision of support for digital initiatives and mental health programmes; and the immigration reset, which allows accredited employers easier access to the staff that they need.

Greg O’Connor: What reports has he seen on business investing in the economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The overseas merchandise trade figures show businesses are continuing to invest in the economy. Imported machinery and plant rose 16 percent, to $945 million in June 2022, compared with the same month a year earlier. For the June year, imports in machinery and plant rose 26 percent, to $10.8 billion. Despite a volatile and uncertain global environment, the decision of businesses to invest and improve our productivity will support New Zealand’s economy and its recovery.

Question No. 2—Prime Minister

2. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government’s statements and actions?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes. This Government has delivered record low unemployment in one of the lowest rates in the OECD, lower than the likes of Australia, the UK, Canada, the US, and the OECD average is 5 percent. At the outset of COVID-19, Treasury was forecasting unemployment of 9.6 percent for June 2020. Our response has been to 142,000 fewer people being on a main benefit than forecast and a much-lower proportion of the working-age population receiving a main benefit than the then Government achieved during the GFC despite the ongoing volatile and uncertain environment. Of particular note is the Māori unemployment rate of 5.5 percent, which looks to be the lowest it has been since modern records began. Two years after the GFC, Māori unemployment was at 14.5 percent, more than 2½ times as high. We are seeing similar results for our Pasifika communities and women. These results are testament to our focus on maintaining jobs and supporting New Zealanders into work in these challenging times. New Zealand is in a strong position to support households and businesses. Unemployment is low, exports are growing, and Government debt is substantially below most other nations.

David Seymour: Does she stand by her Government’s issuing of its cost of living payment, and, if so, how many of the 800,000 people who were eligible but did not receive the first payment last week have now received it?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: In answer to the first part of the question, yes.

David Seymour: How many of the 800,000 who were eligible for the cost of living payment but did not receive it last week have now received it?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The latest figures that I have were that a total of 1.3 million to 3 million people have received a payment. I should note, I believe that may have been last updated, possibly, last week. We do know, of course—and we’re being always open about the fact that there are a small portion for whom we don’t have their bank account details; that’s about 134,000. That leaves an estimated 642,000 people who are likely eligible, which will be confirmed once their returns are received and their assessments are finalised, and that was always the case.

David Seymour: How is it possible that after four months of trying to implement the policy, the Government is still missing 140,000 people’s bank accounts?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, we have always been clear that there are some individuals who we don’t have the most up-to-date information for. Through IRD, we have worked in recent times, as we’ve moved towards the date of the cost of living payment being made, to seek for those individuals to update their details. That work will continue because we have another two payments to be received.

David Seymour: In relation to her statement, “That is not to say there are no consequences” for young people who do ram raids, how many people have been arrested specifically for ram-raiding since the Government announced a crackdown on ram-raiding three months ago, and what’s happened to those people since?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I would be more than happy to answer the member’s question if he were to put that on notice—that means I could give him the most up-to-date information.

David Seymour: How is it possible that after months of New Zealanders being terrorised by ram raids, and the Government announcing a crackdown, she is not across the detail of how many ram raiders have been detained and where they are now?

SPEAKER: Order! Order! That question is not in order. If the member looks at Speaker’s ruling 183/3, which is a longstanding one, he should know that it’s not.

David Seymour: Point of order.

SPEAKER: I hope the member is not going to argue with me.

David Seymour: Oh, I just seek permission to ask that question again and—

SPEAKER: No, no. The member’s outside—he’s lost it.

David Seymour: How is it possible that after months of New Zealanders being terrorised by ram raiders, the Prime Minister can’t say how many people have been detained and what’s happened to them for ram-raiding?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I utterly reject the sentiment that the member is implying, that because I cannot currently tell the member the most up-to-date figures and, for instance, the convictions or charges that have been laid for each of those individual circumstances, that that means we have not undertaken action in this area. That is patently untrue. Two particular examples, when it comes generally to the issue of retail crime: the police have responded by establishing a specific unit that is working on retail crime. There have been hundreds of charges laid as a result of that unit alone. Secondly, we have already also established, in a similar way that we did to supporting businesses with fog cannons, a fund to support preventative measures for those businesses that may have previously been targeted or are at risk of being targeted. That may reach up to, for instance, 500 individual businesses. We’ve been working with Retail NZ and the police in order to ensure that the criteria for that is appropriate, and to begin rolling it out as soon as possible.

David Seymour: Does she stand by her statement, “I reject the sentiment of the question or I utterly reject the sentiment of the question”, and how does she make that choice?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: With the member’s question, it’s quite easy.

David Seymour: Does she stand by her answer to Jack Tame’s question about equal political rights for Māori and non-Māori, “I would argue this is such an overly simplistic response.”; if so, can she explain why she doesn’t just agree that “Pākehā people should have the same level of representation guaranteed as Māori people.”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I do stand by that statement. And I would question whether or not the member can reconcile his own position on representation when he’s advocating for privatisation of these assets, where, presumably, the representation would no longer be from local bodies but, actually, probably offshore corporate boards.

Question No. 3—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes, particularly this Government’s Mana in Mahi programme as is continues to go from strength to strength, with 5,000 job seekers supported into jobs, exceeding the 4,000 target. Mana in Mahi supports individuals through pre-employment training, it can pay a wage subsidy, provide support while they’re employed, or cover the industry training course fees. Members opposite would be pleased to learn that there is also an incentive payment to the employee. Mana in Mahi, along with the Government’s suite of employment programmes, have helped to support our recovery from COVID-19 and remain a critical part of our plan to support more New Zealanders into work. As testament to that, record low levels of unemployment and particularly record low levels of unemployment for Māori and Pacific.

Christopher Luxon: Does she accept that Mana in Mahi is not doing much for long-term job seekers, when just 14 percent of participants had been on a benefit for a year or longer when they entered the programme?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I totally reject the idea that Mana in Mahi is anything other than a successful programme. Two examples of that: over 60 percent of those involved are young people; secondly, 90 percent of them aren’t going back on to benefit. Thirdly, the member will find that the majority of young people are on a benefit for less than 12 months. You wouldn’t know that by the way he characterises them.

Christopher Luxon: Why, at a time of labour shortages in almost every sector, are there 50,000 more people on the jobseeker benefit today compared to when she became Prime Minister?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, here I think it pays to compare the two periods when we have had significant economic disruption. COVID-19 and the pandemic, I would say, probably outstrips all other examples, and the percentage of New Zealanders on a main benefit is 11 percent lower than in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. We also, despite that, have record numbers of people coming off benefit, which demonstrates the programmes we have in place are working.

Christopher Luxon: What does the pandemic have to do with the fact that right now, when there are plenty of unfilled jobs in almost every sector and region, there are still 50,000 more people on jobseeker than when she took office?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member has chosen particularly to hone in on young people and so I will do the same. We know that young people in this pandemic and in this economic crisis have been in the roles hardest hit by the pandemic—in areas like tourism, hospitality. Just last week, I met a Mana in Mahi participant who was made redundant from their job and moved into a new role because of Mana in Mahi. That is the reason why we have seen record levels of young people move off a benefit and into work at a rate of over 35,000 young people in the last year. My final point to the member: I see from his announcement that he’s drawn on a number of initiatives that he believes would be successful. If the member took any time to look at our existing programmes, he’d know that all of them are already in place, so I can only then lead myself to believe that this is about the politics not the policy.

Christopher Luxon: Does she think there are too many people on jobseeker, considering there is no shortage of job vacancies in most sectors?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I want everyone seeking work to find work but the member does not take into account that many people experience barriers to employment. Seventy percent of entry-level jobs require a driver licence, so what are we doing as a Government? Supporting them into driver licensing. Of course there are circumstances where young people may need extra support and mentoring, so the member will be heartened to know we already use coaching services. You would think that the member would know that because last week he visited VisionWest where the Government funds that very thing.

Christopher Luxon: Why is the number of people on jobseeker now 77,000 higher than the number of unemployed people, according to Stats New Zealand, when for most of the last decade the difference was less than 5,000?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, I bring back the member to the raw numbers, and, in comparison to our population growth, we have a lower level of people on main benefits now than we did even after the global financial crisis (GFC). And we have record numbers of people going off benefit into work. One of the reasons for that is because, as a Government, we supported an increase in case managers at the Ministry of Social Development so that they spent more time supporting people into work. I note that his deputy leader is now criticising that spend.

Christopher Luxon: How does she reconcile the view of Labour MP Ginny Andersen that “We’ve got some of the best stats we’ve ever seen for getting young people into skilled paid employment” with the fact that there over 34,000 eighteen- to 24-year-olds on jobseeker—up 49 percent since she took office?

SPEAKER: I’m going to ask the member to rephrase the question, going to what the Prime Minister’s responsible for.

Christopher Luxon: Does she agree with the view of Labour MP Ginny Andersen that “We’ve got some of the best stats we’ve ever seen for getting young people into skilled paid employment” with the fact that there over 34,000 eighteen- to 24-year-olds on jobseeker—up 49 percent since she took office?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I can also add that the number of people moving young people moving from benefit into work is 56 percent higher than when National were in Government.

Christopher Luxon: Why is the number of 18- to 24-year-olds on jobseeker for two to five years up 134 percent since she took office?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, I come back to the point that I made at the beginning of my questions: an economic crisis affects population groups differently. Young people, Māori, and Pacific have tended to bear the brunt of economic crisis. Under the GFC, I note that we saw unemployment levels double than what the national levels were. Contrast that to now—unemployment levels at 3.3 percent, and for Māori at 5.5. We have not seen a closing of that difference—the likes of which we have never seen before. It is significant, and it is because we have active employment policies, and the other reason is because we don’t write people off.

Christopher Luxon: Why are dead people receiving the cost of living payment?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member is well aware from answers in this House that when the Department of Internal Affairs receives information that an individual is deceased, that information is shared with IRD, and then that means that those individuals do not receive those payments. If there is no notification, that cannot occur.

Question No. 4—Housing

4. TERISA NGOBI (Labour—Ōtaki) to the Minister of Housing: What action is the Government taking to get more young people into careers in the construction sector through its public housing build programme?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): Our Government has not only added over 10,000 new public housing places since 2017 but we’ve also launched Kāinga Ora’s apprenticeship programme. Since 2019, 333 people have entered into cadetships and apprenticeships with our build partners and subcontractors across the State housing programme. This programme actively recruits more women, Māori, and Pasifika, as well as Kāinga Ora tenants, into apprenticeships. Additionally, through our ramped-up maintenance programme, a further 384 apprentices and cadets are learning valuable trade skills while carrying out maintenance on State homes. This has led to a total of over 700 young people who have learnt valuable construction skills through our build programme.

Terisa Ngobi: What regions are benefiting from encouraging young people into the building and construction sector?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Kāinga Ora’s partnerships with schools are helping to train the next generation of tradies all around the country. Kāinga Ora have eight partnerships with schools and polytechs, and have five more currently being worked on. Communities across New Zealand benefiting from this programme are in Dargaville, Onehunga, Rotorua, Hastings, Ōpōtiki, Wellington, and Nelson. More good work is happening in Auckland, where Kāinga Ora has collaborated with the construction company Icon to deliver an innovative 276-apartment complex at Greys Avenue. On this single project alone, 15 apprentices are working on this site.

Terisa Ngobi: What else is the Government doing to create opportunities for young people in the construction sector?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Through the Construction Sector Accord, we are working with industry to identify the next generation of leaders for the construction sector. We want to provide a pathway for young people to thrive in the sector and help build infrastructure and housing for future generations. I’m proud that over the last two years, over 190,000 people have benefited from the Government’s investment in trades training, including apprenticeships, an achievement I am sure my colleague the Minister of Education will, no doubt, cover in greater detail in the not too distant future.

Question No. 5—Revenue

5. NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National) to the Minister of Revenue: Does he agree with the Minister of Finance’s statement from 17 July 2022 regarding the cost of living payment that “this payment will support an estimated 2.1 million people”, and is he satisfied with the delivery of this payment?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Revenue): Yes, and yes. This payment has already reached over 1.3 million New Zealanders promptly, supporting them through a time of elevated cost of living. An estimated 800,000 additional people will become entitled as they file their tax return for the year ended 31 March 2022 or provide their bank details.

Nicola Willis: Does he stand by his statement made to Tova O’Brien in an interview last week where he said that for an ineligible person to have received the payment, they “would have to be acting fraudulently”?

Hon DAVID PARKER: No, I don’t think I did say that.

Erica Stanford: Yes, you did.

Hon DAVID PARKER: If I said that, that’s been taken out of context. I always made it clear that the payment was being made on the basis of the details held by Inland Revenue.

Nicola Willis: Does the Minister stand by the statement he made to Tova O’Brien that “The French man as your example … He will know or should know from the information that he has received, that because he is no longer resident in New Zealand, he’s not qualified. Therefore, for him to get the payment, he would have to be acting fraudulently.”?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Yes, I do, because I heard the radio station play a clip in respect of that person which indicated that the person knew that the entitlement was based on being resident in New Zealand and he knew that he wasn’t.

Nicola Willis: Did IRD conduct data matching with Immigration New Zealand or other agencies to check whether potential recipients had moved overseas, and, if not, why not?

Hon DAVID PARKER: No, they haven’t, in part because their information-sharing arrangements with Customs don’t cover the use of the data in that way.

Nicola Willis: Did it not occur to the Minister that not everyone in IRD’s database would have updated their address after having moved overseas, and why were no steps taken to prevent them receiving the payment?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Indeed, Inland Revenue advised Cabinet, and Cabinet agreed, that this would be paid on the basis of eligibility criteria that would not always be correct. Inland Revenue advised, and Cabinet agreed, that the payment in those situations would be non-recoverable, other than in the cases of fraudulent activity.

Nicola Willis: Can the Minister guarantee that no money has been paid to prisoners through the cost of living payment, who are just as ineligible for that payment as those living overseas?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I can guarantee that they’re ineligible to receive the payment, and I can also advise the member that I’ve received no reports of any such instance.

Question No. 6—Education

6. DAN ROSEWARNE (Labour) to the Minister of Education: What contribution is the Government making to getting New Zealanders work-ready and helping to meet industries’ skill needs?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Revitalising apprenticeships and vocational education has been a top priority for this Government. We’re now seeing record numbers of apprentices learning their trade whilst working on the job. As of April this year, there were 62,000 apprentices across a range of industries. That’s a 60 percent increase in the last two years alone. A further 41,000 industry trainees were enrolled in shorter programmes of study. This shows that the vocational education system is in good heart, supported by the Government’s Apprenticeship Boost and Targeted Training and Apprenticeship Fund.

Dan Rosewarne: What specific initiatives has the Government funded to increase the effectiveness and diversity of workplace training?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: In order for workplace learning to meet New Zealand’s needs, we need to know what training is needed in the first place and we need to reach the full breadth of the population. That’s why we funded the Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation to develop a forecasting tool that displays national and regional skills gaps and surpluses within the construction and infrastructure labour market. That approach is now being rolled out across a wider range of industries. Project Retrain has also been funded to attract more women into the construction sector, and, again, similar approaches are now being rolled out in other traditionally male-dominated industries.

Dan Rosewarne: What other programmes are getting New Zealanders work-ready and helping to meet industries’ skills needs?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: There’s heaps. So I’ll just give a partial list: 3,000 Kiwis have benefited from intensive literacy and numeracy over the last year; 4,400 from workplace literacy programmes; 13,000 school students earned credits in the workplace through Gateway; and there are around 10,000 studying at trades academies. As a response to COVID-19, we funded a direct career service, which has delivered nearly 10,000 sessions of face-to-face careers advice and another 2,000 over the phone. Nearly a quarter of those sessions were for under-25-year-olds.

Question No. 7—Social Development and Employment

7. Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: What is the percentage increase in jobseeker support recipients aged 18-24 (inclusive) who have spent one year or longer on a benefit when comparing the September 2017 quarter to the June 2022 quarter, and what is the percentage increase in jobseeker support recipients aged 18-24 (inclusive) who have spent two to three consecutive years on a benefit when comparing the September 2017 quarter to the June 2022 quarter?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): As at the June quarter 2022, 8,388 people aged 18 to 24 had been receiving a jobseeker work-ready benefit for a year or more. There were also 4,995 job seekers with a health and disability exemption. All up, this represents an 84 percent increase from September 2017. Of these, 2,553 young people had been on jobseeker work-ready benefit for two to three years in the June quarter, and 1,464 have a health and disability exemption. The total of 4,021 represents a 133.9 percentage increase from 2017. The numbers of young people receiving a jobseeker benefit for longer than a year has fallen 7.6 percent since the March 2022 quarter. Alongside this, we’ve seen a 56 percent increase in the number of young people moving off benefit and into work, when comparing June 2017 to June 2022. This is record numbers of people moving into work. Since the pandemic began, we have seen increased numbers of young people applying for a jobseeker benefit and we have responded by increasing our investment into work-focused case management. Our response is working, and numbers of people on benefit are falling each quarter.

Hon Louise Upston: Can she explain why, at a time businesses are desperate for staff, more young people are stuck on benefit long term compared to when the Government took office?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: As I said, we are seeing record numbers of young people—record numbers of beneficiaries—leaving benefit to enter into work. The Prime Minister traversed this very well, earlier, with regards to young people and the impacts that economic events can have on them. They are often the ones that are most disadvantaged. They are often working in the jobs that are first to go. That’s certainly what we’ve seen here. But what we’re also seeing is our investment into young people paying off with regards to them being able to upskill and train and take on the employment that is available.

Hon Louise Upston: Can she confirm that Mana in Mahi, on average, has only placed 178 people a year into jobs who were on benefit longer than a year, while 13,000 young people are currently on the jobseeker benefit long term?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I’m glad she’s asked a question about Mana in Mahi. We have seen over 5,000 people get work through Mana in Mahi. Our focus is on all young people. I think what the other side of the House did not understand is that there is a prevention component here: get in early with young people and support them into the upskilling and training and opportunities that they need, so that they don’t end up on benefit or they don’t end up on benefit long term. We absolutely believe in the potential of our young people, and we’re investing in all of them.

Hon Louise Upston: Can she confirm that while 13,000 young Kiwis are stuck on the jobseeker benefit long term, almost half of all Mana in Mahi placements were not receiving a benefit when they started Mana in Mahi?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I am so glad that the member pointed it out. That is the different approach that we take on this side of the House. Those people that took up Mana in Mahi were still deemed to be at risk of long-term welfare receipt. They were still deemed to be disadvantaged during an economic event. We get in there early as a Government to invest in our young people. We certainly don’t see them as pretty damned hopeless. We certainly don’t see them as bottom feeders, and we certainly don’t see them as getting a free ride.

Hon Louise Upston: Point of order. I seek leave to table a written question answer showing just 14 percent of people on benefit longer than one year started Mana in Mahi.

SPEAKER: Has that been published?

Hon Louise Upston: No, it hasn’t.

SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that being published early? There appears to be none.

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

Hon Louise Upston: How many of the 13,000 young people, if any, on the jobseeker benefit longer than one year will be supported into jobs by all of the Government’s employment initiatives within the next six months?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I have to say, much more under us than would have been under them. When we came into Government, the work-focused front-line case management had been declining over a period of years. That investment wasn’t there. We don’t oversimplify the issues that our young people have. We now have Mana in Mahi. We’ve got a significant investment in apprenticeships, keeping in mind that after the global financial crisis the National Government then cut that investment. We’ve got things like Flexi-wage. We are working hard with our young people, and the results are proving that what we’re doing is working.

Hon Louise Upston: Does she agree with Jacinda Ardern, who said, in relation to long-term unemployment, that “loss of potential, and the greatest of wastes, and I am determined it will not happen on Labour’s watch.”, and, if so, why has this Government allowed the number of young people on the jobseeker benefit long term to double?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I absolutely agree with the Prime Minister and what she said. That’s why, year on year, even prior to the pandemic, we have been investing in opportunities for our young people. We haven’t written them off. We don’t stigmatise them. We recognise the complex challenges that many of them have with regards to being able to take up employment, and our track record with regards to the investments and the initiatives that we have put in place prove that—including, of course, the 86 million, I believe, that we’ve put into driver’s licences, recognising that 70 percent of jobs require that people have that driver’s licence. That’s the type of investment that the previous Government didn’t bother to make. We’re doing it.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Has the Minister seen any conclusive evidence that benefit sanctions towards jobseeker beneficiaries are effective at supporting people into paid work, and, if not, does she agree that using sanctions causes harm to the children and families living in poverty?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I believe that sanctions, particularly cutting people’s benefits, should be used as a last resort. It has overwhelming impacts on families when it is used in a punitive way too easily without actually traversing the circumstances of the families. I have seen evidence to suggest in the UK and in the United States that a punitive approach can actually be counterproductive to supporting people into work. That’s why we’re not taking the approach that the other side of the House endorses.

Question No. 8—Social Development and Employment

8. JO LUXTON (Labour—Rangitata) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: What updates has she received on the progress of Mana in Mahi?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I’m pleased to report that the Government’s Mana in Mahi programme continues to go from strength to strength, with over 5,000 job seekers supported into jobs. This exceeds our initial target of 4,000 following its extension in 2019. Nearly half, or 44 percent, are Māori or Pacific, and 64 percent are aged under 24 years; 89 percent who have a training pathway are working towards a qualification at NZQA level 3 or higher; and 90 percent have either completed, are currently active, or have exited early but are not back on benefit.

Jo Luxton: How does this compare to the Government’s other employment programmes?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: We remain relentless, deliberate, and unapologetic in our approach to supporting Kiwis into jobs as we secure our recovery from COVID-19. What we are seeing, alongside record exits off benefit and into work, and in addition to over 5,000 people in Mana in Mahi placements, is almost 50,000 apprentices picking up a trade through Apprenticeship Boost, almost 18,000 people through Flexi-wage, and 3,800 young people engaged in He Poutama Rangatahi. Mana in Mahi is only one tool amongst many in our tool box that we’re using to support young people into employment, education, or training.

Jo Luxton: What feedback has she seen on Mana in Mahi?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Rod Giles, CE of Contracting Warehouse, who has had a relationship with the Ministry of Social Development for over 40 years, said, “During this time, and under various Governments, I have experienced many variations of incentives for both employers and the unemployed. In my experience, the Mana in Mahi scheme is currently the most successful to date, both for myself as an employer and, I believe, for the candidates that I have employed.”

Question No. 9—Local Government

9. SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore) to the Minister of Local Government: Does she agree with the Office of the Auditor-General that Three Waters legislation risks “creating a fragmented approach to the planning and delivery of services” and “less opportunity for communities to be effectively engaged”?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Acting Minister of Local Government): On behalf of the Minister—

SPEAKER: Can I just do a check, again—I did this last week. Is the member not the Acting Minister?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: Yeah no, you’re right; I am. We always take seriously comments that the Auditor-General makes on legislation, and we are prepared to consider all constructive suggestions for improvements. This is exactly what the select committee process is for. The Auditor-General in his submission noted the need for water services reform, and I agree with him. He has also provided constructive suggestions on how the arrangements for reporting and transparency can be improved, and the select committee is considering these.

Simon Watts: Does she agree—

SPEAKER: No—“does he agree.”

Simon Watts: Does he agree with the Office of the Auditor-General that “as currently drafted in the Bill, the accountability arrangements and potential governance weaknesses, combined with the diminution in independent assurance noted earlier, could have an adverse effect on public accountability, transparency, and organisational performance.”, and, if so, what will he be doing to remedy these concerns?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: As we’ve already said, we appreciate the constructive feedback that the Auditor-General has provided. I also note comments that were included in the submission that said New Zealand faces a significant infrastructure challenge with the drinking-water, waste-water, and stormwater services that are currently delivered by local authorities. The bill intends to pave the way for improved, effective, and efficient management of the three waters service delivery and infrastructure by establishing four stand-alone water service entities.

Simon Watts: Who is correct: the Prime Minister, who said the ownership of these entities sits with local bodies and government, so it’s not changing the ownership structures, or the Office of the Auditor-General who said, “The Bill alone does not provide enough information for us to form a view” on the control of water entities?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: I note that in the submission the Auditor-General recognises that they are looking at it through a very specific lens, and any other view on the submission would be expanding that lens. It is a matter of fact that ownership of the water entities remains with local councils and any suggestion otherwise, I think, is mischief making.

Simon Court: Does the Minister agree with the Office of the Auditor-General that water service entities cannot be held accountable by either ratepayers or the Government under the Minister’s regulatory model, and, in that case, who are these entities accountable to?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: There are a number of proposed mechanisms by which the entities would remain accountable to the communities that retain the ownership over them. The point of the reforms and the point of the structure that is being proposed is very simple, but it appears to be a point that is either misunderstood or deliberately overlooked. We are facing a $185 billion problem, and at the moment, the status quo, it is the ratepayers of this country who will face that bill. If we do not reform, as every single council in the country is calling for and as the Auditor-General is calling for in their submission, if we stay with the status quo like the National Party and the ACT Party are proposing, a $185 billion cost will be borne by ratepayers and ratepayers alone.

Simon Court: How does the Minister define “ownership”, and does the Minister think it’s misleading to tell local authorities they will retain ownership of three waters entities, while, at the same time, forcing them to surrender all control to these new, unaccountable water service entities?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: I would define “ownership” much more accurately than the description the member has just given about the three waters reforms. This is a situation where, without reform, the ratepayers of this country will bear the full cost of $185 billion. That is $185 billion that individually they simply cannot find the resources to pay for it because of the debt caps that are imposed on councils. The restructure proposes a particular and deliberate structure that removes that potential, that future liability, from both the balance sheets of councils and of central government, and, whilst doing so, retains ownership in the entities.

Simon Court: Point of order. I don’t believe the Minister addressed the question, which is how—

SPEAKER: No; I heard the question and I heard him address it in about the first six words. I was hoping that he might come back to it but he didn’t.

Simon Watts: Why did he not listen when these exact problems about public accountability and transparency were raised to him by local communities right at the start of this process, and will he now apologise for dismissing these concerns?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: I would consider apologising if, after four years of considering reforms of water services, we didn’t have a single alternative proposal to put to the country. That’s the situation the National Party are in and that’s the situation the ACT Party are in. We—after four years of looking into this issue, this $185 billion problem facing local councils in this country—have a way forward. Throughout that process, we have listened to the concerns of stakeholders and local councils. The establishment of the working group, which was made up of local government representatives, many of them who have expressed concerns about the proposals up to that point, made recommendations. Those recommendations were included in the bill that was brought to this House and that is an indication, I think, to the country that this Government is open to constructive ideas and feedback—just like those put forward by the Auditor-General—and this Government will consider those in good faith.

Simon Watts: Will he now accept, in light of the Office of the Auditor-General’s submission and four years of planning, that he’s got it wrong on the three waters, and that communities against the reforms were right to call them out as un-transparent and unaccountable?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: If the member spent time, as I have, travelling around and visiting councils—22 councils so far in the last three weeks—every single one of them has said that the status quo is unsustainable, even those that have publicly expressed concerns about three waters. So, no, I cannot stand here and listen to the member criticise a process that looks to reform a problem, when that member and his party have offered no alternative solution in four years of whingeing.

Question No. 10—Economic and Regional Development

10. NAISI CHEN (Labour) to the Minister for Economic and Regional Development: What recent announcements has he made on opportunities for the space sector?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister for Economic and Regional Development): Today, United States Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and I signed a framework agreement on how New Zealand and the United States will work together on the use of aerospace and outer space for peaceful purposes. The signing followed Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Vice President Kamala Harris welcoming the completion of negotiations on this agreement during their recent meeting in Washington, DC. We have an incredibly innovative space sector here in New Zealand. Despite our small size, we’ve become a notable player on the global space industry, and signing the framework agreement marks an exciting step for our space sector. The partnership and deeper cooperation with NASA that will be facilitated by this agreement will over time contribute to wider economic, social, cultural, and environmental benefits to Aotearoa New Zealand.

Naisi Chen: What areas of collaboration might this agreement lead to?

Hon STUART NASH: We are currently discussing areas of mutual interest with NASA. However, as well as potential involvement in space exploration activities, we see potential to jointly work on technologies applicable to on-earth challenges in key New Zealand interest areas and industries. These could include rapid pharmaceutical and vaccine development and production, sustainable food production, material sciences, climate change - and disaster-resilient utilities and infrastructure, and renewable energy generation.

Naisi Chen: How many jobs does the space sector support?

Hon STUART NASH: In 2019, Deloitte Access Economics estimated that the New Zealand space sector generated revenue of $1.75 billion, of which $495 million represented returns to labour. The report found that the sector supported 5,000 fulltime-equivalent (FTE) roles across all space subsectors. The space sector also indirectly supported approximately 7,000 FTE positions in industries that provide services to the space sector. The space industry is knowledge intensive and dominated by high-skill jobs. Globally, the space sector has among the highest levels of returns to labour of any sector, and today’s signing is a further positive development for high-wage jobs in New Zealand.

Question No. 11—Oceans and Fisheries

11. Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green) to the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries: Was he aware before the publication of the DOC-commissioned report that at least 273 protected sea turtles were caught between 2007/08 and 2020/21; if so, who told him?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for Oceans and Fisheries): No. But in March 2021, I was advised by Fisheries New Zealand about a high number of turtle captures in the surface longline fishery for the prior quarter: 40 turtles had been caught, 38 released alive, and two were dead. Fisheries New Zealand have since undertaken further work on measures to reduce the capture of turtles.

Hon Eugenie Sage: How does he respond to the statement in the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) report entitled Review of commercial fishing interactions with marine reptiles that “to date, little progress has been made” on any of the recommendations in a similar scientific report in 2016, including to better monitor sea turtle catch, implement guidelines to reduce sea turtle mortality, revise the allocation of fisheries observer coverage, and improve data quality and monitoring?

Hon DAVID PARKER: In respect of measures that have been taken, I’m advised that the use of wire leaders was banned in 2015 and the analysis of the effect of this—wire leaders make it more difficult to release protected species when caught—shows a significant reduction in catches of protected species, including turtles and sharks. Earlier this year, public consultation also concluded on the banning of J hooks to reduce turtle captures, and I’ll be receiving advice on that later this year prior to making a final decision. In addition, Fisheries New Zealand works with the Department of Conservation protected species liaison officer programme to provide fishers with education and information and equipment, such as line cutters, to support the safe release of turtles. In addition, Fisheries New Zealand is collaborating with the University of Florida on research about sea turtle distribution and potential mitigation. In addition, of course, we have funded, in the last year, cameras on boats, which are being rolled out, and I’m advised, once that roll-out is finished, it will cover 95 percent of the captures, which were in longline fishers of highly migratory species, all of which are intended to be covered through cameras on boats.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Has he asked Fisheries New Zealand for advice on establishing a capture limit for endangered leatherback turtles in the surface longline fisheries for bigeye tuna and swordfish in Fisheries Management Area 1, the area where most turtles are caught, to trigger a closure of those fisheries when the limit is reached, as occurs in similar longline fisheries in Hawaii, and, if not, why not?

Hon DAVID PARKER: We do actually have limits like that for some species of dolphin. In respect of the report that the member referred to in the primary question, it was a NIWA report prepared primarily for the Department of Conservation. That report will be considered by officials, including from Fisheries, before further decisions are taken.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Does he agree with previous Fisheries New Zealand views that measures such as set capture limits are unnecessary because turtle captures in New Zealand waters are minimal now that NIWA has reported the capture of 58 turtles, largely endangered leatherback turtles, in a single year, 2020-21, the highest on record?

Hon DAVID PARKER: In respect of that number, indeed, 40 of those 50 were in a single quarter and that concerns me.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Has he asked Fisheries New Zealand to expand observer coverage to better monitor turtle capture in surface longline fisheries, and, if not, why not?

Hon DAVID PARKER: In terms of the observers being real people, no, and I would observe that the vast majority—I think it’s about 80 percent of reported turtle captures—are reported by fishers themselves without observers. We think the way to increase the coverage and monitoring of these fisheries is through cameras on boats, which will achieve far higher levels of observational coverage than has been able to be achieved through people until now.

Hon Eugenie Sage: How many captures and deaths of endangered leatherback turtles by surface longline fishing in New Zealand waters does he consider are too many, when the global leatherback turtle population fell by 95 percent in the last two decades of the 20th century?

Hon DAVID PARKER: As I’ve said before, I’m certainly concerned by the data that has been produced on turtle captures, and I am supportive of measures to reduce that.

Question No. 12—Police

12. CHRIS BAILLIE (ACT) to the Minister of Police: Does he stand by all his actions and policies relating to youth crime?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): Yes.

Chris Baillie: Is the Government’s Small Retailer Crime Prevention Fund still being trialled with a small group of businesses; if so, when will a wider group of businesses be able to access this funding?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: There is funding available now. Only a small number of businesses have access to the fund so far. I think five have had improvements completed as a result of being able to access the fund so far. This, of course, is not the only thing that we’re doing in that area, though—for example, a thousand fog cannons have been installed. I think, of that thousand, 999 have been installed; one, apparently, there are some installation issues with, but the rest of that programme has more or less been completed. It is important to note, however, that these are, if you like, response measures, because the ultimate goal has to be to reduce that level of offending in the first place.

Chris Baillie: What proportion of youth ram raiders are being identified and having enforcement action taken against them?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The investigations are ongoing. I can’t give the member the numbers as a proportion, but I can certainly give him some overall numbers. In terms of just ram raids, so looking exclusively at ram raids, 38 offenders have been identified or arrested, and I can tell him that almost all of them are under the age of 18. The median age is 15. A further 27 offenders have been identified using CCTV, and police are currently working to figure out who they are. If we look at the overall National Retail Investigation Support Unit, which, of course, will include a little bit more than just the ram raids, there have been 43 offenders charged with 307 offences.

Chris Baillie: Is there a specific offence code for ram raids; if not, will he commit to creating one so that the Government’s progress on this issue can be measured over time?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The police have been able to give me good numbers on ram raids. How they code offences for their purposes is a matter for the police—it’s an operational matter. But they have been able to produce numbers around ram raids and the number of offenders who have been identified and charged.

Chris Baillie: Does he agree with Police Association President Chris Cahill, who said it feels like additional Police numbers “have just been soaked up”, and does he think this comment has anything to do with the 400 percent increase in ram raids over the last five years?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I think that the increase in ram raids is concerning. It is, of course, the police’s job to follow up on those things as they are, and there are consequences for those people who are engaged in that activity.

SPEAKER: Sorry. Normally, we get a bit of a sign because the member puts his mask back on. I was just waiting for—that concludes oral questions.

Appointments

Assistant Speaker—Hon David Bennett

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I seek leave to move two motions without notice on the appointment of two Assistant Speakers.

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

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I move, That this House appoint Hon David Bennett as Assistant Speaker until the House adjourns on Thursday, 11 August 2022.

At the start of each Parliament, the House elects a Speaker and appoints a Deputy Speaker and two Assistant Speakers. Because of COVID-19, late last year we added a third Assistant Speaker to the workforce. Today, for various reasons, all three of our Assistant Speakers are unavailable to attend the House. Two will remain so for the rest of the week, so the House needs to fill these gaps so that it can continue to function properly, particularly given that we’ve got a number of committee stages that will be progressed this week where we need those presiding officers. David Bennett is indeed one of our longest-serving members of Parliament, having been elected since 2005, and has gallantly agreed to have his name put forward to be a temporary Assistant Speaker.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Well, it gives me great pleasure to speak to the motion moved by the Leader of the House. The Hon David Bennett is a long-serving member of this House, first elected in 2005. He served as Minister for Racing, and Food Safety, and Veterans’ Affairs in the past, and had associate roles in immigration and transport. But I think it’s in the area of the chairing of select committees that Mr Bennett has really made his mark on this House, particularly through the chairing of the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I had the privilege of serving with Mr Bennett at that time, as did the Hon Grant Robertson, and he had to deal with the Hon Grant Robertson, the Hon Clayton Cosgrove, in fine fettle at the time. The Rt Hon—

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Always—always.

CHRIS BISHOP: —as always—Winston Peters was also on the committee. The leader of the ACT Party, David Seymour, was on the committee, and the leader of the Greens, James Shaw, was on the committee, and he had to deal with Andrew Bayly as well, might I add. So he did an excellent job in chairing that committee, and I’m sure that the skills that he learnt chairing the Finance and Expenditure Committee in that 2014 to 2017 Parliament will come in very handy as he chairs the committee of the whole House in this temporary, albeit august, role.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I’m reminded of Shakespeare, who told us that even a king may pass through the guts of a beggar and come out on the other side. I think the ACT Party is looking forward gleefully to this new experiment in our democracy. We think that David Bennett will make an excellent Assistant Speaker, and, Mr Speaker, after you, sir, we can’t wait to see how he goes.

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

Motion agreed to.

Assistant Speaker—Greg O’Connor

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I move, That this House appoint Greg O’Connor as Assistant Speaker until the House adjourns on Thursday, 11 August 2022.

Until that last motion was put before the House, I didn’t realise it was possible to turn a face mask red by blushing underneath it, but David Bennett has managed to do just that!

The House is, I’m sure, grateful to Greg O’Connor for also agreeing to step into a presiding officer role. Since he was elected in 2017, he’s demonstrated a firm command of parliamentary rules and practices. No doubt his extensive experience as a police officer will also be of assistance to him in the role.

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

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. We’re delighted to support the nomination of Greg O’Connor as a temporary Assistant Speaker. I’ve come to know Mr O’Connor through his excellent performances in the Parliamentary Cricket Team, and I’m sure that the skills he displays on the cricket field, particularly his—I’m struggling for the right word here—great composure at long on and deep fine leg, will serve him well in the committee of the whole House. Congratulations, Greg.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): The ACT Party would like to join with others in supporting this motion. I think it speaks to the greatness of our country—it shows that anyone can do anything. In hindsight, Mr Speaker, I think your own appointment was preconditioning for us to come to this day, and we certainly look forward to seeing Greg O’Connor in the Chair. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

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

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Three Strikes Legislation Repeal Bill

Third Reading

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): I move that the Three Strikes Legislation Repeal Bill be now read a third time.

SPEAKER: No, you don’t.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: Why not?

SPEAKER: You present a legislative statement first.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I present a legislative statement to the House—

SPEAKER: On the Three Strikes Legislation Repeal Bill.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: —on the Three Strikes Legislation Repeal Bill.

SPEAKER: 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 Three Strikes Legislation Repeal Bill be now read a third time.

This bill delivers on the Government’s manifesto, committing to repeal the three-strikes law. The three-strikes law was introduced in 2010 and created a mandatory sentencing regime for 40 serious offences. In doing so, it took away the discretionary power of judges to fully consider the context of the offending, as well as the individual circumstances of the offender in front of them.

The application of the three-strikes law has led to some extremely concerning sentencing outcomes. Since its introduction, the High Court, Court of Appeal, and Supreme Court have all ruled that sentences imposed under the three-strikes regime have contravened the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. When we consider the distorting effect on sentence outcomes, it is clear that we would need to see strong evidence of the effectiveness of this law to justify its continued existence. However, there is little evidence that the three-strikes law has worked as intended: to deter or prevent any kind of serious crime.

It’s extremely important to note that this repeal does not mean serious and repeat offenders will not be held to account. All of the same measures that are required by the three-strikes regime will still be available to judges once the repeal takes effect. The courts have equivalent sentencing options available to protect victims and the wider public from people who commit serious offences, from limitation on parole eligibility through to the possibility of life imprisonment without parole. In effect, what the repeal does is return discretion back to the judiciary, who are best placed to respond appropriately to serious and repeat offending on a case by case basis.

I want to take this opportunity to reiterate that in approaching this repeal, one of our main concerns was to minimise the effects on victims. At the time the law was introduced, Labour highlighted how it failed to protect victims or address the causes of crime. In developing the bill, we worked with the Chief Victims Adviser to ensure that any potential impacts were understood early and could be effectively managed. As a result, we have developed the bill in a way that will not impact current victims of strike offenders, as the bill does not provide for the ability to apply for resentencing or change the parole eligibility. I want to thank Dr Kim McGregor for her guidance in the course of this bill.

The bill was introduced in November of last year. The select committee process invited robust discussions about the three-strikes regime. I want to acknowledge and thank Ginny Andersen for the way she chaired the Justice Committee through their deliberations, and, indeed, to all members of the select committee for their deliberations and considerations. I’m grateful for the level of engagement that we received, and I thank all of those who took time to make a submission on the bill.

I want to be clear: this repeal is about acknowledging and taking accountability when legislation does not do what it was intended to do. It is about ensuring we have appropriate criminal justice tools to hold offenders accountable, but in a way that is consistent with New Zealand’s human rights expectations and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act standards.

The drivers of crime are often complex and intergenerational. This highlights the need and the commitment of the Government to make a pragmatic and evidence-based approach to build an effective justice system. This will ensure that, in the long term, we prevent further crime and victimisation and provide better support to those involved in the justice system to break the cycle of offending. 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’re speaking on the repeal of the three-strikes legislation. This is the final reading. It will be passed by this Labour Government and come into effect after this debate.

National opposes this bill and thinks—I mean, let’s see. What is the purpose of this bill? What is the Government trying to achieve by repealing the three-strikes legislation? The purpose is to reduce the prison sentences that our worst repeat criminals should face. Let me just repeat that so people can get their heads around it: the purpose of the legislation we are passing right now is to reduce the prison sentences—that is, to make shorter the prison sentences—that our worst repeat criminals should face.

I suppose New Zealanders sitting at home, if they were in Auckland, hearing the “woo-woo-woo”, the regular hum of sirens in the background, hearing the helicopter flying overhead, reading the stories of the significant increase in gun crime, the 35-plus shootings in Auckland—not Chicago, not Miami in the 1980s, but Auckland in the last little while ago, when they see the massive increase in gang membership, recruiting faster than the police. They look at all that and they say, “Well, this Government thinks the priority right here, right now is to reduce the prison sentences that our worst repeat offenders should face.” We think that’s nuts. We think the priority is wrong, and it shows that this is a Government that is wholly out of touch when it comes to justice and law and order in this community.

We oppose this repeal and we will bring back some sort of legislation to replace it, if the people of New Zealand bring us back to Government next year, because our focus is on the victims of crime. We want to reduce the number of victims of crime. We want to see fewer New Zealand families torn asunder by violent crime, by gun crime, by the sorts of things that make New Zealanders feel unsafe in their homes.

Let’s just remind people what the three-strikes legislation did. It was introduced 10 years ago and what it means is that for a list of serious crimes: murder, rape, violent assault leading to grievous bodily harm, serious crimes—if an offender is convicted of that crime and they get a first strike, they are on notice that if, once they come out of prison, they do it again and they repeat, they have a warning that they could get a second strike, and if they get a third strike, the result is that they have to get the full sentence and serve the full sentence of their prison sentence for the crime that they are convicted of. That means that rather than having a heavily reduced sentence—we had an example of a prisoner that had been convicted of a serious crime that the judges thought might normally get two or three years, but the crime itself, under the third strike, meant that they were spending maybe 10 years in prison, or even 11 years.

The purpose of it was to keep those serious repeat offenders out of circulation for longer to keep the community safe. That was the purpose of the three-strikes legislation. This bill by the Labour Government is to repeal that and, as I say, to reduce the prison sentences that our worst repeat criminals should face.

One of the arguments that they’ve put forward—none of them very convincingly. The first argument put forward by Kris Faafoi, the Minister of Justice when he introduced it, was that it’s bad legislation and we know that it hasn’t worked. He then proceeded to present no evidence whatsoever that the bill hadn’t worked. Then we, of course, finally got the official advice from the Ministry of Justice, Police, and Corrections, which was “There is no substantial international or New Zealand evidence on the effect of three-strikes law on crime.”—so no evidence. We just heard the Minister right now, right here, right now, talk about evidence-based decision-making in the justice sector. There is no evidence on this bill, but they’re repealing it anyway.

Secondly, she’s talked about the distorting effect of this Act, that it leads to disproportionate sentences. Well, hold the phone, people. That is the exact point of the legislation. It is like complaining that the legislation does what it says it’s going to do, which is to say that if you’re on your third strike, you have to stay in prison longer than you would ordinarily if you’d done the crime the first time around. That is the purpose of the legislation, and to say that it has a distortionary effect is nonsense—of course it does. That’s what we were trying to do. That is what Parliament said when it passed the law it wanted.

Then she referred to the judiciary being best placed to make decisions about the length of sentences. Well, I’m afraid, in the system that works at the moment, Parliament has the right to set parameters for sentencing. That’s what we did with this legislation, and if there’s a problem with it, then it’s for Parliament to turn around and say that it is disproportionate in its outcome—well, that is the very point of it.

Then the next argument is that perhaps it failed to protect victims. This was an argument that the Minister raised in the committee stage. She said, “Well, since this bill has been introduced 10 years ago, violent crime has increased. Therefore, it hasn’t worked. It hasn’t protected victims of crime.”, which was the weakest argument I’ve ever heard a Minister of Justice come up with. It probably didn’t occur to her that there might be one or two other factors involved in the increase in violent crime in the last few years. I could suggest one or two, perhaps the most obvious one being this Government’s soft-on-crime approach and the messages that it has sent, the excuses that it’s come up with for violent crime, and the fact that it hasn’t done anything successful in countering it and keeping the community safe.

Then the final argument that the Minister came up with, having delivered all of those ones which are very weak and ineffectual, was to say, “Well, it was a promise. The Labour Government made this promise and we intend to keep it.” I just wish that they’d kept their promise to fix the housing crisis and to deal with mental health effectively and to do a whole heap of other things which they have failed to do manifestly over the last 4½ years, but this one they can keep because even they are clever enough to pass a repeal bill. That doesn’t exactly involve great skill, but they’ve managed to do it.

So what does it mean? It means that our worst repeat offenders will be out of prison earlier and will be able to create more victims. I refer to the commentary of Nick Tuitasi, one of the submitters on this bill, a former policeman from Northland, where he talked about the third strike. People, just remember, by the way, that currently, after 10 years, there have been 13,000 people who had been delivered their first strike. If it had no effect, it’s surprising that only 640 have had their second strike and only 21 have had their third strike. So they are the numbers so far: 13,000, down to 640 for the second, and 21 for the third at the time when we started this debate.

So Nick Tuitasi made the point that, on average, the people who have had three strikes have had around 70 offences each. So what we’re going to see is the restoration of the conveyer belt approach to justice, where violent, repeat, serious offenders are cycling their way through the system, creating new victims, going into crime, getting a short sentence, coming out, creating more victims, having another short sentence, coming out, and creating more victims. The purpose of this Act is to focus on those repeat serious offenders, to keep them out of circulation and, as Nick Tuitasi said, they’re not going to change. This law was designed to take these third-strike offenders out of circulation to reduce the number of victims, to give the victims a break. Victims are still scared to go out at night.

The message that the criminal fraternity are getting today from this Government is that for this Government, when it looks at the situation New Zealanders face, when it sees what’s going on in Auckland, when it sees the increase in gun crime, when it sees the increase in violent crime, when it sees the large numbers of victims of crime, its conclusion, its priority, is to reduce the prison sentences for our worst repeat offenders. If any Government could actually go down to central Auckland’s CBD and talk to the average man or woman on the street and tell them that’s their priority—

Chlöe Swarbrick: I’d take you down there.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, yes, indeed. The member for Auckland Central, who has been lamentably quiet about the breakdown of law and order in that city, has something to say about that.

We do not support this bill, and we see it as a real—

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

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s time to take down the curtains, because the window dressing that’s the three-strikes regime is coming down. It’s time that this House moves past window dressing, dog-whistling, and the political posturing in the law and order space and started a real debate about what actually reduces recidivist offending and what actually reduces the number of victims in New Zealand. In order for us to learn from our past mistakes, such as three strikes, it’s important that we do three things: (1) what is the initial three-strikes bill and what did it set out to achieve; (2) why it failed; and (3) what does work to actually prevent crime? And I’m sure Mr Goldsmith would be interested in learning that.

First of all, the three-strikes regime was a law that was introduced back in 2010 and it created a mandatory sentencing regime for over 40 serious offences. In doing so, it took away the discretionary power of judges to be able to fully consider the context of the offending as well as the personal circumstances of the person standing before the judge. When we look back at communications back in 2010, it’s important to try and understand what was going on in the minds of those decision makers, and one that really amazed me was the first press release put out by Judith Collins. At the end of the press release, where you have the questions and answers, the first question was “Why has this policy been agreed?”, and the first line back is “The National and ACT parties both campaigned heavily on law and order in the election campaign.” That’s the answer they gave to the purpose of this bill. That, I think, put simply, shows it was a political promise that gave the appearance of being tough on crime.

This is important, and I want to make it clear: the truth is that the courts could already impose sentences equivalent to those under the three-strikes regime when that was appropriate. These options will continue to be available to the court once this legislation is repealed, and I’m going to lay out what those options are: preventive detention for repeat serious offenders, public protection and extended supervision orders, minimum periods of imprisonment, and maximum penalties up to life imprisonment. What goes further to the point is this was just window dressing.

I think the last point I’ll make on this is on the very implementation of this bill. In those first few months when three strikes became law in New Zealand, there was absolutely no integrated data system within in the Ministry of Justice to keep tabs on how those strikes were being recorded. My job, along with a few others back then, was to manually monitor when an offender with a strikable offence was coming up before the courts. A phone call would have to be put through to the prosecutor to alert them that someone was coming up before the courts, and this needed to be done at sentencing. We even had a red rubber stamp made with “strikable offence” that would help remind them in the court. More than a few were missed, and each week we drew straws as to who was the unlucky official that had to front up at the Minister’s meeting and tell Judith Collins how many had got away that week.

I think it’s important to get back to the point of why the three-strikes legislation failed. Since its introduction, the High Court, the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court—all three have ruled that this law was inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights, and I think that’s an important point to note.

When we consider the distorting effect on our worst sentence outcomes, you have to really weigh up and say, “What is this bill doing?” There is no consistent pattern to changing crime rates before and after the three-strikes regime became law. The Ministry of Justice’s paper on the Sentencing and Parole Reform Act, which was the three-strikes bill, quite clearly stated, “The proposals will add substantial direct cost to the justice system without creating any significant improved outcomes in terms of reducing the drivers of crime, improving social outcomes, or reducing reoffending and victimisation.” Those justice advisers were actively prevented from appearing in front of the Justice Committee, and it was clear from the outset that this law would do nothing to reduce the drivers of crime.

As we’ve already been asked by Dr Goldsmith that there is no evidence, well, I would like to provide evidence that has been provided through the Ministry of Justice in their brief that recorded the three highest-volume strike offences over the period of time from 1996 to 2014: serious assault, sexual assault, and robbery offences. The report concluded that there were few changes that could be contributed to the three-strikes law—no change. So while three strikes failed to do any deterrence as it promised to do, what it did do was further entrench the over-representation of Māori in our prison population. Māori are almost nine times more likely to receive a first strike than those of European or other ethnicities, and over 18 times more likely to receive a second strike.

So what does work? In summing up, I think it’s important that we do say what does work. The drivers of crime are complex and intergenerational. They are not a sound bite. They are not a strapline. They are people’s lives—both victims’ and offenders’ and their families’. This highlights the need and commitment for this Government to make a pragmatic and evidence-based approach to build an effective justice system. This will ensure that over the long term, we prevent further crime and victimisation, not just by calling out “tougher on crime” whenever we can but by providing better support to those involved in the justice system to break the cycle of reoffending, and that means evidence-based solutions that actually work in order to reduce reoffending and the causes of crime.

Here’s a few examples that we’re doing already: the alcohol and other drug treatment court provides an evidence-based best-practice treatment pathway that includes intensive monitoring, case management, drug testing, and mentoring; Te Pae Oranga, rolled out with 14 more in the last Budget, and, again, the evidence provided is that recidivist offending is reduced by addressing the root causes of crime; Rangatahi and Pasifika Courts, which are designed to re-engage young people with their culture and have better long-term outcomes; Te Ao Mārama reforming our court system—another one. We are also giving police the tools to target organised crime, as announced already by Ministers Hipkins and Allan in July, as well as passing legislation around firearms prohibition orders.

For too long, our justice system has been used as a political football. Window dressing such as three-strikes legislation has prevented a real focus on how we work together and reduce offending and victimisation. I hope that the repeal of this bill—three strikes—is a stake in the ground that marks a new chapter for the justice sector in New Zealand, one that is based on evidence and based on best outcomes for our people. I commend it to the House.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): Point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave of the House to table a number of letters to members of the National Party, various spokespeople, pertaining to the rhetoric they have made about Auckland Central and the crime rates therein—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can you back it up?

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Yep.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: How many letters?

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: There’s several of them, noted to multiple spokespeople for the National Party, addressing their rhetoric. I can table the very first, from December.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: OK, there are a couple of things that are bothering me about that: one, do all the recipients know that you are tabling them?

Chlöe Swarbrick: The recipients have been made aware that there is every intention to make—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: And they agree?

Chlöe Swarbrick: I can seek that in writing.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, you do that first.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Mr Speaker, where do I start?

Chlöe Swarbrick: With the letter I sent you!

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well, I can tell the member right now that I haven’t seen any letter from her, but I’ll be very interested to read it when I receive it. I assume—

Chlöe Swarbrick: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Addressing the points just made by the speaker—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No. They’re debating points; you can wait for your turn.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Thank you, Mr Speaker. The reality of it is, with the three-strikes legislation, that when we debated this in the House at the committee stage, there were three times—three times—I got to my feet and I asked the Minister the same two questions. And she didn’t respond and she didn’t answer, because it was asking for evidence around—there have been several reasons why that have been put up to the House by varying Ministers, in terms of why we’re having to repeal the three-strikes legislation at a time in our country when we’re experiencing the worst levels of violent crime that I certainly remember in my lifetime, highlighted, I think, by a report in the New Zealand Herald today that there was a young lady on the streets here in Wellington who was surrounded by patched gang members on bikes that kicked her mirror off and, in her words, terrified her. I don’t know about the rest of the members in this House, but I don’t want to live in a country like that, where a young lady is driving her vehicle through the streets of Wellington and is surrounded by patched gang members that feel they can start punching and kicking her car and ripping the rear-vision mirror off, causing her to be terrified. That is not the country that we need to live in, and, unfortunately, at a time when we need tougher penalties and we need stronger and more consequences, the priority of this Government was to come into this House and repeal the three-strikes legislation, which actually removes tougher penalties.

And, by the way, this House should recognise and respect the role of our courts and our judges and our court system, but there is a separation, and the only thing that I’ve heard this Minister stand up and say is that because the Supreme Court and the High Court made judgments and they don’t like this legislation and they don’t like the fact that they’ve lost some of their discretion—I don’t think their voice should be any louder than the voice of the public or the victims or those that come in front of the committee and took the time to make submissions against this bill, groups like the Sensible Sentencing Trust or the Dairy and Business Owners Group, which are facing ram raids and assaults and attacks and armed robberies.

We saw an armed robbery in the middle of the day in Queen Street, where members of the public felt like they had to try and make an intervention. Thank God no one was hurt or killed in that situation. The Minister said, “Oh, we’re worried about a disproportionate outcome, or we’re worried about offenders or defendants not being able to do a plea deal because the three-strikes legislation might get in the way.” What a perverse reason to put up to support them wanting to repeal this Act. What a perverse reason—that they want to protect a defendant’s right to be able to negotiate some sort of plea deal, against the victim’s right to justice. I think that is a disgrace. The Minister would not actually stand and respond to that when I put it to her.

Nick Tuitasi—can I acknowledge Nick Tuitasi. I had the honour of serving with Nick, and I had enormous respect for him. In fact, he was hugely respected inside the police service, because, even at that time, he was working tirelessly—tirelessly—inside his communities in South Auckland and West Auckland. If there’s one man in this country that understands and knows what’s going on inside his community, it’s Nick Tuitasi. If he takes the time to make a submission to our select committee, saying, “Please, leave the three-strikes legislation in place, because what it does is it takes the worst offenders, the offenders with 72-plus convictions, out of the community, and it makes it safer.”—and the other question that I have, and this is this is relevant, and this will probably upset the Government members, but I want to know what’s going to happen when this legislation is repealed, and it is repealed, and there is an offender that is out in the community who otherwise would have been inside prison, under the three-strikes legislation, and that offender seriously injures, sexually assaults, or kills someone. Who’s going to stand up and defend the decision then? Who’s going to be standing up, making the speeches then, saying that was the right thing to do?—“Yes, we have a new victim or victims. Yes, someone’s been killed. But do you know what? That was just the price we had to pay to get this legislation repealed.” I’m making a prediction—and God forbid, and I hope that I’m wrong, but I’m predicting—that we’re going to have a serious recidivist violent offender that should have been incarcerated in prison under the three-strikes legislation that isn’t going to be, and they’re going to be out in the community and they’re going to create another victim. And I’ll be interested to see, when that happens, whether or not the Government has got the belly to actually stand up and defend it. I don’t think they will be.

I just want to look at some of the numbers, because I asked the Minister, during the committee stage, to please bring the evidence—show us the evidence. There was no evidence. Three times I asked that. Three times there was a failure to actually provide any. But, actually, when you look at the numbers—and, by the way, I want to acknowledge the chair, and I want to acknowledge the other members, because she does do a good job of chairing that committee. On the whole, we try to get on and we try to be bipartisan. We try to do the best that we can, because justice and public safety is important to all of us on that committee. But I just want to clarify here: when she stood up and she started pulling stats out and saying, “Justice said that this has made no real, tangible difference to the level of sexual assaults and serious violent attacks”, and things like that—the data was being collected back in the 1980s and ’90s; is that correct? Or were you referring to data that was collected from 2010, when the legislation came in—

Ginny Andersen: From 1993 to 2014.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: 1993? That’s well before the three-strikes legislation even came in. So they’re using data—you can’t take and use data to—

Chlöe Swarbrick: No, you’re not listening.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: I thought you said ’93.

Ginny Andersen: It’s data, and 2014 ends—

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Yes, I know. So, if you’re actually going to collect data to try and show the impact of a bill, you start collecting data for when the bill actually becomes law. That’s when you start collecting the data. And, by the way, what a perverse, ridiculous argument to say that, because crime rates are going up, because we’ve still got serious assaults, because we’ve still got sexual abuse and domestic violence, and all those—oh, it’s the three-strikes legislation’s fault! So let’s get rid of that!

Chlöe Swarbrick: No one is saying that.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well, that’s the argument that’s being put up: there’s been a continuing rise in serious crime, so let’s get rid of three strikes; that’ll fix the problem! What a ridiculous argument. We may as well look at all our sentences if that’s the argument that’s being put up.

And, by the way, if you actually look at the numbers—let’s just go through the numbers to see whether or not three-strikes appears to be a deterrent. First strikes: 13,349 first-strike offences—offenders would get their first strike. Let’s go on to second strikes. So let’s see how many of those offenders reoffend and actually pick up that second strike. The second offence is 640 second strikes. That’s only 4.8 percent of first-strikers that have progressed to the second strike. So looking at those numbers, it appears that the first strike has been enough; they don’t want to progress to a second-strike offence; only 4.8 percent of them do. And now let’s have a look at the third-strike offences. So we go to third strikes: there’s 21 third-strikers. So that’s only 3.2 percent of second-strikers that have gone to that third strike. So, if you actually look at those numbers and you analyse the numbers, what would that tell you? It would actually tell you that maybe—maybe—the strikes are a deterrent. Maybe a first-striker doesn’t want to pick up a second strike, and maybe the second-striker doesn’t want to pick up the third strike. That’s actually the evidence. That’s actually what’s in front of us. When they get to the third strike, on average, they’ve got 74 convictions. They’re serious, recidivist offenders.

This piece of legislation—all the victims groups that came in front of the committee didn’t want to see it go; their voice was ignored. It’s the High Court and the Supreme Court judges that are being listened to on this, not the victims, not the members of the public, not the people that are actually affected directly—it’s the judges. This legislation should not be repealed—

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

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take a brief call. One thing I would agree on is that we do share a concern for community safety across this House, but there is a difference: when it comes to that side of the House and justice and community safety issues, that side are about reacting and often performing. On this side of the House, we’re about responding responsibly. Our response is based on the evidence, including what occasionally the lack of evidence tells us about the effectiveness, or not, of policy. There is a lack of evidence here and that tells a story as well.

I want to make one last point that has been made before: that the three-strikes regime never created harsher penalties. The bill today will not remove the ability of judges to put in place those tougher penalties when they are needed. We need judicial scrutiny because judges are the closest to the facts on the ground. They are also the ones who consider the views of victims. On this side of the House, we believe that victims’ views should be considered always.

This is a much-needed repeal. I commend this bill to the House.

Dr ELIZABETH KEREKERE (Green): Kia ora. I stand on behalf of my colleague Golriz Ghahraman in support of the Three Strikes Legislation Repeal Bill. It repeals the Sentencing and Parole Reform Act 2010 that created what we know as the three-strikes law.

The Greens strongly oppose three strikes on the basis that it leads to punitive rather than restorative justice and rehabilitation. We’ve been attempting to get this repealed for some time, and we add our thanks to the Minister of Justice, the Justice Committee, and all of the submitters who took the time in this process.

The impact of this straightforward repeal is that an offender will be subject to normal sentencing rules, where the sentence is proportional to the crime committed—what I think the general public would expect of a justice system. We echo the disappointment, though, of many submitters that the bill states that anyone who received a harsher sentence because of this law will not be eligible for early release, resentencing, or any compensation because of the altering that is going to occur. We believe that people who have been made subject to a third strike should have their sentence reconsidered by a judge. Unfortunately, the Supplementary Order Paper on this in Golriz Ghahraman’s name was not ruled in scope of the bill.

We agree with JustSpeak, who wrote in their submission that three strikes focuses “on punishment, not justice”. It is remarkable how three strikes directly breaches the separation of powers that Westminster systems like us would normally uphold: that while we as Parliament make the laws, we leave it to the courts to interpret and apply them in individual cases—in other words, to use their discretion based on their years of education, knowledge, and experience. A shout-out to all the lawyers in the House who have been in this position, who know exactly how this works and how they have been constrained by this law.

Because three strikes is rigid and fixed, it has removed that discretion for all the people involved in this process—that’s from the probation officers, the mental health advisers, cultural advisers, and all manner of people who contribute to this, to the defence and prosecution lawyers, and then, of course, to the judges themselves. It ignores the circumstances of the offence, the circumstance of the offender, the victim’s views, the purpose of sentencing that goes into trying to keep the community safe, and what accountability or deterrence might look like in a given case. It ignores what rehabilitation and successful reintegration of that person safely back into the community might look like.

Most importantly, three strikes has resulted in disproportionate and excessive sentences being handed down. In addition to the negative impacts eloquently outlined by the chair of the Justice Committee, Ginny Andersen, the Prison Education Project noted in its submission that “The arbitrary nature of the legislation prevents the court from taking into account factors such as age, cultural background and mental or physical health issues. Meaning that members of vulnerable populations, such as our youth, mentally ill or Pasifika populations, are more likely to be disproportionately affected”.

Three strikes originated in California in the early 1990s without any kind of academic or policy foundation. It is yet another example that transplanting something from the other side of the world does not usually work in this country, and it often exacerbates the inequalities already faced by marginalised and vulnerable parts of our population. But before it was adopted here, multiple issues had already arisen in America because of this legislation. Quoting again from the JustSpeak submission, three-strikes legislation was identified as “an extreme example of populist pre-emption of criminal justice policy making”. That was in 1996, 14 years before the Government of the day thought, “That sounds great. Let’s bring it here.”

Since 2010, evidence has been collected in this country, including by the Ministry of Justice, that has reiterated that three strikes does not work. It does nothing to deter offending and exists mostly to perpetuate tough on crime rhetoric. Building on that, research shows that prisons don’t really work that well, either. The Greens would support investigating alternatives to that through restorative processes and iwi- and Māori-led responses.

In conclusion, I quote my colleague Golriz Ghahraman: “We know that three strikes has disproportionately impacted Māori, Pasifika, and other communities of colour, as well as those with mental health and addiction issues and brain injuries. Fixing the justice system doesn’t stop at three strikes. Labour must now show courage in moving toward a system that addresses the causes of offending, including mental health care, addiction treatment, housing and livable income support, while introducing a new pathway away from prisons.” Nō reira, I commend this bill to the House.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I take pleasure in rising on behalf of the ACT Party and saying we oppose the Three Strikes Legislation Repeal Bill. I’m going to start off by talking about what’s just happened in the last week, perhaps even just this weekend, because it tells us why we need to have this sort of legislation in place.

What have we heard about? Kids armed with hammers and crowbars doing daylight robberies. This is our next generation of three-strikers. What about the 60-second ransacking of stores? The best one from this week would be the six retail stores targeted in one night in Auckland over this past weekend, and a youth caught in an aggravated robbery yelling to be freed because he’s just 13 years old. In Taranaki, they’re investigating their fifth homicide in six months; the second one in a week. Violent crime is out of control, and three strikes has done its bit to keep the worst of the worst locked up and away from participating in this free-for-all of vicious and violent crime that our communities are currently experiencing.

This Government is giving these strikers an early Christmas present, and it’s at the expense of victims, of victims’ families, and of society. We have a Minister who is wanting to take a victim-centric approach to her new portfolio, but this just does not cut it. In fact, this repeal is a disgrace and it’s disrespectful to victims. Not once were victims a part of the policy process for repealing this legislation, and I repeat here in the third reading our absolute dismay at the Human Rights Commission failing even to report on victims in their submission to this bill. No wonder there is a need for that commission to go. ACT have always expected that this law is to affect those serious violent criminals committing crimes in our communities, regardless of their race, regardless of their colour, and regardless of their breed. When one argues with us that this law offers disproportionate sentencing to Māori, I retort that this very same law offers protection to the disproportionate number of Māori victims, victims of any one of the 40 most serious violent offences that sentence its perpetrator to a strike.

Three strikes is not about locking up those petty criminals; it’s about locking up those that commit one of the 40 named qualifying serious violent offences, the worst of the worst criminals committing the most heinous crimes. The time for making excuses is up. New Zealand has had enough of being victims of violent recidivist offenders and having a Government that not only makes excuses for them but lines the pockets of gangs while they’re doing it. The reality is that this law has not seen enough time to see its full potential. People have to serve the entire prison sentence on a second strike, and there are 640 of them who will be doing this when the legislation got under way back in November last year. Now, we have 24 third-strikers—21 when we started—that average 74 serious violent convictions each. Again, these are not the petty criminals; these are the worst of the worst.

Our second-strikers: I mentioned 640 of them being eligible for a third strike, and there’s been concern about disproportionate sentences having to be offered by judges. Well, let’s analyse that a bit, shall we? In the second strike, you still need to have a full sentence, but a judge can actually look at what that sentence may be, and we have a couple of examples here. What about Justice Cooke’s sentencing of Wayne Reardon, the Black Power member who was convicted of being the ring leader in the shooting of James Butler in his driveway? That sentencing happened in only April of this year—a second-strike sentence—and despite the finality of death for Mr Butler, Reardon had his upbringing, the trauma in his life, taken into account at sentencing, and Justice Cooke was also mindful of not being disproportionately severe in the second-strike sentencing because the entire sentence would need to be carried out. In Reardon’s case, it was suggested in one media report that the sentence was light because it would need to be served in its entirety. A second-striker sentenced to a full term of incarceration for taking a man’s life—it seems fair to me, and it seems fair to a number of Kiwis out there, too.

What about last year’s sentencing of John Collins for the baseball bat killing of Brent Bacon? The injuries to the victim were so violent in nature that they were described as being akin to that of a severe head trauma, comparable to a high-speed impact to the head often seen in car accidents, which this was not. But Collins also tried unsuccessfully to justify the murder as self-defence, which it was also not. The judge decided that a whole-of-life term would be grossly disproportionate and so jailed him for life, and, as a second-striker, he got a minimum non-parole period of 17 years. These criminals need to serve their second-strike sentences and be back out in society, either committing more crime or not, for us to really see the full benefits of the three-strikes sentencing. We’ve allowed judges to take into account the disproportion that could occur in sentencing, so that’s no excuse, really.

There is data that shows a small deterrent having had occurred already, contrary to what the Government and other Opposition parties will tell us, and we expect that that would have grown, especially as the Act has only been in place since 2010. Had the worst of the worst been able to be retained and rehabilitated, having served their full second-strike sentences, we would have seen a decrease, I am sure of it, in another 10 years’ time. But you know what is disproportionate? Violent crime.

Violent crime is showing a disproportionate occurrence every day in our communities, especially if you live in Auckland, or, as it’s playing out now, anywhere in New Zealand. What’s worse is the notoriety that goes with it all. One quote from research talks of a second-strike offender that had an offence take place in the prison where he was serving his second strike. In order to rally up the troops from his gang, he—and I quote—“smeared the injured inmate’s blood on his hands and wiped it on the bars that covered the windows of his gang member’s cell doors.”

Labour wants you to let these people out, back out to a home near you. We won’t have it and we plan on repealing this repeal when we get into power in 2023 with our neighbours National. We’re going to have very busy time undoing this mess. We oppose this bill.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour—Northland): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker Bennett, and congratulations on your appointment to the role. It is a pleasure to take this first call before you—congratulations.

I will only take a short moment. As a proud member of the Justice Committee and as the proud co-chair of the Māori caucus, I support the repeal of this three-strikes legislation. Māori, as the chair of our Justice Committee pointed out in her contribution, are almost nine times more likely to receive a first strike than those of European or other ethnicities, and over 18 times more likely to receive a second strike. In the advice that we received at the select committee, the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court have found sentences imposed under the regime contravene the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, with Māori significantly overrepresented in the group of offenders who have received a strike. Twenty-three offenders have received a third strike, 81 percent of whom are Māori. I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon David Bennett): This is a split call.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki) (remote): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Well, what an honour to be taking a call with you newly in the Chair. Can I just acknowledge the last speaker, Willow-Jean Prime—that no one wants discrimination and disproportionateness—but now she is suggesting, ultimately, that justice is no longer blind but is to take into account colour rather than the crime itself, and that, itself, is a problem, and I want to make it really clear on the record that our justice system should not be based on who a person is; it should be firmly based on what a person does.

National continues to oppose this bill, the Three Strikes Legislation Repeal Bill, and I want to illustrate the reasons why by drawing on some very local examples in my Tāmaki electorate, which highlight the need for strong laws that not only are strong in themselves but also send very clear statements to people that crime is not appropriate. So in recent hours in my electorate, there’s been an attempted aggravated robbery with a gun. There’s been at least two shootings in my electorate in the last month or so. There have been more ram raids than I can count on my hands and toes. And just in the recent days—the last three or four days—I could count the number of break-ins, again, on one hand, one of them leading to the owner of that business having a medical event, which obviously traumatised him and his family but also my community. We’ve had dirt bikes swarming Tāmaki Drive and through the likes of Kohimarama and Mission Bay and St Heliers.

Others, of course, reference what’s happening wider. We’ve had the terrible events on Queen Street—daylight robberies, again, involving weapons—and I do want to echo what Mark Mitchell has said, because I also have this fear that in time, and in a short time, with this ongoing and more and more brazen crime, we are going to see someone be very seriously hurt, be it an innocent member of the public, a police officer, or the offender themselves, particularly if they’re a youth offender and some store owner understandably—but, you know, wrongly, in a vigilantly sense—takes it into their own hands.

Why this is also a major problem is that, even for those who eventually get locked up into our prisons, under Kelvin Davis, thousands of them are let out. And again, just in recent weeks, we’ve seen six youth on the roof. We’ve seen a bail house, which the Minister has visited multiple times but forgot to put in his diary, now been found to be filled with guns and drugs, not just bailed people from our prisons. We’ve had an officer stabbed 12 times and information in recent days, which is only just touching media, of a prison officer thrown off a balcony to fall 2 metres after an altercation with a violent prisoner.

So I’m sharing all of this because we have a major problem with crime. We have a major problem with corrections under this Labour Government. My community is sick and tired of it. They’re sick and tired of the violence, the robberies, the raids, and the disruptions, and they want to see tougher laws. And so, fundamentally, why a Labour Government, supported by the likes of the Greens, would remove three-strikes legislation—would remove tools for justice—is beyond them. And so I reject this piece of legislation and will not be supporting it.

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori) (remote): Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā tātou e te Whare. I rise on behalf of Te Paati Māori to speak to the third reading of the Three Strikes Legislation Repeal Bill—or, as the National Party call it, the “Three Strikes (Unless You Want to Go to Kings College) Legislation Repeal Bill”! Hoi anō, three strikes might make sense in baseball, but our criminal justice system is not a game. However, when you treat politics like an American sport, it’s easy to see how National and ACT could confuse the two. We too disagree with violence and bullying, and the three-strikes law bound the hands of the judiciary with the implicit purpose of locking up more Māori for potentially low-level crimes—modelled on the US law which targeted black Americans. It has made our racist justice system even more racist, and even less considerate of tikanga Māori. The repeal of this mean-spirited, archaic, and ineffective piece of legislation is long overdue, and Te Paati Māori hopes that this also signals a move to a more transformative system of justice and reform.

Crime in Aotearoa is a result of colonisation and inequality. If we are serious about curbing crime and violence in the country, then we need to get serious about looking at the causes, not the symptoms. We must invest more into initiatives that work, like Whānau Ora, and into our communities, who know what is needed to reconnect whānau to their marae, their hapū, their iwi, and their Māoritanga. State-run services have proven to fail Māori, and it’s time to devolve our resources by Māori, for Māori, to Māori kaupapa. We are facing the worst cost of living crisis in generations. Successive Governments have continued to ignore growing inequality and the breakdown of community that drives people to commit crimes in the first place, opting for a tough on crime approach to poverty instead.

I feel for whānau who are living in fear of violence in their communities—fear that has been stoked by the media and the likes of National and ACT for political clout. A community-strengthening approach that addresses the drivers of offending is what will make our communities safer for everyone. Since the Government began its programme to decrease the number of Māori in prisons in 2019, our prison population has gone up by 2 percent. It has become abundantly clear that this punitive approach to justice has only made things worse for Māori. The only time Māori receive special treatment is when we are dealing with the criminal justice system. It has profiled and targeted tangata whenua for as long as it has existed in this country. We cannot imprison inequality out of society. ACT and National cannot call themselves “tough on crime” when they are soft on poverty.

Repealing three-strikes legislation has been longstanding Te Paati Māori policy, but we are disappointed that the Government ruled out compensation and transitionary arrangements for those currently serving time as a result of the law. This should have been reconsidered at the select committee. In the words of my tungāne Hone Harawira, when the three-strikes legislation was originally passed in 2010, “It is a short-sighted man who thinks that legislation that sends people to jail for a long time reduces crime rates. It is a blind man who sees justice in sentencing people to life imprisonment for responding to circumstances they have little control over. It is a bloody fool who thinks that this bill will do anything else but create frustration, anger, and violence within our prison population.” Te Paati Māori opposes this bill with all its heart. We’ll work with whomever it takes to develop intelligent policy over knee-jerk idiocy, and rehabilitation over degradation. Tēnā koutou katoa.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Mr Speaker, thank you and congratulations on your appointment to this role. This will be a short call from me and I am grateful to the Labour Government for passing this legislation imminently, because I’m done with this conversation. I’m done with the conversation in this House, which is mostly political posturing about a problem we all agree on: a problem of reducing crime on those that are most affected by it. And who are most affected by it? They are people who look and sound like me. In South Auckland, Māori are 30 percent more likely to experience violent crime. Māori women make up 7 percent of the population but we experience 20 percent of the assaults. We’ve got to get serious about addressing crime and that’s what this Government is doing. This window dressing that is three strikes does not solve the problem and I’m proud to be getting rid of it today.

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I join others in congratulating you on your elevation to the current role that you have. I was relieved to see that no one objected to your appointment, including yourself. But we’ll see; the night is yet young!

Obviously, an incredibly serious topic. It’s being treated seriously across the House, as is right. Obviously, differences of opinion on a number of different points, including its most basic level as to whether parties support the repeal or not. As others of the National Party have made clear—and our colleagues in the ACT Party, likewise—we don’t support the repeal. We do, indeed, support the three-strikes regime, or at least a three-strikes regime. I think it would be fair to say that to the extent that there are any anomalies in the regime as to which are qualifying offences, then a reasonable conversation could be had. But for now, we’re engaged with the discussion of that which is in front of us, which is, of course, the holus-bolus repeal of what’s often referred to as the three-strikes regime, being, of course, an aspect of the sentencing arrangements in this country.

In my time, I wanted to focus mostly, or at least initially, on the constitutional aspects. Others have made mention of these, but I think it’s important to ensure that we all clearly understand—and, for what it’s worth, place on the record—some thoughts about how the different branches have interacted in relation to, first, the passing of the law, its application, and, indeed, what we might broadly describe as the repeal process. Also, I did want to discuss different aims of the criminal justice system. It seems to me that often in these debates there’s a conflation of different but related aims of the criminal justice system. I think it’s fair to those who are arguing in favour of the regime actually to understand the benefit that such a sentencing regime can have beyond the tired old discussion about whether certain types of offending are likely to have a deterrent effect or not.

I did actually also—and, in fact, I’m determined that however I manage my time in relation to those other points—want to finish on a note of acknowledging victims of crime. I think if we are to take seriously our role as legislators, but also as members of our communities, whether they be geographical communities, constituencies, Māori or non-Māori—aka general—electorate, or, indeed, constituencies in a more general sense in that we represent people of New Zealand. In any case, we should in this House always be mindful of those who are affected by the laws that we pass. Of course, in the criminal law, the parties to a matter before the courts are the accused and the State. The victim, roughly speaking—and I’m using shorthand here—isn’t actually a party to the proceedings, isn’t actually formally involved. Almost entirely that’s the case, and that seems to me to heighten our responsibility in this House to speak for victims and the things that are important to them in creating an architecture of criminal justice.

First, then, the constitutional aspects, as I promised. It goes without saying that there are circumstances in which judges can make law—in the case of civil wrongs, aka torts, also in situations where statute law is unclear, or there are gaps, or interpretation is needed. It’s reasonable—indeed, conventional—that if there are inconsistencies between domestic law and international law, where there is a lack of clarity about whether Parliament had intended such an inconsistency, that the judges will give the bounce of the ball, so to speak, in favour of the interpretation that be consistent with the international obligations. However, I think it’s been pretty clear, and generally acknowledged on both sides of the debate for and against three strikes, that many of our courts—and I choose my words carefully—have decided to prefer an interpretation of the three-strikes legislation that seems at odds to most observers with the clear intention of Parliament at the time that it passed that statute.

So as my colleague and friend the Hon Paul Goldsmith has noted, the disproportionality—which is the objectionable element within the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, according to those who would have three strikes repealed. As to proportionality, actually that’s a feature, not a bug, of that legislation. The distorting effect, as those across the House have described it, is intended by Parliament, because the evidence is clear that those who commit some crimes—sadly, there’s a large recidivist element, and three strikes is actually poorly named to the extent that oftentimes there are many dozens of offences. Indeed, on average, that’s the case—that many dozens of offences have been racked up by offenders who are facing what is formally their third strike in the sense of being qualifying offences. There’s much damage that is done to communities when any kind of offending takes place, and so if we’re going to talk in this House about distorting effects, then we should acknowledge the hugely distorting effects on communities, victims, and their families of violent crime.

There’s a sense in which laws are passed not only to have specific effects that are very measurable and tangible but also in the sense that they send a signal to the community about what its representatives regard as reasonable and acceptable in a civilised society. To the extent that the Parliament, in passing laws that will soften the official position on offending—the point I’m trying to make is that while one would never wish to condone vigilante action or self-defence beyond the reasonable and the proportionate, the reality is that many people in our communities feel under threat by violent offending. They’re not confident that they will have the protection that the courts and the prisons and the justice system generally should afford it. That’s the fault of Parliament, rather than the courts and the prisons, I hasten to add. So it’s important that we don’t undermine that sense of justice, in that general sense, as well as the real feeling of protection and safety that citizens of this country—by which I include, obviously, those who are not technically citizens—should derive from the laws of the land.

The sense of justice—which is, obviously, a pretty nebulous concept—I think needs to be understood alongside the aims of deterrence, and we’ve talked about that. But also prevention, and it’s often missed by those opposed to the three-strikes regime that there’s an important preventative role; namely, that those who are incarcerated having committed at least three very serious violent crimes will be prevented from offending in the community during that time that they are behind bars, and, of course, that’s an opportunity for rehabilitation. I think there’s common ground across the House that rehabilitation is one of the very worthy aims of our criminal justice system, and it is not incompatible, it is not mutually exclusive, it is not inconsistent with the idea of the three-strikes regime, because we allow people the opportunity to, you know, gain education or generally mend their ways, and a chance to reflect on that while they are quite literally a captive audience.

The manifesto commitment point that others have made across the House—and then, almost in the same breath, criticised National and ACT for having brought in the regime on the basis of a manifesto commitment—yeah, we can trade this kind of observation all day long, but I don’t think it does much good. I don’t think it’s much of an argument to say that it is enough that a party has promised to repeal a law. Of course, that’s unhelpful from a mandate point of view, and I do acknowledge that. The Government, now occupying the benches, of course, won the last election. That’s why they’re there, and included in their manifesto was a commitment to repeal. So that, so far as it goes, is fair enough. But they also have a mandate to protect victims, not only because that’s what most reasonable people would say should be a role of the State, and, indeed, this House, but because that is the very rhetoric that they have been employing when it has been convenient to them in relation to other matters of criminal justice. So I just appeal to the House to hold Government members to account when they say, perhaps glibly, that it’s sufficient justification to repeal a law that one had campaigned on it; noting that if they’d also campaigned on the aspect of victims’ safety and victims’ rights and a victim-centred justice system, then they should honour that commitment as well, no less than the other.

So, finally, then, but most importantly, the victims of crime deserve not only that general sense of justice, not only that physical, real, tangible notion of safety but also they need to have some sort of certainty, where possible, in relation to the conduct of their victims, the movement of their victims, the ability of their victims to threaten and revictimise them. So to the extent that there is certainty provided by the three-strikes regime—yes, to the extent that that’s inconsistent with judicial discretion, that’s unusual—but to the extent that provides some certainty for the victims about the amount of time from which they will be free from being terrorised by their previous tormentor, then that’s a good thing, we say. We are on the side of the victims, and we, therefore, for all the reasons we have said today, oppose the repeal of the three-strikes legislation.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. One of the key functions of the judiciary is discretion in sentencing. The repeal of this law—the three-strikes law—will put the discretion back where it should be: with the judiciary. This is really important, because the loss of liberty is one of the most serious sanctions we have as a society, and it should not be entered into lightly.

This three-strikes law has not worked. It has created distortion. It is not evidence-based. It has not reduced offending. It has created inconsistencies. It has created unfairness. It has not made our communities safer. It does not tackle the drivers of crime or, as the previous speaker suggested, protect victims. It is contrary to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. It creates disproportionality. As previous speakers have suggested—and it is true—it also predominantly affects and unfairly affects Māori. And—my most important point—it is unnecessary. Judges can always put the maximum sentence in place, and that is why I commend this repeal bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Three Strikes Legislation Repeal Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 77

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

Noes 43

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Bill

In Commitee

CHAIRPERSON (Hon David Bennett): Members, the House is in committee on the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Bill. I remind members that they are able to participate remotely. If you’re on Zoom and want to take a call please type “call” into the chat. You should also use the chat if you want to raise a point of order. If we receive new tabled amendments I will advise members so that they can refresh the House papers page to see the new amendment. Finally, it would be helpful for members to ask multiple questions, if they have them, of the member in charge during their call. Members, we now come to Part 1. Part 1—this is the debate on clauses 3 to 12, “Amendments to Arms Act 1983”. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Part 1 Amendments to Arms Act

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d like to say it’s a pleasure to take a call on the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Bill in committee stage and, as we’ve already indicated to the Minister, we will be supporting the legislation because I guess you could take the approach that something may be better than nothing.

But as the Minister knows, this bill does not go nearly far enough in a whole range of areas to actually—what we feel and actually supported by the Police Association—give the front-line police officers the tools that they actually need to make a genuine and a quick impact on the massive rise in gang-related, gun-related violence that, unfortunately, although we were told that it was a spike it will carry on. It’s carried on. I see in the New Zealand Herald today there was a report of a bail reintegration centre—and I certainly hope it’s not getting Government funding. But apparently the police had signalled that it was a facility that they weren’t very happy about and they executed a search warrant and recovered three military-style weapons, from what I understand some armour piercing - type rounds, some cash and some drugs, and one King Cobra gang member arrested and charged—from what I understand—with drugs.

The problem’s not going away, Minister, and so if you’re going to bring legislation and you’re going to take the time of the House and you’re going to say that you’re a Minister that’s going to get serious about supporting our front-line police officers and ensuring that the public are safe, then bring a firearms prohibition order (FPO) to the House that actually is going to do that.

The first thing that I’d like the Minister to get up and speak to is just explain to us and talk us through the time frames, how he sees the bill being implemented, whether or not he has received any advice from police in terms of what they anticipate in terms of charges, convictions, and the sentencing regime—so, i.e., how many offenders, or defendants, are going to actually have an FPO? Then how are they going to operationalise it and how is it actually going to work, so that we get a sense that in the next six months, how is this firearms prohibition order actually going to make a tangible and substantial impact on what it’s been brought to the House for and that is dealing with illegal firearms; gang members, organised crime members carrying them, willing to use them; drive-by shootings—every day putting members of the public in harm’s way, creating fear, and, by the will of God I don’t know how, we’ve avoided a member of the public being seriously injured or killed in one of these inter-gang drive-by shootings.

We’ve seen in the last few weeks domestic violence cases where people have been killed with firearms by gang members. So we feel on this side of the House that actually if an FPO, a firearms prohibition order—which, by the way, the police have been asking for quite some time, and it was in the briefing to the incoming Minister when Labour took over as Government in 2017. We’ve had two bills that we’ve brought to the House that have both been voted down by the Government. We think this is important but it shouldn’t just be lip service. Bringing a bill to the House that’s actually pretty weak probably isn’t really going to do much—how are you going to operationalise it, what actually tangible effects, impacts, is it going to have on the front line in terms of what they’re dealing with in their desire to keep the public safer?

So I’d like the Minister to actually stand and take us through in this committee exactly how this bill is going to work and the advice he’s got in terms of what impact it’s going to have on the current situation in New Zealand in relation to illegal firearms and gun violence.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): I too congratulate you, Mr Chair, on your appointment to the Chair.

Minister, I have a couple of questions I’d like to start off with, and one of them is in regard to clause 7, where we’re going to amend section 24A(1)(c)(ca), where those excluded from ever being “fit and proper” to hold a firearms licence will include those people who have had a firearms prohibition order placed on them at some stage in their life.

I read that, Minister, as not really being a 10-year penalty; it’s a lifetime penalty. I wonder, Minister, whether you can speak to that and the intent and what proposals the Government foresees in the ability for someone who may be 30 years on from having a firearms prohibition order, who wishes to hunt and gather for their family—would they be able to do so under the immediate supervision of a licensed firearms holder or would they be expelled from being able to do so at all?

My second question to you, Minister, is in regard to clause 8, where we introduce new Part 7A, specifically new section 39A(1)(a)(ii). Minister, there has been a change where “serious violent offences” becomes “specified violent offences”, and, of course, we were looking at section 86A of the Sentencing Act, but I notice that your Supplementary Order Paper 212 now refers to section 4 in the Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Act 2014. Section 4 actually refers back to section 86A of the Sentencing Act.

So I’m wondering if you could please clarify, for those at home who don’t understand, why we’re going around about the difference between the “specified” offence and the “serious” violent offence, because that does mean quite a bit to those that are at home. I’ll start off with those two. Thanks, Minister.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): Can I thank the member for her very specific questions. In terms of the cross-referencing in the legislation, that actually relates to the Three Strikes Legislation Repeal Bill that was just passed by the House and has yet to receive the Royal assent. It will receive the Royal assent before this bill does, and, therefore, that makes changes to the relevant clauses in this bill, effectively. It reorganises the way things are represented in the legislation that this bill amends. So this bill has had to be amended to reflect the amendments that the House has just passed. That’s the reason why some of those cross-references are different now in this bill to the ones that were previously referenced.

In terms of the earlier question around the “fit and proper” person test, I do think it’s a very fair question. The fit and proper person test—the factors that are considered, they’re not hard and fast rules. So the fact that someone’s had a firearms prohibition order (FPO) against them is something that the police or the person renewing or granting a firearms licence would consider. But it doesn’t mean that the fact that they’ve had an FPO means that they’re absolutely disqualified. It becomes a factor that can be considered in processing the licence application, but it doesn’t bar someone from having either a new licence or a licence renewal successfully processed.

In terms of Mark Mitchell’s question about the extent to which the legislation might be applied, that will really come down to the courts. So if we look at the offences that it can be applied for—serious offences against the Arms Act, serious violent offences including murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, manslaughter, discharging a firearm, aggravated robbery and sexual violation offences with intent to cause harm or grievous bodily harm, violent sexual offences, strangulation, suffocation, terrorism offences, and organised crime offences—that’s a pretty extensive list. It covers quite a wide range of offenders, and the extent to which the courts apply FPOs, at this point, is unknown.

Obviously, the police will make their views to the courts known about where they think that is justified. I think it would be too early to tell, frankly, how many people are likely to be the subject of FPOs at this point. Ultimately, it will be up to the police to determine when they seek, from the courts, a firearms prohibition order to be applied.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Mr Chair. Speaking here at the committee stage of the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Bill. Just to remind people who are tuning into this debate: the Government has introduced this bill to try and more effectively deal with the problem of firearm crime that we are facing and general violent crime across the community.

We’ve been calling for some sort of firearms prohibition order to be placed on convicted criminals who have been active in using firearms, as well as committing serious other crimes, for quite some time. We’ve failed on a couple of bills. The Government has finally brought in its own bill, which we on this side support, but we do so noting the fact that there are some significant missed opportunities in the bill that we are confronting, primarily around the search provisions, which are addressed in Part 2, as I understand it. And we’ll come to that debate at the appropriate time, Mr Chair, and I’m sure you will be vigilant in your concern and care about that.

So what we’re dealing with here in the first part is the introduction of these firearm protection orders for, as the Minister outlined, a series of very serious offences, such as murder and attempted murder and discharging a weapon and aggravated robbery. So it’s a very high threshold of violent crime which would mean that a firearm protection order could be passed as part of their sentence, which would stop them from owning a firearm and doing a whole bunch of other things for 10 years.

Interestingly, the bill as introduced doesn’t allow one to be introduced if the offender is under the age of 18. And we could ask the Minister just to remind us why, if a 17-year-old shoots and murders somebody, this wouldn’t be an option to consider for them? He might be able to make some comments on that.

Also, I’d be interested to know whether he is confident that the standard conditions of the firearm protection order around association of places and people where firearms are kept will be, effectively, enforced and able to be enforced. We think of people driving around in cars. I’m just conscious of the fact that in Auckland in the last few months there’s been more than 30—I think it’s probably up to 40 now—shootings in the city, just in the last few months. This is not Chicago that we’re talking about. This is not Miami in the 1980s or anything like that; this is Auckland. And we’re seeing an enormous number of shootings in our city. And so the public is rightly very concerned about that, and keen that we can have an effective response.

Now, obviously, the most important part of that is effective policing, backed by the Government with the resources and legislation that they need to fight back against the perpetrators of this, which does seem often, but maybe not always, to be connected with gang activity. So the question I have for the Minister is, is he confident, running through new Part 7A, section 39C(1)(a) down to (f), that those standard conditions of a firearm protection order are sufficient to achieve the goal that he sets out to achieve?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): I think I only noted two questions out of that contribution: one is why 16- and 17-year-olds shouldn’t be the subject to firearms prohibition orders, and the second being whether I think that this is sufficient legislation.

In answer to the second part of the question: on its own, no, it’s not. There are other things that we need to be doing as well, and there is further legislation in the pipeline that the Government will be bringing before the House. And that will no doubt be subject to scrutiny during the select committee process and considerable debate, and I will welcome the opportunity to participate in that debate. This is not a magical solution to every problem we face around gangs—or, in fact, firearms offences—but it is an additional useful tool for the police.

In terms of the other issue that the member raised, which I’ve now suddenly forgotten, having—

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Young offenders.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The 16- and 17-year-olds. I think the position that we have taken is that there are other avenues for pursuing 16- and 17-year-olds who have undertaken offending which are designed to get them back on to the straight and narrow, and that they should be pursued first.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you, Mr Chair. Just a question to the Minister in relation to Part 7A, section 39A(2): “The court may make an FPO against the offender if the court is satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that the imposition of the FPO is necessary, reasonable, and appropriate to assist in managing the risk that the offender poses to public safety.” And I just bring the Minister back to his last comment that this firearms prohibition order (FPO) is meant to be a tool that is used by the police and helps them deal with gun-related crime.

But one of the greatest frustrations, certainly—and it’s not a new one—often for the police is an opposition to bail in front of the courts. The judge by no means is in a position, nor is he compelled, to support police opposition to bail, and unfortunately we’ve seen some tragedies unfold in this country with homicides where there’s been an opposition to bail by the police that has not been upheld by the court.

I’m concerned that the police now are going to have to make an application to the judge to try get an FPO. It’s another hurdle for the police to jump over to try get an FPO in place for what is a violent offender, because, as the Minister laid out, these offences are serious. And I’m wondering what advice the Minister has received in relation to section 39A(2) from the police and how they think that that will work—whether there were any concerns raised, whether any of these other issues were discussed around the fact that the police, effectively, can’t have an FPO applied to someone that they see as a danger to the public or with gang affiliation or a gang member or even just a lone wolf. And so I’d like the Minister to sort of discuss with the committee and share any information with the committee in relation to that advice that he got.

And also the other point is whether or not there’s any sort of measure of success: what targets, what goals has the Minister set with advice from the police in terms of being able to measure the success of this FPO, when it is actually operationalised.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): A couple of things in that. First of all, these days there are women on the judiciary as well—they’re not all just men.

The other thing, in terms of the issue that the member has raised in terms of how we would measure the success of firearms prohibition orders, that, of course, is a challenging one, because preventing crime means that there isn’t something to measure in the first place, and ultimately that’s what this is designed to achieve. If you stop someone who has been a previous offender using a firearm to offend again, or to do a different type of offending, that would be quite difficult to be able to measure that, but it’s a successful outcome none the less.

In terms of whether or not the courts are the right people to make the decision about whether or not someone should be subject to a firearms prohibition order, the Government’s view is that they should be. If you took the member’s implied argument in that question to its logical conclusion, the judges would have no discretion and there would be mandatory sentences in legislation. But we don’t do that as a Parliament, by and large, because we acknowledge that, you know, the judges have a difficult job to weigh up all of the circumstances of a case and to make sure that the sentence is proportionate.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. Minister, I’m looking at section 39C, where the standard conditions for a firearms prohibition order (FPO) have been set out, specifically (1)(d) of section 39C where it prohibits a person with an FPO upon them from attending a shooting range or a gallery. I had asked through the select committee: what determines a shooting range? The reason why I ask this, Minister—you probably know about Remutaka Forest Park yourself. It’s an area—along with TECT Park in Tauranga is another example—where you have not only a shooting range but other public facilities happening at that same place.

At Remutaka Forest Park, for example, there’s gliding—aeroplane gliding—there’s also walking tracks, there’s also a go-kart facility there as well. And where the range actually is, some people cannot access the range, and a kilometre away is where they have to park their vehicles and take their firearms from their vehicles down to the shooting range.

I had asked the question during select committee: what is being defined as the shooting range? Because we don’t want people going go-karting and because they’ve parked their car where the guns are, they then are deemed to have gone against their FPO or their order.

And what I was told during the select committee process, Minister, was that the regulations regarding clubs and ranges were still in process and that it will be determined exactly what this means after that process has been finished and then a judge can decide what or whether that person was breaching their FPO.

I’m a little bit unhappy with that, because we have these areas where people could inadvertently breach them and not realise. So I’m hoping, Minister, that we can have recorded in Hansard the intent here to ensure that we don’t have people accidentally happen upon an area where there is not just only the go-kart or the gliding but there happens to be a shooting range there, as well. Thank you.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): Again, I thank the member for a very pertinent and reasonable question. Perhaps if I refer her to page 6 of the bill, section 42A(1), in clause 10, basically “a person commits an offence if the person breaches a firearms prohibition order … (b) by failing, without reasonable excuse, to comply with any condition of an order.”

I think the point that the member raises would, in my view, be a reasonable excuse. So if someone didn’t know, for example, that someone was going to be walking past carrying firearms in order to access a range that was some distance away that, to me, would be a reasonable excuse. The fact that someone happened to be in a car parking building where somebody else had firearms in a car, for example; again, they wouldn’t know that they were there. It fails on the reasonableness test for someone to be pursued or to be deemed in breach for those things. But I think it’s absolutely a legitimate point, where clarity is useful for those things; happy to put that on the record.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m on a roll now!

Clause 9 of this bill is moving current section 41A in the Arms Act and renumbering to section 59AAA and placing it after the Part 9 heading. It’s a tidy-up clause there. I have produced a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) where I have suggested that perhaps subclause (3) could be removed, and that is regarding the marking of certain types of firearms where the Crown absolves itself from having to pay any compensation for the devaluing of those items by this directive. I wonder whether or not the Minister would be prepared to support ACT’s SOP, which would make the Government—or the Crown—have to pay compensation for the devaluing of goods having to be marked?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): I thank the member for her honest attempt there in her Supplementary Order Paper, which is rather opportunistic, if I could put it that way. I do think it’s wide of the intention of this bill, which doesn’t really deal with those issues at all.

The renumbering and repositioning done under clause 9 is a direct result of the other amendments that this legislation progresses to make sure that the legislation as a whole continues to be coherent and have a logical structure to it. The provisions in clause 41A, which is now being renumbered and repositioned, haven’t actually been changed; so there’s been no policy intention to change any of that with this bill.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Mr Chair. Just going back to the part which refers to when a firearms protection order (FPO) might be made, and new section 39A(2) in clause 8, which says, “The court may make a [firearms protection order] against an offender if the court is satisfied,” about a whole bunch of things—“if the court is satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that the imposition of an FPO is necessary, reasonable, and appropriate to assist in managing the risk that the offender poses to public safety.”

I suppose the question I have is to try and get into the mind and the intention of the Government in passing this, because judges will be trying to decipher that, I suppose, when they make these decisions. If you took the example of somebody who had shot somebody else, and perhaps killed them—or perhaps didn’t kill them, but tried to kill them—would it be the expectation of the Government, in passing this bill, that that person would get a firearms protection order placed against them? Can he think of anything that would make it not necessary or not reasonable or not appropriate for somebody in that circumstance to have an FPO brought against them, or does he think it’s possible that somebody could shoot to kill somebody and maybe have the desire not to shoot anybody else, and therefore they’re not a risk to the public?

I’m not sure, but I’d like to get a sense from the Minister of what the expectation is, because he’s chosen to draft a very light-touch provision, which the court may, if a whole bunch of things flow from that—and sometimes it would be useful just to get a sense of what his expectation would be in those examples that I gave for somebody that used a firearm to shoot and kill somebody else or to shoot and not kill somebody else but intended to, or even if you took the example of somebody who just discharged a firearm recklessly, for example. How high is the Government’s expectation that these FPOs would be used, and what is the intention that he and the Government have on this matter?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): The Government’s expectation is that a firearms prohibition order will be put in place where it’s necessary, reasonable, and appropriate, and that, ultimately, is the decision of the judiciary. That is one of the fundamental premises—“premises”, if that’s the right language; it’s probably not, actually. That’s one of the fundamental components of our current approach to law and order in New Zealand, that we still rely on the judiciary to apply discretion and to apply judgment.

In other jurisdictions where much of the discretion and judgment has been taken away from the judiciary, they, in fact, have had to impose sentences and restrictions upon people that they themselves have said at sentencing they felt were disproportionate and that they disagreed with. Thankfully, that’s not a path that New Zealand has, by and large, gone down, and this Government doesn’t intend to start on it.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you, Mr Chair. A question to the Minister around new section 42A “Offence to breach firearms prohibition order”: “(1) A person commits an offence if the person breaches a firearms prohibition order by—(a) accessing, possessing, or using any firearm, pistol, pistol carbine conversion kit, restricted weapon …”—and the rest of them—“or (b) failing, without reasonable excuse, to comply with any condition of the order.” How is a front-line police officer going to detect whether or not a person with a firearms prohibition order is in breach of either (a) or (b)?

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): My question is in relation to clause 12 which amends section 69 relating to forfeitures. New subsection 69(1A) will read that any person, with an FPO upon them, found breaching an order and in possession of a firearm will have, upon sentencing, an order that those items will be forfeited to the Crown.

I had asked the question in select committee: “Well, what if those firearms were stolen?” What if it’s Billy-Bob Joe with Uncle Bob in the vehicle, and Uncle Bob’s going off hunting—what if there is legitimate reason for those firearms actually not to be confiscated and forfeited to the Crown, but returned to their owners? I understand that section 69(2) does give an exemption where the Crown doesn’t have to forfeit if they feel it’s unjust to do so.

But I wonder, Minister, what provisions will be in place where it is found later that the firearm can be identified as belonging to a legitimate owner where it’s been stolen, after the court has decided it’s going to be forfeited? What response are we giving to those firearm owners who will be expecting that registration will mean the return of their firearms, not the confiscation and forfeiture of them?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): I’ll get a little bit further information to answer Nicole McKee’s question, and I’ll endeavour to do so in a moment. But I do want to pick up Mark Mitchell’s question.

I have to say, I did take pause with this question because the answer seems so obvious. The police generally are pretty bright. And so if someone is possessing a firearm, for example, and they are found to be in possession of a firearm, then clearly they are in breach of the legislation. If they are using a firearm, then they are in breach of the legislation. So I’m not entirely sure what he’s kind of getting at where he’s trying to determine whether or not the police would be bright enough to determine that someone possessing a firearm might be in breach. I think they make those sorts of judgments all day, every day.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you, Mr Chair. Quite simply what I mean, Minister, is that if an offender or defendant has had a firearms prohibition order (FPO) against them and they are in violation of either paragraphs (a) or (b) of subclause (1) of 42A, how is a police officer meant to detect that breach? If the police officer asks that person and inquires of them and says, “Are you compliant with your FPO?”, and the person says, “Yes”, but they have a handgun tucked into their belt or concealed somewhere on them, how is the police officer actually meant to check and ensure that they’re being compliant with the FPO?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): If the police officer has reason to suspect that someone is not in compliance with that, then they have an ability to search in order to determine that. They can do that warrantlessly.

In terms of the—coming back to Nicole McKee’s question, which, again, I think is a reasonable question, this is an issue that the police grapple with already at the moment in terms of the lawfulness of the ownership of stolen firearms or even firearms that are perhaps “borrowed” without the consent of the owners of those firearms. There is a process that police go through to investigate that, to investigate the circumstances under which they came to be in the possession of firearms from the lawful owners of the firearms, and, where necessary, they can be returned to the lawful owners if they have been taken without consent—they’ve been stolen or, again, borrowed without consent, in the case of, say, a family member, for example.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you, Mr Chair. Minister, again I’m going to ask you because you responded by saying—first of all, you sort of had a go at the intelligence of a front-line police officer, but, actually, you’ve brought legislation here that, in my view and in my experience, police officers will always stay within the spirit of the law and the laws and the legislation that they have to operate inside. And I asked you and I said to you, “If a front-line police officer happened to be on the beat and came across someone that they knew had an firearms protection order and a history for carrying firearms, and they stopped and spoke to the person, and they inquired and said, “Are you being compliant with paragraphs (a) and (b) of subclauses (1) and (2) of 42A?” and the person said, “Yes.”, how is the police officer meant to actually check and ensure that they are being compliant with that firearms protection order if they have no reasonable excuse?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): The issue here is very clearly that if they have a reasonable suspicion that someone is not in compliance with the legislation, then they can conduct a search, and they can conduct a search without a warrant. We’ve covered this ground several times before. The issue is that their firearms prohibition orders are in place for 10 years, and if the member is suggesting that someone who’s subject to a firearms prohibition order should be able to be randomly searched as many times—well, in an unlimited way—for the entirety of that 10 years, then I think that that is a bridge too far.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki) (remote): Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s always good to see an O’Connor in the Chair.

A quick question, Minister. It really is around expected workload and time frames, or, actually, mainly just workload capacity for the police and the courts. So, obviously, I support firearms prohibition orders (FPOs). As you’ll know, National feels you could have gone further, but has any work been done around—well, potential work—obviously police officers and the courts, with the context being they’re already busy? I can obviously accept FPOs are just another standard piece of business, or will become so, for the police, but they’re already stretched, they’re already busy, so too the courts. Have you or any of your officials done any work around how much time or workload this may cause?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): That would be a very difficult thing to model, because, of course, it would suggest that we could separate this out from the other work that police are doing. In fact, in many instances, this will just be one component of an investigation or one component of the work that police are already doing. It is an additional tool for them to use where it is appropriate for them to do so.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m coming back, Minister, to new section 42A, because what you say in this House matters and it’s important and it will be used as a reference point.

So I just want to be clear with the Minister that he seemed to have intimated to the committee that with the example that I gave—which is the most common one—where police officers stop someone who is known to them. In having a firearms prohibition order (FPO), if they speak to that person and ask them if they are in compliance with that FPO, and if they’re in compliance with section 42A(1)(a) and (b), how have they got any way of actually checking and making sure—because he keeps putting up the reasonableness test, and I’d like him to lay out to this committee what is the reasonableness test. How are they able to check and make sure that that person—and let’s use a gang member as an example—is in compliance with the law in terms of the firearms prohibition order that’s been put against them?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): The reasonableness test is already something that police are well familiar with. In fact, there are several judgments that have set out the reasonableness test. I’m happy to quote a couple of them for the member, and I’m just making sure that I quote them accurately.

So in terms of one that was specific around warrantless searches when it comes to firearms, Ward v R from 2016, the Court of Appeal described the test as—and I’ll quote it directly—“We are satisfied that the power to conduct warrantless searches under section 18 continues to be subject to the requirement that, one, a constable exercising a warrantless power of search actually believes that there are reasonable grounds to suspect a breach of the Arms Act, and, two, the grounds for suspicion are objectively reasonable.”

If the Parliament wants to start to define what is objectively reasonable in a very specific statute, it will be tying the police’s hands behind their back, because, ultimately, it will increase the number of loopholes that will allow offenders to get off.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that the Minister’s amendment to Part 1 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 212 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Supplementary Order Paper 216 in the name of Nicole McKee is ruled out of order as being outside the scope of the bill. The question is that Part 1 as amended stand part.

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

Part 2 Amendments to other Acts

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Members, we now come to Part 2. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): It’s great to see you up there, and congratulations on your appointment, Mr Chair.

My question is to the Minister on Part 2, clause 18, amended section 3(1), where we’re amending the interpretation of “arms”. I’m referring here to a submission that the Council of Licensed Firearms Owners (COLFO) placed. Actually, if we’re going to refer to their submission, it’s paragraphs 15 to 18 within the COLFO submission. They talked about inconsistencies in the use of words in the interpretation, and it appears that it is quite untidy. This legislation now introduces—and I quote—“firearms or related part” to the terminology in the Arms Act 1993. Some of the terms listed under this new definition are already listed and some are slightly differently defined.

This new part isn’t operating in isolation; it’s actually operating in conjunction with the licensing and offence regimes. An example that the council gave was where a licensed firearm owner may have a firearms protection order in their home—so father and son—as long as the firearms or related parts are secured.

It seems important that when we have two different types of definitions that we need to explain what “related items” are to licensed firearm owners so that the people that can be caught up in this actually have an understanding of what it is, because some of those items are quite benign, like a sling, for example, and it’s not of any danger, but it can get people into a lot of trouble.

The definition actually needs to be consistent with the rest of the Arms Act. I just wonder, Minister, whether or not there will be education placed out there for licensed firearm owners to have an understanding of what the new term of “related part” actually means. Could you confirm if that’s going to happen, please.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): Thank you, Mr Chair. I certainly can confirm that there will be clear communications and education available, including for those who are the subject of a firearms prohibition order (FPO) as well, because we want them, ultimately, to comply with the FPO.

The issue that the member raises, I think, is not an unreasonable one, in the sense that the Arms Act is now quite an old piece of legislation relative to other statutes, and it has been heavily amended over its nearly 40 years of existence.

I think, from time to time, legislation does reach the point in this House where there’s a need to have a policy-neutral redraft just to actually make sure that the Act is updated, and I suspect the Arms Act is reaching that point. The challenge with something like the Arms Act, though—having done this in a number of other legislative areas—is it’s almost impossible to do that without it throwing up a few policy questions along the way as well.

So I can’t necessarily commit that we’ll be doing that in the short term, but I do think the Arms Act, when the time comes around for the regular revision bills process—which is where they look at bills like the Arms Act that have been around for a long time and amended quite heavily—if that was a candidate for a rewrite, I would certainly support that.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that the Minister’s amendment to Part 2 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 212 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that the Hon Mark Mitchell’s amendment inserting new clause 18A set out on Supplementary Order Paper 213 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 33

New Zealand National 33.

Noes 85

New Zealand Labour 65; ACT New Zealand 10; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that Part 2 as amended stand part.

Part 2 as amended agreed to.

Clauses 1 and 2

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Members, we now come to our final debate: clauses 1 and 2.

The question is that clause 1 stand part.

Clause 1 agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that clause 2 stand part.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Mr Speaker, the committee has considered the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Bill and reports it with amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: In accordance with a determination of the Business Committee, this bill is set down for third reading forthwith.

Third Reading

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): I present a legislative statement on the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Bill.

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

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I move, That the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Bill be now read a third time.

I’d like to thank members across the House for their unanimous support for the legislation progressing. I do think it will be an additional set of tools for the New Zealand Police to help to ensure that some of our worst offenders cannot access firearms and therefore it can help to reduce firearms-related harm.

To recap on the bill, as a result of this bill, the Arms Act of 1983 will be amended. It will enable the courts to issue a firearms prohibition order against an offender who is 18 years or older who’s been convicted of a qualifying offence that they committed after the amendments under this bill have been made. The eligible offences are all serious offences with sentences of more than five years. They include serious offences against the Arms Act: serious offences including murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, manslaughter, discharging a firearm with intent to injure, aggravated robbery, strangulation and sexual violation offences with intent to cause harm or grievous bodily harm, violent sexual offences, terrorist offences, including planning a terrorist act; and participating in an organised criminal group for the purposes laid out in the Crimes Act 1961.

Once subject to a firearms prohibition order, those people are prohibited from accessing, possessing, or using a firearm, airgun, imitation firearm, pistol, restricted weapon, pistol carbine conversion kit, any part of a firearm magazine prohibited item, or ammunition. Being subject to a firearms prohibition order will also place restrictions on a person’s ability to associate with people who have firearms or to be around firearms unless they are in a secure storage; stay where firearms are stored or are available; join or visit shooting clubs, ranges, or galleries; attend any activity that uses firearms; and visit places where firearms are made, repaired, modified, or sold—i.e., gun shops and workshops.

Similar regimes to this are in place in places such as Canada, the UK, and in five different Australian jurisdictions. One of the key differences between this New Zealand bill and several other overseas jurisdictions are the issues around search and surveillance powers. We did carefully consider those as a Government. We made the decision that the existing powers under section 18 of the Search and Surveillance Act of 2012, which already enable the police to carry out warrantless searches in relation to arms offences if there are reasonable grounds to do so—we made the decision that those were sufficient powers at this point for this legislation.

In bringing this legislation forward to the House, the Government’s always mindful of the need to balance the rights and freedoms of New Zealanders. That includes, of course, the right and freedom of New Zealanders to be safe in their own community. We believe that this bill strikes the appropriate balance there. I commend the bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker O’Connor. Can I just pass on my congratulations as well. I don’t know whether I should be nervous having you in the Chair or not, but congratulations. It’s good to see you there.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Thank you, Mr Mitchell.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Oh, I’ll wait and see. This is a massive lost opportunity by the Government. This firearms prohibition order (FPO) legislation actually could have had some teeth. It could have been meaningful. It could have actually given our front-line police officers the ability to start taking illegal firearms out of the hands of gangs. Sadly, I predict that this is going to be a complete flop. I’ll keep an eye on it. We’ll come back in six months and we’ll find out just how effective it’s been, because this is meant to be addressing an issue that’s in front of us right now. It’s not something that we anticipate happening—we’re not trying to harden our borders because there might be a terror threat. This is something that’s happening right now, right in front of us, every day: shootings, homicides, and illegal firearms; gangs well-armed and arming up even more.

The police asked for the firearms prohibition order as an effective tool for them to be able to deal with that. This isn’t an effective tool. It’s not retrospective at all, so it means there has to be some fresh offending. It goes in front of the judge, and the judge can decide whether or not they’re going to apply an FPO. The police can request one; the judge can decide. They apply the FPO to the defendant and they are then back out on the street, or maybe they get a term of imprisonment—I don’t know. But they have an FPO and they’re back out on the street, and nine times out of ten, they’ll be out reoffending. If it’s a gang member, they’ll be out associating with their mates, and the police are left to try and police them. They generally know who they are.

The Police Association, along with us, said that if you want to make this bill meaningful, if you actually want to allow the police to actually use it, be effective, and be able to stop people and search them and take any firearms that are found, and, by the way, let the criminals know that if they do want to drive on to the street with a firearm in their car, then there’s a much higher likelihood that the police can detect them with that firearm and take action. They need to have a warrantless search power—you need to have an extended search power.

This is status quo. There are no new search powers. The police have already got search powers under the Search and Surveillance Act—they’ve already got section 18. They could use that before this bill came into the House. There’s nothing new in this bill. There’s actually nothing new in this bill other than the fact that the judge now can issue a firearms prohibition order to an offender—that’s it. How this is going to be effective? How are the actual front-line police officers going to use this new piece of legislation to be effective, to clamp down on the gangs, and to keep the public safe? I think it’s going to be an abject failure.

What amazes me is that I put up a Supplementary Order Paper when the Minister was in the House during the committee stage, or maybe it was the second reading—no, I think it was the second reading. I said to him to let’s work across the House and let’s see if we can actually get that warrantless search power that the Police Association asked for—based off what the Australians had done to make sure that their legislation was effective; so there was lots of information there and evidence there, and the Police Association used that in their submission to the select committee—and let’s try and get this actually folded into the bill. Well, the Leader of the House and the Minister of Police and the sponsor of the bill turned around and said, “Oh, you obviously don’t understand. I thought you wanted to get this through. I thought you were supporting it. You know, we’re trying to rush this through to give it to the police, and you obviously don’t understand how the process goes because if we were to do that, it’s going to slow the process down.”

How is it going to slow the process down? It’s quite simply what I’ve done today by bringing a Supplementary Order Paper along, which has been voted down by the Government. There was a compromise in here—there was a compromise in this Supplementary Order Paper—because we removed “premises”, and we made it “public spaces and vehicles”. This is exactly what the Police Association in their submission to the committee said: if you don’t want to go with a full warrantless search power, there’s a compromise solution. This is the compromise solution. What have they done? They’ve voted it down.

I hope that this FPO bill does do what we all want it to achieve, and that is to give our police officers more powers to be able to remove illegal firearms and make our streets safer, make their jobs safer, and make the public safer. My fear is this—and I think probably, sadly, I’m going to be proven right. This bill is almost meaningless. It doesn’t introduce any more powers. It doesn’t give the police any more tools. It allows the court, on their own discretion, to apply an FPO order. We will be watching it, because we have got a continued ongoing rise in violent crime in our country. We should be the safest country in the world. We’re not, and we’ll be watching very closely to see whether or not this bill actually makes the impact that the Minister and the Government have told us that it will. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and may I congratulate you on your appointment to your new position. Nice to see you there.

Firearms-related crime represents a real risk to our community and, in particular, community safety. While firearms licensing and the regulatory regime has been somewhat strengthened already under this Government, there is further scope to reduce the opportunity, particularly for high-risk offenders, to have access to firearms and to, in doing that, further improve public safety.

I want to quickly touch on the history of this bill, because I think it’s important that way back in—I think it was—2013, when Minister Tolley was the Minister of Police, she brought an item to Cabinet back then to raise the issue of firearm prohibition orders, in 2013. And it wasn’t until way into March 2016 and then 2017 under Ministers Collins and Bennett, that’s the third Minister of Police under the previous Government, that we actually saw a Cabinet paper brought on firearm prohibition orders. But still—still—there was no legislation produced from that substantive discussion around the Cabinet table.

The very reason for that was the issue that has just been raised by the member who resumed his seat, Mark Mitchell, and that issue is on search powers that the previous National Government was torn right down the middle on—on whether to breach the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and have, like New South Wales does, warrantless, causeless searches or to do what this Government has done and to utilise the existing provisions within section 18 of the Search and Surveillance Act to enable firearm prohibition orders to operate in New Zealand.

So I’m proud to be part of a Government that was not only able to make their mind up but able to deliver a bill that will increase safety for New Zealanders. And so I think it’s a great thing that we have done. It’s been a delicate balance in order to be able to get that right, and this bill has been designed to carefully balance the public safety protections offered with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act considerations, alongside considering the restriction on the freedom of movement proposed by this bill. And they are warranted. They are warranted and it’s passed its vet because it makes that better for public safety. So I am proud to see a good bill pass that has got the balance right and that has delivered on something that the previous Government was simply unable to do. I commend it to the House.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. We, obviously, have pointed out in the other speeches during this debate that National supports this bill, the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Bill, that the Government has brought, and we’ve supported it being passed sooner rather than later, and quickly. We’ve just had the committee stage, we’re now having the third reading, and the bill will be passed. We’ve supported the swift movement on this, because we are conscious of the fact that there is a sense across the community that the Government isn’t on top of the law and order issues in our community.

I live in Auckland and I’m subject to the constant background of sirens, the helicopter flying overhead, the smash and grabs, the ram raids, the shootings across the city, which have increased dramatically this year—more than 35 in the last few months in Auckland. I saw a picture of them scattered all around, particularly around South Auckland and West Auckland but throughout the city, including in the CBD. People are conscious of the sense that things are somewhat out of control. They’re worried about their communities and they’re worried about their families, and they want to know that all members of this House are focused on that as an issue. And we certainly, on this side, are.

It comes on the same day that the Government has just passed another bill which reduces sentences for our worst repeat offenders by repealing the three-strikes legislation, which is a little bit odd. In this bill, they’re creating an extra tool in order to deal with an issue of gun crime and violence in our community at the same time as they’re reducing sentences for our worst repeat offenders. So that, I suppose, sums up the mixed messages that we’ve been receiving from the Government on justice matters and law and order matters for the 4½ years that it’s been in power. It’s been like they’re anti-gang, but they’re also going to give gangs some money, a couple of million, for rehabilitation programmes on drugs and things like that. And so people can’t work out exactly what the message is. Are we tough on crime or are we soft on crime? And many people have concluded that this Government is indeed soft on crime.

But this bill is, I suppose, on the Jekyll-and-Hyde kind of attitude that you get from the Government on crime—the Jekyll or the Mr Hyde, I don’t know which is which—where they’re pretending to be a little bit tougher and introducing a piece of legislation that will, as Minister Hipkins has said, help in some way. It’s not going to solve gun crime in totality. Nobody would expect that it would. But it will create another tool that the police can use and the justice system can employ, to impose these firearm prohibition orders on people who have been sentenced and convicted of crimes involving firearms in particular. You go and shoot somebody, and the chances are when you’re sentenced, part of your sentence will be a prohibition on owning a firearm for 10 years. And we support that.

What we are a little frustrated by is the reluctance of the Government to really expand the search and surveillance opportunities that went hand in hand with this in parts of Australia where similar powers have been introduced. Because, ultimately, yep, they’ve relied on the existing search and surveillance powers, which have a reasonably high test before police officers can go for a warrantless search, such that, in the case of people driving along the road who have a firearm prohibition order against them, that wouldn’t really provide sufficient means for a warrantless search that may be appropriate in the circumstances. And so we see this as a step in the right direction, but not as many steps as we would like. We continue to be concerned about the fact that this Government’s response to the surge in crime across our community hasn’t been sufficiently robust in order to get on top of it. New Zealanders are seeing the consequences of that in their communities. They’re worried about it and they want the Government to do a better job.

Anyway, this bill will help. This will help to some degree. It could have helped far more, but in so far as it does provide another tool for our justice system to use and our police to use in the ongoing fight against gun crime—which, as I say, is rampant across our cities at the moment—then we support it. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker O’Connor, and I’ll join my colleagues in congratulating you on your new appointment.

It’s an absolute pleasure to speak in support of this bill this evening, just as it was to speak in support of the repeal of three strikes. I consider it rather poetic that these two bills are, hopefully, passing on the same evening, because they both speak to this Labour Government’s approach to community safety and justice, which is evidence-based and which is based on the rule of law and principles of justice.

The other side have spoken about New South Wales. We have a report from the Ombudsman in New South Wales where he says that there’s no evidence that warrantless search powers without cause achieve the results sought, with a reference to data. I’m not sure whether to be entertained or whether to be horrified that the Opposition often don’t seem to bother themselves with things like data or evidence, and they don’t seem to bother themselves with things like the principles of justice, but, thankfully, on this side of the House, we do. I commend this bill to the House.

TEANAU TUIONO (Green): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker O’Connor. I rise to speak on behalf of Golriz Ghahraman, who is our usual spokesperson for these sorts of issues, but I’d also like to extend my congratulations on your ascension to the Chair. It looks good, and it suits you. [Interjection] Am I greasing? Maybe, maybe not.

I rise in support of this bill. I see it in line with a number of the firearms suite of changes that have come through since the tragic terror attack on March 15. It was a time of deep distress, and the ongoing trauma of that event, particularly for our Muslim whānau, is something that is still keenly felt today. So I see this law and this piece of legislation as moving in that direction, and it is about keeping and maintaining that promise to that community but also to Aotearoa New Zealand in general.

The Green Party has called for gun law reform for quite some time. Regulating gun violence falls within the kaupapa of the Green Party as one of our charter values is non-violence. Our vision of a justice system for Aotearoa New Zealand is one which values social responsibility, appropriate decision-making, and non-violent conflict resolution. These things should be paramount. In this system, disputes are solved quickly and fairly, everyone is entitled to justice, no one is judged without a fair hearing, everyone is given a reasonable chance to atone for past wrongs and reintegrate into society, and everybody is treated with respect. In this system the law benefits everyone equitably. We get that balance right so that people can be safe and we can uphold people’s access to the law.

This bill is about getting that balance right. It is about improving public safety. It is about improving the safety of New Zealand communities by preventing those people who are deemed to be at high risk to not be able to access firearms, and that is the general direction of this bill.

We do that by amending the Arms Act, and this way it will work—that is, if someone has been convicted of a specified offence that’s listed within the Act, the firearms prohibition order will then be issued by the court and not issued by the police. I think that’s the fine balance that we have struck with this piece of legislation moving forward, and that’s a good thing. If a person is serving a term of imprisonment, it will come into action once they’re released. It will apply for a period of 10 years’ time. An FPO—a firearms prohibition order—will set out criteria or conditions that someone must comply with. The bill allows a sentencing judge to issue a 10-year long firearms prohibition order when sentencing a convicted criminal. The exact conditions are up to the sentencing judge, and there are suggested standard conditions in this bill. But the important thing to note here as well is that an FPO can be appealed, just like any other sentence.

I don’t sit on the Justice Committee, but I did read through some of the submissions on the website. I picked up the submission by the Rural Women New Zealand organisation, which for me made the very clear point that violence is often gendered regardless of where it is and including in rural communities. So I just wanted to quote directly from their submission where they said “Women deserve to be safe in their homes, in their rural-based businesses and on their farms. Women living in rural New Zealand are more vulnerable in threatening and violent incidences where firearms are used or threatened to be used. Adverse impacts on rural communities also occur where there is an incident … or [an] accident in their community where a death or injury has been the result of the discharge of a firearm. Women are often those who support or organise support for anyone in the community affected by such an incident”—and they acknowledge that—“women are the glue that holds a community together.” If it’s good enough for the rural women, it’s good enough for the Greens.

We also see that in terms of making sure that our communities are safe, we’ve got to take care of all those other issues as well. We can do that by ensuring that we have liveable incomes, liveable wages, and making sure that everybody has a warm home. These are the social determinants that we need to focus on to make sure that our communities are as strong and as cohesive as possible.

So we know that the safest communities are not those that are highly policed or very criminalised; the safest communities are those with access to secure, warm, dry, accessible housing, inclusive education, meaningful work, and, when people are not in work, with a social safety net that provides them with the opportunity, not just to barely survive, but to thrive. So we do want the Government to go ahead and regulate guns effectively, because gun violence is a blight on our society. But we hope that the pain and hurt of victims of gun violence are not used as a means to dog whistle and to lean more and more in to policies that only make politicians look tough on crime when actually we need to be tough on poverty. So with that Green vision in mind, I commend this bill to the House.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand on behalf of the ACT Party to speak to firearms prohibition orders, and I just would like to start off by acknowledging the Green member Teanau Tuiono’s contribution and his statement that if it’s good enough for rural women, it’s good enough for the Greens. May I just say, rural women, you need to start talking to Parliament about the emissions trading scheme (ETS), zero carbon, and some other things as well. The Greens will listen.

But, in relation to firearms prohibition orders (FPOs), I’m glad to see a Government that’s finally responding to the increase in gun crime that we are experiencing across our country—47 percent increase since 2018. These firearm prohibition orders are needed. But one thing that I do think is important to remind everybody of is that, while the member across the way Ginny Andersen has spoken about how long we’ve been going through a process of trying to get FPOs in place, it’s a good reminder that National brought a bill to the House last year and the Labour Party voted it down. There was an opportunity to get in place safer laws for our communities, but at the expense of doing it through another party—an Opposition party—rather than doing it through the Government. I think we’ve wasted a fair bit of time there, and that did not need to happen. I’m disappointed that politics played a part in the delays for getting FPOs through, instead of acquiring safer communities together.

I’d like to spend this time reiterating the concerns that I’ve held in this legislation, regarding courts being directed to order the forfeiture of firearms to the Crown. It was mentioned by me in my second reading speech and brought up again at the committee of the whole House. I’d just like to reiterate the Minister’s discussion after speaking with his officials that, in fact, all endeavours will be made to return firearms to their legal owners should that be possible, as opposed to the forfeiture and confiscation of privately owned property.

Our next step is to address the illegal importation of firearms that come into the country—2 to 5 percent of containers have been stopped at our borders and, in that 2 to 5 percent, 5,887 illegally imported firearms have been found at our border, and that’s between the years of 2014 and 2020. It’s important, I believe, that the likes of Gun Control NZ and the Police Association start attributing accurately where the firearms are actually coming from, and stop solely blaming the licensed firearms community. If you want to see real change, start treating the community as humans and with respect. After all, they have been run through the mill to be deemed fit and proper people—more so than your average kindergarten teacher being left alone with the toddlers. We need to get the narrative right, and the courts also need to get the sentences right and the application of FPOs on to the right people.

This bill is also moving a clause which absolves the Crown from paying compensation for items devalued by way of markings. I’d just like to say to the firearms community: I did try, with a Supplementary Order Paper, to remove the clause that absolves the Crown from having to pay compensation for the devaluing of the marking on firearms that has been directed by this Parliament. Unfortunately, it was ruled out of order, but I did give it a go, and I think that’s important to note that we are still trying, over here at the ACT Party, to make sure that we have good laws for firearms going forward.

The reality is, though, that society is giving us all a warning. They don’t like the soft on crime approach. They don’t like the gangs taking their money. They want consequences for the losses they are experiencing not only in their businesses but also in their homes. But they don’t want to see dad locked up for a minor offence, either. Some of the qualifying offences within this bill include some where a firearms prohibition order would be absolutely warranted—for example, section 16(4) of the Arms Act is where the illegal importation of firearms is included, and it’s often seen alongside the drug shipments that come in. It is section 16(4) of the Arms Act where it could mean that someone that imports a firearm, not realising that it now needs an import permit—because that changed in the legislation as well, and it never used to have to require an import permit—could get inadvertently caught up in an FPO application by the police to the courts.

In these situations, the courts should go back to the intent of this bill: what is it that the implementation of this bill is trying to achieve? Well, quite simply, it is to prevent people whose behaviour and actions represent a high risk of violence or reflect an underlying risk of violence from accessing firearms or restricted weapons. Police should know the difference between the two types of people, and strive to rebuild the trust and confidence between themselves and the firearms community again before bringing charges that do not meet the intent of the bill. This law should not be used to punish those with no ill intent, but we should all be mindful of the unintended ignorance of the extent of arms law changes. Really innocent licensed firearm owners should not get caught up in this regime. But, as we know, the police gave gangs licences in their dozens, so many legitimate licensed firearm owners are already feeling the pain of that agency’s incompetence.

So, in my final words, there is more to be done. There’s a lot more to be done, and ACT have, sitting in the ballot box lottery, their gang control orders bill. I think that this will go as a great supplement to the firearms prohibition orders, because it will specifically target the gangs, whereas this firearms prohibition order targets anyone that’s at risk. We want to target the bullying of the gangs specifically. There’s not one solution, we agree, but by introducing ACT’s gang control orders, it will really hit them where it hurts—in their pockets. But we have more than that; we also have a rehabilitation policy. We want to bring back charter schools and introduce a welfare policy while we’re at it. This is all part and parcel of having good crime intents with firearm prohibition orders, because we all know that this one response won’t make a significant difference without others, and, if we address the other social issues facing our community right now, we could perhaps make a difference together. ACT has the solutions already sitting in the ballot box for you, Labour. All you have to do is pull them out and run with them. We support this bill, Mr Speaker.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour—Northland): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is just going to be a brief contribution as we have heard how important it is to get this legislation passed as soon as possible. But as a member of the Justice Committee, it is my pleasure to take a call on the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Bill. This is another step in the Government’s response to criminal behaviour and reflects our ongoing goal of ensuring that our police have the right tools that they need to keep our communities safe.

We heard a lot, through the select committee process, about ensuring that we are striking the right balance between our public safety objectives and our human rights concerns. I feel confident that as a select committee we have thoroughly debated this and looked at that and I’m comfortable that we have struck that balance.

The aim of the bill is to protect community safety and to reduce firearm-related crime by targeting possession, use, or carriage of firearms for unlawful purposes. We heard about those who might be responsible gun owners, but this is really clear. We are targeting those whose actions and behaviours reflect violent tendencies or who represent a high risk of violence, and they’ll be prevented from being able to access firearms.

In my final few seconds. I want to acknowledge Dr Emily Henderson, who, through her experience in the Family Court, argued hard for the inclusion of strangulation as one of those offences and I’m pleased that, as a select committee, we were able to recommend that and that has been included.

So with that, I commend the bill to the House.

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and congratulations on your appointment. Look, I’m rising to speak on the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Bill. So this is something that the National Party supports. It’s a bill that protects undercover officers investigating a suspected offence from liability in respect of those offences, and also in respect of the offences of conspiring or attempting to commit those offences and other specified offences. So it disqualifies anyone who has one of these prohibition orders from holding a firearms licence, and it provides that a person who has had at any time a firearms prohibition order made against them can’t be found a fit and proper person to be in possession of a firearm or an airgun. It defines the circumstances under which the FPO, the firearms prohibition order, can be made, the effect of it, the standing conditions, and the provisions for variation of the standing conditions, and also the provision for special conditions, commencement and duration, modification replacement, and appeals against decisions to make or not to make an FPO. It also makes it an offence to breach a firearms prohibition order or to supply firearms or other related items to a person who is subject to that firearms prohibition order.

The bill says that a court can make a firearms prohibition order against an offender who is 18 years or over if they are convicted of a specified offence in the Arms Act 1983, the Crimes Act 1961, or the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002. The court must be satisfied on the balance of probabilities that it’s reasonable, necessary, and appropriate to issue one of these orders in order to manage the risk that the offender poses to public safety. The bill also sets out a series of standard and special conditions for a firearms prohibition order, and the penalties of breaching those conditions. The order continues in force for 10 years and will take effect from either the date the order was made or, where the offender is sentenced to a term of imprisonment, from the date that they are released from custody.

So this is certainly to address an issue that has been deeply concerning to our communities in recent times, unfortunately, with a rise of illegal firearms’ use. Particularly in our biggest city, Auckland, unfortunately, far too many firearms are being used on streets—particularly in what appear to be gang wars. So this gives the police an additional toolset which they can use to address those persons who certainly should not be in possession of firearms and which gives the court the power to issue one of these orders against them and enables the police to have those additional powers.

The National Party does have some disappointments with this bill, despite supporting it. The National Party’s of the view that it did take too long for the Government to bring it in, as it was recommended to them in 2017, for their first hundred days. However, they vetoed several attempts to bring this critical safety measure into force. It is good, however, that they are doing this now. The National Party’s also of the view that it’s disappointing the Government did not listen to the Police Association or the Opposition and put some warrantless search powers into the bill to enforce the ability of the police to address the issues of people of particular concern. In the words of the Police Association, “This bill will not be a game changer without those powers.” However, again, I would say that at least this is a step in the right direction and does give some additional powers to the police and to the courts in respect of persons who should not ever be in possession of firearms. Mark Mitchell has a Supplementary Order Paper, which would give police greater powers to get firearms out of the hands of those who pose a danger to the community. Those new powers would allow police to search the person and vehicles of people who are subject to a firearms prohibition order for firearms at any time.

So the objective of the bill is to ensure that the person subject to one of these orders will not be able to use, access, or be around firearms. The person will also not be able to live in or visit locations where there are firearms or associate with someone who has them in their physical possession unless permitted by the court. So there are some quite strict conditions around this, and this is to address that issue of persons who the court has determined need these particular conditions because of their risk factors that the court can take into account, and that they should not ever be—at least during this time frame, that the court determines, of 10 years in force of these firearms prohibition orders. So with that, I commend the bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. The sitting will resume at 7 p.m.

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

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon David Bennett): Good evening. The sitting is resumed. Members, before the dinner break, the House was debating the third reading of the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Bill. I invite a member to seek the call.

RACHEL BROOKING (Labour): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker Bennett, and congratulations on your new role, and to the Assistant Speaker who was in the Chair before you as well.

I know from hearing the previous speeches that this bill addresses something we’re all concerned about, and that is: giving police another tool to keep our communities safe from criminal behaviour. How the bill does this is by creating a new firearms prohibition order—an FPO. This is the tool that the speeches have been talking about. It’s a court order for people who have a conviction of a specified violent offence, and we heard about that in some detail from Nicole McKee. What the bill does is insert new Part 7A to the Arms Act and it disqualifies these people who have the FPO from ever holding a firearms licence.

There are standard conditions for an FPO, and these are found at what will be new section 39C. There are a range of things here—we heard the Minister talk about them in his speech—but they include associating with people who have firearms; residing at premises in which firearms are stored; joining or remaining being a member of shooting club; attending any shooting range or shooting gallery; attending an activity of any kind that involves the use of firearms; or visiting any premises or place at which firearms or related items are manufactured, sold, repaired, hired, lent, or otherwise supplied. So it is going to be a useful tool, and I commend it to the House.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I want to acknowledge, first, everyone who has worked on this piece of legislation and the hard-working select committee—the Justice Committee—and my colleagues who are here in the House tonight. There has been a great deal of consideration on both sides of the House and around the table in that select committee about the submissions and the content of this legislation, and I thank everyone who has put in the work to understand it.

I think it was well captured in the speech of Joseph Mooney earlier. Colleagues will recall that before the dinner break, Mr Mooney’s contribution highlighted the reasons that the National Party members came to agree with many parts of this bill, but he drew the House’s attention to one part, which is warrantless searches, where we have a disagreement. I’d just like to put on record that Labour’s proposals here do allow warrantless searches by police officers, but they require a reasonable suspicion. We landed there and it strikes a useful balance because we believe that allowing police officers—where they have a suspicion of someone being around firearms or having firearms in their possession, that is about the right standard to require of police when they are conducting these searches. So for that reason, I’m pleased that we’ve found some agreement here, and I commend this bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon David Bennett): The next call is a remote call.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki) (remote): Ah, there we go. It might be a sign, Mr Speaker, that they weren’t allowing me to unmute myself, but I’ll try not to cause the House too much harm.

Look, it’s very clear that Nationals supports this. Look, it’s on the old adage that the perfect is the enemy of the good. So this is a good, sufficient bill in many ways and you’ve heard from previous National Party speakers that in many ways it’s just echoing a lot of what legislation already exists, particularly around the search or warranting side of things. In other words, police already have existing powers they can use. National’s being very clear that this should have gone much, much further. Warrantless search powers for the likes of firearms on gang members is, to put it in a common parlance, a no-brainer. Unfortunately, the Labour Party disagrees with that, even with the escalating crime we are seeing in New Zealand.

However, this is still a step forward or at the very least not a step backwards. So, as I say, National is happy to support. We still encourage the Government to go further in this space and if I might just draw from a previous contribution, it should not be lost on my colleagues on the other side of the House the major problems that we have with crime in our communities, and particularly those Labour MPs who are electorate MPs like myself, they will know. They will know the large amount of crime that is in play. It doesn’t matter if that’s with guns, it doesn’t matter if it’s ram raids, break-ins, assaults; you name it, the Government needs to do much, much more. So I am encouraging my Labour colleagues, and particularly the Minister, to not think that he or the Labour Government have done anywhere enough to address these issues. It would be a false presumption to sit back at the end of this reading and think because we now have a firearms protection order, that all is fine. It is not and it will not be.

As I say, we’ve had multiple shootings in my electorate. There was an aggravated robbery only 24 hours ago with a firearm in my electorate. We had multiple people being attacked, businesses broken into, ram raided. There’s a huge array of problems and, again, the firearms side of it is deeply, deeply concerning. So can I begin to wrap this little contribution up by signalling a good step, maybe a half step, but we have rampant gun crime now in New Zealand. And if I might just riff, if you will: of my own electorate, lucky as it is—being an electorate that is, not necessarily me as the MP, but no, lucky as it is, gun crime in the electorate of Tāmaki has almost been unheard of. But, as I say, in the last month or so we’ve had two shooting incidents and, as of 24 hours ago, an aggravated armed hold-up again with a firearm—unheard of. This law will maybe go some way—I don’t know, one-eighth, one-sixteenth of the way—to address the issue.

But can I conclude my contribution by asking, imploring the Labour Government to take crime seriously and to pass far more legislation required—in fact, take some steers from Mark Mitchell and his suggestions so that we can properly address the rampant crime occurring under this Government.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Kia ora, e te Mana Whakawā. A pleasure to be here and congratulations on your appointment.

This bill is an important bill and the points made by Mr O’Connor, in terms of guns in our community being an issue we need to address, are fair ones. The important and only point I really need to make is that this bill strikes an important balance between rights. There has been some discussion from the other side around the fact that searches shouldn’t need cause. That’s what we would call a random search or even an irrational search, and that’s not what we want. As the member for Manurewa noted, we need a trigger, a threshold for any search to be conducted under this legislation, and a “reasonable suspicion” is a well-known legal test for a search. It’s entirely appropriate and that’s where the balance is struck. The Attorney-General agrees that it’s appropriate and I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Overseas Investment (Forestry) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 4 August.

ANNA LORCK (Labour—Tukituki): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and may I congratulate you, Mr Bennett, on your role tonight, having first worked with you on the Primary Production Committee. It a great way and a great start to my political career to join you there.

Anyway, to this bill. This bill aims, as we go through things, to strike the right to plant the right tree in the right place for the right reason. Not often can I say that most of what needed to be said on this bill, and where we are on the second reading, was said by the National MP Ian McKelvie. He touched on the fact that everyone in the select committee agreed with this move that will see forestry for overseas investment now come under the special test for New Zealand. I acknowledge everybody who contributed to the submissions. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker, and congratulations on your appointment as Assistant Speaker.

I’m pleased to take a call for the Green Party on the Overseas Investment (Forestry) Amendment. Bill. Aotearoa New Zealand has 1.74 million hectares of plantation forestry, and about 1.2 million hectares of this is large-scale corporate forestry and only around 500,000 hectares is the smaller planted forest and woodlot. I’m really grateful for the 25 submitters and the diversity of opinions that they presented to the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the bill.

The Greens support this bill because of the way it winds back the changes that were made in 2018, inspired by New Zealand First, to facilitate overseas investment in forestry through the special forestry test, also called the “primrose path” for forestry. It was a much weaker test—in fact, it was described as a tick-box test—where overseas companies wanting to buy land, including farmland for forestry, didn’t have to demonstrate benefits to New Zealand. It was very permissive. Certainly, as Minister Parker noted, the changes made in 2018 brought forestry cutting rights under the Overseas Investment Act regime, but you still had this very permissive test.

So the bill means that overseas companies or individuals wanting to buy land for production forestry—not permanent forestry for carbon farming—would have to be assessed under the general benefit to New Zealand test, and that means that they’ve got to establish to the satisfaction of Ministers, or their delegate the Overseas Investment Office, that the purchase would result in economic benefits for New Zealand, benefits to the national environment, continue or improve public access, or improve the protection of historic heritage, for example. But with this bill, if an overseas company is wanting to buy existing production forest, then the permissive test, the special forestry test, continues to apply.

The bill does strengthen the regime, but the Green Party flags that we have tabled a Supplementary Order Paper for the committee stage which will seek to apply the farm land test to forestry, so that if an overseas company or individual is wanting to buy farmland for forestry, it would be on an even playing field if it was buying that land for farming. Essentially, that means that the application would be assessed under the same seven criteria as I noted previously, but that greater weight is given to economic benefits to New Zealand and participation and oversight by New Zealanders in the company buying the land.

It’s not often that I refer to the Federated Farmers’ submissions, but Federated Farmers and particularly their president in the Wairoa area, Toby Williams, really highlighted the impact on farming communities of the major change in land use, particularly in areas like the East Cape and around Wairoa, where you’ve got the hollowing out of the community when land goes from sheep and beef farming to forestry. The families go, the school closes, the infrastructure servicing the remaining farms becomes more expensive, and so that whole hollowing-out has quite significant social impacts.

But, more than that, it’s Green Party policy that overseas investment has to deliver really substantial benefits to New Zealand, Aotearoa. Our preference is that land ownership is reserved for New Zealand citizens and New Zealand residents, so hence our interest, as some submitters also called for, for the farm land test and not just the general benefit to New Zealand test actually applying for land bought for forestry.

One of the other issues that came up during submissions—and I was really pleased that, in the Finance and Expenditure Committee report, this was highlighted—was that, at the moment, under the law an overseas company can buy up to a thousand hectares of production forestland, with forestry cutting rights to that, without having to get any permission. And the Overseas Investment Office does not monitor this. It doesn’t require the overseas company to notify it, and so there’s no effective monitoring of the cumulative impacts of a succession of up to a thousand hectares of cutting rights in a calendar year being purchased by an overseas company. So I really hope that the Treasury and the Overseas Investment Office look at that and work out a mechanism for better monitoring.

I guess the other area where we think that it’s justified applying the stronger farm land test is just the major impacts that have occurred with forestry as a land use on the East Coast. One only has to remember Tolaga Bay and all of that slash coming down the rivers.

Also, the Minister highlighted that the sensitivity of the farmland is part of the assessment of any application by an overseas company, but, in our view, there’s far too much reliance on production values and the sensitivity is often determined by the land-use classification—whether it’s class 7 or 8 land and is marginal for farming, then it may be more easy for an overseas company to buy it for forestry. But that land-use classification and productivity for farming does not, in our view, recognise that even if land has a low carrying capacity for stock or it’s unsuitable for horticulture or viticulture and it might generate little income for the current owner, it can have significant value in terms of landscape, in terms of biodiversity—I can only think of a lot of the regenerating mānuka. And so we need to move—and this bill doesn’t do that—away from just highlighting that land is sensitive in terms of its farming use just because it has high production values. You need to look at those other biodiversity values as well.

So we support the bill because it does strengthen and fill that gap in the existing law—which has a very weak, permissive special forestry test—but we want it to go further by applying on a level playing field the farm land test to land bought for forestry as well as to land being sought to be purchased by an overseas company for farming. Kia ora.

Dr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker Bennett. First, I congratulate you on your promotion. It’s good to see a fellow Hamiltonian in the Chair.

This bill addresses an almost intentional policy failure made by the previous Government, which is somewhat overdue given the issues, especially the unintended consequences—as my learned colleague Tim van de Molen stated in his previous call—which have been raised for some years now. The main objective of this bill is to better manage investments from overseas that have to this point resulted in the conversion of land to forestry to ensure there is from now on a genuine benefit to New Zealand. It is a somewhat subjective concept, but given what has unravelled over time, it is clear that the outcomes of the existing law need to be improved. In many ways, this illustrates that Government intervention by its nature, regardless of the intent, is almost always prone to unintended consequences.

We are told that the more stringent benefit to New Zealand test requires in-depth consideration of the benefits that the investment may bring relative to the current use of the land, and provides a greater discretion to decision-makers; further, that applying this test will ensure that overseas investments in forestry genuinely benefit New Zealand and that any risks brought about by that investment can be mitigated and managed. As the economics of forestry have become more attractive, we have seen an increase in these conversions. The increasing price of carbon credits plays a role here, as well as the various other reforms and incentives.

When it comes to intervention, I think it’s always good to start with the mind-set that a market should be as free as possible and without regulation and then, if necessary, dial it back from there to ensure that any market failures can be addressed. In this case, there has arguably been a market failure, albeit within the confines of regulation, that has had perverse outcomes for farmland. It should be noted that this bill, of course, as it’s in the title, only applies to investment from overseas, and I think one should be wary of how this may impact what happens with domestic investment once the playing field has been tipped in the other direction.

It’s worth emphasising, I think, as others have done, the importance of forestry to New Zealand: 1.6 percent of our total GDP. It is the third-largest product export earner behind dairy and red meat, and I think we can all agree it has a high-growth potential. The sector is heavily dependent on overseas investment, with up to 70 percent of forestry plantations being foreign-owned. So any regulation will have an impact on productivity and the economy at large. So there are risks, including that a stricter overseas investment regime may cause a decrease in investment, among other things.

The regulatory impact statement yielded an interesting point: “There is minimal data available to fully demonstrate the link between external factors, such as the ETS and raising log prices, with the levels of overseas investment in forestry as well as the potential impact of this proposal on afforestation and land use.” So to reiterate, regulation is seldom without unintended consequences, and these need to be carefully monitored and addressed.

One thing I want to note, that I reflected on, is in the first reading, Minister Kelvin Davis said that “These changes build on our earlier action to ban overseas purchase of existing homes so that New Zealanders are not outbid by wealthy overseas investors”. I think it’s a shame that the Minister went there and said that, because I think it’s unrelated and appears to be some sort of attempt to cover up the fact that this bill is a product of their own policy failure of picking winners and losers in their previous coalition—no pun intended.

In closing, this bill does mitigate a loophole in the existing legislation and it should, we hope, meet its objectives. However, as I stated earlier, I caution this given the impact that this could have on domestic investment. The Minister even said it himself, specifically: “increasing conversion of land into forestry, some of which is coming from overseas investors.” So there will, no doubt, be more policy work on the horizon in this sector, and with that, I commend it to the House.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. From one Bennett to another, I say congratulations on becoming Assistant Speaker. And it probably solves another problem for me because, as a first-term MP, the amount of times I’ve heard “Mr Bennett!” across these hallways—of course I’ve panicked every single time. As the youngest child I think I still have instincts of “Oh my gosh, what have I done wrong this time?” So I’m grateful that you are in the Chair, Mr Speaker; congratulations.

On this piece of legislation, obviously, coming back to the bill, we as the Government want to ensure that overseas investment continues to benefit us, to benefit New Zealanders, and this piece of legislation in this small way is going to do that. For me, as the MP for New Plymouth, we have a lot of pastoral, agricultural, beautiful farming land. We also have our high country and our areas, and there is concern around ensuring that—

Hon Damien O’Connor: It’s called a mountain.

GLEN BENNETT: —our areas are looked after. We have more than a mountain. So this is about the right forests, the right places, for the right reasons, and on that I commend this bill to the House.

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker Bennett, and congratulations on your elevation to the role of Assistant Speaker. It’s great to see you there, and I hope we won’t see yourself kicking yourself out of the House.

I rise to speak on the Overseas Investment (Forestry) Amendment Bill. This is a bill that the National Party supports. It amends the Overseas Investment Act 2005 to ensure that overseas investments that result in the conversion of farmland or other land to forestry benefit New Zealand and that any risk can be better managed. The amendment will limit the special forestry test to applications for the acquisition of land that is already being used exclusively or almost exclusively for production forestry. It will no longer be available to acquire land for forestry conversions or for the acquisition or establishment of permanent carbon forests. Those applications will need to be considered under the standard benefit to New Zealand test.

This is a good thing, because this does balance the playing field so to speak and does ensure that there is a real analysis of whether investment for these purposes will actually benefit New Zealand. It addresses a concern—certainly to an extent—that has been raised increasingly around the country, but I’ve certainly heard it in my electorate in Southland, where there’s a real concern amongst our communities that productive farmland is being turned into carbon forestry without an analysis of the loss of the food production capacity of that land, without the analysis of the impact on rural schools, and without an analysis of the impact on job creation and job retention for the many agricultural businesses that support those farming areas. This is a piece of legislation that does address whether land that has been bought by overseas investors does actually benefit the country, and that certainly is a good thing.

I note that Environment Southland councillors are on record expressing concern that quality pastoral land may be lost as a result of extensive carbon farming in the future, and other entities like Beef + Lamb NZ are quoted in the media saying that the rate of whole farm sales and conversions to carbon farming in the country is out of control. This won’t address all of those concerns, certainly, but it will address that assessment of whether there is a genuine benefit to the country, through this legislation.

Under current legislation, overseas investors wanting to invest in production forestry can seek approval for the investment via a relatively permissive special forestry test, which was introduced in 2018. The Government deemed that necessary at the time to support the forestry sector and achieve the Government’s goal of stimulating investment and promoting environmental initiatives. However, since then the economics of investing in forestry have changed quite significantly. This has resulted in the significant conversion of pastoral farmland to carbon forestry. This change has been driven by the increasing price of carbon credits, emissions trading scheme reforms, and Government reforestation afforestation schemes. The issue is that the special forestry test to date allows all foreign investors to bypass the same requirements that other foreign investors undergo with the benefit to New Zealand” test. This is because the special forestry test is simpler and more permissive than the benefit to New Zealand test.

The proposed changes in this bill will have the following benefits. Forestry conversions are removed from the special forestry test. Therefore the special forestry test will only be available for the acquisition of land that is already used exclusively or nearly exclusively for forestry activities—in effect, land that is already used for production forestry. Forestry conversions will in future instead be considered under what’s called the general benefit to New Zealand test, except for forestry conversions that rely on standing consents that were granted or applied for before the commencement of this legislation. This is a good thing because the benefit to New Zealand test includes a modified lens where farmland is concerned, which sets a higher threshold. This change will bring applications for future investments in forestry into line with the same criteria that other foreign investors must undergo presently.

As I’ve said, this is a bill that National supports. It’s a more complex test, and it brings the benefits the investment will make into relative use with those who are purchasing land for other purposes from overseas, and it does give decision makers greater discretion as well in determining that assessment lens through which they must apply this.

While the Government obviously didn’t foresee this in 2018—the resulting lowering of the bar—this is a good step for remedying that, and National commends this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker Bennett. As you are a new Speaker, it is, of course, incumbent upon us all to put you through your paces a wee bit, so I’ve managed twice to try to take a call that was not my own—you’re welcome! I’d like to congratulate you on your new appointment.

I’d like to congratulate the members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee and also the submitters for their excellent work on this bill. This is an important matter. I’m slightly surprised the Māori Party have chosen not to take their call on it, but I am the beneficiary of that decision.

Forestry is exceptionally important to New Zealand. We are here tonight to, hopefully, pass a bill which will refine the measures we took in 2018 to encourage forestry investment. We now turn to the point which we always promised to do, to review it. Changes have happened, as previous speakers have said. We therefore tighten the regulatory regime to make sure that forestry will truly benefit New Zealand. I commend this bill to the House, and I will now make like a tree and leave.

HELEN WHITE (Labour): First of all, congratulations, Mr Assistant Speaker Bennett, on your appointment. This is a bill that I was part of the select committee hearing on, and it’s one that really tries to balance the risks that are associated with overseas investment with the benefits of it. The benefits of investment in things like long-term forestry are something that was very apparent in the submissions. We had people explain to us how long those investments are and how good for the country they are, and I was very much convinced by those arguments.

What the bill will do is it will remove the current test and go to a test which is a common one. It’s the change to the benefit to New Zealand test. And that test, for people who don’t know about it, really boils down to: is there a benefit to New Zealanders, compared with the state of the land at the present time in its use in forestry? So it’s a good, solid test, and it involves looking at the economic benefits of this, along with those benefits to the natural environment. I think it’s a great bill. I commend the bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon David Bennett): Todd Müller.

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): It’s Muller, but that’s fine. What a great night this is. If I may, Mr Speaker, the House is unaware that when I arrived in 2014, a certain member of Parliament from Hamilton West was appointed as my mentor. So this is a great day for both of us, celebrating his achievement. And as you all can understand, looking back over my eight years, the arc of my career in no small way is because of the contribution of David Bennett—you know, the ups and downs. I thank you, sir. But it is great to see you finally acknowledged by this House and esteemed, as you are, sitting there basking in your bipartisan glory.

Can I just spend a moment reflecting on this bill. I do wonder what David Parker and Damien O’Connor must think when they’ve got to sit and usher this legislation through. I’ve known these guys for quite some time, and, actually, despite the fact they’re on the red team, I do respect them. I think they bring a bit of horsepower certainly to their side of politics. But they had to sit back in 2018, when the then Government, which they were a critical part of, put the original Act into place. All of us on this side of the House said that this will lead to an unintended consequence, because, essentially, you are reaching out to investors that want to spend money in this country, saying: “We welcome your capital, but we really welcome your capital if it’s going to go towards farming and if it’s going towards forestry. In fact, we welcome it so much that we will give you a permissive free pass so you can come in here, you can buy up forestry, you can buy up sheep and beef farms to put into carbon farming, and welcome on in.”

The irony of the fact that that was promoted by an anti-foreign investment party like New Zealand First is one thing, but the double irony, from my perspective, is that same bill had David Parker and Damien O’Connor standing up over that side of the House extolling its virtues, knowing in here, because those gentlemen had been around for a little while, that what they were putting in place was a public policy nightmare, that it would create the incentives for capital investment to roll on in, and it did, and turn up to the Wairarapa—and I see the newly minted Minister looking down, reading his papers, as he should. He’s a reasonably impressive performer on the red side, too, but I bet he, as a junior backbencher, watched the ushering of this, going “My goodness me. This is going to play well in Wairarapa. Not!” But he still had to say all the right things and not at the right time, saying “This is a fantastic public policy initiative.”

No, it wasn’t; it was hopeless. And those of us who actually know a thing or two about how the primary industries work said many times to the Government: “This isn’t going to work. Through these incentives you are going to distort the market. You’re going to attract capital in a way that is a false economy, and you will see sheep and beef farms and other land turn into long-term forestry.”, and that’s exactly what has happened. So guess what! They get rid of the New Zealand First component of their Government, and what’s the first thing that comes out of Damien O’Connor’s and David Parker’s sphere? It’s: oh, actually, let’s wind this back, because actually it’s a nonsense.

Now, they don’t say, “it’s a nonsense.” They’re not honest with New Zealand, saying, “Fair cop. Actually, what we put forward in the last Parliament was wrong. It’s distorted a market. It has created huge pain in the primary sector, huge anger in Wairarapa. They’ll never forget this, as they watch all that beautiful land, so much of it, turn into green when actually it’s better sheep and beef country.” But here they are, back saying: well, actually, no, it was a public policy mistake and now we’re going to rewind it. I guess they get some credit for acknowledging the mistake in the first place. But why aren’t you honest with New Zealand? Why didn’t you stand up in your speeches and say, “Actually, we got it wrong. We shouldn’t have done it like this. We did, but we got it wrong.”? Instead, we have all this fluff and nonsense and nonsense and 30-second contributions that actually this is part of a long-term plan for the growth of the primary sector and the growth of Forestry New Zealand. Absolute waffle, absolute nonsense, and New Zealand can see through that at 50 paces.

So what does this bill do? Well, it does what it should do, which is to say that capital that comes into this country that is interested in investing in the primary industry has to follow the same New Zealand test that every other foreign capital has to do. It has to demonstrate that it’s actually going to be a benefit to New Zealand Inc. Not some sort “get out of jail free, go straight to go” special permissive test that was there previously. It rights a wrong, as it should.

Now, since I seem to be in the mood of handing out some bouquets this evening, I do want to acknowledge the contribution of Eugenie Sage. I don’t normally find myself nodding to her contributions. But I thought her relatively rational and dispassionate assessment of what went on over the last four years, what is indeed included in this legislation, and the feedback that the select committee reflected on summarised the changes very well. So I’m not going to go through all of those again. It obviously got unanimous support from the Primary Production Committee.

But I do want to conclude with this final message: this Government needed to be honest, as opposed to framing this as part of a strategic intent that was their plan all along. They needed to stand up and say: “We were part of something that delivered an outcome for the primary sector that was wrong, and that resulted in a distortion which has seen good sheep and beef farms hoovered up by foreign investors to put long-term carbon farming on. It wasn’t the right incentive, and this is an attempt to fix that wrong and actually get it back to an appropriate balance in terms of the incentives for foreign capital.” That’s what they should have said, and their silence does not do them credit on this issue. Thank you.

RACHEL BROOKING (Labour): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker Bennett, for allowing me to take the final call on the second reading of the Overseas Investment (Forestry) Amendment Bill. I note that when I took a call on the first reading of this bill it followed you, so, good to see your change in position, and it was a good speech you made as well that I followed.

We’re talking here about the Overseas Investment Act, and we’ve heard the other speeches as well say that this is the piece of legislation where we really take some care to say to those overseas investors with some capital, “What is the benefit going to be, to New Zealand, for your investment here?” This bill relates, though, to the forestry conversion. We’ve heard from the previous speaker, Todd Muller, that the current legislation has incentivised these conversions of what could be quite highly productive land into forestry.

So there are different tests, at the moment, for investment into sensitive land. In this context, sensitive land is agricultural, rural land. So there’s currently the special forestry test. It doesn’t apply to carbon farming, but we have heard from the Finance and Expenditure Committee report that it’s become a tick-box exercise, so this has clearly become too permissive. Then there’s another test, which is the benefit to New Zealand test. So that is that there has to be some analysis and agreement that there are economic benefits for New Zealand, that there are natural environmental benefits, that there’s some continuation or increase in the ability for the public to access that land. Then there’s this third test that we’ve also heard about in some of the speeches today, particularly in the Hon Eugenie Sage’s contribution, and that is the farmland benefit test. This is a more stringent test than the benefit to New Zealand test and puts more weight on the economic benefits and those considerations of the investment.

So we know that the select committee has recommended moving these forestry investments to the benefit to New Zealand test. This seems to be a sensible check on those forestry conversions that they do benefit New Zealand, and I commend it to the house.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

COVID-19 Orders

Approval

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

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Amendment Order (No 5) 2022 (SL 2022/194)

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Self-isolation Requirements and Permitted Work) Amendment Order (No 4) 2022 (SL 2022/195)

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Self-isolation Requirements and Permitted Work) Amendment Order (No 5) 2022 (SL 2022/196)

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Vaccinations) Amendment Order (No 5) 2022 (SL 2022/207)

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Maritime Border and Other Matters) Amendment Order (No 2) 2022 (SL 2022/213).

Mr Speaker, may I congratulate you on your election to your role today. It is always a pleasure to see fellow former Ministers of Food Safety ascend to even higher ranks in this House. I’m asking the House today to approve COVID-19 orders to ensure that they are not revoked within certain time frames, and today’s motion approves five orders that came into force in June and July 2022. I’m grateful to the members of the Regulations Review Committee for their comments and observations, which will continue to influence how future orders are drafted. I thank them for their diligent work in examining orders made under the Act.

One of the orders, today, makes several amendments to the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Order 2021, including removing the requirement for pre-departure testing for all travellers; expanding the category of people who are exempt from the requirement to be vaccinated; and allowing a person with COVID-19 symptoms to arrive in New Zealand if they have a certificate from a qualified person or a negative COVID-19 test. One of the orders, today, also sets out that, if specified participants under the principal order are required to self-isolate, they may leave their place of self-isolation to undertake permitted work in connection with these specified events. Another makes several amendments to the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Self-isolation Requirements and Permitted Work) Order 2022, which reduces the time period which a person would not have to re-isolate as a new case from three months to 28 days, based on increasing information about the risk of reinfection; amends the definition of permitted work travel; and adds new categories of entitled permitted movement. The COVID-19 Public Health Response (Vaccinations) Amendment also refines the health and disability sector’s workers which are required to be vaccinated, and removes border and correction workers from the vaccination order.

It’s also worth remembering that we’re now—on Friday, it will be—almost a year since the Reconnecting New Zealand forum, where we started a deliberate and safe reopening with the world. The orders we are discussing today build on that with changes to the maritime border order, which welcomed tourists back to New Zealand. Amendments to the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Maritime Border and Other Matters) Amendment (No 2) 2022 include removing the prohibition on foreign ships arriving in New Zealand, and it allows only people sharing a cabin with a COVID-19 case to be subject to self-isolation provisions.

So I do not expect we’ll be bringing many more of these COVID approval motions to the House, but I would like to recognise the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act, which has underpinned our response to COVID-19. It has allowed us to respond quickly as COVID-19 has evolved. Our response will continue to be based on public health advice, and we’ll continue to adapt to the challenges the pandemic brings. New Zealanders have worked very hard to get through this pandemic and, as a result of those efforts, we continue to move forward and change the way we do things.

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

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I thought for a moment that you were going to say “the honourable”, but I think we both know that that’s not true in any sense. So maybe your colleague, your recently elevated fellow Greg O’Connor, can be tricked into giving me more credit than I’m due.

I seek no greater credit than being the chair of the Regulations Review Committee. We have a few members of the team in the House tonight, all across the aisle, so I acknowledge them and I also acknowledge the Minister, the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall. As always, she and her predecessor, too, have taken this process very seriously in terms of the House scrutinising these orders and, also, the engagement throughout as between the committee and the Ministers—each in their turn—has been, I think, impressive and actually a very worthwhile exercise.

As is traditional in these kinds of discussions, the Minister’s given a good outline, I think, of the factual basis of what’s been decided and agreed and to some extent the way that things have been discussed in debate between that select committee and the House, or rather the Minister. I would probably emphasise more so the process from a Regulations Review Committee perspective, maybe with a bit of National Party policy thrown in, although, as has also become tradition recently, we are supporting the motion that confirms the orders for the reason that we say that these are moving in the right direction and that they have been a liberalising effect, and so we think the Government is to be encouraged in that and we support them, as I say.

The first of the orders, taking them chronologically, from mid-June, roughly speaking, is an interim report and, as we’ve all become pretty familiar—almost, actually, in the case of COVID orders bingo, that could be out in time for Christmas. That could be a game where “interim report” would certainly get your box ticked, “broad powers” would get one as well, “continuity of essential services”, and so forth. So it’s all pretty familiar. I was going to make a comment about déjà vu, but I’m not sure if I already did it or not. [Assistant Speaker shakes his head] No—OK.

Anyway, so basically we’ve got various orders. Obviously, we’ve got a revocation of an order relating to what are called CVCs, which is an acronym for the COVID-19 vaccination certificate, and the particular order that we were asked to look at was talking about these certificates no longer being needed to enter certain premises or receive certain services. So we thought that was—well, we didn’t comment on the policy side of things, of course, as is tradition, but we did think that it was suitable, that the way that this operated as part of the framework overall it actually made other amendments to remove references to CVCs within other orders. So consequential amendments and, likewise, when the required testing order required certain workers at the border, but no longer, actually to undergo regular testing—[Coughs] excuse me—I sound like I need some testing myself. So, likewise, there were consequential amendments as a result of that.

We did have some concerns with the order that was called—oh, I regret saying what it was called, because it’s a long title. Anyway, it’s an air border amendment order—aren’t they all?—and, anyway, it basically talked about voluntary isolation and there was a bit of internal inconsistency with the way that was framed. It talked about a particular part of a different order not applying and then it said the order didn’t apply at all. Anyway, suffice to say, we’ve sort of gone back and forth on reasonably technical points to do with the drafting, but we did get a bit more substantive or close to the policy space in that particular order. Again, I refer to the air border amendment order. This was, again, as I say, mid-June.

We talked in our report about limits on personal freedoms, and the reason we did that was not because we were approving or disapproving of where the Minister was drawing the line—those decisions are her purview. That’s the prerogative of Government to make these orders in a way that they think is suitable from a medical or an epidemiological perspective, and the Minister herself is better placed than most to make those decisions. But we were interested in the limits on personal freedoms, not to second-guess that, as I say, from a policy perspective, but because we said that if we’ve got a voluntary admittance regime whereby a person could actually apply—not being required, but could make the decision to apply—to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, to its chief executive, to be precise, to isolate at a managed isolation quarantine facility, and then if we say, well, if it’s a voluntary scheme, then, actually, there should be a pretty light touch in terms of what was then required.

We thought that aspects of that order might be seen to be overly restrictive and unsuitable, and so that was our question to the Minister. We wrote to the Minister accordingly, and we’ve concluded our report, as we so often do—another tick for the bingo card—“We look forward to the Minister’s response.” So that’s why it’s an interim report. We’re waiting to hear back, and no doubt that will come in due course.

Of course, we write to the Minister and we also write to the director-general from time to time. That role has changed hands and I do just want to place on record—and I’m sure I’ll be able to do this on behalf of the committee—that we were grateful for the interaction that we had with Dr Ashley Bloomfield throughout. He served the country diligently not only in terms of, obviously, the very visible work as Director-General of Health during the pandemic but also he was a diligent correspondent with the Regulations Review Committee, and we wrote him a letter, actually, thanking him for his service and noting he’d been, quote unquote, “extremely assiduous”, and I’m sure he got the joke. That was, of course, an iconic phrase of his own during the pandemic—you remember, sir, don’t you? Not an outbreak you’re a part of; I’m sure you would have been described as extremely assiduous, though. We know you’re an extremely assiduous guy.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon David Bennett): Don’t bring the Chair into the debate.

CHRIS PENK: Oh, OK, I beg your pardon. So anyway, moving on, Mr Speaker—can I say that? Just testing here—oh, gosh!

OK, so 27 June. So there was an order—must have been on that one. No, two orders, in fact, on the same day. Someone was busy. Anyway, no concerns, but we did see that there were some amendments to a principal order, various definitions, a sort of narrowing down, for example, adding to the definition of a critical worker—so actually a broadening rather than a narrowing there—new categories of essential permitted movement, sensible stuff basically, exceptions to the requirement to wear a face covering. Again, we thought that was useful and the particular way that was being brought forward and accordingly we wrote—oh, actually, a sort of slightly different subject within the order. We did identify an issue. I say “we”, but, of course, it’s obligatory to note that the committee members themselves are as diligent as we’re able to be, but actually, as always, the legislative counsel provide excellent advice.

I suspect it was mostly just a case of us being smart enough to take the advice that they provided us, that it would be helpful for specific times and dates to be used for commencement orders, because we’d seen in clause 2 of the order that it was to come into force at 11.59 p.m. on the second day after the date of its notification in the Gazette. If one was reading that alone and didn’t have that cross-reference available, it mightn’t be clear when the whole thing was going to kick in, and we thought that it would be more helpful if it were to say 11.59 on—I don’t know—the first of whatever month of whatever year. So we said that that would be less ambiguous and clearer. The Minister agreed. She acknowledged that would be best practice, and going forward that would indeed be the practice adopted. So, again, useful and constructive engagement and we thank the Minister for it.

The final one in my remaining couple of minutes, if I may, is bringing us up to date really just about, first to 14 July of this year, of course. We had basically a number of different vaccination requirements where those requirements were removed for almost all workers, previously covering workers within the health and disability sector. We had no concerns about that order. Finally, we also noted the order that—in relation to the maritime border and other matters, as the Minister noted actually in her own contribution—said that if a person was travelling on a cruise ship and tested positive for COVID-19, then that person and their cabin mates would be subject to the self-isolation provisions rather than everyone on board. So that’s, you know, quite a change, a sea change even—if you’ll allow me in keeping with the tradition of the committee of having at least one appalling joke in a contribution or a meeting.

I think on that note that I’ll leave the contribution, except only to say, as I did before, that National supports these orders being confirmed by the House and there won’t be too many more of them. I think we’re all going to feel very sad about that, except I suppose to the extent that it implies and indicates that the pandemic itself is moving in the right direction, and long, long may that be so, he said—touching wood. Thank you.

TEANAU TUIONO (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. May I join with other colleagues around the House to congratulate you on your recent ascension to the big Chair.

These COVID orders, they come to the House and it has been an expedient way over the course of the pandemic to actually get things done quickly—to get things put on notice here in the House as well. I want to also thank the work done by the Regulations Review Committee, getting into the weeds while the rest of us take a look at the garden in terms of what needs to be done in terms of how this House responds to the pandemic.

I guess, if I take a step back and look at these COVID orders—these ones and the ones that have gone before—we are shedding protections. We are shedding protections and moving away and normalising the situation that we’re in. But here’s the thing: COVID-19 hasn’t gone on holiday; the pandemic hasn’t ended. COVID-19 is here to stay, and so, for the Greens, it’s really important that the Government puts in place long-term protection measures including mandatory ventilation standards.

Just reflecting on the decision today to keep the country at orange: that was the right decision, but we need to do more than the occasional review of protection sheddings to make sure that we are protecting communities in the long term—and that’s important. I don’t know how reinfection is happening in other communities—it’s starting to happen in my community with a second round, and reinfection is also becoming more increasingly common and could be an ongoing feature of this pandemic.

There was a headline that jumped out to me over the last couple of days, and that was that experts have also pointed out that in July, COVID became the equal-leading cause of death in Aotearoa for the first time. If the current trajectory continues, annual COVID deaths could be about five times influenza deaths, but still the Government needs to have that long-term plan.

So now, we are sitting around about over 1,600 confirmed deaths as attributed to COVID-19. The ministry says these are deaths where COVID-19 is either the underlying cause of death or is a contributing factor. In the past seven days, there have been an average of 16 deaths confirmed each day as attributed to COVID-19.

The intention of these orders is about making sure that we do everything possible to protect whānau and reduce the risk of experiencing long COVID, particularly amongst Māori and Pasifika communities, and especially our immunocompromised and disabled whānau. So it is important, if we’re going to have fewer of these orders coming into the House, that there needs to be that plan to adopt mandatory ventilation standards for workplaces and schools, provide financial support for community organisations, install better monitoring filtration, and to improve support for Māori and Pacific health providers.

These orders are about reopening New Zealand to cruise ships, removing nearly all of the vaccine-mandated work groups other than some health or disability workers, allowing people to work at sporting events to be critical workers, and removing testing requirements for people travelling to New Zealand. Some of the loosening restrictions make sense and are reasonable, but they are not matched by corresponding public health measures around ventilation, air filtration, and mask use in schools. These orders will increase the incidence of COVID and other winter contagious illnesses.

The Greens want to see and centre this whole notion that we had in the first few years of the pandemic that we are a team of 5 million, and not gravitating towards the “team is business as usual”. We want to see the needs of Māori and Pacific peoples and disabled communities put at the heart of the ongoing pandemic response.

I reflect on the report that came out from the Ministry of Health on the Government’s response to the Delta outbreak, which says that these are lessons that we need to pick up. So we are happy to see some of these orders, but we need that long-term plan. The pandemic hasn’t ended; in fact, who knows where it is going to? Reinfection is starting to happen in communities—in my community and no doubt in other communities as well—so having those plans in place for schools, having those plans in place for communities is important.

We need to take the path of caution in the face of uncertainty. And I get it—we’re all tired of this pandemic; all of us are. It’s the first time any of us have been in a pandemic. But it’s no excuse to get lax and to get tired. In fact, we need to double down and we can do that by making sure that we put some protections and measures in place.

Most of us are just, you know, family members or parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters trying to make our way in the world. And what we need from the Government is that clear line of sight—that direction—an expert-led plan for schools, a long-term plan for our community so that we know what’s coming down the track and how all of those things connect and fit together. These are the things that we need to do. We must make sure that the response is equitable and keeps people safe. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of the ACT Party tonight in opposition to these COVID-19 orders, and that’s not because we’re opposed to the liberalisation of some of the rules and restrictions that this Government has put in place through this COVID-19 pandemic; it’s because we don’t think it goes far enough.

In many cases, we actually need to just take the chance and say, “Let’s move on.” Let’s move on from all the rules and restrictions that this Government has imposed on New Zealanders’ lives and just acknowledge that it is time to finally move on. We should actually allow for these COVID-19 orders to lapse and get on with our lives. COVID is all around us; in many cases the restrictions that we still have on peoples’ lives do from nothing to little to actually stop the spread of COVID-19 in our communities.

I wanted to touch on, firstly, one of these orders here that’s been brought to the House tonight, and that is the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Vaccinations) Amendment Order (No 5) 2022. In this order, the Government is reducing the number of people that will be forced to have a vaccine because of the type of work that they do in our communities. I’ve had many, many people over the last few months emailing in, people that I’ve met on the street, people that I know personally, who have said that they feel as though the mandatory requirements that this Government has imposed for vaccination has impinged on their rights and freedoms and doesn’t actually stop COVID-19 in the community.

In this order, it’s saying that the vaccine order requires specified workers to have been vaccinated against COVID-19 and to have received a booster dose in order to be able to carry out certain work. This is amending it so that almost all of these workers no longer have the mandate. But it still sets out that there are specified people that do have to have the vaccine. These are people in our health and disabilities sector.

I suggest that when people are going to the supermarket, when they’re going out to the petrol station, when they’re meeting and greeting people at work, when they’re going to school; there are so many places where somebody could get COVID—so many places. Every single interaction, and in most cases, when I’ve talked to people and said, “How did you get COVID?”, nobody has any clue; nobody knows. But we are still restricting some people from being able to go to work because they don’t want to have a vaccine. I think that’s wrong.

We have always said, as the ACT Party, it should be up to these businesses and the entities to set their own rules and regulations for their own business practices whether or not people should have a vaccine in their facilities; I think that’s the right thing to do. But by saying to these particular people, this particular class of workers, “You still have to have a vaccine mandate”, I think that is impinging on their rights and freedoms, and we do need to move on. Even though this removes a lot of restriction, the ACT Party just simply goes further and says, “Let’s get over it and let’s move on.”

When it comes to the second one, which is the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Maritime Border and Other Matters) Amendment Order (No 2) 2022, this really goes to the heart of why the ACT Party is completely opposed to all of these orders going further into the future: because it’s saying to people, “Hey, now we’ve finally opened the border. We’re finally allowing cruise ships back”—thank goodness they’re allowed back, for all of those tourist operators who really have been struggling through COVID. Thank goodness the borders are open so we can have tourists come back through our borders on cruise ships. But they’re saying, “Oh, by the way, now they’re allowed back, let’s put another COVID order on top of them and say that they have restrictions and requirements for people who might want to travel here.” And one of these requirements is requiring a compulsory COVID-19 test on arrival of a Category 1 ship.

Does anyone really believe that that’s going to stop anything? We have COVID, thousands of cases in the community, and we’re once again putting another rule and restriction that’s not going to do anything to stop COVID in our community. And really, another part of it was about the self-isolation provisions, so that when a person is travelling on a cruise ship and they test positive for COVID-19, only that person and their cabin mates will be subject to self-isolation, rather than anyone on board the ship. Well, thank goodness for that! Can you imagine everyone on board the ship having to self-isolate? How ridiculous would that be! So yes, that is a good measure: that it’s only the people who happen to have COVID. But the restrictions for self-isolation are the strictest in the world.

We really do need to move on from these very restrictive COVID-19 isolation rules. There is no other jurisdiction that requires a seven-day mandatory isolation for cases and their contacts in the house. While the Minister is away getting more advice on whether or not they should change the self-isolation rules, we have been raising, for months and months, through our “Move on” and COVID papers, that we really should have more of a Singapore-style test that says, “72 hours and you’re out.” I think that is much better. If you can have 72 hours and get a negative test, then we should be allowing people back out into the community, rather than imposing such strict requirements on people in self-isolation; it’s so inflexible and it has a huge effect on our economy, and it’s going to have an effect on people in tourism, too.

The Minister really should be asking the question, “Are these rules worth it?” Are they self-defeating? Will they actually reduce COVID spreading in the community? Or does it just mean that a lot of people won’t test—or they won’t test properly—to get around the rules? Unfortunately, we’re still in August 2022, and the Government is still seeking advice about whether or not self-isolation is fit for purpose. The Minister really should get their act into gear and realise we should move closer towards the Singapore model, stop creating more and more orders that are a bit redundant in our current climate, and allow New Zealanders to move on and get on with their lives.

Businesses are hurting with these self-isolation rules. I was talking to an early childhood educator who said that, at any given time, they have so many of their staff that are needing to isolate that they’re having to tell kids that they can’t come in to the early childhood education (ECE); telling parents who need their kids to be dropped somewhere so that they can go to work, “You can’t drop your kid off at our clinic or place today because we don’t have enough staff to keep this to be a safe ECE for the day.” This has an ongoing flow-on effect, and we really do need to limit the restrictions that we’re putting on peoples’ lives, because it really does have an effect on our livelihood and the economy.

So the ACT Party cannot support these COVID orders. Even though some of them are better than what we’ve seen in the past, we don’t believe that they go far enough. We should simply allow for the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act to lapse and get on with our lives.

A party vote was called for on the question, That this House approve the following orders made under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020:

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Amendment Order (No 5) 2022 (SL 2022/194)

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Self-isolation Requirements and Permitted Work) Amendment Order (No 4) 2022 (SL 2022/195)

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Self-isolation Requirements and Permitted Work) Amendment Order (No 5) 2022 (SL 2022/196)

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Vaccinations) Amendment Order (No 5) 2022 (SL 2022/207)

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Maritime Border and Other Matters) Amendment Order (No 2) 2022 (SL 2022/213).

Ayes 98

New Zealand Labour 65; New Zealand National 33.

Noes 22

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

Motion agreed to.

Orders approved.

Bills

Oversight of Oranga Tamariki System and Children and Young People’s Commission Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Preliminary provisions

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Members, the House is in committee on the Oversight of Oranga Tamariki System and Children and Young People’s Commission Bill. I remind members that they are able to participate remotely. If you are on Zoom and want to take a call, please type “call” into the chat. You should also use the chat if you want to raise a point of order. If we receive new tabled amendments, I will advise members so they can refresh the House papers page to see the new amendment. Finally, it would be helpful for members to ask multiple questions, if they have them, of the member in charge during their call. Members, we come now to Part 1. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): We know that the Oranga Tamariki system has not operated as well as it should or as well as we all expect, but the system is incredibly important for our tamariki and rangatahi and for our future. It is important that it has strong oversight to ensure it better serves our tamariki and rangatahi, going forward. This bill does three things to support the system to achieve this: it establishes the independent monitor to have oversight over outcomes for children and young people receiving services through the Oranga Tamariki system; it simplifies and strengthens the independent complaints and investigations processes related to the Oranga Tamariki system led by the Ombudsman; and finally the bill strengthens advocacy for all New Zealand children and young people by expanding the existing Children’s Commissioner to a Children and Young People’s Commission and enhancing its functions.

I know there has been a lot of discussion at select committee, in the media, and with stakeholders about this bill. I want to be clear that we have listened and heard the concerns that have been raised. As a consequence, I’m already aware of many of the issues that may be raised by members in the House today. That is why I want to run this committee of the whole House differently from the way I usually would. As usual, I will talk to and answer questions on all of the key features of the bill as we work through the five parts, but in doing that, I’m going to take a little bit more time to step through what each part of the bill is actually going to do and why we are doing it the way we are, and respond to the particular issues that have been raised. The Government believes in this bill and the improvements it will make for our tamariki and rangatahi. I want to take this opportunity to explain why and to assure members in this House and the public that their concerns have been, can, and will be mitigated.

I’ll start that process with a few brief opening remarks on Part 1, which sets out the preliminary provisions of the bill. This includes the purpose and principles, Treaty of Waitangi obligations placed on the monitor and Ombudsman, common duties, interpretation section, and the definition of the Oranga Tamariki system. I won’t touch in detail on clause 3, because it is an overview of what is included in the bill, so all the matters covered in the clause are better discussed later in the process. I want to be clear, also, that any debate on the form and functions of the monitor, Ombudsman, and commission itself is outside the scope of Part 1, but we will discuss this as we move through the bill.

With respect to the purpose and principles of the bill, clauses 4 and 5, I think we can all agree on the purpose of the bill to uphold the rights and interests and improve the wellbeing of children and young people who are receiving or have previously received services or support through the Oranga Tamariki system and to promote effectiveness of the system. The principles of the bill are in clause 5 and complement this purpose by ensuring that the people working in the system will be focused on our tamariki and rangatahi. We heard from children, young people, and advocates how important our international obligations are as a statement of their rights in a korowai for our work in the Oranga Tamariki system. That is why the principles of the bill explicitly require any person who is operating under the Act to have regard to the rights set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. Listening to these key stakeholders has also led us to change this clause through our Supplementary Order Paper (SOP), which strengthens the existing intent of the provision to ensure the best interests and perspectives of children and young people are considered. I know that there is concern that we have not given the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples the same status in the bill, and Jan Logie has submitted an SOP with regards to this. Because we haven’t ratified the United Nations’ Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, it’s not appropriate to reference it in legislation. However, that doesn’t mean that the changes we are making are not focused on improving outcomes for Māori.

I want to talk to the Treaty provision in clause 6. We know Māori are overrepresented in the Oranga Tamariki system. Addressing this is both a key priority of the bill and a Treaty obligation. When developing the bill, we listened to the concerns of stakeholders who didn’t want a broad Treaty clause that was open to interpretation or could be read down. That is why the bill includes the summary clause, which clearly states our commitment to give effect to the Treaty and improve the system for tamariki and rangatahi and their whānau, hapū, iwi, and communities, as well as setting out exactly what this will mean throughout the bill. This ensures that the Treaty is at the heart of this system, while also placing specific obligations on oversight bodies including the Ombudsman, whose status as an Officer of Parliament may have excluded them from a broad general clause.

The common duties provision in clause 7 should not require a great deal of discussion today, I would think. I think we all agree that achieving the aspirations I’ve just been talking to will require the monitor, Ombudsman, and Children and Young People’s Commission to work closely together. This is also important because of the burden that poorly connected agencies can place on our tamariki and rangatahi and the providers that support them, and the risk of harm if things slip through the cracks. We listened to stakeholders and included this provision in the bill to make clear our expectations with regards to the close relationship between the monitor, the Ombudsman, and the commission.

Clause 9 defines the Oranga Tamariki system and includes the delivery of services and support to children, young people, and their families and whānau under or in connection with the Oranga Tamariki Act. This is not limited to the care and protection system. The definition also includes health, education, and youth justice, and we are introducing an SOP to make sure that tamariki or rangatahi in this part of the system are clearly covered.

To sum up, this part of the bill also includes the interpretation section, transition provisions in Schedule 1, and confirmation that the Act binds the Crown. I’m happy to take calls.

HARETE HIPANGO (National): Thank you, Mr Chair. Before I address the Minister, I want to congratulate you on the ascension, the elevation, to the Speaker’s Chair but in the capacity this evening, at the moment, the committee of the whole House as the Chair.

Minister, tēnā koe, and thank you for the opening address to the committee this evening. And also, I thank you, Minister, although somewhat belatedly, for the receipt of the numerous proposed amendments under your Supplementary Order Paper 209, received on Thursday evening. Minister, this is an opportunity for us to canvass and seek clarity, but the first question that I do put to you, Minister, is to query why—why—it has taken so long. At the eleventh hour, seemingly, although your letter was welcome and received with due regard. The fact that there were up to an additional 49 to 50—and that was just by way of the letter and Supplementary Order Paper 209, and there are additional ones to come.

Further, in addition to the Supplementary Order Papers, proposed amendments from my colleagues from the Green Party, from ACT, and also from the National Party, why, Minister, did your members of Parliament for the Labour Party at the Social Services and Community Committee not heed and listen to the views that were expressed, importantly, by the public who submitted on these very issues now being addressed before the committee. A number of these amendments that are being proposed have been picked up and advanced by my colleagues in the Chamber this evening from the Office of the Children’s Commissioner. I note also, Minister, that you too have picked up on some of those by way of Supplementary Order Paper proposed amendments. Why, Minister, has it been left so belatedly?

I acknowledge that you have addressed in the letter that was sent to myself—and, I’m anticipating, to my colleagues Jan Logie in the Green Party and Karen Chhour from ACT—indicating that there has been a continued engagement with stakeholders since select committee submissions were heard. But could you, Minister, in your capacity as leader and Minister for this portfolio, explain why your members sitting on the select committee dismissed and dispensed with the advice that was given, some of which has now been picked up by way of Supplementary Order Papers?

Then, Minister, we will come to the detail. I’m anticipating that you will address the committee in terms of the respective clauses that you’re seeking support on, by way of each amendment being spoken to, addressed, and hopefully passed in the committee this evening.

But Minister, in closing, before moving into the specifics of those clauses and the amendments, why has it been left to the eleventh hour? We know full well that this bill is going to advance because, Minister, with your members, you have the numbers. It’s hoped and, indeed, it’s implored that you heed the proposed amendments that we make in Opposition, because those amendments that we make, noting that you’ve picked up on some of those as well by saying that you’ve listened to and engaged with the stakeholders—why that was not done sooner rather than later to save a lot of the anguish and dismay that’s been expressed by the public, and the public maintaining the view, which is supported in the Opposition, that this bill is going to advance and proceed through because the numbers are there. But also why?

Too, stand before this committee and explain to the public—when the royal commission of inquiry into those children experienced in care and subjected to State abuse—why the Government is still proceeding with this when you say that the Minister has engaged with the public, heeding and listening to the views of the stakeholders. One of those key, significant views is that the royal commission of inquiry will have substantive recommendations and this Government is still proceeding to advance with this bill, dispensing with those recommendations, and it’s unknown what they will be—so for the Government to consider that the Government is clairvoyant, to be able to predict and anticipate what those are. The big question, Minister, is: why?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I will just start by saying that as Minister, I don’t have responsibility for the Social Services and Community Committee. However, despite the fact that that’s out of scope with respect to the bill, I do acknowledge that there were a number of submissions made that resulted in changes to the bill, changes to the bill that have impacted what we see in front of us. I’ve continued to engage with stakeholders, and through that engagement I have had it stressed to me that they would like to see further reassurance in the bill. So that has resulted in strengthening of language. It’s not any substantive change from what was being proposed. It was to further enhance and emphasise the protections, the focus on children with respect to the Government Supplementary Order Papers.

I’m making the following amendments, particularly talking about this part: updating the overview, clause 3, to articulate what is included in the bill—for example, including the new independence clause for the monitor; amending the definition of the Oranga Tamariki system to better ensure important clauses in the bill capture youth justice; clarifying references to the Ombudsman; adding new provisions to the principles, clause 5, to explicitly require that the best interests and perspectives of children and young people are considered by any person operating under this Act; updating the common duties, clause 7, which sets out common duties of the monitor and Ombudsman to also refer to the Children and Young Persons Commission, to remove duplication of the same provision in the Children and Young People’s Commission Bill, Part 5—having all the common duties in one place makes the legislation simpler to navigate; also amending the definition of “approved provider” to ensure that all care and custody providers are included, and that’s in clause 8; removing the definition of “tikanga Māori” as this is already defined in the Oranga Tamariki Act, which is in clause 8; and inserting a new definition for “non-personal information” to improve clarity for the disclosure of information.

So, because of that ongoing stakeholder engagement, we continued to look at ways that we could further provide assurance that the protections would be in place for the children and the rangatahi so that the clarity that was being asked for was actually provided for in the bill. It’s not unusual to have a Government Supplementary Order Paper. We did share it, as soon as it was available, with other political parties, and so now we consider those things in the committee of the whole House.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m pleased Minister Sepuloni took a call, but, really, it didn’t answer the questions that my colleague Harete Hipango asked. I appreciate that the Social Services and Community Committee is controlled by the Labour Party and not the Minister—I accept that—but the point with this is there were multiple opportunities and requests from stakeholders, throughout the select committee process, asking for time: asking for time so that submissions weren’t just over Christmas; asking for an extension to the time that stakeholders could submit on the bill. It’s fair to say, from many of the submissions that we heard, there were parts of the bill that were very unexpected to stakeholders, who were very surprised at the inclusion particularly around, for example, the movement of the supposedly independent monitor and not locating it the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, which was the original plan out of the Beatie report.

The question is: why was the time not taken at every opportunity? And now, when we have a substantial Supplementary Order Paper—which, on the one hand, the Minister says isn’t really changing anything, and so there’s pages and pages and pages of something that’s not really changing much. But she’s listened to the stakeholders and met with them and listened to them and strengthened the language, but not changed very much. It makes it really confusing in terms of what actually has changed. So this is going to take some time.

I want to put on record, for the people who have just started listening to this debate: this is about the oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system and the Children and Young People’s Commission. Of any organisation the Government is responsible for, the oversight of Oranga Tamariki has to be the priority, and to do this in this manner is disgraceful. Stakeholders asked for time; members of Parliament asked for time; other select committee members from Labour ignored it. The Minister didn’t support the efforts of the stakeholders to ask for more time to do this thoroughly. And, actually, one of the requests from many of us, which still is on the table, is: why do all of this? Why confuse all of this, with changes that aren’t really changes, when the report of the royal commission into State abuse hasn’t come back?

The question, Minister, is simply: why this level of change? Is it real or is it not? And why not take more time, refer it back to the select committee, allow the level of scrutiny it deserves and the most vulnerable of children deserve too?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I’m going to stick closely to what is within scope of the bill. Discussing through the committee stage, when speaking specifically to the detail around the bill, doesn’t include extending that to why we wouldn’t take more time to deliberate over this. However, the one point I will make about it is that the Social Services and Community Committee did get an extension to hear more submissions, because the select committee saw that as being of importance.

Also, I was asked by the previous member from the National Party, Harete Hipango, about the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) and to explain what they were. I think I went into great detail about what those SOPs were, and I also summarised what they do. I did say very clearly that, although they don’t change the intent of the bill, they do provide further clarity and the assurance that stakeholders were seeking with respect to protections for our young people in care or in contact with the system. So it was the assurance around protection, as well as the clarity, that we sought when pulling together the changes that we are discussing.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. I too would like to offer my congratulations to the Speaker for ascension into the Chair and to thank the Minister for this type of engagement on the bill, because it is incredibly important and I know there are a lot of people who are deeply worried—as am I. I’m not hopeful, but it would be a wonderful outcome if I came out at the end of this being reassured.

Having read the material and quite a few substantive reports around this, for me, nothing in this has explained the “why this solution?” I would love to hear from the Minister why we’ve come up with this splitting of complaints and monitoring and advocacy. The reasons behind that seem opaque to me.

And why not the implementation of the Waitangi Tribunal’s recommendation for a Māori transitional authority that would have inherently had a monitoring role in it and ensured that the Crown started to move towards meeting the obligations towards honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi, which we are clearly in breach of, as the Waitangi Tribunal ruled, and which we have not fixed? They absolutely said there needed to be an agency that was independent of the Crown and all of its departments. That was part of the Waitangi Tribunal ruling and yet we get this, which is more of a tinkering with an existing system and, actually, a removing and shifting of roles from an agency that has a degree of independence from the Crown, which seems to me to be going in exactly the wrong direction.

I do just want to point to some of the specific points that the Waitangi Tribunal made. They were saying that that body should be established as a priority and given a wide mandate to consider systems improvement both within and outside of the legislative and policy settings of Oranga Tamariki. Surely, when we found we were in breach—when we know pēpi, tamariki, and rangatahi Māori and whānau are suffering extreme harm in our misnamed “care system”—surely, that should have been the legislation that came to this House.

Even if we weren’t going down that path, I still don’t understand: why not the proposal that was floated in the Beatie report of, yes, strengthened monitoring—and I think the Minister’s right that there is agreement in this House around the need for strengthening monitoring—and the proposal of that being moved back to the Children’s Commissioner? So where did the idea come from that said, “No, let’s not do that; let’s put this into a departmental agency.”?

I’d also like to know from the Minister—who’s saying she has listened to a lot of stakeholders and is engaged and has had the conversations—if any of those stakeholders asked for just these small changes and said they were fine with the monitor staying as a departmental agency. I have not spoken to one person who is advocating for change on this who has had that position. So I do think, if the Government is listening, that is an absolutely core point in the opposition—as well as the timing point. I understand the Minister’s saying that’s not in scope in this part of the debate at the moment, but the fact that we are debating it does mean that the timing when everybody said, “Please, hold off. Don’t do this now. Wait until the royal commission. Ensure that those voices and the experiences of people who have”—and there are almost a quarter of a million of those people—“been hurt in our supposed care who are telling us what we need to do to fix the system can be heard.” The advice that’s informed this bill, which we were told links to the royal commission, was at such an early stage, before those voices had really been heard.

That’s a first series of questions to the Minister.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I’m not going to speak to the review period that’s in the bill that will allow us to be able to, down the track, consider the report that comes from the royal commission, because that would be part of Part 3 of this bill.

The member has asked some questions around the Treaty provisions. I think that she may have said—correct me if I’m wrong—that the Waitangi Tribunal has ruled that they are not befitting. Now, the Waitangi Tribunal has not ruled on this bill—I need to be very clear.

The structure of clause 6, with the Treaty-specific obligations woven throughout the bill, were developed with stakeholders who wanted to see specific obligations placed on the oversight bodies. Their view was that a broad Treaty clause can be open to interpretation and its meaning can be diluted. The Ombudsman’s unique constitutional status as an Officer of Parliament created additional complexity as they are technically not considered to be part of the Crown. However, by providing for specific obligations, the bill ensures the Ombudsman is also able to demonstrate a practical commitment to the Treaty of Waitangi. The Treaty provisions in this bill were carefully crafted. We’re dealing with the Ombudsman, who is not part of the Crown; the Children and Young People’s Commission, who are independent; and then the departmental agency, now, that has independence written into the bill as well but is a departmental agency. So it’s a very different situation, in many regards.

I will acknowledge the Kāhui Group, who advised on the Treaty provisions specific to this particular context. It may be slightly different to what that member has seen before, and I understand that. But I will again articulate that the Waitangi Tribunal has not ruled on this bill—as I’ve said before, going through the clause and why we got to that point.

Now, there are some other things that were raised by the member that actually also come up in other parts of the bill, including, I think, Part 3, where we talk more about the Independent Children’s Monitor and the structure and why it was set up. But I will give a brief statement to that, despite the fact that the actual structure and wording is in Part 3, and just say that the Beatie report that the member referred to did not propose a perfect solution. It’s really important to note that. The current arrangement in monitoring and advocacy being in the same organisation potentially not working has been an issue that has been raised with us throughout this whole process—and the issue around potential tension between advocacy and monitoring. But we are moving outside of Part 1 by discussing this in too great a detail, and so I am going to end it there, Mr Chair.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you, Mr Chair, and congratulations on your appointment to the role. I want to join my parliamentary colleague Jan Logie from the Green Party, because I think the issue of timing is significant in this bill. I actually want to bring the words of a former member of Parliament, but not one from my side of the House; one from the Labour side of the House, and that is, of course, a former leader, the Hon David Cunliffe, who also in his submission talks about the fact that the bill “specifically weakens the Children’s Commissioner, undermines the Commissioners’ independent oversight of Oranga Tamariki.” and “the truncated process and the drafting of the Bill clearly fails to consider children and young people’s perspectives”. This is, of course, something we’ve heard throughout.

I would be interested in the Minister tabling a list of the organisations she has consulted with since the departmental report and since the report back from the Social Services and Community Committee, because that is the bit that is invisible to the Parliament, and I think it would help in our deliberations if the list of the stakeholders could be tabled. So that is a request that I’m making of the Minister in this section. There aren’t many occasions in the Parliament where every party except one is opposed to the bill, and that’s why we have to traverse this in detail. So I want to specifically raise and ask questions of the Minister in response to the submission that was raised by the Hon David Cunliffe, who specifically said that he doesn’t support the bill in its current form and recommends that it not proceed until more work is done, specifically that progress on the bill should be paused to allow the specific issues related to the monitoring of Oranga Tamariki and the structure and function of the Children’s Commissioner to be more thoroughly considered.

He even goes as far as recommending the Minister take time to take this back to Cabinet, and I would like to put that offer on the table from the Parliament today, to say we would be happy. I’m looking at my colleagues across the House. We would be happy for the Minister to take time to fully traverse these issues. We now have a very complex set of Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) before the Parliament, and what I do know from 14 years in this place is that legislation that is driven through with masses of SOPs creates great risk in the law coming out wrong. I put this plea—I put this plea—to the Minister: we do not want to get this wrong. We do not want to get this wrong. So the offer from the National Party and from others would be that we take a breath on this bill. I appreciate the fact that the Minister has met with stakeholders and sees fit to make some improvements to this bill. We would like to be supportive of that and to do it properly and thoroughly.

There’s been nothing that we’ve heard that drives any urgency for why this bill has to be passed by a certain date. So I would ask the Minister to provide a list of the stakeholders that have been consulted since this bill was reported back from the select committee, and I would ask the Minister to consider very seriously pausing this bill so that many of the issues that she herself has raised with changes in the SOPs, and parliamentary colleagues have in their SOPs, could be considered fully. It would be a wonderful day in this House for our children and for the children in the care of Oranga Tamariki to have a Parliament that is unanimously supporting the legislation. I think we could do that. We could do that if we took time and did it properly. So that is my request and my questions of the Minister.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): The submission that David Cunliffe made and the points that the member Louise Upston has raised that were in his submission are not within scope of Part 1. I am going to stick closely to the provisions in the bill, because that is what we are here to debate. I will say that, if the other side of the House want to speak broadly to this bill, they should have sought leave to take this as one part. I am quite happy to speak specifically to the parts and the clauses of the bill, but I will not be going out of scope of the bill.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): I’d just state that these primary provisions do give the opportunity to be broader-ranging. We are moving out of the provisions of Part 1, and I will be looking for speakers henceforth to be concentrating more on the provisions in Part 1. We’ve had a fairly wide-ranging debate to date, and we’d be looking for a little more specificity now, please.

KAREN CHHOUR (ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. Minister, I just was looking at one of the Supplementary Order Papers that’s been put forward in your name, and part of me is relieved that the change was made, and another part of me is kind of a bit disappointed that it took this long to get it written into this bill. I mean, I’ve constantly heard talk about how this bill has been in progress since 2019, I think it was—2018—how you’ve been looking at ways we can strengthen the oversight of Oranga Tamariki, and how important it is we get this done very, very quickly. I look at the purpose of this bill and the purpose of this bill is to “uphold the rights and interests and improve the well-being of children and young people who are receiving, or have previously received, services or support through … Oranga Tamariki”—that’s great. It’s a great purpose to have. But why did it take so long to add “best interests” into this bill? I mean, surely the best interests of children and young people should have been one of the first things that was stuck in this bill.

There were so many submissions where young people and organisations were concerned that the bill was more about protecting the organisation itself rather than protecting our young people. So I look at clause 5, “Principles”, and I see that we’ve added a few things in: the best interests of children and young people—yep, the perspectives of children and young people. I thought, “Yay! Something really good’s come out of the opposition coming from this side.” But then I read it and I think, well, actually, it doesn’t have much teeth because it’s only they must “have regard to” best interests, and “regard” to the perspectives of children and young people.

Unfortunately, Minister, I’ve seen what having regard to children’s voices has been like in the last six months, and it ain’t that hot. So where are the teeth? Where’s the making sure that the best interests actually are paramount when it comes to young people and their best interests? We’ve done this in other children’s Acts. We’ve done this in the Oranga Tamariki Act, where we define the best interests of the children. They become, you know, the basis of the whole bill. The best interest is the first thing that matters ahead of absolutely everything else. I’m just wondering if the Minister would be willing to define the best interest better and give it more teeth than just “having regard to”.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): It’s explicitly required, what we’ve got in there. The member pointed out that she’s disappointed that it came late and it should have been done earlier. As I said before in reference to the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) in front of us, basically we are further enhancing and providing assurance around the protections. An example of where the wording is changed slightly was that previously it was about “interests” as opposed to “best interests”, and so the SOP emphasises that. Previously, this part referred to “voices of children”, and now we’ve added “perspectives of children” as well. So we are trying to further emphasise the absolute importance of ensuring that children and rangatahi are at the centre of this bill.

I have traversed the SOPs and explained why. Hopefully, that explanation with regards to the point of difference is clear.

HARETE HIPANGO (National): Kia ora. Thank you, Mr Chair. Congratulations on your ascension to the Speaker’s Chair and this evening as chair of this committee of the whole House.

So I put the question to the Minister. It’s on the record, Minister: the opening statement given by you this evening that the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 209 with the proposed amendments—the approximate 49 to 50 of them. The statement is they are not substantive changes. So, Minister, would you please clarify, then, that clause 3—which is one of the proposed amendments under the bill—requiring the monitor to act independently, which was not previously part of this bill, is not a substantive change?

Then the other question is whether or not it is a substantive change—it’s, again, one of your Supplementary Order Paper amendments. Now, under clause 5, principles must have regard to the best interests of children and young people, the perspectives of children and young people. Is that not a substantive change to this bill? I put it to the Minister, I’ve put it to the House, and members of the public: it is certainly substantive. So to suggest for one moment that the amendments under the Minister’s SOP numbered 209 are not substantive changes—are effectively minor changes—is somewhat not the case.

So, Minister, if you could clarify whether or not those are deemed to be substantive or not, before we move on to some more substantive provisions of amendments that have been proposed by the Minister.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Just quickly, adding “independence” into clause 3 is not—as I said, it enhances; it provides further reassurance. But independence is stressed throughout the bill. It was just to provide, as I said earlier about the Supplementary Order Papers, further reassurance.

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

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d like to speak to my Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) and pick up on some of the comments made by the Minister earlier specifically in relation around Te Tiriti clauses, and to clarify that when I was talking about the Waitangi Tribunal ruling, it was around the functioning of Oranga Tamariki. That report came out last year. It is very recent, but before the policy work on this piece of legislation, and it was, I would have thought, an essential thing that we actually address those recommendations and rulings of the Waitangi Tribunal. I want to note that that point about the broader clause in the Kāhui Group—I acknowledge that they recommended more specific rulings.

But I also noticed, from the Auckland University Aotearoa New Zealand Indigenous Peoples and the Law report, Time to Taihoa, that they noted that the Waitangi Tribunal has found the specific definitive types of Treaty clauses to be problematic, especially when the legislative provisions that these clauses claim will give effect to the Crown’s Te Tiriti obligations fall short of what is guaranteed under Te Tiriti. I think, from the specificity of the Waitangi Tribunal’s rulings last year around tino rangatiratanga over kāinga, the way that the current Treaty provisions are worded falls short, and I would love to hear the Minister’s outline of how that does not fall short when it has no reference to upholding tino rangatiratanga over kāinga.

I also want to address the point made by the Minister of the complexity of this when the Ombudsman comes into play, and we heard that advice from officials that we couldn’t have a general clause because of the Ombudsman’s independence. Well, my understanding is that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has the same status as the Ombudsman as an Officer of Parliament, and the Environment Act that set up that office includes reference to the Treaty in the purpose section. Actually, you could argue that it is in the exact control of Parliament to be able to make these decisions and put these clauses in place in that Officers of Parliament are closer to the Crown than local government, who also have provisions for honouring Te Tiriti.

Also, one of our SOPs is around ensuring that the key priority is the need to support outcomes for Māori children, young people, and their whānau, and prioritise rather than just recognise the importance of children and young people’s families, whānau, hapū, iwi, and communities. I understand that the Government’s position on this is wanting to maintain that direct focus just on children, and just to say that this is a very longstanding conversation and point of conflict between the Crown and Māori, where children are not seen as separate from whānau, from hapū, from iwi, and that harm to one is harm to the other. What has been so integral to the damage that has been done to Māori by our so-called care system is the failure of our systems to acknowledge that symbiotic relationship, and the failure to actually even understand what whānau is. Unless we prioritise that connection, then it is very hard for me to understand how we are not just going to keep replicating those same patterns.

Also, the other point in my last minute here is the question for the Minister around this. I understand New Zealand hasn’t ratified the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, but I understand we have signed that declaration. Again, it is in the power of this Parliament and the Government to make a proposal for us to ensure that that is part of the focus of our agencies in this area, because—and it’s so important—it is the history of using child protection as a tool of colonisation. I hope that we all recognise that by now, and the importance of having systems in place to undo that from our systems. It can’t be passive; it needs to be active, and it needs strong assertions to make those changes.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Without wanting to be repetitive, I did explain perhaps three times—but I’m going to go into this again with specific reference to the Supplementary Order Paper put up by the member as well—how we came to have the Treaty provisions that are in the bill that we do. We had the Kāhui Group, who advised on what would be appropriate, given this set of very unique circumstances where you have an Ombudsman, who isn’t part of the Crown; you have the Children and Young People’s Commission, who is a Crown entity; and then you have the Independent Children’s Monitor, who is a departmental agency, but with independence written into the bill. The provisions that were put in place were specifically crafted for this particular situation, and, certainly, as I said earlier, the Waitangi Tribunal has not ruled against these Treaty provisions.

I want to also refer to the member’s Supplementary Order Paper that I just received a copy of. The member specifically refers to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities—which we’ve already covered with regards to what the Government is proposing—but also includes reference to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. As I’ve already said in the House, it hasn’t been ratified by us. But on top of that—

Jan Logie: It’s been signed.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: The member has said that we’ve signed it. It is still being consulted on here in Aotearoa, so it would be premature to mention it when we have not actually finished consultation and ratified it as a nation. Mr Chair, I’m sorry for being repetitive, but just sharing that again.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): I move, That the question be now put.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that the question be now put. All those in favour will say Aye, those against will say No. The Ayes have it. [A party vote was called for] The question will be put. [Interruption] The vote will be in silence, please.

Hon Louise Upston: This is an outrage.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The member will stand, withdraw, and apologise. The member will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon Louise Upston: I’ll leave. This is outrageous. This is absolutely outrageous. I can’t believe you’re doing this.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The member will leave the Chamber.

Hon Louise Upston withdrew from the Chamber.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the question be now put.

Ayes 65

New Zealand Labour 65.

Noes 55

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Motion agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Supplementary Order Paper 209 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 217 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 75

New Zealand Labour 65; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 43

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10.

Amendments to the amendments agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 1 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 209 as amended be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 85

New Zealand Labour 65; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; ACT New Zealand 10.

Noes 33

New Zealand National 33.

Amendments as amended agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that Jan Logie’s amendments to Part 1 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 214 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 43

New Zealand National 33; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 75

New Zealand Labour 65; ACT New Zealand 10.

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that Harete Hipango’s amendment to clause 4 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 220 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 53

New Zealand National 33; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; ACT New Zealand 10.

Noes 65

New Zealand Labour 65.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that Harete Hipango’s amendment to clause 5 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 224 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 43

New Zealand National 33; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 75

New Zealand Labour 65; ACT New Zealand 10.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that Harete Hipango’s amendment to clause 6 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 225 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 33

New Zealand National 33.

Noes 85

New Zealand Labour 65; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; ACT New Zealand 10.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that Harete Hipango’s amendments to clause 6 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 226 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 33

New Zealand National 33.

Noes 85

New Zealand Labour 65; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; ACT New Zealand 10.

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that Harete Hipango’s amendment to clause 7 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 227 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 43

New Zealand National 33; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 75

New Zealand Labour 65; ACT New Zealand 10.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that Harete Hipango’s amendment to clause 8 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 228 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 53

New Zealand National 33; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; ACT New Zealand 10.

Noes 65

New Zealand Labour 65.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that Part 1 as amended stand part.

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

Ayes 65

New Zealand Labour 65.

Noes 55

New Zealand National 33; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; ACT New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

Part 2 Oversight of Oranga Tamariki system

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Members, we now come to Part 2. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): The consultation with care-experienced children and young people that has led to this bill started in 2018 during the development of the Beattie report. The Beattie report drew on the voices of children and young people, including from the Modernising Child, Youth and Family Expert Panel report and 22 hui held with Māori, including those with care experience. These voices and those of the tamariki and rangatahi, advocates, and others who have participated in the development process or submitted on the bill have been clear in their call for comprehensive, independent monitoring, and a solution to the current confusing and cumbersome complaints process. We have listened to those voices.

Part 2 of this bill establishes the independent monitor to monitor outcomes for children and young people receiving services through the Oranga Tamariki system and ensures that they have strengthened complaints and investigations processes through the Ombudsman. As with Part 1, I want to take the time to talk to why the clauses in Part 2 of the bill are drafted the way they are and respond to the particular issues that have been raised.

Establishing the monitor and its objectives in clauses 12 and 13—clause 12 establishes the independent monitor. It also explicitly provides that it will be independent of Oranga Tamariki. I want to take a moment to discuss that independence here. The monitoring function in respect of the Oranga Tamariki system is not new to the bill. A version of the proposed monitor currently sits in the Ministry of Social Development, with a significantly reduced function. We have heard voices calling for greater independence of the monitor proposed in this bill. I can understand why this is a real concern for the tamariki and rangatahi in the system and their advocates who may lack trust in Government systems that have not operated as well as they should have for them. That is why we have actually made the monitor more independent through the changes in the bill. The monitor will be a statutory officer with a legal duty to act independently, housed in a departmental agency that shares its back-office functions with the Education Review Office so it can focus resources on monitoring the Oranga Tamariki system.

This explicit independence requirement, which is set out in clause 13 of the bill, is strengthened at numerous places throughout Part 2. This is particularly the case in clause 16, which specifies that the monitor must act independently when developing the tools for and carrying out its monitoring function, and stops Government from directing the monitor to stop doing or preventing the monitor from doing anything it considers necessary to perform its functions. The legal duties this places on the monitor and the Government don’t just make the monitor more independent; they make it clear the monitor would be acting unlawfully if it does not act independently, and the Government would be breaking the law if it interfered in the monitor’s affairs.

An example of how this might work in practice is with regards to the reviews that the monitor undertakes under clauses 24 and 25. These provisions are clear that the monitor is able to inquire into anything it chooses in the Oranga Tamariki system. Although Ministers may ask them to look into additional matters, they cannot ask them to stop any work they are doing, even if it impacts on the delivery of the reviews that the Ministers have requested.

The objectives of the monitor are set out in clause 13—to carry out objective, impartial, and evidence-based monitoring, and provide advice about the Oranga Tamariki system and its interface with other systems. I know that there have been questions raised with regards to why one of the monitor’s key functions is to support public trust and confidence in the system. This is not about the Government trying to get the monitor to make the Government look good. The monitor’s advice will support the Government to make better decisions with regards to policy and practice in the Oranga Tamariki system. But it will also provide the advocate, the Children and Young People’s Commission, with the information that it needs to hold the Government to account.

We want more transparency and accountability in the system—not less transparency and accountability in the system—so that our tamariki and rangatahi and their families and whānau have confidence to engage with and get the support they need.

I also want to note the change proposed by Jan Logie in her Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) on this clause, which would add a requirement that the monitor acts independently when fulfilling its objectives under clause 13. While I don’t disagree with the intent of the suggestion, it’s not necessary. The role of the monitor means it will fulfil its objectives by engaging in monitoring and developing the tools and approaches to do this. Because it is required to do these things independently, it will always be acting independently when it is working to fulfil its obligations.

I want to move on now to clauses 17, 18, and 19, which provide more detail as to how the monitor will work with Māori. We know—all of us know—that Māori are disproportionately represented in the Oranga Tamariki system. That is why aspects of the bill, including the Treaty provisions, were co-designed with Te Kāhui, and the proposals now reflected in the bill were tested in 22 hui across the country.

Clauses 17 and 18 ensure that this engagement will be continued by the monitor, once it is up and running, by requiring it to appoint a Māori Advisory Group to support meaningful and effective engagement with Māori, and work with them in the development of its priorities, work programmes, and monitoring approaches.

The monitor’s relationship with Māori won’t be limited to one group. Clause 19 requires it to build relationships with hapū, iwi, and Māori organisations and engage in shared mahi regarding how to improve oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system.

I know that Jan Logie has submitted a Supplementary Order Paper seeking a range of changes to the bill with regards to our Treaty obligations and the relationships of the entities with Māori. I want to be clear that although the Public Service Act doesn’t allow shared decision-making arrangements for departmental agencies, these provisions provide a strong framework for a close relationship between Māori and the monitor. They are also sufficiently flexible to allow for situations where some distance is necessary and appropriate, such as where a Māori organisation is potentially subject to monitoring.

Clause 19 holds the monitor accountable to working in this way by requiring it to demonstrate publicly on an internet site how it has given regard to the views of the Māori Advisory Group.

“Reports and reviews”, clauses 21 to 31—the monitor is currently required to do at least one report every three years to the responsible Ministers on the national care standards. It has already completed four since we established it in 2019, but it is clear that there is more work to do.

Clauses 21 to 23 of the bill expand the monitor’s role to require additional reports at least once every three years on the state of the Oranga Tamariki system; each year on compliance with the national care standards regulations; and each year on the performance of the Oranga Tamariki system in respect of outcomes being achieved for Māori children and young people and their whānau.

This increased scrutiny of the system will create greater accountability and transparency, but we have heard concerns from tamariki, rangatahi, and their advocates that the reporting and review requirements in the bill do not create enough accountability for the agencies that work in the system. I want to give them comfort that this is not the case. I’ve already discussed the monitor’s independent reviews and the fact that although Ministers can ask to look into a matter, they cannot interfere in the monitor’s work.

When the monitor completes its reviews: I know the select committee recommended that the agencies that are subject to reports have up to 60 working days to respond. However, we are reducing the response time frames to 20 working days for clause 22 and 23 reports; and 35 working days for cause 21, 24, and 25 reports.

Children and young people need to see that agencies are responding quickly to issues raised by the monitor and identifying how and when they will be addressed. As well as providing the reports to the relevant chief executives and requiring them to provide a quick response, we have ensured that the findings in the reports and these responses are as public and transparent as possible. Not only must the monitor publish all its reports, Mr Chair—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Carry on, Minister Sepuloni.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Thank you very much, Mr Chair. As well as providing the reports to the relevant chief executives and requiring them to provide a quick response, we have ensured that the findings in the reports and these responses are as public and transparent as possible. Not only must the monitor publish all its reports and agencies’ responses to them online under clause 30, the bill also requires the Minister responsible for the Oranga Tamariki Act to present a copy of the reports to the House as soon as practicable after receiving it.

I also want to address the concerns Karen Chhour has raised in her Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) regarding these clauses. The member wants to add reports that the monitor has initiated into clause 27, which requires the monitor to share its report with a list of people including the responsible Ministers, chief executives, and the Ombudsman and commission. This makes sense. It is important that the monitor’s findings are seen and responded to by all the relevant parties. That is why this change has already been implemented through the Government SOP. So I just acknowledge that there was alignment there.

The member also wants to add the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki into this list. Again, we agree with the intent, but this requirement is already in the bill because clause 27(c) requires the monitor to share the report with the chief executive of any agency that is the subject of the report, and in practice this will always include Oranga Tamariki.

Powers of entry—I’m now going to move on to clauses 30 to 35, which govern the monitor’s ability to enter premises to undertake its monitoring functions. The monitor’s role is to support agencies in the system to work towards continuous service improvement by identifying areas of high performance and areas for improvement through impartial and evidence-based monitoring. In doing this, it will be necessary for the monitor to take the information provided to it by agencies and validate it by visiting communities, connecting, and listening to those that have a role to play in the Oranga Tamariki system, including whānau, hapū, iwi, caregivers, providers, and professionals. Most importantly, the monitor will engage directly with children and young people.

The bill strengthens the current powers of entry for monitoring and ensures that the monitor has the ability to visit residences and other locations of interest to do this work. But as the monitor is not investigating specific breaches of any legislation, does not monitor individual children, and does not carry out an enforcement function, it is not appropriate for the monitor to have a without notice power of entry to carry out monitoring. To require otherwise would represent a significant intrusion on the public’s right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure enshrined in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. An unlimited power of entry would likely exacerbate tension or emotional harm to children and young people. It is unsettling for children and young people to have strangers entering their places of residence unannounced, especially when they are expected to interact with those strangers and answer their questions.

To the extent the Ombudsman and Children’s Commissioner are discharging Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT) functions under the Crimes of Torture Act 1989 as designated national prevention mechanisms, they have a without notice power of entry to do so. OPCAT monitoring is focused on human rights breaches and takes place in places of detention to check on the treatment and conditions of detainees. This differs from monitoring under the bill as OPCAT is focused on individual residences rather than at a system level. Where there is a serious and imminent risk to children and young people’s safety, the police have the necessary powers to act and take the appropriate action. It would not be appropriate for the monitor to take action in these circumstances, especially if there is distress amongst residents.

This clause sets out new duties that apply to an Ombudsman where they are dealing with complaints and investigations, including a duty to ensure they operate in a culturally competent way, that their processes are visible and accessible to children, and that investigations processes incorporate a tikanga Māori approach.

There has been some concern that the Ombudsman is not the appropriate organisation to resolve complaints. However, the Ombudsman already has oversight of complaints about the Oranga Tamariki system. What we are doing is expanding the scope to care and custody providers for which the Ombudsman can resolve complaints, requiring complaints processes to be visible and accessible, and ensuring the Ombudsman has the necessary powers to resolve complaints in a timely manner. The bill places a strong onus on the Ombudsman to ensure children’s participation is considered. This is done through the principles in clause 5 of the bill.

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you, Mr Chair. I just want to pick up within Part 2 some points around this notion of independence. The Minister’s covered that from her perspective in terms of the value of independence. We can acknowledge that lack of interference might seem on the face of it a good thing—I’m not here to argue against that—but I do just want to test the Minister on how she would explain the balancing exercise whereby independence in some sense is the reverse of accountability. So if we look, for example, at new clause 16A, “Duty to act independently”—as proposed within the Government Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that relates at the moment to Part 2. So there at the second part of that, we see that “A Minister of the Crown must not direct the Monitor to stop carrying out an activity, or prevent the Monitor from carrying out an activity, that the Monitor considers is necessary to enable them to perform or exercise their functions, duties, or powers under this Act.” So it seems to me—and I’d be grateful if the Minister can explain; perhaps I’ve misunderstood—that if there’s not ministerial accountability and if in fact that’s precisely precluded from the operation of the monitor and we don’t have an oversight in a ministerial sense, then to what extent can we say that we have a system that’s accountable ultimately in a political way? So it’s a genuine question, just how those two things can be reconciled, and it might be that it’s somewhere else within the bill. I’d be happy to be pointed to that if there’s some sort of safety mechanism there.

But on a similar note, I note that within clause 12, which is about the establishment of the independent monitor of the Oranga Tamariki system, we’ve got a note that it must be independent of the ministry. So the monitor and the ministry—they sound quite similar and that’s unfortunate at this time of night as I stumble my way through the contribution. But, again, I’m looking at those different functions intended to be separate, and to some extent, that may be healthy. Others on this side of the House will probably have a more informed view than me on that because they’ve attended the select committee hearing and so forth, but it seems to me, again, there’s a trade-off between accountability versus independence, and particularly accountability to a Minister as opposed to a ministry if we want the relevant Minister from time to time, whoever that may be, to be able to exercise oversight and perhaps steer the Government agency—and at the end of the day it is a Government agency—in the right direction for its activities.

I’ll just put that out there, and I think you’ve encouraged us, Mr Chair, to ask a series of questions within our contributions so that the Minister can have a chance to reflect on those and sort of take them one by one, maybe, or refer to officials for advice and so forth. But the other questions I had mostly were clustered around the heading “Code of Ethics”. So again within Part 2, clause 20, we read that “The Monitor must have a code of ethics relating to engagement”, but there doesn’t seem to be anything in here about what the consequence is if the code of ethics is to be breached. It’s enough, according to this clause, clause 20, simply that there is a code of ethics. It doesn’t actually say that the monitor is bound by them. The monitor must publish the code of ethics, having developed it. It must consult certain persons. The code of ethics must include certain things, and the purpose of the code of ethics is set out, but it doesn’t actually say that the monitor’s going to be bound. And that seems to me actually a bit of a shortfall in the legislation, unless, again, the Minister can assure the House—excuse me, the committee of the whole House—and indeed the country that this has been taken care of.

And also what we don’t have is any consequence if the code of ethics is breached. And we know, because we understand the point about independence, that it’s not going to be the Minister calling to account the monitor; it’s not going to be the ministry either, because we’ve heard that and discussed that. So it seems to me that there’s a danger of a Clayton’s code of ethics such that it’s not actually going to be enforceable in any way; it’s not required to be. And in practical terms, if no one is to be able to hold the monitor accountable for compliance with these ethical standards, then it seems to me not much point in being there. So I look forward to the Minister’s comments on that and with your indulgence, Mr Chair, in further contributions I certainly have other questions that I would like to have the Minister answer in this part.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): There will still be an accountable Minister, with regards to the Independent Children’s Monitor. The Minister’s responsibility will be to make sure that the monitor fulfils its obligations with respect to the legislation. Also, if we’re referring to the code of ethics, the code of ethics will be secondary legislation, and that will be outlined very clearly there.

I also want to mention that the Minister for Oranga Tamariki, when we’re talking about the independence and how this relationship will work, will be accountable for response to the Independent Children’s Monitor’s reports.

HARETE HIPANGO (National): The Minister in, again, a statement this evening stated, “meaningful and effective engagement”—meaningful and effective engagement. So I invite the Government benches to consider that, because it’s not about dispensing with something that conveniently is going to be rushed through. Our children are really important, so I’m going to bring it back to Part 2 under this bill, and for the benefit of the public who are listening in, Part 2 is a number of clauses, which are clauses 12 to 42. So there’s a significant number of Supplementary Order Papers, which are proposed amendments for consideration by this Government. But judging by Part 1, or the assessment from that, this is a done deal, and no matter what debate we put to the committee of the whole House for the Government to consider meaningful and effective engagement, it would seem that this is a foregone conclusion.

But from my perspective, the National Party’s perspective, I’m here to remind the Government that this bill is meant to be focused on the welfare, the best interests, the wellbeing of children, and that there is a specific child-centric lens to this.

So, on that note, I turn to my Supplementary Order Paper 230, which is addressing clause 16 under the bill. The proposal is to replace clause 16(2)(b), which says that “The Monitor must ensure that their tools and monitoring approaches—operate in a way that recognises the importance of children’s and young people’s families, whānau, hapū, iwi, and communities and their culture;”, with, “The Monitor must ensure that their tools and monitoring approaches—operate in a way that recognises … children and young people and their families, whānau, hapū, iwi, and communities …”, a significant point of difference. It is specifically ensuring and inserting, under this proposed amendment, the focus of the monitor to ensure that tools and monitoring approaches focus on the children and young people with their families, not disregarding children and young people, and having the priority on the families, whānau, hapū, and other entities.

So invite the Government, when the Minister has said in the Chamber this evening that a child-centric approach has been taken, to put politics aside, focus on what is in the welfare best interests of children, centre the interest and the focus on them, and this Supplementary Order Paper 230, with that proposal for an amendment to clause 16, does exactly that. So Minister, invite consideration for that, put politics aside, put our children’s interests to the fore.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): The meaningful engagement questions that the member was asking about were actually out of scope with regards to this part of the bill. I am being specific to the parts in the bill. That’s what we’re here to do tonight, and that’s what the committee of the whole House stage is about.

The point that the member raised about whānau and Supplementary Order Paper 230 (SOP) that the member wants to put up, there’s actually already an SOP that covers that, and that’s by the member Jan Logie. Also, clause 5 ensures that the monitor does consider this.

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I’m grateful to have a further call, mostly because the Minister didn’t provide what I thought was a very satisfactory answer to the committee of the whole House. I pointed out that the duty to act independently in clause 16A says that the Minister of the Crown can’t direct the monitor to stop carrying out an activity. And the Minister said, “Well, don’t worry, because the Minister’s still responsible for making sure that the monitor carries out their duties in accordance with the legislation.” Well, that’s utterly at odds with what it says here. They can’t stop them carrying out an activity. And the only test within this clause is that the monitor considers it necessary to enable them to perform or exercise their functions. So if the monitor, however wrongheadedly, thinks that it’s OK to do a certain thing even though that’s not consistent with the legislation, the Minister would have us believe that because it’s not consistent with the legislation, the Minister can intervene. But in fact the very words within clause 16A—the new ones that she wants to insert via the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP)—don’t allow that. So that’s the first thing.

The second thing is that in relation to clause 19—and it’s to do with the arrangements with hapū, iwi, and Māori organisations—we hear about the development of arrangements with hapū, iwi, and Māori organisations for the purposes of providing opportunities, etc. and sharing information under this Act, and then we see in subclause (2) that nothing in that is to limit or affect any legislation that applies to the sharing of information. So can the Minister explain the relationship of that provision to the Privacy Act—to the provisions in the Privacy Act, the information privacy principles that talk about, for example, data needing to be used only for the purpose for which it’s collected? Does that override this or not? Because this bill, and more particularly the SOP, at clause 19 within Part 2, says that nothing in that particular clause is going to affect legislation that applies to the sharing of information—the Privacy Act, of course, chief among them.

And then my final point is in relation to reports and reviews. I see that the monitor must prepare at least once every three years a state of the Oranga Tamariki system report. And three years seems an awful long time to wait for a report on a new regime in a highly contentious public policy area. I’ve acknowledged openly I’m not the most knowledgeable in this House on the particular matters, but I think when it comes to procedure and process and accountability, and again with that point about independence, meaning that it’s all the more important that a report be provided for the public to be able to pore over—and heaven forbid Opposition politicians have a go at being able to hold this Government agency to account, along with the fourth estate and so on. And yet we may have to wait up to three years before the first such report is needing to be produced, and that seems to me to be far too little accountability.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Firstly, I just want to revisit the point that I thought we’d covered, but I’m happy to go back to it with regards to independence. Interestingly, that member is probably the only one on that side of the House and every other political party that’s questioning whether it’s too independent. Every other party, including his own party, is pointing out lack of independence. However, the point is that the Minister can’t stop the monitor doing what is set out in legislation. The Minister can ensure the monitor is doing what they were required to do in legislation. And if they did act outside of that or they didn’t fulfil their obligations, then they would be acting unlawfully, and so the Minister would certainly have some influence there, as the Minister responsible for the monitor.

The member asked around the Privacy Act. It is certainly consistent with the Privacy Act. In some ways, what I’ve been advised is that clause 48 of this part is even more strict than what would potentially be required from the Privacy Act, and that was done deliberately because of the fact that we are specifically talking about children and young people in this instance. Also, just going back to the code of ethics question, there is a legal requirement regarding the code of ethics: a requirement on the monitor to comply with the code, firstly, when exercising power of entry; secondly, when collecting information from children; and, thirdly, when accessing children from caregivers. So those things are taken into consideration.

KAREN CHHOUR (ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d just like to take a moment to thank the Minister for considering my Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 188 in regards to getting reports sent to the proper people. There was just one part that you spoke to, where the Minister was talking about the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki unit not being necessary for proposed clause 27(c)(ca) to be included. I just wanted to give a little bit of reasoning behind why I had requested that. Nothing I do when it comes to this bill is “just because”. There’s a reason behind it and I’m trying to be reasonable with the Supplementary Order Papers that I’m putting up to try and make a difference to this bill.

So the reason I specifically named “the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki” is we’ve already seen a failure happen where the chief executive was not informed of a review that was done, of their own initiative, of the sexual violence programme. They did a report around something that was going on within Oranga Tamariki in a programme. That programme was failing and that programme was shut down. No one informed the chief executive, even though there was probably something in there that said maybe he should have been informed. So this was just my way of making well and truly sure that the correct people are being informed when a report is presented. So that was my reasoning behind adding that in.

I’d also like to have a talk about my SOP 195, around clause 34. There has been a little bit of talk about entry with notice and without notice when it comes to Oranga Tamariki facilities. I understand the Minister’s argument—we don’t want to upset children, people coming in and out without notice—but this is actually something that young people and advocates and the Children’s Commissioner talked about. It is about allowing a child who may be trying to reach out because they’re in danger or something’s not quite right, or they feel that their safety is at risk, being able to reach out to their advocate and have their advocate come in their time of need. And if you have to give notice and the organisation has the ability to say “No, you can’t enter.”, these children feel like their lifeline has disappeared. And that’s just the perception. It’s a bit like when I worked in retail—you know, the CEO is going to come the next day. They give you notice, you clean up the shop, you make sure everything’s fine and dandy before the boss comes in. The boss comes in, doesn’t see any problems, and the problems still exist but they’ve just been hidden because that notice has been given. I really feel like that lifeline is something that these young people have called for within the select committee process and after.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you, Mr Chair. It would be good to get some feedback from the Minister on the engagement she’s had with the sector, particularly around concerns that have been more recently raised about the matter of independence.

This, of course, is Part 2 of the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP). I do hope that we get to traverse and discuss and debate every one of the SOPs from the Minister, given the importance of this legislation.

So, on the matter of independence: one of the groups that I’m assuming the Minister has been engaging with very recently is Jonathon Boston around the item of independence and the concern about whether or not a Government department—a Government agency—can truly be deemed to be independent and whether or not in the independent monitor’s duties, in the duty to act independently, and why it is the Minister is confident that this independent monitor truly can be independent of any political considerations and that it is not sitting too close to the centre of power.

So I want to know, from the Minister, what engagement she’s had more recently with stakeholders—including Jonathan Boston—on the item of independence. Because, at the end of the day, unless it’s truly independent, there is a risk that it becomes a political puppet—which none of us want. We need to ensure there is true independence, and there’s been sufficient issues of late for it to be concerning.

So my question is a repeat of the question I asked before: for a list of the stakeholders that the Minister’s engaged with since the select committee reported the bill back and specifically around discussions with Jonathan Boston around independence and what additional steps the Minister has taken to ensure that independence is real, particularly in clause 16A(2).

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Mr Chair, sorry—I’m a bit delayed there.

There were a few different things raised, so I’ll just go back to the ACT member, who raised some questions around power of entry. I just want to clarify to the committee that there’s no diminishing of power here. We’re not taking anything away that existed previously. What we still have is the Children and Young People’s Commission will still have responsibility for OPCAT—that’s the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture, one of our conventions that we’ve signed up to. The Children and Young People’s Commission will still maintain that. That gives them a higher level of power of entry than what the monitor would have.

I understand the point that the member was making with regards to her concern that if a young person was urgently in trouble and called their advocate, the advocate wouldn’t be able to necessarily go there without notice. If that young person was in serious trouble, then my expectation would be that the advocate would be ringing the enforcement services to go and take that up, because that level of urgency would require support from the police or others, and there are others that have those powers. So I want to just remind the committee that we’re not removing a power that existed before, and certainly the same powers are in place with regards to the Children and Young People’s Commission and OPCAT.

Mr Chair—sorry, this is the issue when two people speak and I’ve got to traverse the two people’s comments, so hopefully I haven’t missed anything from the ACT member.

The National member stood and asked me about whether I’ve spoken to a specific person. That’s not part of Part 2. I’m not going to traverse something that is completely out of scope with the part of this bill when I’ve been very clear it’s so important for this House and for the general public that we—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): I’ll just remind the Minister it is up to the Chair to decide what is out of scope. The Minister can choose not to answer, but the Chair will make the decision as to what is out of scope.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s so important that we are speaking to the specifics of the particular part in front of us, and there are, in my mind, no provisions in Part 2 for who the Minister speaks to.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d like to speak to this. This is a really important part of this piece of legislation, and probably one of the most controversial parts, and it does hinge around—there are specific provisions, but a large part of concern is around this concept of independence. I acknowledge the Minister saying, “Well, the Monitor sits within MSD at the moment—departmental agency, that’s more independent.” But the real source of tension coming from the community is that there was an understanding from pretty much all of our agencies that this was being set up in the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) to be brought back into the Office of the Children’s Commissioner that would be independent of the Government, and not part of the Public Service. That is where the mistrust and the concern fundamentally lies, and the fact that the reasons for keeping it within the Public Service have been unclear and opaque for most people. The consultation that the Minister mentioned earlier did not involve that concept. I specifically asked Waikato-Tainui if they had been involved in the hui around the country on this bill. They said they’d attended those hui but the consultation and the engagement did not relate to the content of this bill, of this proposal.

I’d love to hear from the Minister to address specifically the points in the report from David King and Jonathon Boston, and to acknowledge that David King is an independent public policy analyst specialising in child and youth wellbeing, mental health, public administration, and constitutional policy; was a senior public servant for 20 years across a wide range of public policy domains—this is not somebody who does not understand legislation or the functioning of Government. And Jonathan Boston has advised the Government on critical child-related legislation just last term—like, people who know the functioning of Government and want the best for our children, I would argue, very strongly, and supportive. They are saying that they do not believe this model of supposed independent monitoring is appropriate, because it removes the possibility of having a virtuous learning cycle where monitoring and complaints and advocacy can inform each other, and creates the possibility of a vicious cycle of those things being separated out, where actually the learnings get lost between the agencies and the requirement for cooperation, actually—and having had something to do with Government agencies trying to work together in the last term of Parliament, I can say that is not a straightforward thing. Our Government agencies do not work easily well together. That is a challenge that I think everybody in this House recognises. Just to put in legislation that they have to cooperate does not mean that that happens consistently or in the way that we would imagine it would.

They also point out that having the departmental agency reporting, effectively, on another Public Service agency is like a junior chief executive (CE) critiquing a very powerful CE in the same Public Service. The chances are that junior CE is going to want a career in our Public Service and that their career progression will depend on their ability to maintain those relationships across the Public Service. Not one of our children’s commissioners, that I’ve been able to find out, has gone from that position into a role in the Public Service, because, actually, that is not seen as an appropriate interflow, because they have independence from the Crown. They are not—and it’s crucial in terms of having an absolutely independent voice for our children, not for the State. And whether we want to say we’re putting it into law, we also know that the last Ombudsman’s report of Oranga Tamariki found that they were in breach of law pretty much constantly, in most of the cases they were reviewing. So to say it’s in law does not mean it automatically happens. And we are in this legislation, it is my very strong view, creating very significant risk for our children of a loss of independence and holding them first.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The time has come for me to report progress.

Progress to be reported.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Mr Speaker, the committee has considered the Oversight of Oranga Tamariki System and Children and Young People’s Commission Bill and reports progress. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.59 p.m.