Wednesday, 10 August 2022

WEDNESDAY, 10 AUGUST 2022

WEDNESDAY, 10 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.]

Visitors

Latvia—Foreign Minister

SPEAKER: I’m sure that members would wish to welcome His Excellency Edgars Rinkēvičs, Foreign Minister of the Republic of Latvia, and his delegation, who are present in the gallery.

Speaker’s Rulings

Written Questions—Overdue Replies

SPEAKER: It has come to my attention that replies to 24 written questions from Dr Shane Reti to the Minister of Health are overdue, some by as much as three weeks. I accept that this is a busy portfolio with over 2,000 written questions replied to this year and there is a process of change in the administrative arrangements; however, not answering questions on time is an abuse of the written question process and does not uphold the requirements for Ministers to account to this House for the offices they hold. As a result of the long delay in providing replies to these questions, I rule that the Minister will provide substantive answers to overdue questions by midday on Thursday, 11 August. Since the Opposition have been denied an opportunity to use written questions to scrutinise the Government in a timely manner, they will receive an additional 10 supplementary oral questions to be used by the end of this week.

I do accept that there will be occasional circumstances where replies are a day or two late, and I do not expect to receive complaints from members in those circumstances. I also take this opportunity to remind all Ministers of their obligations but also of their ability to lodge an interim reply on the rare occasions that a substantive reply cannot be provided within six working days.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Point of order. Just one question—I wondered how you intended to divide those 10 questions amongst Opposition parties?

SPEAKER: No, I’ve related them entirely to the member whose questions have not been answered and who raised the question with me. It was my intention if Dr Reti had had a question to actually allocate the additional supplementaries to him, but he doesn’t have a question today, so I thought it fair that his colleagues could share them.

Sittings of the House

Sittings of the House

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I move, That the sitting of the House today be extended into the morning of Thursday, 11 August for the second reading of the Maniapoto Claims Settlement Bill, further consideration in committee of the Overseas Investment (Forestry) Amendment Bill, and the Oversight of Oranga Tamariki System and Children and Young People’s Commission Bill, and the second reading of the Screen Industry Workers Bill.

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

Ayes 77

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

Noes 43

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

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

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

SPEAKER: No select committee reports have been presented. No bills have been introduced. Petitions have been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

CLERK:

Petition of Laura Williams requesting that the House acknowledge that adult ADHD is a worthy concern, and increase funding for it

petition of Aaron Hendry requesting that the House stop the Oversight of Oranga Tamariki Bill

petition of Nigel Woodley requesting that the House urge the Government to establish an Embassy in the State of Israel.

SPEAKER: Those petitions stand referred to the Petitions Committee. Ministers have delivered papers.

CLERK:

Crown Irrigation Investments Ltd statement of performance expectations 2022/23

Animal Control Products Ltd statement of corporate intent 2023-2025

Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency statement of performance expectations 2022/23.

SPEAKER: Those papers are published under the authority of the House.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes, particularly this Government’s economic recovery plan. This afternoon, the Minister of Tourism is releasing the first phase of the Tourism Industry Transformation Plan at the Tourism Export Council of New Zealand’s annual conference in Nelson. While the tourism sector has been particularly hard hit by COVID-19, we’re starting to see the industry begin to recover. In the week to 26 July, 43,600 people travelled from Australia, and travellers from the UK and the USA continue to increase, with their card spend already back to 2019 levels. There is a long way to go and significant challenges to overcome. However, we are well positioned to deal with the global economic uncertainty and disruption, and we will continue to work along with industry as we recover.

Christopher Luxon: Does she stand by her statement on welfare: “Let’s focus on the reality and the evidence, rather than the politics”, and, if so, can she confirm there are over 50,000 more people on the jobseeker benefit today compared to when she became Prime Minister?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I do stand by my statements, and I also stand by the figures that I provided yesterday, including that we’ve seen a record level of young people move off benefit and into work, with over 35,000 young people aged 18 to 24 moving off benefit and into employment last year. I also stand by the statements I’ve made that we should focus on removing barriers into employment, training, and education. That is exactly what we have done as a Government. And I stand by my statement that that should be, I would hope, the focus of everyone in this House, rather than labelling young people as taking a free ride.

Christopher Luxon: That’s not right. When she said in relation to the high number of job seekers, “We haven’t made changes to what sanctions are available there for use”, does she accept there is a difference between sanctions being available and sanctions actually being used?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The point that I was making is those sanctions continue to be available to the extended number of front-line workers that we now have, because, when we came into office, we recognised that the amount of time they were spending on job placement had gone from 50 percent to 14 percent. That is the problem with the Opposition: when they call the front-line workers who are placing people into work “bureaucrats”, that is exactly why the National Party, when they were in Government, ran those numbers down, and why we had to build them back up to make sure that we get ourselves into a position where we now have young people going into jobs rather than sitting back, dropping the numbers, and then blaming young people for their unemployment.

Christopher Luxon: Should people on the jobseeker benefit who don’t take steps to make themselves employable have their benefit reduced?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I’ve said, the policy remains the same. It would also be worth reflecting on what has occurred to our employment numbers, because the member seems to be implying that simply because we have increases in jobseeker, that means we have somehow a massive change in attitude and our young people don’t want to work anymore. I disagree. What we have is an economic crisis, and, in the wake of the global financial crisis, we saw a similar increase for young people impacted and on benefit, as we have seen with the pandemic. What has changed is that that member believes that it is the fault of young people rather than what we’re experiencing in the economy.

Christopher Luxon: We care about them. [Interruption] Why was the number—

SPEAKER: Order! Now, the member should not be interjecting on her own leader.

Christopher Luxon: Why was the number of sanctions applied in the June quarter this year 50 percent lower than the same period in 2019, despite the number of job seekers being 25 percent higher?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Because they would have been fulfilling obligations rather than taking “a free ride”. Again, 35,000 young people went into work and off benefit. We have now 215,000 people since we’ve been in Government who have taken up apprenticeships. We have 3,600 young people in employment and training through He Poutama Rangatahi, 5,000 in employment with Mana in Mahi. When I see a reduction in sanctions, my assumption is it’s because young people are fulfilling their obligations, rather than the National Party’s assumption that young people are suddenly being given a free ride.

Christopher Luxon: We care about them—we care about them! Does she support enforcing the existing—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Order! Right. The member shouldn’t have reacted that way; he should have asked his question. The Government member shouldn’t have reacted to the inappropriate reactions, so we’ll sort of square it all off as even and we’ll start again and we’ll behave ourselves, if we can.

Christopher Luxon: Does she support enforcing the existing benefit sanctions regime?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The sanctions regime has remained the same, and we continue to support our Ministry of Social Development workforce to utilise them. Again, rather than simply making the assumption that young people are not fulfilling their obligations, it would be worth the member’s while in looking at what the barriers are to work for our young people. That is why we, for instance, have funded driver licences for the 70 percent of entry level jobs that require them. It’s why we’ve made the first year of trades training and education free, to try and get young people into training opportunities. It’s why we brought back the training incentive allowance, which the last Government got rid of. And it’s why we’ve increased the amount of part-time work you can do so that you can support that transition. The member immediately assumes that all our young people are useless. I disagree.

Christopher Luxon: Did the Government tell Work and Income to reduce the use of sanctions for people on the jobseeker benefit who don’t meet their obligations to find work?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: We have used the same obligations as the last Government did, and we have seen the same increase in young people having to access the benefit after an economic shock. The starting point, on this side of the House, is how do we keep up those record level numbers of young people going into work, rather than assume that young people won’t take those opportunities.

Christopher Luxon: If the Government didn’t tell Work and Income to reduce the use of sanctions, why are so few sanctions being applied, despite the number of job seekers being so high?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Is it completely impossible for the member to understand that young people actually will be fulfilling their obligations but may not have the skills required to get into those jobs? They may, for instance, in some cases, have a history that means that they are facing barriers to work. It speaks volumes that the immediate assumption by the member is that they’re not applying sanctions, rather than the fact they haven’t done anything to attract them.

Christopher Luxon: Who is right: the Minister for Social Development and Employment, who has claimed National’s welfare policies won’t work, or the Prime Minister, who has claimed National’s welfare policies already exist?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Minister Sepuloni has pointed out that labelling and blaming young people for the economic circumstances we find ourselves in will do nothing to support young people. I agree with her. She has also pointed out we have job coaching; we have incentives; we also have training incentives; employment subsidies for employers; and, the best of all, record departures from benefits.

Question No. 2—Finance

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

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): The jobs market is continuing to show its resilience. The SEEK New Zealand Employment Report rebounded 1.3 percent in July following the previous month’s 5.3 percent decline, and it’s up 28 percent for the year. BNZ’s economist said it’s too early to say that job ads have peaked as monthly figures do tend to be volatile, but the trend measure eased for the first time since September last year in the wake of the Delta outbreak. We know that some sectors and businesses are facing worker shortages, and in response, we are continuing to invest heavily in skills and training programmes such as Mana in Mahi, Flexi-wage, and He Poutama Rangatahi, while making it easier at the same time to attract overseas workers to get the skills we need. Over 7,917 businesses have received accreditation to employ migrants since the scheme opened in late May.

Barbara Edmonds: What reports has he seen on the international context for New Zealand’s labour market and its impact on the economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: New Zealand’s labour market compares favourably with the countries that we generally compare ourselves with. The latest report from the OECD shows for the June quarter New Zealand has the sixth lowest rate of unemployment in the OECD at 3.3 percent compared with the US in 10th place, the UK and Australia in 14th equal, and Canada in 22nd place. In terms of employment rates, New Zealand ranks fourth in the OECD, ahead of Australia on seventh, the UK on 12th, and Canada in 13th equal, and the US in 22nd equal place. The robust labour market is supporting the economy in what is a volatile and uncertain global environment.

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

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: In its latest fortnightly economic update, Treasury reported that meat and dairy production had rebounded in the June quarter. Meat processing rose 8.8 percent—

Barbara Kuriger: As expected.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: —compared with the March quarter as reduced worker absenteeism from COVID-19 enabled the industry to clear some of the backlog. Ms Kuriger will be pleased to know that milk production also improved in the June quarter: up 5.5 percent although production was down 4 percent for the year. The recovery in meat and dairy production will support GDP in the June quarter along with the expansion in the service sector that I mentioned in the House yesterday. The opening of the borders and the prospect of a strong summer tourism season will further support the recovery of sectors who have borne the brunt of the pandemic.

Question No. 3—Defence

3. Dr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT) to the Minister of Defence: Is he content with the state of morale in the New Zealand Defence Force, and how does he plan on resolving the increasing attrition rates across all three branches?

SPEAKER: As I call the Minister, I want to indicate that I have been forewarned that this is a longer than normal answer.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister of Defence): Thank you, Mr Speaker. In my answer to the first part of the question, yes. However, I acknowledge that the increased levels of attrition is a challenge for the defence force, and as I have met with my counterparts from around the world, they too are experiencing the same challenges. The defence force has played a critical role in keeping New Zealanders safe during Operation Protect throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the challenging nature of that deployment for our personnel. Now that the borders have opened and countries are slowly getting back to business as usual, I’m confident that we will see a corresponding lift in morale for our New Zealand Defence Force, as our people can get back to doing more of the overseas deployments that many have signed up for. In my recent travels around the country and in recent days at the Solomon Islands, I had the opportunity to speak with the contingent that I travelled with, and the morale was high. They told me that now that COVID-19 is in their rear-view mirror, they can now get back on with the mahi they look forward to and upcoming deployments.

To answer the second part of the question around what my plans are to resolve the attrition issue, my answer is that I’m keeping a close eye on these challenges, and there are a number of things under way. Through Budget 2022, we secured a significant uplift of $90 million for remuneration. It is my expectation that the focus of this remuneration package is on retaining people with critical skills and supporting our lower-paid defence force staff where required. We are seeing more training exercise opportunities coming up. For example, since the start of the year, we have had our defence force participate in training operations such as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief in Operation Mahi Tahi, global security in Operation Tīeke, and capacity building through Tropic Twilight and combat training through Rim of the Pacific. In addition, this Government has made significant investments in our defence force after a decade of neglect under National and ACT. Since taking office, we have committed approximately $4.5 billion to 12 major defence capability projects, the—[Interruption] you might want to listen up—largest capability investment defence has ever received. This year, we get the first of our P-8A Poseidon arriving, and in the next few years, we will be seeing more of these capabilities coming online, which will in turn support our attrition challenge. All of these things will contribute to keeping our personnel feeling engaged, supported, and in the defence force.

Dr James McDowall: What does he say to a soldier who has served for more than three years and tells me that he is paid a base salary that equates to less than the minimum wage, and does this explain a recent internal survey that showed that 54 percent of army personnel did not agree with the statement, “The pay I receive is fair for the work I do.”?

Hon PEENI HENARE: Just in my answer to the primary question, I was clear that this Government is committed to supporting remuneration in the defence force. We have invested $90 million in Budget 2022, and I just mentioned in the primary answer that I’ve made it clear that my expectation is that money is to keep specialist skills and to lift the lowest wages in the defence force. This Government, by the nature of its name being supportive of labour in this country, is here to support those who need a lift in their pay. We did that through the Budget, and I haven’t seen anything from either National or ACT that proposes that they will do that.

Dr James McDowall: What is his response to another finding in the survey that showed that only 41 percent of army personnel are not actively looking at leaving the New Zealand Defence Force?

Hon PEENI HENARE: I say that this is a very tough labour market at the moment, and what I also say, too, is the New Zealand Defence Force train their people exceptionally well. Those skills are sought after skills in multiple labour markets, and it’s no surprise that this particular challenge isn’t just in New Zealand. It’s in Australia. It’s in the US. It’s in Canada. When I speak to my colleagues around the world, they have the same challenge as we do. The difference here, between this side and that side of the House, is we’re committed to fixing it.

Tim van de Molen: How much of the budgeted increase will actually go to front-line personnel rather than back-office staff?

Hon PEENI HENARE: I made it clear in my primary answer to the primary question that the $90 million—I made it clear that it is our expectation that that money will go towards retaining key skills and lifting the lowest in the wage table. So, therefore, that is my expectation. The decision, however, is an operational one for the New Zealand Defence Force.

Dr James McDowall: How is he addressing the fact that between 2017 and 2021, there were 84 different job types—ranging from infantry to the trades—that failed to meet enlistment targets, many of which, as he stated in response to my written question, are also at risk of not meeting the 2022 enlistment target?

Hon PEENI HENARE: Two months ago, we announced the defence policy review that sees some key decisions to be made by this Cabinet, by this Government, as we emerge out of the pandemic, and we make sure that our defence force is fit for purpose. We’ve got some key decisions to make, and I’m committed to our defence force personnel to make sure that they get the support that they need to continue to do the great work that they do for this country. I’m proud of our defence force, and I’m getting sick and tired of the other side talking them down.

Dr James McDowall: Does he think that morale is helped when houses in the defence estate look like this [Holds up picture of a house] and how can he be seriously confident that the remaining $6.8 million for getting their entire estate up to healthy homes will be sufficient?

Hon PEENI HENARE: First of all, I’m confident we’ll hit the target for healthy homes in the defence force. Secondly, what I’ll say is, right across the board in housing, this Government has been committed to housing. I made it clear in my priorities in the defence force that infrastructure was one of those key areas. I note, too, when I did that, the other side of the House rubbished it. Therefore, investing infrastructure is hugely important, and what I’ll also note is when they had the defence portfolio, they invested nothing in housing.

Question No. 4—Police

4. ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa) to the Minister of Police: What steps has the Government taken to tackle violent offending and the use of illegal firearms?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): The firearms-related violence that we’ve seen in some our communities recently is unacceptable. The Government, alongside police, is sending a very clear message to the perpetrators of crime that unlawful activity and intimidation will not be tolerated, and those involved will be held accountable for their actions. Police are already cracking down on illegal gang activity, and recent Government actions, such as the gang package that my colleague Kiritapu Allan and I announced recently, and the passing of firearms prohibition orders will help them to get tougher on offending involving firearms, drugs, violence, and intimidation.

Arena Williams: What results has he seen from these operations specifically targeted at violent crime, and how will this make New Zealanders safer?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Heaps, but I’ll highlight in particular Operation Cobalt, which has resulted in 133 warranted searches being undertaken and 34 warrantless searches. That’s involved 4,605—

Simeon Brown: Come on, Chippy!

SPEAKER: Order! Simeon Brown will stand, withdraw, and apologise, and if he does it again, he’ll go. Take the mask off to do it.

Simeon Brown: I stand, withdraw, and apologise.

SPEAKER: No, the member will do it properly.

Simeon Brown: I withdraw and apologise.

SPEAKER: Chris Hipkins, please start again.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As of 28 July, through Operation Cobalt, the police have conducted 133 warranted searches and 34 warrantless searches. They’ve filed 4,605 criminal charges. They’ve issued 5,682 infringement offence notices and seized 53 firearms. That expands on the progress they made through Operation Tauwhiro, which saw 1,804 firearms seized, 55 kilos of methamphetamine seized, 765 warrantless searches, 1,043 warranted searches, and 1,457 arrests being made. I congratulate the police on the work that they are doing to apply pressure to gangs and send a clear message that illegal behaviour like that will not be tolerated.

Arena Williams: What additional tools have been provided to help police crack down on the illegal possession of firearms?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I welcome the fact that last night Parliament unanimously passed the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Bill. People whose actions or behaviour have involved violent offending can now be stopped by a court from possessing, using, or being around guns and ammunition for 10 years. Owning a firearm is a privilege, and firearms prohibition orders will mean that those people with a history of violence won’t have access to the most dangerous of weapons. I’m very proud of the work that our Government has been doing to support the police to do their job and to make our community safer.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Why did the Minister not include additional warrantless search powers as requested by the New Zealand Police Association, who said that without those powers these firearms prohibition orders are basically meaningless?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Where somebody has a firearms prohibition order against them, it can be in place for up to 10 years, and the notion that a person subject to a firearms prohibition order, or anybody who they are with—for example, if they are in a vehicle with someone—could be subject to a warrantless search for up to 10 years, in an unlimited way, would be disproportionate, and, unfortunately, that is the position put forward by the National Party. That is not something that this Government was willing to sign up to.

Question No. 5—Finance

5. NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by his statement that “obviously New Zealanders are currently facing significant increases in their cost of living”?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): For the House’s benefit, the context of that quote was a question from the media at a post-Cabinet press conference on 16 May regarding a possible extension of the half-price public transport fares that the Government had announced in March. Since that time, the Government has announced a targeted and temporary cost of living payment, extended the fuel excise and road-user charges—

Chris Bishop: Ha! It’s not targeted!

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: —More targeted than the member’s tax cuts; I’d say that—cuts and half-price fares for public transport, and moved to boost competition in the grocery sector by banning covenants and implementing the Commerce Commission’s recommendations in that sector. This is all in addition to the previously announced income support changes on 1 April and the winter energy payment coming in on 1 May. I continue to stand by my statement that New Zealanders are currently facing increases in the cost of living, and that’s why we’re moving to support them through this period of high inflation instead of waiting all the way until Budget 2024 before doing anything—which I think is now the member’s policy.

Nicola Willis: Does he stand by his statement that the cost of living payment is a targeted package of support, and did he envisage that would include London investment bankers and French backpackers?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I stand by my statements in that regard, and I would note that if the member’s really concerned about targeting, then she would be incredibly concerned about a policy that would give somebody earning $250,000 a year $125 a week. Imagine the waste that that would entail—oh, no, that’s the National Party’s policy.

Nicola Willis: How can he justify characterising the cost of living payment as targeted when 800,000 people have been missed while dead people, overseas residents, possibly prisoners have been sent taxpayers’ cash?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As was traversed in the House yesterday, we always knew that there would be people who would not get the payment until they filed a tax return. As we stand today, we have 1.4 million or so New Zealanders who have received this payment. These are people earning less than $70,000 who, once upon a time, the National Party claimed to care about. What they’re now focused on is tax cuts for the most wealthy New Zealanders.

Matt Doocey: You don’t care. You don’t care. You don’t care any more.

SPEAKER: Order! Does the member realise his offence? I mean, I know the member’s been around for a while, and he’s spent time as a whip, and he should know by now—you know, has the member been here about six years, nearly?—that one does not bring me into the debate, as he did three times during that question. I mean, probably I could get him on boring and repetitive interjections. He will stand—

Marja Lubeck: Ha, ha!

SPEAKER: Who did that? That member will stand, withdraw and apologise.

Marja Lubeck: I withdraw and apologise.

SPEAKER: And now Mr Doocey will.

Matt Doocey: Withdraw and apologise.

SPEAKER: Has the member finished?

Nicola Willis: Does he stand by his statement that “As a result of both the winter energy payment and the cost of living payment, 81 percent of working-age New Zealanders are being given temporary support to deal with cost of living pressures.”, and how does he reconcile that with the revelation that only 1.3 million New Zealanders have received a cost of living payment?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: It’s an interesting situation where the member thinks that something that’s actually in a Cabinet paper is somehow or other a revelation. We always knew that there would be people who would not get the payment until they filed their return. I know that those earning under $70,000 in New Zealand need the support of the Government to be able to get through this period of inflation. The Government is standing by those New Zealanders, unlike the National Party, who want to give tax cuts to the most wealthy New Zealanders.

Nicola Willis: When he promised his cost of living payment and promoted it by saying there was a wider group of New Zealanders who needed some support, why didn’t he let New Zealanders know that that group would be so wide as to include London yo-pros, French backpackers, and dead people?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, as we’ve already articulated, this is a policy targeted at those earning less than $70,000 a year. The member opposite has a policy that would see someone earning $250,000 a year getting $125 a week, while someone on the minimum wage gets $2 per week. If the member wants to know what’s wasteful and untargeted, it’s her policy.

Nicola Willis: How can he characterise the payment as targeted, when according to analysis by his own officials, close to a quarter of the payments would go to households with incomes in the top 30 percent, and that’s before we count the overseas residents who may number in the thousands?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I can recall vividly in this House the member asking questions about families where people earned $60,000 for one partner in the couple, $60,000 for the other, and banging the desk and she told us, “What are you doing for those people?” Now we’re doing something for them and the National Party don’t like it. That’s because their focus is the wealthiest New Zealanders getting the biggest tax cuts. On this side of the House, we’ve stepped up to do something for those people.

Nicola Willis: What responsibility, if any, does he take for failures with the cost of living payment, which has sent taxpayer money both offshore and into the grave?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I take responsibility for the fact that we have stepped up to support New Zealanders who are earning less than $70,000 a year. That member previously stood up here and told the Government to do something about that. Well, now we’ve done it and she doesn’t like it, because we haven’t adopted her policy of giving the most wealthy New Zealanders the greatest benefit. I stand proudly on our record of supporting low and middle income New Zealanders. The National Party is in favour of supporting the highest income earners.

Question No. 6—Agriculture

6. TEANAU TUIONO (Green) to the Minister of Agriculture: Does he stand by his statement that “Extra monitoring and a range of practical support is being rolled out to help farmers achieve immediate improvements in intensive winter grazing practices”; if so, what monitoring of intensive winter grazing practices is being done this season?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Minister of Agriculture): Yes. Extra monitoring and a range of practical support is being rolled out to help farmers implement good intensive winter grazing practices. Since late May 2022, this year, the Ministry for Primary Industries animal welfare compliance team has been undertaking a programme of monitoring winter grazing in Southland and Otago known as Phase Two of Project Poharu. This includes, firstly, proactive visits to many operations undertaking winter grazing; weekly meetings with Environment Southland and Otago Regional Council, who have responsibility for environmental issues such as water quality potentially arising from winter grazing; and attending to any complaints received regarding potential animal welfare issues arising from intensive winter grazing. This is a follow-up to the equivalent programme Project Poharu undertaken in 2021, and in addition MPI staff have been working with industry groups such as Beef + Lamb to provide guidance to the primary sector on good intensive winter grazing planning and practice.

Teanau Tuiono: Does he stand by his statement in response to a question on 7 June that the “Ministry for Primary Industries people will be out on the ground ensuring that best winter grazing practice occurs this winter”, and, if so, what specific steps are being taken to deliver on this?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: As I just said in the previous question, we’ve had a project task force team out now assessing what is going on. In fact, I’ve been very pleased with the reports that I have been getting. Indeed, Environment Southland and I think the Otago Regional Council have been overflying some of those areas, and at this stage, in spite of a terribly wet winter and some really challenging times for farmers, the reports are that most farmers are managing the situation very, very well.

Teanau Tuiono: Does he also stand by his statement in response to a question on 7 June that “for those farms and farming operations that don’t meet those high standards, we have to check up on and prosecute where necessary”, and, if so, is he confident that checks are sufficient—

Mark Cameron: That’s right. The Greens hate farmers—we know it.

SPEAKER: Order! Who interjected then?

Teanau Tuiono: Another go?

SPEAKER: The member will start again and I’ll think about what I’ll do.

Teanau Tuiono: Does he stand by his statement in response to a question on 7 June that “for those farms and farming operations that don’t meet those high standards, we have to check up on and prosecute where necessary”, and, if so, is he confident that checks are sufficient to identify issues requiring enforcement action?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: Yes, and to expand on that a little bit, look, the process that we have gone through in conjunction with my colleague the Minister for the Environment, the Hon David Parker—we have been focused on this, primarily from an animal welfare perspective first and foremost, but then, of course, the effects of intensive winter grazing on potential water quality issues. The task force that we had, the action team that we appointed, and indeed the actions of both, as I say, the councils and MPI have shifted the behaviour, and I believe that we’re in a far better position than we were five years ago.

Teanau Tuiono: Can he give us specific progress, if any, that has been made on including animal welfare considerations as part of farm planning alongside environmental management, in line with recommendation 6 of the Winter Grazing Taskforce final report?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: As I say, I appointed a task force and then an action implementation group. They came back. Of the 11 recommendations that came from the task force, all but one of them have been implemented, including the one he refers to. There is good coordination between the shared objectives of better animal welfare and better environmental management through water quality.

Teanau Tuiono: Is he committed to implementing all 11 recommendations of the Winter Grazing Taskforce on how animal welfare can be improved, and, if so, how?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: [Drops notes] I was going to read all 11 out, but I won’t. Yes, I am committed to all of them. The only one that has not been implemented is: “Work is needed to establish baseline animal welfare performance of intensive winter grazing systems in order to monitor the progress of improvements.” We consider that actually most farmers and most regional councils know what good practice is, and so we considered that that was not necessary. All the other 10 recommendations have indeed been implemented.

Question No. 7—Social Development and Employment

7. GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: What updates has she seen on creating jobs in the construction workforce?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Recently, the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) partnered with the Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki (WITT) and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) to help build the workforce needed for the construction of Taranaki Base Hospital. Project Maunga Stage Two is the continuation of the Taranaki Base Hospital redevelopment and will see the continuation of the new east wing, a six-storey building housing many of the hospital’s acute services. The collaboration between MSD, MBIE, and WITT sees MSD helping to coordinate recruitment, training and upskilling, and engaging with local education organisations, providing support for site workers, and connecting with iwi groups and industry. This is a meaningful collaboration and one which maximises the number of jobs locally for people who are out of work or haven’t been given that opportunity to work.

Glen Bennett: What feedback has she seen on this partnership?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki CEO John Snook says, “The project leaves behind not only a hospital but a trained community of apprentices. In some ways, this is going to be the biggest legacy of all.” He also says, “Project Maunga is a significant sized project and it will provide opportunities for the future workforce of Taranaki to get an education, gain experience, and make a meaningful contribution to the regional economy of Taranaki.”

Glen Bennett: What other updates has she seen on employment in the construction workforce?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I’m pleased to report that we’re seeing a year-on-year increase in the number of people employed in the construction sector. There are now 295,000 people employed in the sector, an increase of nearly 20,000 people since the same quarter last year. This is a reflection of our investment in programmes like Apprenticeship Boost, which has seen almost 50,000 apprentices pick up a trade, and other smaller but equally as important initiatives like Kiwi Can Do, which has supported almost 900 people into jobs in the construction sector. These numbers show that the Government is working effectively with the construction sector to meet workforce demand and fulfil the aspirations of our job seekers.

Question No. 8—Social Development and Employment

8. Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: Can she confirm that there are 13,383 people aged 18-24 who have spent one year or longer on the jobseeker benefit, and that, on average, just 178 participants in Mana in Mahi each year had been on a benefit for a year or longer when they started their placement?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I can confirm that, as at the end of the June quarter 2022, 8,388 people aged 18 to 24 had been receiving a jobseeker work-ready benefit for a year or more, and there was also 4,995 jobseekers with a health and disability exemption. Up until 2013, the jobseeker health and disability exemption used to be called the sickness benefit, and included people like Daisy Bell, who said yesterday in the media, “I don’t know how sitting up at midnight hooked up to a dialysis machine screams free ride to you”. I can also confirm that in the four years since it was launched, Mana in Mahi has exceeded its target: in the time it has been operating, it has helped 711 people who have been receiving a main benefit for over a year and who had barriers into employment and to work. I can also confirm this Government helped more people off benefit and into work last year than any time since records began—113,000 to be exact, with just over 35,000 people aged between 18 to 24.

Hon Louise Upston: Does the Government stand by its argument that Mana in Mahi helps the 13,383 young people on the jobseeker benefit long term, when just 178 participants each year were on benefit long term?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I certainly stand by the fact that we need a suite of measures to support people into employment. Mana in Mahi is an example of one of the many effective programmes that we have implemented as a Government. Also, I want to make this House aware of the fact that we as a Government have been very focused on ensuring that we prevent people from coming on to benefit as well. We are all aware of the statistics and who might be disadvantaged in a tight labour market, and who might be more likely to end up on benefit and receiving long-term welfare receipt. We are committed to getting in there early so that that doesn’t happen.

Hon Louise Upston: Does the Minister believe young job seekers who break their benefit dependency by remaining off benefit for 12 months should receive a thousand-dollar incentive payment, and, if not, why not?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: There are incentives already on offer through the different products that we have in place. Mana in Mahi—there is an incentive payment there. What I do not like and what I do reject is that the National Government’s policy around incentives is somehow the silver bullet to the complex challenges that young people are facing. Also, I do worry that the way in which the National Government have framed their policy means that they are actually incentivising people to stay on benefit for longer—rather than leave when a job may become available at six months, they’ll stay on for a year.

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member can’t comment at length on previous Governments.

Hon Louise Upston: What does the Minister say to 23-year-old Montana Mason, who told Stuff she believed more support and job coaching was needed?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: There are a range of different tools that need to be put in place to provide support for the young people that are on benefit or are unemployed. As I said earlier, there are financial incentives in some of the products that are available. There is coaching in the youth service that was set up by the previous Government. But you need that suite of measures to ensure that you’ve got the right tools for the individual young person, for their individual circumstances that come before you. What I would be worried about is the inference from that side of the House that they would be slashing front-line services to pay for that when, actually, front-line work-focused case management is important as well.

Hon Louise Upston: Does the Minister disagree with Mr Copeland, who is a 20-year-old who said that job coaching should be mandatory as people “spent way too much time on the benefit” and “I know I have, and I regret it”?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: As I’ve said in this House already, job coaching is available through particular programmes, and what we also have done is we have put into place the front-line work-focused case management that had been run down by the previous Government. The person I agreed with, actually, is Newstalk ZB’s John MacDonald, who said, “When I saw the coverage on the TV news last night, I thought I was back in the 1980s. I think this policy is a disaster. It sounds good, but in my view it will achieve nothing.”

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member does not have responsibility either for previous Governments or Opposition policy. I know that she has been asked a couple of times to comment on it, and I probably shouldn’t have let that happen, but the member just can’t keep on doing that at length.

Hon Louise Upston: Does the Minister disagree with 20-year-old Leon Copeland, who said, “I’ve gone through other agencies as I realised Work and Income is horrible at actually helping people on the benefit with finding jobs. It’s like they don’t care anymore.”?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I think our results speak for themselves. The June quarter saw 35,000 people in that year—young people—exit benefit into work. That compares to the 22,000 people that exited benefit into work back in 2017 under the previous Government. It is important that we have a suite of measures in place. This Government is focused on doing that, making sure we have the right tool in the toolbox for the young person. There are no silver bullets.

Question No. 9—Education (School Operations)

9. ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour) to the Associate Minister of Education (School Operations): What changes has the Government made to NCEA to support senior secondary students in 2022?

Hon JAN TINETTI (Associate Minister of Education (School Operations)): This morning I announced a package of changes to NCEA and university entrance, to recognise the impact COVID-19 has had on senior students’ assessment in 2022. We’ve heard from schools how significant absences of students and teachers—as a result of COVID-19—have had a substantial impact on teaching and learning. These changes are designed to recognise the disruption, and provide relief for students while preserving the integrity of NCEA and the learning it represents. We’re making measured and proportionate changes based on advice by expert advisory groups to give senior students certainty that despite the disruption they have faced, they will have a fair opportunity to gain the credits and qualifications they need for the future.

Angela Roberts: What changes are being made to Learning Recognition Credits (LRCs)?

Hon JAN TINETTI: Students will be able to receive Learning Recognition Credits, with one Learning Recognition Credit awarded for every five credits earned through assessment. Students working towards NCEA level 1 will be able to receive up to 10 additional credits, or those at levels 2 or 3 will be eligible for up to eight additional credits. The use of LRCs was carefully considered by the Ministry of Education and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority in consultation with my NCEA professional advisory group. The advice and evidence from these three entities was clear, that the threshold for use has been met due to staff and student absences delaying assessment opportunities in 2022. The earn-as-you-learn approach focuses on credentialing learning that has occurred, and maintaining the credibility of the qualification.

Angela Roberts: What other changes are being made, and why?

Hon JAN TINETTI: To receive a certificate of endorsement, students will need to earn 46 credits at merit or excellence level instead of the usual 50. The university entrance requirement to achieve at least 14 credits in each of three approved subjects has also been adjusted to 14 credits in each of two approved subjects and 12 credits in the third approved subject. I note that the New Zealand Post Primary Teachers’ Association are supporting these changes, and I quote, “Hundreds of thousands of rangatahi have had their most critical years at high school severely disrupted because of COVID and through no fault of their own. These credits are the boost they need to ensure they can get on to the tertiary pathway of their choice or move to where they deserve to be in secondary school. It is the fair and right thing to do, and we commend the Government for it”.

Erica Stanford: Why is it that after three years, the Government’s approach is to, for the third year running, lower the bar for achieving NCEA, rather than implementing policies that work to see students actually attending school and achieving the credits they need to gain NCEA to ensure their future success?

Hon JAN TINETTI: These are evidence-based decisions recommended by educational experts. If the member is saying that those people don’t have the qualifications to make those recommendations, then I severely recommend that she rethinks that position. I have confidence that they are proportionate to disruption faced by students and schools as a result of COVID-19 and other winter illnesses. I would also say that these are the sort of recommendations that will encourage students to attend school because they will feel success.

Erica Stanford: Can the Minister explain how lowering the bar to gain NCEA will improve numeracy and literacy of our high school students, given that only one third of them passed the 2021 literacy and numeracy pilot?

Hon JAN TINETTI: The member is referring, of course, to a pilot, and the case of a pilot is to ensure that we get the settings right in that particular pilot. The 2021 pilot was of a small scale, with most participants in year nine or ten. As such, results were not representative and can’t be regarded as likely NCEA attainment levels for future learners.

Hon Chris Hipkins: Can the Minister confirm that the current adjustments to NCEA as a result of COVID-19 disruption were modelled on similar changes made following the Christchurch earthquake to recognise the disruption that those students had experienced, and that nobody used that as a basis to undermine the credibility of the qualification?

Hon JAN TINETTI: Yes, absolutely. This is something that this country is well used to, and we also, I reiterate, use our experts to guide us in that so it doesn’t undermine the integrity of the qualification.

Question No. 10—Foreign Affairs

10. DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori) (remote) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs: Does she stand by her statement, “Our focus is on engaging with the International Seabed Authority process as the best means to achieve an outcome that deep-sea mining does not take place unless we can ensure the protection of our ocean through setting high environmental standards”; if so, does she still have confidence in that process?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs): On behalf of the Minister, yes, I stand by that statement. The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is mandated under international law to develop rules to regulate deep-sea mining in areas beyond national jurisdiction. Rules that apply only in exclusive economic zones (EEZs) do not protect the high seas. At the most recent ISA meetings, which concluded last week, New Zealand, alongside a group of other States, strongly advocated our position that mining in international waters should not be legal in the absence of strong environmental safeguards. This must include robust and comprehensive regulations that embed the precautionary approach. If the international negotiations at the ISA do not result in rules which achieve the effect of protection of the marine environment, as required by international law, New Zealand will be calling for no deep-sea mining to occur.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What environmental standards will, in her view, be sufficient to protect the ocean, and are these standards supported by independent and robust scientific evidence?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The principles would have to include the precautionary approach and robust monitoring. I think, in New Zealand, which has a well-developed regulatory regime, we understand how hard in practice it can be to hold mining companies to account when they leave or something goes wrong. A case in point is the hundreds of millions of dollars that are being shelled out currently by taxpayers to remediate the Tūī oilfield. As the Minister has previously indicated, New Zealand will be reviewing the approach, following this most recent round of meetings which concluded last week, and that review will take into account progress, or the lack thereof, and the views of Pacific Island States.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: How can any standards be sufficient to protect the moana from seabed mining, given that her own officials said there is uncertain and inadequate information about the marine environment and the effects of such activities?

Hon DAVID PARKER: As I said previously, this issue is complicated internationally by the reality that unless you have an international rules-based regime, the rules that countries have stop at the edge of their EEZs, and you could have an unregulated position on the high seas.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Does she agree it is necessary to re-evaluate the Government’s position, especially given that Costa Rica and Chile, the two nations she told the House in June she was working with to advance an alternative regulatory proposal, have now told the ISA to hit the brakes on deep-sea mining, raising concerns that there is an absence of independent scientific information?

Hon DAVID PARKER: As I said in answer to an earlier question, the Minister has previously indicated that we would be reviewing New Zealand’s approach, following the most recent round of meetings. The attitudes of those other countries that the member named will no doubt be considered by her, as well as the views of Pacific Islands.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Does she agree with French President Emmanuel Macron, who told the world at the UN Ocean Conference in 2022 that we have to create a legal framework to stop high-seas mining; if not, why hasn’t this progressed?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, yes, I do agree with that. And I’m sure that I speak on behalf of the Minister in saying that we are concerned to work with our Pacific Island neighbours to protect our neighbourhood against inappropriate environmental effects.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Has the Minister requested advice on whether New Zealand’s support for a deep-sea mining moratorium in international waters beyond national jurisdiction would have any impact on New Zealand’s domestic regime to assess seabed mining applications; if so, what did the advice say?

Hon DAVID PARKER: On behalf of the Minister, I’m not in a position to answer that question but I’m sure, if the member asks a question to that effect to the Minister, or puts a question in writing, it could be addressed.

Question No. 11—Local Government

11. SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore) to the Minister of Local Government: Does she agree with the Prime Minister’s statement on Three Waters reform that “The ownership of these entities sits with local bodies and government so it is not changing the ownership structures”, and does she believe those reforms will actually maintain true local government ownership of water assets?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Associate Minister of Local Government) on behalf of the Minister of Local Government: On behalf of the Minister, yes, because under the reforms territorial authorities would be the owners of the water services entities. The water services entities will be owned by territorial authorities in the services area. Each territorial authority will receive an ownership share in the relevant entity based on the population in the district. Territorial authorities will be the only shareholders in these entities. These arrangements were recommended by the working group that was made up of local council representatives from across New Zealand, some of whom previously expressed concerns about the three waters reforms. Therefore this proposed ownership structure is a direct result of engagement with the local government sector.

Simon Watts: How does he reconcile that answer with the Water Services Entities Bill, which states territorial authorities have—and I quote—“no right, title, or interest in the assets, security, debts, or liabilities of a water services entity:”; and how is it possible to own something while not having any rights over it?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: On behalf of the Minister, because the only threat to public ownership is privatisation. So I put to the National Party: when this Government approached that party and suggested that we put our respective views aside and on one issue and one issue alone we agree to entrench public ownership of these water entities, they refused.

Simon Watts: Does he stand by his comment in the House yesterday that those same councils that would not own their water assets under his model are “mischief making” and does he believe—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member is going to have to wind back. This is a really complicated situation now where he’s asking this Minister, who is answering on behalf of another Minister about that Minister’s comments, and he’s got to adjust his question to make sure he’s doing that.

Simon Watts: Can I seek for clarification. My understanding is he’s Acting Minister.

SPEAKER: No, he’s not now. I understand the plane has landed and he’s answering for. That’s why the question says “she”.

Simon Watts: Does she agree with the Acting Minister of Local Government who said yesterday that those same councils that would not own their water assets under this model are mischief making; and does she believe the over 30 councils who have raised that concern are just mischief making?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: On behalf of the Minister, yes, I do agree with the Associate Minister’s description of that member as mischief making. That was the context of that comment. What we have is a situation here where a proposal that was made by the working group, which in turn was made up by representatives of local government, made this very recommendation. They are shareholders in these entities. If the National Party wishes to make a policy that shareholders are not owners, I look forward to their further explanation on that.

Simon Watts: Does she believe that 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 is just mischief making?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: On behalf of the Minister, I repeat my response to the previous question. The mischief maker in question was in reference to that member and the questions that he was asking at the time. The Auditor-General’s submission to the select committee was very clear—that they continue to work with the Department of Internal Affairs to clarify matters around the ownership structure. But the Auditor-General did not express an opinion on the ownership structure; they were looking at issues of accountability and they provided some constructive feedback to the Finance and Expenditure Committee on ways in which we could improve the proposals—proposals which we have continued and consistently improved based on feedback that we have received from stakeholders and the local government sector.

Simon Watts: What is her response to the three South Wairarapa district councils who said the governance and ownership structure of three waters is, and I quote, “a giant stitch-up”; and how can the public have faith their water assets will remain in the ownership of their council if local councils themselves say they no longer own them?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: On behalf of the Minister, the only way to have absolute faith that they will stay in public ownership is to entrench that provision in law, which the National Party refused to do. It is harder now to privatise water assets as a result of these proposals that what it was at the start. What I would say to any councillor who has expressed concerns about the structure is to participate in the select committee process or to turn up to the meetings that the Associate Minister is having with each and every rural provincial council to take feedback direct back to the Minister—feedback which has already resulted in constructive and productive adjustments to the proposal.

Simon Watts: What is her response to Mayor Neil Holdom, who said to select committee today about shares in water entities, “The value of the shares will be put down as zero.”; and doesn’t this just prove the Government shareholding ownership scheme is just a farce?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: On behalf of the Minister, what is the farce is the position that the status quo is sustainable. It is not. Not a single council, regardless of their views on this reform process, says that the status quo is sustainable. The only people saying that are the National Party. We have a $185 billion issue that we are trying to sort here, and after four years of consideration, ours is the only practical solution available. The National Party believe that the status quo is the way forward; everyone else says that’s wrong.

Question No. 12—Health (Pacific Peoples)

12. LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE (Labour) to the Associate Minister of Health (Pacific Peoples): What recent work has the Government done to build the Pacific health workforce?

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Associate Minister of Health (Pacific Peoples)): Budget 2022 will deliver 1,900 new health workers and will support 2,700 more students into training programmes through a $76 million investment to continue to grow the Māori and Pacific health workforce. Specific funding of $37 million over four years for the Pacific health workforce is critical for building a more diverse and sustainable pathway into health for Pacific people, and it will ensure that as our health workforce grows, it reflects also the communities it serves with a workforce that values Māori and Pacific languages and cultural intelligence, and ensures economic security for our Pacific communities in good and bad times. Simply put, this approach is a targeted Pacific—by Pacific, for Pacific—approach, and something, as we learnt during COVID, which directly accelerated positive COVID vaccination rates for Pacific peoples and kept everyone safe.

Lemauga Lydia Sosene: How are Pacific health workers supported by this boost in a Pacific health workforce?

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: In 2016, Counties Manukau had a Pacific population comprising 21 percent of the local population, but just 11 percent of its staff identified as Pacific. For this reason, we are growing our Pacific health workforce with investment to build on the successes we’ve had in responding to COVID-19, and this in turn will help transition Pacific people from COVID-19 roles to day-to-day roles in the health system on other primary healthcare priorities. We’re taking their learnt experiences on the ground during a global pandemic and pivoting those to new roles in the health sector, capturing their cultural capital and cultural intelligence and ensuing it continues to achieve better positive health outcomes for Pacific people, which will in turn lift better outcomes for the rest of New Zealand.

Lemauga Lydia Sosene: What will this growth in the Pacific health workforce mean for our communities?

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: This Budget 2022 initiative will support the roll-out of comprehensive primary healthcare teams over the next four years to support and strengthen communities because this is our approach—by Pacific, for Pacific, who are one of the fastest growing populations in Aotearoa New Zealand. This will ensure that Pacific communities across the motu can get access to a wider range of services close to home and in their community and not draw from other parts of the system which are already under strain. This Government will continue to build on the cultural capital of our Pacific health providers and workforce, who already enjoy trusted relationships with our Pacific communities on the ground. This Budget initiative also provides a significant investment to support Pacific health providers to deliver the Government’s Pacific wellbeing approach, which benefits all New Zealanders.

General Debate

General Debate

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

Question time started with no surprises today, with the Leader of the Opposition lobbing over his questions to the Prime Minister—questions that inferred that young people were useless, and probably not meeting their obligations in the welfare system. The Prime Minister responded by smacking it back at him, but what was surprising was that he started to, at the beginning of every question, say under his breath “We care about them. We care about them.”, a level of insincerity that I think the general public are getting quite used to.

It also came as no surprise to see that the National Party’s latest welfare policy announcement was lacking in more areas than one. It was predictable. It was out of touch. There was no evidence base, and, as per usual, they were asserting that they had the silver bullet, despite the fact that they have no understanding of how the welfare system works, let alone the actual benefits. Nor do they understand the people in the welfare system and the complex challenges that they face. It did, however, seem in touch with what we know about the National Party. Their track record with demonising young people and beneficiaries stands. They called them “pretty damn hopeless”, they called them “bottom feeders”, and, more recently, “These people are all getting a free ride.” The irony of their policy, which they have heralded as “welfare that works”, is that it won’t.

Prior to coming into Parliament, I spent much of my career in the education sector. I was a primary school teacher. I was a literacy educator with at-risk youth. I worked with Māori and Pacific students at the University of Auckland. I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t, and what doesn’t are punitive approaches to people already experiencing complex challenges. There’s evidence in that, even when we look at the welfare systems in the UK and the USA. In fact, punitive approaches can actually be counterproductive and, in fact, stop people from being able to get into work.

I liken the punitive approach the National Party seem hell-bent on taking to pushing someone over who is wanting and trying to get up, whilst, at the same time, yelling at them to get up. Let’s make one thing clear: I believe that employment is the best option for young people and that we need early interventions. That’s why, as a Government, we’ve already set up a range of effective initiatives that are leading to record numbers of people moving off benefits and into employment. In the last year, that was 35,000 young people; that compares to the 22,000 under their watch in their last year.

The hard truth is that Chris Luxon doesn’t want to admit that we inherited an employment and training system that the Welfare Expert Advisory Group said had “been badly neglected for years”. It was a world where case management services had been run down to the point that front-line staff were spending significantly less time on front-line, work-focused case management, and that’s what we set about fixing. This included money for 263 more front-line, work-focused staff in 2019, and followed by year-on-year investment thereafter. Despite the pandemic, we never saw the skyrocketing numbers of people on benefit that Treasury had forecast. We are now seeing record exits off benefit into work. As part of our efforts through Apprenticeship Boost, we’ve seen 50,000 people go through; 18,000 people with Flexi-wage; 5,000 people in Mana in Mahi. The results are reflected in our unemployment rate—record low rates of 3.3 percent—and, finally, the closing of that persistent gap between Māori and Pacific and everyone else: 5.5 percent and 5.4 percent respectively.

We have been both relentless and deliberate in our approach and efforts to support Kiwis into employment. Education and training is seen as key for us. What is important for our young people is the pastoral care, the wraparound support, the targeted support for Māori and Pacific and disabled and young people, alongside a shared determination from employers, business, providers, and Government that will put people into meaningful work and keep them in work. Let’s also not forget, a little bit of aroha for our young people goes a long way.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): I am really delighted that the Labour Government have chosen today to speak about the National Party policy that we launched on Sunday: Welfare that Works. It tells the House that they’re taking it seriously when they want to have questions in the House and their oral debates about Welfare that Works, because that’s what it’s all about. This is about a very blatant commitment to young New Zealanders across New Zealand: if you have been on a jobseeker benefit for more than a year, for whatever reason, National wants to provide the individual targeted support to support you off welfare and into work.

We’re taking this seriously for several reasons, and one of them is we know—and the Labour Government knows—if a young person goes on to a benefit under the age of 20, on average, they spend 12 years on welfare. So this is a policy that is absolutely about breaking the cycle of welfare dependency, and that’s why we’ve targeted it at the under-25s. We’ve looked at what works best, and what works best is community organisations leading the charge. One of the examples that the Labour Government always talks about is He Poutama Rangatahi. Willie Jackson always crows about it. Guess what! National introduced it in July 2017. I proudly launched it in Northland at a time that it was desperate to support young people into employment. It’s targeted, it’s community orientated, and, with the policy that we announced on Sunday, I just want to put some of the information on the record, because Labour can’t figure out if it won’t work, if it can’t work, if they’re already doing it, or it’s not needed. So, clearly, they’re a bit confused about what our policy is. It is comprehensive, and deliberately so, because this is a real problem that we in New Zealand, we in the National Party under Christopher Luxon’s leadership, want to solve.

So if you think about the number of people who are on the jobseeker benefit, that number has nearly doubled for the number that have been on benefit for 12 months or more—jobseeker benefit— under their watch. At the same time, DairyNZ is doing advertising campaigns to say, “We want young people; we will train them up from scratch.” It’s the same in horticulture, same in retail, same in hospitality, same in manufacturing. Just about any street, there are signs advertising for jobs that young people would be welcomed into with open arms. And so what we see has to happen is individual job coaching for those young people to connect them to the opportunities that exist today. They are there today.

The second part of it is the piece that I think Labour’s conveniently forgotten about or ignored, and that is a comprehensive needs assessment that actually looks at what are the barriers for each young job seeker that’s on the benefit. I do not discriminate between a young person who has a health condition or disability that temporarily means they are unable to work in this two-year period—because that is what the jobseeker criteria is. I refuse to accept that those young people don’t deserve the assistance, support, and targeted effort to support them on a pathway into work. For some of them—and a gentleman that I spoke to three weeks ago who had mental health and anxiety issues, for him, it was about working part-time to begin with. It was about working part-time, it was getting up every day, going to a workplace that actually built his confidence and helped his mental health. Now, I think that’s worth it.

But you can’t do that in a Government agency where someone rang me today and said they waited for an hour and a half on the phone to get someone to assist them, and no one would. National will take a targeted approach, allow community organisations to deliver this through job coaches, needs assessment, individual jobs plan. And, yes, there are incentives available, and obligations when that jobs plan isn’t followed. It’s the young person’s plan—it is the young person’s plan—and we want to give them every single opportunity, where there are jobs everywhere, to make sure we have welfare that works.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister for Broadcasting and Media): What a load of rubbish. What a load of rubbish from the previous Minister of the National Government who headed the Ministry of Social Development and absolutely went after young people constantly. We heard that again on Sunday.

I want to say to the House—I can see there’s a lot happening on the other side, so there’s not a lot of us here today—but I want to say to our people who are here today, let’s never ever forget what this previous useless, useless, useless Opposition who were Government—never forget what they did in their nine years. Absolutely minimal investment in health. We had sewage coming down the walls of Middlemore. Why? Because of this useless, useless Opposition on the other side. And let’s not forget what they did in housing—where we’re building more houses than any Government before—selling off State houses. They’re standing there—I watch these fools and they dare to criticise us? These fools dare to criticise us? People have invested so much over the last five years in health, in housing, and in young people—and in young people. See, we give mana to young people. That’s what Mana in Mahi is all about. I notice the former Minister who stuffed it all up for young people has left. Mana in—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member is not allowed to refer to the absence of a member.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: My apologies. My apologies, Mr Speaker.

Hon Louise Upston: Hello! Hello, Willie!

SPEAKER: She’s just shifted seats.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Oh, my apologies. My apologies to the former Minister who didn’t do a very good job when she was a Minister.

In terms of Mana in Mahi, it’s about giving mana to people so our young people aren’t sitting on benefits, getting a free ride as the clueless former Minister alleges. In fact, many of our young people are the results of the nasty, vile, ugly policy that the previous Government put in place. Their answer for everything is punishing the vulnerable and the poor while turning a blind eye to their rich, privileged mates. That’s how they operate. Their answer to moving people off benefit into work was—well I tell you what, it wasn’t investing in skills development, nor was it investing in the barriers to work. It was work testing. That was the answer for the former Minister who mucked things up. Well, guess what! Things have changed. A change of Government and a change of attitude.

What a wonderful Minister we have in Minister Carmel Sepuloni, who has followed on and done a wonderful job in Mana in Mahi. I love Mana in Mahi because I gave it the name—I know I shouldn’t be celebrating or showing off, but I can’t help it. It’s been such a wonderful success, and the National Party would have called it “Working for the dole”, because they don’t understand young people. You see, my good friend and Shane Reti’s cousin Shane Jones—when we had young people, Shane Jones talked about kicking them off the couch. The Labour Party and this Government talks about awhi-ing them—embracing them, loving these young people, giving them a second chance, a third chance, a fourth chance; not penalising them as the National Party would do.

You see I’ll give you an example. I won’t tell you his name, I’ll just call him “Rangi”. Well, actually that’s his name, but you don’t know his last name. Anyway, he was one of my young guns on one of these courses. His father was unemployed. His grandfather was unemployed. He mucked up; he didn’t take the work opportunities that the former Minister demands that he takes. Oh no, he didn’t do that because he hadn’t seen role models in his life. So we give him another chance, and we give him a second chance. And guess what! He’s one of our shining examples of Mana in Mahi. That’s what aroha is all about.

They have no aroha—they have no aroha. It’s “Do the job, take the position.” Never mind where you live. Never mind if your father was unemployed. Never mind if your grandfather was unemployed. They have all the bloody answers. It’s a disgrace, their attitude. They are treating this group of people terribly.

Next year, for the first time ever, Millennials and Gen Xers will numerically outnumber Boomers voters by—and there they are attacking our young people. National are playing with demographic fire. They are a disgrace.

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Before I call a member, I am going to say to Harete Hipango that she must not take off her mask in order to interject. That really sort of undermines the reasons for having masks on. If people are going to take them off to interject, it means that the stuff we’re trying to stop spraying around gets sprayed.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Minister for Youth): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s absolutely no secret that, through this pandemic and the economic crisis that has ensued and that we experienced beforehand, our young people are some of the hardest hit amongst us. This is because of the missed opportunities that they’ve had throughout the course of the pandemic—missed opportunities in education, in employment, in the connections that they would have had otherwise, and also in terms of the jobs that they tend to hold, in tourism, in hospitality. Those are the sectors that were the hardest hit, and therefore we’ve seen a number of young people affected in a plethora of ways, including their mental health, their employment status, and a whole heap of other things.

That’s why, as a Government, we’ve taken the approach, as Minister Sepuloni spoke about earlier, to ensure that we have a suite of measures that will work for various young people, given the various situations that they’re in and the fact that we have to take an approach that is equitable. That is what is lacking on the other side of this House. Equity—understanding that not every young person starts at the same point in life, that we’re not all born with a silver spoon, and that if you are going through hardships in life and you—like Minister Jackson said—perhaps come from a circumstance where you don’t even know what a role model looks like, what a sense of purpose is, that you awhi them, that you look at what the barriers are that they face, and you address those barriers. That’s the approach that we take on this side of the House.

As Minister for Youth, I’ve been out there talking to young people who’ve faced various circumstances that are difficult, and the youth sector organisations, youth workers, who have supported them over years. We know that what we need to do is address those barriers and not just to be punitive and hit them on the head with sanctions, as the other side wants to do. We don’t view people receiving a benefit as hopeless; we don’t view them as bottom feeders, as members on the other side have said; and we certainly don’t view their circumstances as being a free ride.

Sadly, what we’ve seen over the weekend in terms of the announcement from the National Party shows that they are incredibly out of touch with what young people need. What they’re doing in terms of their language—it speaks much more to dog-whistle politics than actually addressing the problems at hand, and it does a disservice to our young people in what is an incredibly tough economic time as well. Largely, by and large, rangatahi I’ve spoken to are ambitious. They want to develop skills and contribute to the economy and to our society, and, on this side of the House, we commend that and we want to continue to back them. And that’s exactly what we’re doing.

We’re doing that through Mana in Mahi, as Minister Jackson has talked about as well. That is one part of the Government’s suite of employment programmes. That has surpassed 5,000 participants recently; 75 percent of participants who had been on a benefit for two years or more haven’t gone back on to a benefit. Because, again, what we’re trying to do on this side is not just kick people off benefits but actually get people into meaningful work that pays decent wages as well. Sixty-four percent of those who’ve been part of Mana in Mahi are under the age of 24 years. The Apprenticeship Boost—we’ve seen a 55 percent increase in the number of apprentices since the start of the pandemic. Over the past two years, more than 190,000 people have benefited from our Government’s investment in trades training, including apprenticeships—one of the first things that was cut by the other side when they were in Government during the global financial crisis, as well.

We’re removing barriers, as I mentioned. Through Budget 2022, an estimated 64,000 people will be able to access driver licensing programmes. We know that is a key requirement for up to 70 percent of jobs. In my portfolio, we’ve seen a 40 percent increase in support to Ministry of Youth Development funded youth services. These are services where many who don’t have a role model in their lives, who may not have a sense of purpose, actually get that wraparound support that we know they need to succeed later in life, whether that’s reconnecting with education, getting a job, or getting into training. We’re seeing that that works through Budget 2022. That will be extended to about 7,000 additional young people to avail of as well.

In the end, our Government has delivered record low unemployment—one of the lowest rates in the OECD; lower than most of the countries we compare ourselves to—and we are seeing a much larger number of people, including young people, getting off the benefit and into work. Thank you.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to stand today to talk about what’s happening in employment at the moment. As an employer in my private life but also as a member of the Labour Party, I really want to just stand here and acknowledge the fact that 5,000 people have entered into Mana in Mahi, which really exceeds what we set as a target for this Government.

I want to just talk a little bit about Mana in Mahi - Strength in Work that the Minister Willie Jackson talked to us about. I wanted to remind this House about what Mana in Mahi actually offers out there to not only the employer but also to the young person—or people—needing to work, and how we actually work in partnership across community to support people into work.

I think it’s really important to do that because it’s not just about throwing a thousand bucks at someone and going, “Mate, stay in your job for a year.” So this is actually the programme that we’re providing: it’s a work-to-learn programme, it’s formal skills into apprenticeship, and it’s a payment for pre-employment training they might need. There’s a wage subsidy offset into that investment, into their training and development, and we can also help pay their fees.

We find out what’s going on, we identify it, and we look for further ways that we can help the employer keep that person in employment. It’s so important to keep them in that employment. It’s a partnership alongside the employer, because we know and we recognise that it’s not just about throwing someone at a job and expecting them to stay in that job.

So the new employer has some abilities to access support as well because, certainly, while people are getting more and more used to working, they perhaps have a cost to that business. We have to really acknowledge our employers who have come on board, and stepped up and supported our young people, and our working people, and our older people into work.

So they can get some support—in our apprenticeship programme, up to $16,000, which was $1,000 a month for the first year, and then $500 for the second year. Now, it is changing from 1 August—the first year is $500 and the second year is $500. This is genuinely a way that we keep and help people stay in employment: the employer gets the support, the employee gets the training; they train as they learn. And that is why we have record low unemployment in this country.

We understand that it is not just one kind of programme. We understand that Mana in Mahi and He Poutama Rangatahi and the apprenticeship programmes—these are consistent programmes that work really well, and for a series of people. Like my colleague Priyanca Radhakrishnan said, we talk about a number of ways.

In the time that I have left, I just want to acknowledge a real pleasure that I had on Friday: opening a centre in Katikati community—a He Poutama Rangatahi community centre. It was based for employment. An incredible three years have gone into this programme to get it to where it was. Three years, that community working alongside iwi, working alongside the community, the schools, and young people, to identify what the needs were for those young people in their community. It was a real pleasure to cut the ribbon—well, metaphorically cut the ribbon, I should say—with the Mayor of the Western Bay of Plenty, and for the two of us to stand alongside there in partnership alongside that Katikati community to actually welcome the community into the space that would support those young people. This is a three-year project, it is $2 million; it is designed specifically for the needs of the young people in Katikati, based absolutely on what they have told the community services they need. It is absolutely full of support and the ability for those young people to hear and to be heard. And I appreciated that.

ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, three speakers, now, in a row were forced to attack us and defend their own failing policies in the social welfare space, because, I can tell you what, having 34,000 additional young people on a benefit since 2017 is a failed policy. Twice as many of them being on a benefit for longer than a year is a failed policy, so speaker after speaker they’re putting up today to defend their failed policies.

When we’ve got employers out there who are crying out for workers, they’re forced to defend their failed policies. Talking about employment troubles and employers not being able to find staff, let’s take a look at the ANZ quarterly economic outlook, because it is grim reading. What they’ve said in that is that, basically, they thought that we’d returned to net positive migration this year, but they’ve had to downgrade that to mid-2023. That means there are going to be persistent skills shortages in our economy right through next year. We’re in trouble right through 2023. It’s going to drive up inflation. It’s going to reduce productivity.

But why are we having this? We just need to look at recent history and we need to think about what drives migrants to come here. After the border reopening announcement back in late February, on 3 March, the previous Minister of Immigration, Minister Faafoi, stood up at Business New Zealand and he said, “I’m going to have a new policy. We’re going to take the critical worker visa; we’re going to relax the conditions on that. All you have to do is earn 1.5 times the median wage, and his words were: “This will bring in 20,000 workers.”

That’s what this Government promised back in March until when the policy closed, which was on 31 July: 20,000 workers. How many workers does this House think that policy attracted in the six months that it was open? Out of 20,000, the number of people who arrived didn’t even meet 5 percent: 975 people. But let’s be generous: how many were approved? Well, that was only 1,400. But let’s be even more generous: how many even applied for a visa? Eighteen hundred out of a promised 20,000.

How did this Government get this so wrong? It is because they don’t understand what drives migrants. There was no pathway to residence for those people. They restricted them from getting the 2021 Resident Visa, and this Government kept the skilled migrant category—the old points system—closed. They closed it in March; it’s still closed today, it’s been closed all year. That’s why those 20,000 people didn’t arrive. They didn’t want to sell their house, move across the world, and take their kids out of school to come to a foreign country when they didn’t know what their future was. They didn’t have certainty, and this Government and these immigration Ministers don’t understand that.

They want to know about their future here, and why this is so really, really important is because history is repeating itself. This epic failure—this 20,000-worker failure—matters, because we’re seeing it happen again. The first month of the accredited employer work visa, their new flagship work visa, 152 people applied in the first month, even were approved. Immigration New Zealand expected 3,500 every month—we got 152. So, much like the 50,000 that they promised, the 42,000 are not going to eventuate either, because there’s no pathway to residence. Unless you’re one of the 45 jobs on the green list or unless you earn $115,000, there is no pathway to residence for you. So if you are a physiotherapist, if you are an engineering manager, if you are an IT worker, if you’re a healthcare assistant, or if you’re a truck driver, there’s no pathway to residence and you’re very unlikely to come here.

The kicker is not only did those 152 people only apply for that visa—here’s the kicker—66 of them, almost half, were already here. So we’re not attracting new migrants to New Zealand, and this is how they’re going to jimmy the figures. They’re going to go, “Look how many people apply.” Now, that is not practical. The key is how many people offshore applied. They can tell you all day long that there were nine nurses that applied. How many of them were offshore? We haven’t got the question back yet, but I can guarantee you that most of those nurses would have already been here in New Zealand, just switching jobs and having to apply for this new visa.

This is another failed policy because they don’t understand what drives migrants. They should have continued to open up the skilled migrant category in August, like they said they would. But, buried in a press release a couple of weeks ago from Minister Wood, he’s quietly benched the skilled migrant category, which means there will be no pathway to residence for all these people for the foreseeable future, which means we will not see the level of migrants that we need to drive our economy, to increase productivity, and to reduce the cost of living. What we saw with the 20,000 failed policy will happen again with the accredited employer work visa—mark my words.

TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. The thing that annoys me this afternoon, as I’m sitting here listening to the debates from the other side, is that the National Party Opposition have absolutely got everybody in the weeds talking about beneficiary bashing. It’s the same old diatribe that they roll out every time they start feeling good about themselves and they start seeing a lift in the polls: they go for the default. And they need a new default, you see, because the last one about being tough on crime? They have to revise that—there’s stuff going on at the moment.

So they have to go for the second one on the list, which is that they’re tough on beneficiaries. So what do they do? They roll out the same old lines about beneficiaries and start the witch hunt around the country towards those people that need a little bit of extra Government support. And do you know what? Sometimes, people do need a little bit of Government support. Sometimes, they need to come to the Government and say, “I haven’t got a job. I need some extra support.” So that’s what we’ve gone and done, and we’re doing it, and they have no idea that the policy they’re putting up is actually already in motion.

Labour has always been about work—it’s in the name; it’s in the name! Labour has always been about work, but not just work—meaningful work that makes a difference to a person’s life so that it’s not just a part-time job doing something that they absolutely don’t want to do. It’s about finding meaning in life, and that’s what they’ve gone and done. That’s what we’ve got out there: we’ve got a bunch of people who’ve said, “I need a bit of extra support. I need some meaningful employment. I don’t want it to be short term, but also I want to be paid meaningfully as well.” And there’s some people out there who say, “You know, they should take the first job that’s coming to them.” But, actually, the cost of living is going up for everybody, including beneficiaries that really need some support. So every time that we’ve gone and hiked up the minimum wage in New Zealand, the Opposition have voted against it. They don’t like that. They think that it should still be back at the $15.25 that it was when we came in in 2017.

What we’ve gone and done is we’ve lifted up the pay rates, we’ve stood alongside these people who find themselves needing Government support, and we’ve put in place a suite of packages. You’ve heard them from different members that have stood up from our side this afternoon. We’ve talked about the Mana in Mahi programme, and it is a great programme. We’ve surpassed the target that we’ve set for ourselves, and it was the Opposition that always says that Labour hates targets—“They don’t like targets.” Well, here’s something: we don’t mind a target or two, and we exceeded ours. So give us a clap for actually doing that. But, no, they won’t, because they’ll just want to rubbish it. They think that it’s a rubbish policy. I say it’s not. I say it’s gone and put 5,000 job seekers into employment.

If you want to talk about another programme, back in the Bay of Plenty, we’ve actually amplified our work in driver licensing, and I think that’s incredibly important to remember. I remember going to the launch of the Howard League’s programme in the Eastern Bay of Plenty, and it was there that Mike Williams got up and he talked about a few numbers. He talked about 15 being the number of Māori in this country, in a percentage. He talked about 53, which was the number of Māori that are in our prisons around the country, and then he talks about 65, which is the percentage of Maōri who have ended up in the prison system because of a driver licensing infringement. We’ve done lots of things to be able to turn around the plight of those people needing extra support, whether it’s through Mana in Mahi, He Poutama Rangatahi, which the Opposition crow about but it was us that started it—well, it was us that gave effect to it and gave it a budget as well, and rolled it out successfully around the country. So Mana in Mahi, He Poutama Rangatahi, and driver licensing.

I got to talk to some third-year nursing students from Rotorua the other day. I went in and spoke to them. They’re running for the light at the end of the tunnel. They’ve had a big couple of years. But you know what we talked about? How successful fees-free education was for them to be able to reduce the barrier to get into the Bachelor of Nursing degree.

So you know what? Despite all the rubbishing that’s coming from the other side of the House, we just need to take a bit of stock and remember that there have been a lot of programmes that this Government has rolled out. They don’t want to know that it’s been successful, but to those people who are listening around the country, they have been successful. What we’ve done over on this side of the House is we have progressed the situation. They would have us regress back into the place that we were in when we picked up the shambles of a mess that this country was in, in 2017.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Today, I want to offer the Green Party’s support publicly to our professional firefighters, acknowledge they’re in mediation today with Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ), and we hope that their bargaining gets resolved in that mediation so that they do not get forced into having to strike this Friday, because our firefighters matter to us. They matter in terms of their safety and their wellbeing in their jobs. I really call on members of the public who may be watching this to stand up and show your support for the firefighters, because they need us all behind them at the moment.

I’ve been going around some of the stations over the last few weeks, along with my colleagues. We’ve visited, I think, firefighters from 12 different stations across the country. It’s been really disturbing, to be honest, the consistency of the concerns that they’re raising—but the examples are different in every single place, just showing a depth and extent of the problem that I’ve found, personally, quite mind-boggling. It’s clear to me that even if—through this mediation and bargaining—everything gets resolved, the problem is not going to be resolved. I do want to put that clearly on the record in the House, of the need for there to be a review of Fire and Emergency New Zealand. Because what they’re telling us is that there is a fundamental disconnect between the front-line fire workers, who are going out and putting their bodies and their minds on the line every day to keep our communities safe, and the head office.

That’s showing up in a range of ways: the fact that new trainings have been cancelled which has led to people working extraordinarily long hours—which I would argue is a health and safety issue in itself—that, also, around equipment, and let me run through some of this. Some of the firefighters told me that, over the last 15 years, they could only remember one equipment roll-out that has gone well: their radios. So they spoke about wet weather gear that had pockets too small to take their radios; of new trucks that were ordered in that have had to be significantly altered to be functional—going around the Basin Reserve and the brakes actually coming on because the truck wasn’t designed to be able to go at that speed around corners. That was such a poor decision. Helmets that don’t match other gear, so couldn’t be worn with other gear; boots that are causing injuries, and podiatrists have said should not be worn for extended periods or for climbing stairs; millions being wasted on clothing that was not fit for purpose or appropriate for them; and that there’s an evident failure to update the fleet. In every station, I saw trucks that are 20 to 30 years old. Now, I’m very proud of my 1996 Corolla that I still drive, but I don’t expect our firefighters to be saving our lives and putting themselves on the line in equipment that old and dodgy, and my Corolla seems more reliable than most of their fire trucks.

The fact that we don’t even have aerial appliances in some of our cities—we’re hearing from the head office that they’re saying, “Oh, well, actually sprinkler systems mean that it’s not so important these days.” But, actually, most people die in fires from smoke inhalation. Sprinklers are the interaction between the fire and creating the smoke which is what will kill people. It can take five minutes, in all of their gear, per floor, to get up. So people’s lives are—what I heard, clearly—being put at risk because of the decision making that’s happening in the head office. They’ve had hazmat responsibilities in the legislation since 2017, but they’ve only just started working on that as a plan. There’s been performance notices put in place in terms of health and safety around asbestos because there isn’t a policy, and, actually, FENZ took no action as a result of that project information memorandum, which is illegal. They are just not listening. Our firefighters are going out there and they’re not getting the mental health support that they need. They haven’t had adequate training for turning up to, now, the suicides and the drownings and the cardiac arrests. They’ve had basic first aid training on top of their fire service training. It’s inadequate and it’s wrong and it needs review.

ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. We’ve heard a lot this afternoon—quite rightly, too—about some of the fantastic achievements and what this Government has done in building a well-trained workforce that’s going to take us into a bright future. Mana in Mahi, the Apprenticeship Boost, Mayors Taskforce for Jobs, He Poutama Rangatahi—a suite of initiatives that means our response to building our workforce has been nimble, innovative, successful, and will be sustained. Why? Because these projects are collaborative—innately collaborative—and they’re evidence informed. And they’ve been focused on our workers—our young people; all workers—but also their employers, and their mana, and that is the critical bit. We’ve heard all the stunning numbers: low unemployment and all the rest. But, actually, I just want to bring us down to some of the real stories, because there’s the powerful bit that reminds us that what we are doing is working and it’s worth pursuing.

So I just want to talk about one of our local plumbers—Shane Gardiner, and his wife, Julie—and Joshua Hopkins, who’s their young apprentice. When you talk to Joshua, the mana that he exudes—his pride in his work is really, really obvious. He is excited about his future and so is his boss. The interesting thing is, his boss didn’t just get support to pay his wages—which reduced, you know, the risk and the investment that was required—but they noticed, they recognised that they both needed him to be safe and productive. So he got to, when he first started out, do a digger course—Wheels, Tracks and Rollers; I want to go there—and also working at heights. And what that meant is that both Josh and Shane were really quickly able to recognise and utilise his productivity, and his mana was enhanced because of that.

It isn’t just high-vis vests. I just need to acknowledge there are hairdressers out there who have done it tough in the last couple of years; really tough. We’ve got hairdressers who have not only been able to take on apprentices because of the additional support but expand their premises. If you even need a haircut in Te Awamutu, Kirsty Butler has got room for you because she’s been able to take on another apprentice.

Also, the opportunities you see when you speak to people who are supporting especially our young people with collaborative initiatives—I’ve just been down to Feats Pae Tawhiti and their forestry foundation skills course. These young people—they put more than 50 through—I’ve met them, the last cohort just as they were about to graduate, and their excitement about going out and finding a job in forestry was wonderful. But it was more than just preparing them to use a chainsaw safely. There was tikanga and Te Ao Māori that was brought into it; mātauranga Māori that really helped to wrap around and lift these young people—the way they stood in support of each other as they gave their pepeha, as they tautoko each other with their waiata and their haka. Their mana was enhanced and makes them more productive and better workers, but also their ability to stand up and grab the world and the future is obvious, because of that wraparound. It isn’t just about throwing cash at them; it is about supporting them and bringing all of the expertise to wrap around them. It’s really, really powerful stuff to watch.

I guess just the third thing about the suite of initiatives that we support in this Government is how innovative you see local communities being able to be. We’re really proud in Taranaki to have really committed to Predator Free 2050, and we have got apprentices who are learning how to be Kiwi handlers and Kiwi rangers. So we’ve got Leighwae at the East Taranaki Environment Trust, and we’ve got the Taranaki Kiwi Trust who’ve got Maia. And these young people who, in combination with the Western Institute of Technology, the local polytech—here they come up again; they’re rock stars today—and the way that they are able to help us build this booming conservation industry. So I’m really proud to acknowledge the huge support that has gone on across the country to build a workforce that is going to take us into the future.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Mr Speaker. What a poor showing from the members on the other side. They are just displaying their bigotry of low expectations in this country. We even had a member of Parliament from the Labour Party get up and say that part-time work is not meaningful work. Well, I just think it is absolutely appalling and shameful that they have that low expectation of people in this country. I tell you, Mr Speaker, getting young people into work has to be one of the top priorities.

We sit here and see that those members totally mask over the absolute failure of this Government. There are 34,000 more young people on welfare—a 50 percent increase on their watch. They talk about all the great programmes they say are happening out there, but the outcomes are getting worse and we’re seeing this across the Public Service as we speak—more and more money is being spent but the Government’s outcomes are going backwards. It’s an “A” for aspiration but it’s an absolute “E” for execution and an “F” for fail, because that’s actually what’s happening and it’s our young people who are being failed by this Government’s policies.

It’s not just in social development; it’s in transport policy too. We’ve seen a 60 percent in the number of staff at the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA). There are three times as many communications officers. With the potholes on our roads, I would have thought they’d be hiring people to fill the potholes, but they’ve got twice as many people with the title “manager”. That’s not the way to fix unemployment in this country—simply making managers and comms staff—but it seems to be under this Government’s policies.

Then we’ve got the ideology, which is seeping in everywhere, and particularly in the transport space. We’re seeing ideology take over from actually helping New Zealanders get where they need to go, get around our roads safely and efficiently, and have high productivity transport links in New Zealand. We’ve seen the cancellation of State highways up and down this country. We’ve seen the Government’s absolute ideological commitment to light rail, meaning that nothing else is happening, and you have to wonder what those thousands of additional bureaucrats are actually doing under this Government’s watch.

But it gets worse. We now know what they’ve actually been doing. They’ve been coming up with this policy called Reshaping Streets, and the Minister of Transport in his press release said, “People live, shop, and meet with friends and whānau on our streets”. Well, last time I looked, streets were for travelling to and from where you want to get to, not for having hui with friends and whānau. Last time I had a meeting, it certainly wasn’t on the white lines in the middle of the road; it was somewhere else. People don’t live on the street—well, actually they do. There are four times as many people under this Government living on our streets. What an absolute shame. Is that the ambition of this Government’s policies? Is it to make those streets so that more homeless people—whose numbers have ballooned under this Government—can live on our streets?

It’s not just that statement; it’s the ideology underneath it. It’s about taking away the opportunity for people to be able to have their say in how their streets are managed, so that the local territorial authorities and transport authorities can carve up their streets without consultation, put planter boxes in, and limit access to people’s streets and neighbourhoods, and all in the name of putting in a two-year pilot without any consultation—which could put in a cycleway, a bus lane, speed bumps, close the street down, or limit it to just cars that have some type of emission standard or not. This is the ideology that is seeping into our transport policy and it needs to be called out, because ultimately our roads are for getting around; they are not a plaything or a toy for the Minister of Transport to play with, with planter boxes and other ideological implements that he wants to do.

It’s not just this policy; we’ve also seen the on-again off-again, wanting to reallocate lanes, not just on neighbourhoods and streets across our community but the harbour bridge in Auckland, where it’s the on-again off-again cycle lane. It was on again, and then in October last year—no, it’s off again. “We’re definitely not doing a cycle bridge across there.” Then it’s on again—“We’re going to do some events.”—and then it’s off again because it’s going to cost $700,000. Then it’s on again because a letter was sent from some lawyers to the NZTA board. The Government needs to get its transport priorities right about making sure New Zealanders can get where they need to go, and stop using transport policy for its ideological purposes.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour—Northland): E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. I want to start my contribution by saying that when we were getting reports of the National Party conference over the weekend, I was worried about what issue they were going to come out and make big announcements about. Was it going to be tough on crime? Was it going to be racism? What was it that I was going to have to be responding to and defending for my community? All of them would have hurt, but this one hurt me the most because it’s about our taitamariki; it’s about our rangatahi. Our young people are our future, and here we have the Opposition coming out and talking about punitive approaches to our rangatahi and our taitamariki.

So when I heard our Minister for employment wrap up her contribution in today’s debate, I was a bit emotional. She concluded with the words “a little bit of aroha goes a long way”, and it speaks volumes. If you listen to her contribution and that of every other speaker from this side, this afternoon, it speaks volumes to the difference of opinion that we have about our taitamariki, about our rangatahi, about the policies that we believe need to be in place to support them, to support our future. And so I want to acknowledge our Minister for employment, because she is working so hard in this area, providing a range of opportunities for our rangatahi to ensure that they have hope, that they have aspiration, and that they have the support that they need to overcome whatever barriers may exist for them to be able to be in sustainable employment. I can see firsthand, in my electorate in Northland, the difference that this suite of measures that our Government have had in place and introduced over the last five years is making for our rangatahi.

We have focused a lot this afternoon on how proud we are about Mana in Mahi, that we have exceeded our target of 4,000. We have now more than 5,000 who have benefited from what was a pilot programme. That pilot is showing us, proving to us, providing us with the results that that type of investment and support is working. But I want to also mention He Poutama Rangatahi, because in Te Tai Tokerau, we have had over 14 programmes supported through He Poutama Rangatahi that have benefited close to 800 taitamariki in Te Tai Tokerau. It has helped them to get re-engaged in education, in employment, and in training. We also have Pae Aronui, which is a Te Puni Kōkiri Māori employment programme—again, close to another 800 rangatahi benefiting from this suite of measures that we have introduced—

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: That’s right—sweet!

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: —“sweet” of measures, to support people into sustainable, meaningful employment.

I want to talk about just a couple of projects in Northland which have come within these schemes. One recently: they said, not by design, but they became the supreme winner in the recent Northland Regional Council Environmental Awards. They were recipients of Jobs for Nature funding, programmes like He Poutama Rangatahi. I want to mihi to the Kaikohe-based Te Kotahitanga e Mahi Kaha Trust, who have worked with rangatahi to give them opportunities to train and to develop more skills to have meaningful employment, and, in the process of that, they are restoring the waterways in and around Kaikohe. So the environment is also benefiting from these initiatives.

I remember being with the former Minister of Conservation, Minister Kiritapu Allan, when she announced over $20 million worth of projects for Jobs for Nature in Northland. That was in 2021. Another tool, another measure in our suite of measures that we have to help our rangatahi, to help our people. We know that this is contributing to record low unemployment. We are now down to 5.5 percent unemployment for Māori. As the co-chair of the Māori caucus, that is something that I am so proud of. So I want to mihi to our Minister for employment, to our former Minister for employment as well, Willie Jackson, who saw that it was right to name it Mana in Mahi. Kia ora.

SIMON COURT (ACT): As a civil engineer, I’m really interested in how to solve the problem of three waters—ageing water infrastructure, and how we connect pipes to land so that people can build houses and communities. Now, the Government has emphasised disease outbreak—E. coli in Havelock North. That was primarily a regulatory failing. It was public health agencies and a regional council that failed to protect the water source that resulted in people getting sick and, tragically, some dying. But that problem’s largely solved. The Government has established Taumata Arowai, a water regulator. In fact, the chief executive, Bill Bayfield, told Mike Hosking on Newstalk ZB that he had all the tools he needed in his tool box to make sure that councils delivered safe drinking water.

Then we come to the environmental problem. We’ve all seen images of sewage pipes breaking in the Wellington CBD; Auckland beaches with “no swim” signs. Communities deserve to know, when they go down to the beach for a swim, to have a picnic, or let the dog play, and that they shouldn’t have to worry about the quality of the water.

That brings us to the real problem to solve: water infrastructure funding and financing. How do we secure the funding and financing to close the infrastructure gap and to make sure that we can service land for housing growth, to deliver those affordable homes that communities need? Instead of addressing this problem at a local level, what the Government has proposed is absolutely ludicrous. It’s a race-based, co-governance model that forces all councils to join, even though the Government promised, once, it was voluntary, having already taken a decision at Cabinet that it would be compulsory. That is how you lose the trust of the electorate, lose the trust of the community. It’s a risky and doomed to fail experiment.

These new water corporations give effect to a Treaty principle expressed as Te Mana o Te Wai, which says that, believe it or not, the health of the water is more important than the health of the people or the communities and the economy that that water serves.

Legal action is currently under way to determine whether the so-called ownership model—that deceptive concept proposed by this Government, which says that councils continue to own the assets even though they lose all control over them—a court is being asked to decide whether this is a fallacy or whether we should be expected to take on this new concept of ownership where you don’t get to control it. It’s like a car thief telling you, “Look, I’ve got your car, but you still own it.” Yeah, right! Communities and private suppliers value their assets, and they do not appreciate Government coming along and telling them that they’re being taken off them.

The three waters upgrades over the next 30 years could be the largest and riskiest, costliest programme of investment ever undertaken by central and local government, so you’d think they would have put a tried and tested governance model in place. Instead, it’s that race-based, co-governance model that we’ve heard again and again that this Government wants to apply to every policy. At the same time that the Government imposes this untried and risky governance model, they’ve loaded up these new water entities with debt, while calling it a better-off funding package for councils. Better off for whom? Not taxpayers, not ratepayers, and certainly not water users.

ACT says New Zealanders deserve to be heard, and ACT has listened. That’s why ACT would repeal the three waters legislation and we would return these assets to local community ownership. We would also ask councils to enter into voluntary shared services agreements to get the benefit of scale when it comes to procurement, design, and delivery. ACT would allow councils, the regions, and local and central government to establish long-term, 30-year partnerships to prioritise the infrastructure, based on where the regions say it’s needed—not centralised bureaucracies. We would allow for public-private partnerships to draw in that extra funding needed. KiwiSaver, iwi organisations, and ACC all want to participate. We’d expand the exemption from domestic supplies so that up to 30 water users could be free of these regulations. ACT’s plan would deliver the funding, the infrastructure, but without the division and the distrust.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

House in Committee

House in Committee

SPEAKER: I declare the House in Committee for consideration of the Appropriation (2022/23 Estimates) Bill, the Overseas Investment (Forestry) Amendment Bill, and the Oversight of Oranga Tamariki System and Children and Young People’s Commission Bill.

Estimates Debate

In Committee

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The House is in committee for the consideration of the Appropriation (2022/23 Estimates) Bill. The Standing Orders provide for 11 hours of debate on the Estimates, and the Business Committee has determined to organise the debate by portfolio, so there will be no sector-specific debates. All Votes are available for debate, but only specific Ministers will be available each day to speak to the indicated portfolios only. The Government has indicated that the Minister for Social Development and Employment and for ACC, the Minister of Finance, and the Minister for the Environment and for Oceans and Fisheries will be available today.

Each debate will be led by a call from the chairperson or member of the committee that considered the Estimates most closely related to the Minister’s portfolio. This debate expires after 11 hours, at which point questions will be put that the Votes stand part of the schedules and on the provisions of the Appropriation (2022/23 Estimates) Bill.

The time for the debate has been allocated to parties on a proportional basis, and may be taken as parties see fit during the debate. New Zealand Labour has five hours, 57 minutes, New Zealand National has three hours and two minutes, the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand has 55 minutes, ACT New Zealand has 55 minutes, and Te Paati Māori has 11 minutes.

The Estimates debate should be relevant to the Government’s current spending plans, as contained in the Estimates of Appropriations. A compendium of reports of select committees on the Votes is available on the Table. The question is that the Votes contained in the Estimates of Appropriation for 2022/23 stand part of the schedules.

Social Development and Employment, and ACC

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a great pleasure leading off the debate for the 2023 Estimates for Vote Social Development, as the chair of the Social Services and Community Committee. I want to acknowledge, first and foremost, the hard work of all involved, in particular the officials and our clerks who have done an extraordinary job. Using a theme-based approach, we’ve produced a wide-ranging report, which can be found on the Parliament website, based on four areas of work, which I’ll now outline.

The Ministry of Social Development (MSD)—we examined the portfolio of social development and employment. The Minister, the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, attended the meeting and spoke on the effects of COVID. She focused on programmes to support getting people into work—these included Flexi-wage, job expos, seminars, and our wraparound model of support. We heard 90 percent of the people who enter work under Flexi-wage stay in that role or move to other employment. We heard that 25 percent of beneficiaries entering work had been on a benefit for one to three years. Young people and upskilling was discussed, involving the earn and learn model. The Training Incentive Allowance to help people better manage financially was also discussed. The Minister spoke about benefit numbers forecasts for 2022-26 from Treasury, the context of COVID, global events, and the economic forecast indicating an increase in jobseeker support benefits.

The Minister said that MSD would continue to work hard to beat Treasury forecasts, and the best time to support someone into a job is when they have just come out of work. Jobs assistance for beneficiaries was discussed, with intense case management helping to get more people into work, supporting people to get their driver’s licences with a multi-year investment of $86 million. Child support payments for sole parents would now be passed on from IRD to solo parents, increasing their income by an average of $24 per week. Dental grants increased from $300 to $1,000, including for non-emergency dental work.

Beneficiary debt was discussed, and we heard that the Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister of Revenue, Dr Deborah Russell, was leading work to ensure a consistent approach to owed debt and this would be a MSD, Inland Revenue, and Ministry of Justice project. We heard about beneficiary fraud investigations, writing off debt to MSD, and assistance with debt management. Finally, emergency housing and the cost of living in those houses was discussed. We also asked about children in emergency housing and learnt that the average stay was 14.5 weeks.

The youth appropriation—partnering for youth development has a $19 million allocation. The Minister, the Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan, spoke about supporting young people affected by COVID and with complex needs, the annual youth survey, increasing equitable access to youth development services and participation. The Hive and Youth Parliament were also discussed.

Next is the report of the disability sector. I want to acknowledge that this is a significant shift and the Minister for Disability Issues, the Hon Poto Williams, is now responsible for three appropriations totalling $2 billion. Namely, we heard roughly 24 percent of New Zealanders live with some kind of disability. Budget 2023 includes a new policy initiative to establish a new ministry. I want to acknowledge the Hon Carmel Sepuloni for her work to bring the bill to the House and for the handing over of that piece of work. We heard that there are few comparable jurisdictions in the world that have a dedicated Government agency for disabled people. The Minister acknowledged that this establishment of Whaikaha work was credited to the disabled people who have advocated for themselves for several decades.

Finally, we heard from the Minister for Seniors. The Hon Ayesha Verrall spoke to the appropriation of $4.3 million. We heard of the better life strategy, about the newly appointed Aged Care Commissioner and a series of other initiatives promoting positive outcomes for seniors, the aged-care sector, alternative housing for seniors, preventing elder abuse, the Dementia Action Plan, and seniors in business.

In closing, the Social Services and Community Committee recommends that the appropriations for the year ended 30 June 2023 for Vote Social Development be accepted.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you, Madam Chair. I understand the new format in terms of a series of questions back and forward across the committee of the whole House, and that’s the model I intend to follow. I just want to start by putting on record that the total Vote Social Development appropriation is just shy of $44 billion. I accept it’s a significant Vote that we are discussing in this first component of the Estimates debate for 2022-23.

The first series of questions I would like the Minister to answer are specifically around employment and social outcomes support, and, of course, we’ve seen a drop back from the estimated actual last year to the estimate this year. My questions include: of the initiatives that are funded under this category, which of the initiatives and what percentage of the funding is targeted to those who are on benefit long term—i.e., longer than one year? I’m talking about job seekers in total.

So in that question, again, I’m looking for detail in terms of dollar value and percentage of the employment and social outcomes support. How much of that and what percentage of it is focused on supporting people who have been on the jobseeker benefit for longer than 12 months?

I’m also interested in concrete examples—because we continue to hear it—of what defines “meaningful work” and, probably more importantly, what doesn’t. We’ve also heard it a lot in the last week—the language shifted to people having a good job. So to the thousands of employers out there who have jobs that they are desperately trying to fill, I think it would be useful for the Minister, who is in charge of a nearly $40 billion Vote, to answer my first series of questions around the employment and social outcomes support, and to describe and define what is and isn’t “meaningful work” and a “good job”.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Madam Chair, thank you very much. Well, just to start, the member Louise Upston has pointed out the $40 billion Vote, and I do want to clarify that in that $40 billion Vote, almost $20 billion is for superannuation. The three main working-age benefits receive about $7.4 billion; accommodation assistance, about $2.3 billion; student allowance, $682 million; hardship assistance, $608 million; winter energy payment, $518 million; and disability assistance, $418 million. So it is important to keep it in perspective with respect to the significant amount—50 percent—that is paid towards superannuation.

There were a number of questions asked by the member. I’m going to attempt to answer them. However, I completely understand if she may need to reiterate some, because there was a lot in there to unpack.

The member asked how much from the dedicated pool of funding that is in there for employment is targeted towards specifically long-term beneficiaries or those in welfare receipt. I think the point of difference perhaps is that our view is that we can prevent and avoid long-term benefit receipt if we invest early into people that came on benefit. All of the evidence shows that when people are supported to get into employment quickly, then they are able to exit more—when they get on to benefit and are able to be supported into work quickly, then they are less likely to stay on benefit. So that has certainly been the focus for us. Particularly during COVID, I think it was around $163.596 million that was dedicated to employment and training, and that is one of the many numbers that is in front of me.

I also wanted to respond to the question that was asked around meaningful work and good jobs. The approach that we have been trying to take—which has been an approach asked for, actually, by employers—is that we match people up appropriately with work. We do have large numbers of clients showing up to things like work expos but not necessarily walking away with a job, because, at the end of the day, the business gets to choose who would be the right fit and who has the skills and capabilities to go into work. So the best jobs for our clients are the ones where they have the skills to take them up and where they are a right fit for the employer, because, fundamentally, we can’t force people on to businesses and employers, and that certainly hasn’t been the approach that we’ve taken.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to come back to the point the Minister referred to around focusing on people who have been on benefit short term, and just to question the decision to ignore those who had been on the benefit long term, particularly those on the jobseeker benefit long term, because we’ve seen the number of those under the age of 25 double. That number has doubled under this Government, and I want to ask the Minister about the very deliberate decision to leave behind a group of young New Zealanders who could have had the opportunity to come off welfare into work, and the very deliberate decision the Minister made during COVID to focus on people who weren’t on benefit at all, to get them back into a job, and to deprioritise—i.e., not support—those who had been on benefit, particularly the jobseeker benefit, for 12 months or more, at the very time there are employers everywhere who have jobs for those people.

Why is it that, of the funding in Vote Social Development in the employment and social outcomes area, more funding has not been focused and prioritised on a group of people that can work and want to work—many of them are desperate to work—but because they’ve been out of the workforce for 12 months or, actually, in fact, for many young people, they may never have held a job and their prospects are, or their opportunities should be, just as great, their potential is just as great, and there needs to be some very focused efforts on supporting them into employment? I’m interested in more detail, Minister, about the conscious decision, as you said during COVID, to leave those people behind and to focus on those who either weren’t on benefit or were only on benefit for up to three months.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I think I outlined it in my previous answer: this Government is focused on supporting New Zealanders into work, and our focus hasn’t deprioritised those that have been on benefit longer term. We’ve got a much more fulsome focus. The fact that we have more front-line work-focused case managers allows us to work with more clients and allows us to dedicate more time to those clients.

The point I was trying to make earlier is that we do want to get in there early to support people. We know that the longer they stay on benefit, the more likely they are to experience loss of confidence. At the same time, there are a number of people who are on benefit who experience a range of challenges, and we’ve spoken about them in this House, whether it be that they don’t necessarily have the skills for the jobs that are available in their area; whether they don’t necessarily have the ability to be able to transport themselves to the jobs that are available—which is why we announced at Budget the $86 million, I believe, to go into driver licences. There’s also a number of people that are on benefit that experience some type of health condition or disability, including, in some instances, mental health, and so there are a range of challenges that people come with, and we need to meet them where they are at, and to ensure that we’ve got the front-line case management to be able to provide that support.

The other point I do want to make, when we speak about job seekers: the assertion that is often made by the other side of the House is that they are all doing nothing. About 10 percent of those that are on jobseekers benefit are actually working in some way—part-time, perhaps, and still claiming a benefit. A good example of this is a woman who contacted me the other day to say that she had had grade four brain cancer and used to be a teacher, is not able to do that anymore because of the impact that the treatment has had on her. She is able to work part-time, but she is still in receipt of a jobseeker’s benefit. Now, I absolutely endorse the fact that that particular person—and there are many others like her—is only able to work limited hours and is continuing to claim the jobseeker’s benefit. But that doesn’t mean that she’s a failure in any way because of that.

Programmes like Mana in Mahi have a number of people on them who are on benefit when they go on to the programme. The remainder are people who are actually deemed to be disadvantaged in a tight labour market and potentially at risk of coming on welfare. So the point is that we believe, on this side of the House—and I think our Budget and the programmes that we’ve put in place demonstrate this—that we need to get in there early, particularly with our young people, and sometimes it’s before they even come on benefit, to avoid a situation—and I’m not going to say just long-term welfare receipt—where they don’t get to realise their potential in the employment market.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you, Madam Chair. I entirely agree with the Minister that the focus of the welfare system should be to support people to fulfil their potential, which is why I continue to be concerned about the very conscious decision that I have in written question answers about the focus on those either not on benefit or up to three months as opposed to those long term on benefit.

And I want to ask the question of the Minister in terms of the programmes and initiatives that are funded in the employment and social outcomes support area, rather than more generally in benefit payments. Specifically, whether or not the consideration has been given to the length of time that a young person, if they go on to a benefit under the age of 20, will spend on a benefit, whether focused efforts could have been prioritised in that area.

And also ask a question about what preventative initiatives have been funded in Budget 2022/23, which is of course what we are debating in this appropriations debate, to reduce the number of children being raised in benefit-dependent homes, which, at the moment, sits at one in five.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): A range of things in there again. One of the best initiatives, I think, that we have actually reinvested in that will avoid our children being raised in homes where they are reliant on a benefit is actually reinstating the Training Incentive Allowance that was cut by the previous Government. It’s one of those initiatives where the science backs it—if we support women in particular, because the vast majority of them are women that take up that particular support, to upskill and train, particularly with higher-level degree or higher-level qualifications, not only do we increase the chances of that woman being able to get a job where she is able to increase her earning capacity but the science also tells us that it is more likely that there will be a positive impact on those children’s academic performance as well. So it’s one of those science evidence-based initiatives that we have invested in, and it’s something that I’m very proud of. And we’re seeing great results—I announced that, in the last two quarters, we’re nearly seeing 3,000 take up the Training Incentive Allowance that we’ve reinvested in. And I think that, in the next couple of weeks, we’ll be able to announce some even better numbers.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you, Madam Chair. My final question in this part of the debate, because I know there’s a lot of areas to traverse, is a question that I’ve had from the dozens and dozens of community organisations that I’ve met with over the last 18 months. And their questions are—for example, in Taupō at a workshop, recently: 1,293 job seekers and every single one of the organisations supporting people into employment were shocked. They were shocked at that number. They had capacity to work with them, support them, whether in mental health, whether specialising in working with women returning to the workforce, working with young Māori, or working with young people. Why is it that there were 1,293 job seekers in Taupō, massive capacity in the community organisations, waiting times on the phone of one, two, and three hours trying to get through to Work and Income? There’s capacity in the system, Minister. Why aren’t you using it?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I think this is a very important point that the member raises. There is a very important balance to strike between the outsourcing of contracts to support people into employment, and then the responsibility of the Government agency to provide some of that support themselves. I want to refer to the Welfare Expert Advisory Group’s work and report. When they consulted with people for the purpose of informing our welfare overhaul, overwhelmingly people were saying that they were not getting the employment support that they needed through Work and Income.

As I’ve said many times in this House, those supports have been run down under the previous administration. Financial hardship had gone up, but also, actually, staff resourcing was inadequate. And so when people were going in to get their financial hardship support or their income support, the natural place where they should also be able to have a conversation about work, quite often they were not able to do that, because there was no longer the capacity, because the investment hadn’t been made. What we did was straightaway rectify that and year on year, from 2019, have continued to bolster that.

I get a lot of positive comments from businesses, from industry, out there telling me how much they appreciate things like the work broker support that they get through the Ministry of Social Development (MSD). MSD works hard with that work broker support to match the right client up with the right employer because—this is another good point—employers don’t want us sending people to them that are not ready, that don’t have the skills for the job, that don’t have things like a driver’s licence, if it’s required. And so the trust that has been built between MSD and industry and those businesses is actually really important. They need to know that when we send them clients, it is an appropriate match and that it’s going to not only work for our clients but it’s also going to work for the work broker.

Now, I’m in no way undermining the work of organisations that provide employment support, and we continue to fund them as well. But it’s not an either/or; it’s an and/and. We need both and we need to make sure that we strike the right balance. We don’t want to be outsourcing what we can currently do in this space where clients are going to come in anyway. And so I think, as a Government, we have struck the right balance.

I do also refute the comment made by the member about the one- to three-hour wait times. I think that the most recent update that I received was that it’s actually between 12 and 26 minutes. There are peak times when people will ring through and then, actually, it may take a little bit longer. However, it certainly isn’t anything like the member has described. I will say, perhaps, going back to when we were in the depths of COVID and people required more support, of course the wait times were longer then, but it is not a consistent thing. So I’d hate for this House to think that that is the norm.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I’m keen to ask about the use of benefit sanctions, and I think it’s fitting, considering we’ve just come off a general debate where that was a really strong theme. I know we still have a sanction regime in place, and the sanction regime ends up having a really deep interaction with the need for things like hardship grants, based on the fact that it cuts people’s income—whether it’s 100 percent or 50 percent.

So I’m interested in knowing, from the Minister’s perspective, what she believes the purpose of the sanction regime to be in relationship to supporting people engaged with the welfare system and/or meaningful employment.

I’m also interested in understanding what she believes the interactions between the use of sanctions and the need for hardship grants to be, because I note that if we take away someone’s income—whether it’s 100 percent or 50 percent—and they’re already on the breadline, then they need more hardship grants. I’m just interested whether any modelling had been done the ongoing use of benefit sanctions and increase in hardship. I note the comments from Beneficiary Advocacy & Information Service, one of the welfare advocacy groups, that noted that benefit sanctions result in either crime or hungry people. And, you know, that would apply, I believe to the current sanctions regime. So I’m interested to know her reckons on that.

I also wanted to understand whether she had any projections on whether she expects the warrant-to-arrest sanction to continue on an upward trend. I know in previous debates, we’ve traversed the use of that sanction, and she’s been on the record of this House, I believe, saying that the sanction doesn’t work and that she doesn’t agree with it. So I’m interested to know whether she expects it to continue to rise.

I’m also keen to understand whether she has any evidence of the impact of the warrant-to-arrest sanction to justify the continuous use, particularly noting that the Minister referenced the Welfare Expert Advisory Group; one of the key recommendations there was overhauling the sanctions regime and removing, basically, most sanctions. So really interested to see how she foresees that use going forward.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Thank you to the member for those questions. We have not removed all of the sanctions or work obligations that are currently in place. In my mind, they need to be used sparingly and there needs to be honest attempts to communicate with clients before sanctions are enforced in any way because of the serious implications of a sanction being used. That was certainly my expectation of the ministry; they still are there, but they are a last resort, as opposed to being something that you wave over people.

I do think that there are mutual obligations when it comes to the welfare system. I do believe that the ministry itself has an obligation to clients to make sure that they get the support and the entitlements that they are eligible for and that they need, but I also think that there is an obligation to engage, and where that doesn’t happen—sometimes I actually worry, to be honest to the member. I worry because if there’s an attempt from Ministry of Social Development (MSD) staff to contact clients because they are due for an appointment and there is not communication back and they can’t find that person and they receive no notification of what might be going on, then it becomes very difficult to engage with that person and—I’ve said this to MSD—who knows where they are? So it is a last resort that will be applied.

Usually, and I think that member knows, the actual sanctions are actually often—and even under the previous Government—applied because of the fact that that engagement doesn’t occur and they maybe not only just missed an appointment but you don’t hear from them; you don’t know what’s happening. So for us, I think, there is a place, sparingly, to use those, and so we haven’t moved to remove some particular sanctions or, sorry, work obligations—obligations in general.

We did, and that member knows, move to get rid of two which we deemed excessive and to have a particular impact on children. Of course, that was the subsequent child policy and also section 192 which penalised mothers who were unable to name the other parent, or for whatever reason couldn’t. So those two were removed.

With respect to the warrant-to-arrest sanction, it’s certainly different from the other ones, given that there is a justice component to it. Is it on the cards in the near future to remove? I cannot say that is the case. However, we continue to review our work programme and assess the sanctions with regards to where there is a negative impact or where they are excessive—and we continue to review our work programme and look at what we may do moving forward.

MARJA LUBECK (Chairperson of the Education and Workforce Committee): Thank you, Madam Chair. This is a good opportunity to take a call as chair of the Education and Workforce Committee. I’m happy to take a call here and talk about the Minister’s Accident Compensation Corporation portfolio. The Hon Carmel Sepuloni addressed our committee on the broader themes and issues that she is working on in her portfolio. This new process, as has been mentioned before, allowed us to take a sector-wide lens to what outcomes have been achieved for New Zealand. The year 2022 marks 50 years since the ACC legislation was first introduced here in New Zealand, and we heard how the Minister has been working hard to make sure that the system assists all New Zealanders who have had an injury and to make sure that the system is fit for purpose for New Zealand in the 21st century, in particular by improving gender balance, fairness, and equity in the scheme.

This Estimates period will see the first step in this gender rebalancing mahi, with the passage of the Maternal Birth Injuries Bill, which is the first extension of the accident compensation scheme cover since 2008. Once enacted later this year, this bill will benefit up to 28,000 more women per year. With regards to making accident compensation more equitable also, our committee was pleased to hear about ACC’s work to improve outcomes for Māori. We heard about their strategy Whāia Te Tika, which aims to improve engagement with Māori and ensure that the entire scheme works well for them.

The Government is also continuing to improve the sustainability of the accident compensation scheme, and in particular its non-earners account, with ongoing investment in its baseline. As at 31 March 2022, the solvency of the non-earners account was 72.3 percent, up from the 55 percent it had fallen to before the Government made changes to its funding policy. The Minister can be proud that this change is providing certainty to children, the elderly, and other non-earners that the entitlements they receive can continue to be sustainably funded.

Budget 2022 also increased funding for sexual abuse assessment and treatment services. We talked to the Minister about what this would mean, noting that it will both increase the number of hours ACC clients spend with clinical staff and the rate of pay to those staff per hour. The investment will build the service back up to providing consistent 24/7 clinical cover over the forecast period. The Government’s 2022 minimum wage increase meant an approximately $38 increase in ACC’s minimum loss of potential earnings weekly compensation rates, but claimants had to wait three months for 1 April to 1 July to actually receive this money. The Minister addressed the committee and explained how the investment through Budget 2022 will bring forward the timing of ACC’s weekly compensation rate changes so that it is aligned with the timing of any changes to the minimum wage. So it means that all these changes can then happen at the same time. This will disproportionately benefit low-income earners and particularly in respect of loss of potential earnings entitlements for ACC’s Māori and Pacific clients.

I want to acknowledge the Minister and finish by acknowledging the new format that we have considered these entities within. It has provided for an increase in ministerial accountability and, of course, for many years in the Estimates debate we would see that the Ministers would be limited to taking one or two five-minute calls. Now the Minister, as has been seen already in this debate, is addressing the Opposition’s points very frequently. Again, this provides for increased scrutiny and we thank the Minister for her time at the committee.

KAREN CHHOUR (ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair. Minister, I just want to ask a few questions around some written question responses. So in response to one written question, the Minister informed me that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has not commissioned any research into why people are becoming long-term beneficiaries since 2012. In a response to another, she informed me that MSD is not centrally recording the reasons why so many work-ready job seekers have been receiving a benefit for a year or more. To a third question, she informed me that there is no central recording of the highest education level received by beneficiaries. So my question is: does she think we may get better value for money out of the benefit system if we recorded relevant data and analysed it, rather than relying on research from the 1990s and 2000s, and do you have any plans to change the kind of data you are receiving?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Thank you to the member for those questions. I think that, with respect to the specific questions, I can’t recall them off the top of my head, to be honest. However, in many ways, some of the rationales for long-term welfare receipt wouldn’t have changed; the complexity of the people’s problems will remain the same. I think that’s pretty fair to say.

One of the issues, I will say, with regards to data, is that our system is a very old system. I’ve spoken about this before. It’s almost like operating a Commodore 64 in a digital age, and even people that maybe worked at the Ministry of Social Development 20 years ago are shocked to see that the same system is still being used.

Hon Members: SWIFTT.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: What’s it called again?

Hon Members: SWIFTT.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: SWIFTT. It is the same system. How long was that used for?

Terisa Ngobi: It’s a dinosaur.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: It’s a dinosaur. So there was some money in this year’s Budget to start us on a bit of a business transformation pathway. The reasons for that are so that we can ensure that we’re able to get the data as quickly and accurately and effectively as I think that member would like to see us get it. At the moment, what happens is a lot of it sticks on individual client records and there’s no kind of broader 2022-kind-of-way of being able to then utilise that data to inform things. So that’s certainly the case. The other reason for needing to do that, though, is not just for reporting and data’s sake; it’s actually so that we can make access to the welfare system more seamless for people that are needing to use it or are in it. That would include, perhaps, if we had a better system, being able to avoid the level of debt that comes from overpayments and what not. So there are multiple reasons why we do need to go along a pathway of business transformation, particularly with regards to our IT systems. I’m really glad that we saw some money to start the ball rolling on that work in the 2022 Budget.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you, Madam Chair—still got a lot of contributions and questions to ask the Minister in the 2022-23 appropriations debate for Vote Social Development, given that it is a $40—four-zero—billion vote.

I want to turn the attention to emergency housing and reflect on some discussions I’ve had, both in my own electorate in Taupō and the neighbouring one of Rotorua, and the issue, of course, of the number of people who are living in emergency housing, and my questions will be specifically around the impact on a child under the age of three living in a motel. We know that there are currently 4,000 children in motels in New Zealand and the whole committee actually expressed very deep concerns about the wellbeing of children who are living in motels. But I want to specifically ask the questions from Rotorua because the feedback from the community there is that it’s now not just the wellbeing of those who are living in the motels, it is the wellbeing of the community in which those motels are located and the economic opportunities of the surrounding area that is now significantly being impacted by Ministry of Social Development’s (MSD’s) decisions and the motels that continue to be used in vast numbers and in concentration.

So my questions are specifically around any studies that the MSD have done on the impacts of child wellbeing for those that are living in motels. Obviously, the Prime Minister has led the children and youth wellbeing strategy of which housing is an issue. So I want to know specifically about work that MSD is doing around children’s wellbeing for those who are living in motels. There was an absolutely tragic environment in my electorate that, unfortunately, we had many, many warnings of before an incident actually occurred in which children witnessed the murder of a parent. So these are dire environments and I want to know what specific actions MSD is taking to support the children who are living there, the studies on their wellbeing, what the long-term action plan will be to support those children.

We know, also, that there is a group of them—and that’s impacting their ability to attend school. That will have a lifetime impact unless significant action is taken to address those children’s needs and wellbeing. So what is the immediate action? When will there no longer be children living in motels? What science and research has been done on the impact of children under three? What is the remedial action to support these young children to get into school? What percentage of the housing support budget is actually going to the people that are living there and, in particular, the children?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Again, a lot traversed there and I’ll do my best. We don’t want to see any children living in emergency motel accommodation. No one does, and no one would pretend that it is in any way, shape, or form the ideal or even close to, you know, OK. However, what we were left with when we came in was an under-investment in housing and a demand that couldn’t be met. We had increased homelessness and so we have set about a very ambitious building programme with the aim to build 18,000 public houses. And I think we’re about 10,000 done already to meet the demand that is out there.

In the meantime, we inherited the emergency housing system that was set up in 2016 in response to the homelessness issue that had arisen at that time. What we have moved to do to ensure that the families are getting the support that they need—because when we took this on, there were no supports in place or consistent supports in place for people that were in emergency accommodation—was to ensure that all of those whānau are under intensive case management, that they are not only engaging with the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) on whatever their emergency housing accommodation situation is but are engaged with the MSD with any of the broader needs that they may have during that time that they are in there.

For Rotorua specifically, between MSD, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, and stakeholders on the ground in Rotorua, they moved to a contracting model so we could ensure that people were appropriately in cohorts that were appropriate with respect to where they were staying. In particular, we had our minds turned to the needs of whānau that had children and wanting to make sure that if they had to be in emergency accommodation, then it would be appropriate emergency accommodation for the parents and their children. So that has happened in Rotorua.

The Minister of Housing, Megan Woods, who has much of the responsibility for this, because I do need to add that as the Minister for Social Development, my responsibility is for the emergency housing special needs grant, so I think I’m speaking a little bit outside of my delegations here—we have also commissioned a review to be undertaken of the emergency housing system, keeping in mind that it was really set up on the fly. And that’s not a criticism at all. It was the previous Government; they responded to the need at the time. But we inherited an emergency housing system that wasn’t thought through, that was a response to the homelessness that they were seeing. So now we’ve commissioned a review so that we can look at how we can do that better.

The absolute, fundamental thing to this is that we actually do not want to see people in emergency accommodation at all. However, despite the pace we have been able to build public housing at and despite the pace or the conditions that we’ve been able to change to support private developers to get those houses built, we’re still in a situation where we don’t have the housing that we need. And so there will be the review of the emergency housing system. We are expecting that our officials will be reporting back to us in October. We set the parameters with regards to what we expect to see and, at that point in time, we hope to have more comprehensive answers for that.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Just a very brief contribution instead of questions. Just picking up on the use of sanctions and the Minister’s comment regarding them being a tool to get people to engage with the welfare system. I just wondered whether the Minister thinks it’s effective to, effectively, deprive someone of their basic income to get them to engage, and whether she thinks that there could be other interventions? The feedback on the ground has been that—and as a former welfare advocate on the ground—when people are not engaging with Work and Income, there may be other underlying issues such as transient housing and ill mental health. I just wondered whether the use of a sanction as a tool to get people to engage actually could be having perverse outcomes, such as just worsening people’s mental health or transient housing.

The second question was: whether she would consider the warrant-to-arrest sanction an excessive sanction, considering the lack of—I can see the Minister being slightly distracted, but just want to know if the warrant-to-arrest sanction is an excessive sanction in her view?

BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): I rise as the Chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee to recommend to the House that the appropriations for the year beginning—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! I’m trying to determine what is the best course to proceed, because, in my view, we as a House have been set an almost impossible task of fitting in a strict time frame which actually doesn’t fit the Order Paper. So I’m trying to figure out the best way to proceed. The only way I can proceed is that now we have the availability of the Minister of Finance, who will be with us until 6 o’clock. So now I just have to say a few words.

We now come to—well, I’ve said, we have the Minister of Finance. And I now give the call.

Finance

BARBARA EDMONDS (Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee): Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you very much for your guidance on that. I rise as the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee to recommend to the House that the appropriations for the year ending 30 June 2023 for Vote Finance be accepted. The Finance and Expenditure Committee also, in our report back, recommends that the House take note of the matters we considered in our examination of the Fiscal Strategy Report 2022 and the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update 2022, also known colloquially as BEFU. I would like to thank Treasury officials for their participation at the hearings, particularly the Vote Analysts, though, from across all the different Votes, for their work in Budget 2022. I would also like to thank the Minister of Finance for his work on what I believe is an excellent and balanced Budget.

As I said in the House last week in relation to the Investment Statement, the Finance and Expenditure Committee met with the Minister of Finance for an hour with the support of the Secretary of the Treasury, Caralee McLiesh, and then we also continued for a further almost two hours to go through the different policy statements and public finance documents which we were required to report back to the House.

So going back to Vote Finance and the appropriations, the appropriations sought in Vote Finance in 2022/2023 totalled $8.366 billion. What the select committee noted was that the funding sought for Vote Finance in this Budget for 2022/2023 is substantially less than the total spent across the Vote in 2021 and 2022. Apparently around $12.603 billion was the estimated actual spending in 2021 and 2022. We were told that the decrease largely reflects the spike in appropriations over the previous two years for COVID-19 - related expenditure and indemnity obligations.

As in previous years, the Crown debt and the superannuation cost were the two biggest appropriations, with total appropriations worth $7.603 billion. Debt servicing is, again, the largest appropriation under Vote Finance, which has been allocated $4.569 billion. And then the second-largest appropriation is the New Zealand super fund.

Now, I just want to spend a little bit of time on the super fund, because when the Government first came in in 2017, they restarted the contributions to the super fund, and I believe this investment is incredibly important because it reflects this Government’s commitment to our superannuitants. So in Vote Finance 2022/2023, the Minister allocated $2.46 billion, which is an increase of $40 billion from the previous fiscal year, and the appropriation has increased substantially in recent years, with an increase of $300 million in 2020/2021, which was after the increase of $660 million in 2019/2020.

Of particular note for the House, Vote Finance no longer funds several initiatives relating to the COVID-19 response. There has been a significant decrease between the money estimated to be spent and the budgeted figure for 2022/2023. I understand, based on the Minister’s comments during the committee debate, that this variance is mostly caused by a one-off Vote Finance initiative in 2021/2022, which was not part of Budget 2022. The committee noted that the three following expenditure items that had decreased in 2020/2023 were $1.11 billion for liabilities arising from the Large Scale Asset Purchase programme and the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme. This scheme is no longer available.

The second decrease was $939 million for grants to the Crown Infrastructure Partners, which is around $817 million, and to Ōtākaro Ltd, $122 to fund shovel-ready infrastructure projects, and $1.602 billion for share subscriptions in Air New Zealand, and $400 million for its standby loan facility. I just want to take an opportunity to thank Ministers for that support for Air New Zealand as the borders have opened up, as many members of this House have had to go overseas to travel for some of our inter-parliamentary obligations. I’m really thankful that the Minister has been able to keep our national carrier going.

So the report is very fulsome from the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I thank all the different members across the House for their contribution to it. I did have one particular question I’d like to leave the Minister of Finance with, and that was in relation to the clusters. If the Minister of Finance would like to just elaborate a little bit more on why they moved to a cluster approach in this year’s Budget. What was the purpose of it and what are some of the benefits that the Minister can see as a result of it? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Madam Chair, thank you very much. And before I start, can I acknowledge the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee and all members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee across the House for their good works in finding us to this point in the process and their interesting report that they’ve done.

We’ll come to the question that the member has asked in a moment. Just by way of introduction, when we look at this Budget in total and the fiscal aspects of it that are covered, particularly in the report of this committee, essentially what we were attempting to do with this Budget was cover off three main things. The first of those was around the question of fiscal stabilisation, that obviously we’d had a significant period during COVID-19 where the Government spent large sums of money to support New Zealand businesses and households to deal with the impact of COVID-19. And what this Budget signals over the course of the forecast period is a return in terms of spending as a percentage of GDP to around the long-run average of 3 percent. We have reached up to 35 percent in response to COVID. This is a similar percentage to where the previous Government got to when they were dealing with the global financial crisis, where they reached around 34 percent of GDP. It is the nature of the way Government does its work that the balance sheet gets used in times of crisis like this. But, obviously, attempting to move towards a more stable fiscal position is important. We did that.

Alongside that, we altered the fiscal rules for the Government, and these are articulated within the Budget documentation, in particular, looking to have both a measure of net debt that is more comparable with the rest of the world—and we’ve done that—but also looking to a slightly different approach with a debt ceiling. That is put in place at 30 percent of GDP under the new measure of net debt, 50 percent under the old measure, which is a recognition that the balance sheet can handle going up to that ceiling. It is a ceiling, not a target, but it does provide a little bit more scope in the future for debt to be used in a flexible way as we have done through the COVID period. So fiscal stabilisation has been a really important part of this Budget.

The second area is around the cost of living, and, obviously, people will be aware of the initiatives taken in the Budget on the cost of living, including the cost of living payment but also associated with and around the Budget, the work that we did to defray transport costs, in particular the cost of fuel and the half-price public transport, but also longer-term initiatives. And there was Budget night legislation associated with the removal of covenants that supermarkets put in place and the other initiatives flowing from the Commerce Commission report.

And then thirdly—and this does relate to the question that the member has asked me—is a suite of initiatives that are, essentially, around how we go forward with our economic plan of a high-wage, low-emission economy that provides economic security to all. The Budget has two novel approaches, which I think are just worth reflecting on in this first call that I’ll take. The first of those was the arrival of the Climate Emergency Response Fund—as flagged at Budget 2021, that we would be doing this in Budget 2022. This is the hypothecation, the recycling of the money from the emissions trading scheme into emissions reductions initiatives. It was a significant programme of work; we front-loaded those initiatives to be able to make sure we got on with getting the emissions reductions that we need that are required for us to meet the goals that have been set through the zero carbon Act and through the Independent Climate Commission’s carbon budgets. And so doing that was novel and different. It does involve a number of projects that stretch out over a number of years in the transport area and agriculture and industrial emissions, all of which are very important.

The second end and different approach we took this year was the approach of clusters, one in the justice area and one in the natural resources area, both designed to be able to further the public finance modernisation programme that this Government has had under way. That’s been designed to get the wellbeing approach developed by taking an intergenerational, multi-year approach to funding. So that means that justice Ministers, eight of them, had to come together for a single set of proposals based around a single set of goals and outcomes for that sector, as we did in the natural resources area.

This means multi-year funding. So yes, it does mean drawing on funding from future Budgets, but it is also a requirement that those agencies don’t come back within the three years and it does give them the certainty to be able to plan well. So that was an innovative and novel approach, we tested it out and we will be reviewing those pilots over the coming days.

So within the Estimates that we’ve been dealing with here, I think we as a country can look proudly on the record of New Zealand having got through COVID—there are still challenges to come, but the Budget outlines a good plan to deal with those.

NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National): I’m going to constrain myself to Vote Finance, and the narrow debate that we have before us, and I want to use as much of my time as possible for questions for the finance Minister. The context for this Budget is an enormous amount of borrowing and spending by the New Zealand Government. And I say that not just relative to history—we’re all very aware that COVID-19 necessitated a significant fiscal and monetary response—but also relative to the world. New Zealand, relative to countries we like to compare ourselves with, was one of the second-biggest borrowers, relative to the size of our economy. And I note, in these Estimates, that means that the payments we are now making for interest, at $4.6 billion, exceed the funding we put into our primary schools each year. So there is a significant interest bill that taxpayers are paying today, and will be paying into the future.

So we have that debt side. We also have the money-printing that went on at the Reserve Bank. Now, that was one of the fifth-biggest monetary policy responses in the world. So we hit both accelerators hard; we hit the fiscal borrowing and we hit the money-printing hard in a way that there isn’t much precedent for around the world. So my question for the Minister of Finance is about the liabilities for the Crown, resulting from that money-printing. These Estimates show that during 2020 and 2021, $3.1 billion was expensed to the Crown to recognise the liabilities arising from the indemnities that the Minister of Finance signed off for both large-scale asset purchases—that is around $54 billion worth of bond buying, otherwise colloquially explained as “money-printing”—and the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme of $60 million. My question for the Minister of Finance is: did he consider that the interest rate differential could be such that the liabilities to New Zealand taxpayers would get this large, and what does that mean for the Crown accounts?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I thank the member for the question. Just before I come to the question of large-scale asset purchases, in the first part of the member’s comments, she did refer to the finance costs and I just think, while the raw numbers are—I’m not contesting the raw numbers that the member read out—it is very important to see those finance costs in the context of the overall economy. So, if we look at where we were in 2022, we’ve got core Crown finance costs as 0.78 percent of GDP. They are forecast to peak in the forecast period at 1.15 percent of GDP in 2023-24. That is obviously higher than where we’ve been in recent years, but low historically. And, at other times in New Zealand’s history where we have had to borrow money at large rates, for various reasons, we have been paying significantly higher. So I just think that it’s worth acknowledging that, yes, there has been an increase in the cost of financing for the Government but, relatively speaking to the economy, it’s still low and historically is still low.

In terms of the large-scale asset purchases, clearly, the advice—and I know, I think, the member has received this under the Official Information Act—that we received, when the Reserve Bank was proposing to do this and when the indemnity was sought from the Government, was that interest rates wouldn’t rise to where they are today. And I think the member would be hard pressed to have had a crystal ball back then, to have said that interest rates would have risen to the extent that they have. And so, yes, the liability to the Crown is significant—you know, we’re up over the $8 billion mark—but the question the member needs to answer, and indeed anyone else needs to answer is: what’s the counterfactual here? What would have happened had we not done this?

Nicola Willis: Less money printed.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, what would have happened had we not—because the member can’t know that—

Nicola Willis: Less inflation.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The member can’t tell me that she would be there—March 2020—knowing exactly where interest rates were going to be in two years’ time. It’s actually not possible, and the argument that the member would have to have undertaken is that she could have said, “You know what, I can cope with interest rates rising, but I think economic activity might come down by this much. I think I’ll let unemployment go up.”—because that would be the member’s other response here, presumably, is that she wouldn’t have worried about where unemployment had got to.

Monetary policy and fiscal policy both had to act in response to the situation that we had, and we did not then have the benefit of the hindsight that we have today. So we made these decisions on a least-regrets policy. The Reserve Bank Governor was very clear that he was working off a least-regrets policy when the bonds were issued, and so, therefore, yes, there is a cost to the taxpayer—absolutely—but the counterfactual of the costs to the New Zealand economy had we not done this cannot be quantified today and, certainly at the time, looked to be significantly worse than the outcome the member is now complaining about.

NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National): Did the Minister consider, at the time he signed off on the extraordinary indemnity, the possibility that significant money printing, to the tune of $54 billion, could potentially, through flooding money supply into the New Zealand economy, impact on inflation?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Firstly, any decisions we took around the question of an indemnity were based on the advice that we get. But, in the end, the Minister of Finance is responsible for those decisions. The advice that I received from the Treasury was that an indemnity was justified. The way in which the Reserve Bank’s finances appear on the Government’s balance sheet mean that, in a sense, we’re moving money from one part of the balance sheet to the other, but, obviously, there’s a marginal cost caused by being involved in the secondary bond market. When we did do this, we considered all of the options, both on the positive and the negative side. I repeat what I’ve just said to the member: when we were doing this, we were facing the prospect of double-digit unemployment, we were facing the prospect of economic activity slowing significantly. Had the Reserve Bank, through its monetary policy, or, indeed, the Government, through its fiscal policy, failed to act, and had we seen a much-deeper impact on the New Zealand economy, I’m quite sure that the member would be raising her concerns about that right now.

Ultimately, the decision about how to use the tools for which an indemnity were granted fall to the Reserve Bank, and the Reserve Bank made those decisions. The granting of the indemnity from my part was based on the fact that I wanted to make sure that monetary policy was in a position to play its role. The final decisions about the amount of money and the various impacts that that would have fall to the Reserve Bank.

NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National): In light of that answer, in which he points to the Reserve Bank’s responsibility for decision making about the sheer volume of money-printing, and his earlier comment that it is difficult to quantify the counterfactual, why won’t the Minister support an inquiry into the Reserve Bank’s response and whether or not it was appropriately scaled to the challenges in our economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): This cuts to what I think is the heart of perhaps what’s now emerging as a difference of opinion between the Government and the Opposition, which is that the operation of monetary policy does need to be independent, and I think New Zealand has had enough of a history to know the dangers of diverting from that level of independence. There will no doubt—as I’ve said on numerous occasions—be the opportunity that will come for an inquiry into the broader COVID response, both from the economic perspective but also from the health perspective as well, and the time will be right for that. The time is not right for that in the middle of while we are still dealing with a COVID outbreak in the middle of winter.

When it comes to the question of the way in which the Reserve Bank might consider this, the Reserve Bank has a board. The Reserve Bank operates independently from the Government, and I am not about to undo that consensus, even though the member might have some political mileage that she thinks she can make out of this. There will be the opportunity to do this.

Nicola Willis: Oh, not allowed to ask questions.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: There is the opportunity to do this. Well, it’s interesting that the member says that, because I do note that the member has had more than a dozen opportunities over the course of the last two years to question the Reserve Bank Governor, and many opportunities to question me as select committee, as well. So the idea that somehow or other, this approach has had no scrutiny is absolute nonsense. It has had extraordinary amounts of scrutiny.

The member has also noted where New Zealand positions itself. Every central bank in the world had to deal with this issue and every central bank in the world did undertake this kind of quantitative easing, or unconventional monetary policy. That is something that should be recognised in this debate—that, actually, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, while it had to go earlier and harder than some others may have gone, was part of a global consensus in this regard.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) (remote): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I thank the Minister. I want to focus on how the economic response to COVID-19 and the ongoing inflation pressures have created winners and losers. We’ve seen that those without assets and on the lowest incomes have gone backwards, while those with the most benefited from a huge boom in asset price. Some sectors of the economy, like hospitality and the arts, really struggled through lockdowns and the ongoing pandemic, but other large businesses have taken Government support that was given in the form of wage subsidies, and then we’ve seen them record huge profits, paying out large dividends to shareholders—many of those shareholders might not even be in New Zealand.

So my question, I guess, to the Minister is: given the response that the Government has taken to COVID-19, which saw $18 billion paid out to New Zealand businesses under the wage subsidy scheme, and then, most recently, to respond to inflation pressures, have taken actions like a more than $1 billion cut in petrol tax, fuel excise duty, and road-user charges—at the same time, petro companies posting record profits. In other countries, we’re seeing things like windfall taxes being proposed, particularly for energy companies or oil companies, which have been posting these huge record profits. In other places, it’s called an excess profits tax. I guess I’m wondering is the finance Minister and this Government going to consider how those companies who have benefited or profited from Government support, or from other circumstances that have nothing to do with their business but have enabled them to make excess profit well over and above what would be expected—is there a way that the Government is going to ensure that that excess profit is coming back and is able to help the community here in New Zealand?

Hon Grant Robertson: Madam Chair?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Oh, go ahead.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): It’s a little bit hard with a remote sitting to quite tell if the member had finished. In terms of her comments around the wage subsidy scheme, what I would say is that when we established the scheme, obviously it was established quickly in order to achieve the goals of cash flow and confidence for businesses. We tied the wage subsidy scheme to a criteria of employment attachment so that you could only get it if you were continuing to keep your staff. I strongly believe that that approach made sure that New Zealand’s unemployment rate stayed lower than it might otherwise have been. We did not put other criteria on the wage subsidy scheme. So the idea that somehow or other we could ask those companies to give it back with some kind of justification being that things didn’t quite turn out to be quite as bad as we thought, I think would be tremendously bad faith.

A number of companies have made the decision to pay money back when they did achieve profitability, and I welcome that. But I simply don’t believe we’re in a position to ask for that money back, given that that wasn’t the criteria. I also think there is a real risk that had we put further conditions upon people taking the wage subsidy, they would not have taken it and that would have seen more people lose their jobs than was otherwise necessary. And so, at this point in time, I stand by what we did there in terms of the wage subsidy scheme.

The wider point that the member is making is about those companies who have done well through this period of time. And I would like to make the point that it is a wide range of companies. I sometimes think, in this debate, we get a little lost in understanding just who the majority of the New Zealand businesses who benefited from the Government support are. They are, by and large, small and medium enterprises, and I think sometimes we get numbers thrown around about balance sheets that are not accurate. Having said that, there are some large corporates in New Zealand who are doing well. They are contributing significantly more in corporate tax than we have otherwise seen, and the tax returns that we are seeing currently, while some of it is about inflation, it’s also about the fact that our companies are continuing to do well and they are paying their tax, and that is the money that then gets returned to the community, as the member asks.

New Zealand doesn’t have a history of the kind of windfall taxes that you see in other countries around the world. And it’s a little different than, perhaps, the UK, where energy companies can very clearly be said to have that. What we have done, particularly in terms of the petro companies, is, obviously, using the Commerce Commission’s report, we now have passed a law that means we have a lot more information about the margins that are being charged and we are constantly keeping our eye on that to ensure that there aren’t excessive margins. Similarly, in the supermarket sector, using the power of the Commerce Commission in their report, we’ve been able to identify what we believe are excess profits and we’re now moving to change that sector so that New Zealanders do get a fairer deal.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s been a very interesting debate. I want to pick up on the Minister’s question. What’s the counterfactual if the Government hadn’t signed a guarantee for the Reserve Bank to print $53 billion, which it ultimately loaned to, guess who, the Government. Well, what that did was it reduced the Government’s cost of borrowing by a full percentage point. Some people think, “A percentage point, that’s not much.” Well, when the Government borrowed $80 billion through the course of COVID, a percent is a lot of money.

The Government has put New Zealand so much further into debt because it has insisted on spending so much more money. It is now spending $127 billion a year; before COVID, $87 billion. And can the Minister ever explain what New Zealanders are getting for an extra $40 billion that they weren’t getting when he was the finance Minister in 2019? I bet he could never explain that. So, on the one hand, “COVID was fabulously managed and COVID’s over now and everything is good.”, on the other hand, it is now costing $40 billion to deliver the same stuff. Arguably, if you talk to people in health or education or any Government service today—at question time, we heard the Defence Force has half of their people thinking of leaving.

Arguably, things have got worse. So what was the counterfactual on the Reserve Bank printing all that money and pushing down the Government’s interest rate? Well, the counterfactual is that the Government would have had to be honest with the New Zealand people and say, “This money that we’re borrowing has real cost to future generations because interest rates will rise and that’s when you’ll see how much it cost.” And people would have seen in the 2020 election quite how much debt this Government was putting New Zealand into and quite what the effect on future generations would be, and we would have had a much more sceptical view of this Government’s handling of COVID if we saw the real cost. But did we see that? No. That’s the counterfactual. What actually happened is that we saw a Government that signed a deal with the Reserve Bank— the Minister says it should be independent—to print $53 billion that was loaned to the Government that reduced the Government’s interest rate. As a result, this Government was able to borrow and spend and pretend that there was no tomorrow.

Except, tomorrow has come—it’s called today. And today, we see rising interest costs: $4 billion or $5 billion a year forecast in these Estimates. Just paying the interest on the debt as those interest rates rise—that’s what the Finance and Expenditure Committee’s report says. We see a tougher and tougher time for families who are now competing for resources with the State sector. That $127 billion sucked up by the Government in this Budget means the Reserve Bank is finally free to raise interest rates, and, as it raises those interest rates and every single person’s mortgage rate—and, if you are renting, you see it through your landlord’s mortgage rate—all of a sudden you see the real costs of this Government’s response.

So what was the counterfactual? An honest Government that didn’t mess with the Reserve Bank, that didn’t mess with interest rates, that faced the real cost, and that was honest with the people. But here’s the other counterfactual: that people would have looked at what this Government was up to and said, “The real cost of this borrowing will go on for generations. The real cost of this borrowing will be inflation. The real cost of this borrowing will show up at the checkout, at the petrol pump, and my rent, and everything else I buy for years to come. And I’m not so sure that Labour’s doing such a good job.” Those are the facts.

Well, I think that there was a better way, and, actually, ACT was saying it consistently in the select committee, to the Reserve Bank Governor, in the House, and in the public, to the media—we were saying, “This borrowing will come back to bite us. We are going to be in trouble because this Government has distorted monetary policy; they’ve lowered the interest rates artificially. And when all of that money sloshing around comes back to bite us, it’ll do it in the form of inflation and rising interest rates.”, as we see now.

So when this finance Minister stands up and says, “Oh, we just had to print $53 billion. We just had to borrow $76 billion.” There was no counterfactual. The counterfactual was some honesty. And the only problem with that scenario is that it would have had political implications for the Labour Party. Well, guess what! They didn’t fix it; they just delayed it, because those implications are coming home to roost. Didn’t we see it as recently as Monday night? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Oh, to live in David Seymour’s fantasy land! The member wants to talk about counterfactuals. Well, here’s a pretty obvious one. The member clearly doesn’t care about people losing their jobs. The member clearly doesn’t care about small-business people, who woke up and said—you know, I’ll give the member an example. I met a gentleman when I was in Featherston during the 2020 election campaign. He was driving a filthy ute—it wasn’t Kieran McAnulty, but it was another member of the Wairarapa community!—and this person turned around, did a U-turn, came and parked beside me, got out of his truck, walked over, shook my hand and said, “Your Government’s policy saved my business”. He told me this story about the fact that he was driving to work to tell the four or five people who worked with him that they didn’t have jobs anymore because people were cancelling their forward orders as they were worried about what COVID would mean. He said, “That wage subsidy meant that I could go in and say to those people, ‘I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but you’ve all got a job’ ”, and 10 weeks—12 weeks—later, when that wage subsidy expired, that person was able to carry their business on. That person was able to employ some more people. So if Mr Seymour wants to know what the counterfactual is, the counterfactual is people who live in the real world, Mr Seymour, people who actually have to employ other people, people who have jobs now, who may not have had them had we not done this.

Now, am I saying that every aspect of the Government’s response is perfect? Of course not. No Government in the world had a playbook for how to deal with this. But isn’t it interesting that Governments around the world made the decision to look after their people, and to look after their citizens? I remember standing in this House in both March 2020 and then again in May 2020, where I stood up and said, “Yes, there are different ways of approaching a crisis like this”. We’ve seen that in New Zealand’s history, and we saw it when those who prefer austerity in these situations, which is, essentially, what Mr Seymour is saying; he doesn’t care whether people lose their jobs, he doesn’t think we need to fund public services properly. That is the counterfactual, that’s the approach—the austerity approach. Now, sure, Mr Seymour can propose that. But what I said that day in March 2020, when we did the first package to respond to COVID, and again when we did the Budget in May 2020, was I was not prepared to run the risk of New Zealanders losing their jobs, losing their homes, people not being able to continue to run their businesses.

Time and time again in this House, I was asked by members in the National Party, albeit not as often by members in the ACT Party, to put more money in, to put more money into the small—you, Mr Seymour, stood in this House and asked me to give more support to businesses in the Auckland area than we had given. The National Party constantly asked us to do that. They put up a package in 2020 that had even more money going in. We got the balance right, in my opinion, on this side of the House, because we did support New Zealanders through this. So, yes, it was an expensive undertaking, but it was an undertaking that fulfilled the values, I think, of New Zealanders, and certainly of the Labour Party, that we will look after people, that we will use the balance sheet to make sure people make it through a crisis. Mr Seymour’s entitled to his view about a different way of doing this, but it’s a different way that I believe would have had an enormous social, human, and financial cost in this country.

The other matter that the member raised again was this question of finance costs. I’m not sure if the member was in the House when I ran through this before. Yes, we are paying more for that. Interest rates have risen significantly. When I look at the advice that’s been released under the Official Information Act at the point of time that we were signing off on this, the worst-case scenario had interest rates, the official cash rate, at 1 percent in 2023. No one was predicting where we are now, then.

David Seymour: Yeah, we were—yeah, we were.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, maybe Mr Seymour was perfect, and his crystal ball was perfect. But the point I’m making is, yes, we did have advice about what the downside scenario was, and we did consider that. But we weighed that advice against the impact on people’s actual lives. Not a theoretical exercise, not an ideological exercise; a practical response to making sure that we helped New Zealanders through what was and is the most challenging thing that has been to the New Zealand economy and society in my lifetime, and I’m proud of our response.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you, Madam Chair.

David Seymour: Madam Chair, point of order. You gave three calls in a row to the National Party. As far as I’m aware, in two hours of debate, you’ve given—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you. The member will resume his seat. I want to thank the member for the point of order. By way of enlightenment for the committee, we have an hour set down, as members will know. I take calls based on the proportionality of the Parliament, the relevance of the questions, the length of time for each intervention, and I’m being extremely careful to follow those tenets in this debate.

ANDREW BAYLY: Thank you. Well, I think that the response that we’ve just had from the Minister of Finance to David Seymour’s question just shows the simplistic argument that he always runs, which is either it’s all or nothing. And the issue is that, as my colleague pointed out, New Zealand had the second-highest response to COVID in the entire OECD—basically the world. So we have had a Government—and I’m looking at you, the Minister of Finance—which has allowed an incredible amount of money to be pumped into this economy. And my first question is, really—look, with Mr Seymour’s question, it is not that we shouldn’t have done wage support. I’m sure Mr Seymour supported the wage support mechanism. That was a $25 billion package. You were right, Minister: other people, including myself, asked for more support for businesses because we didn’t think it went far enough. There is probably another $10 billion, roughly, I don’t know—take a guess of it—that was good quality spending. But when you look at the totality, there was another $20 billion to $25 billion of absolute crap spending that has delivered no benefit to New Zealand. And that is the issue that we’re raising. It’s not we should have not spent it; the question is we should not have spent all of it. And there are 150 projects we identified that literally have delivered no benefit to New Zealand. So it’s not an all-or-nothing debate; it is a question of quantum, and the Minister is overseeing a huge spend up on, basically, a whole range of wasteful projects.

Now, I want to return to my good colleague’s questions about the large-scale asset purchase (LSAP) programme. I find it an absurd proposition that a Minister claims that the advice that they looked at and must have received from Treasury but took into account and chose not to take into account is that interest rates would not rise over the medium to long term. I think it’s absurd. And he said it would get to 1 percent by 2024. In the case the Reserve Bank was buying back 10-year bonds—up to 10-year bonds—the proposition that interest rates would not rise over the 10-year period is an absurd proposition, and I think shows an absolute naivety of the Government. So my question to the Minister—and I am trying to ask some questions—is: why did you not think longer term, given that 10-year wind-out period? Or did you not require or seek any advice as to what would be the wind-out provision of the Reserve Bank buying all these bonds? First question—and, if so, what was that?

The second one is why didn’t you put some conditions around the LSAP indemnity? Why didn’t you say to the Reserve Bank, “You can do up to $20 billion, but then come back to us?” What conditions did you put around it? My understanding—and we have asked the Reserve Bank countless times—is it seemed like an open-ended indemnity. Maybe the Minister can highlight some of those issues.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I will answer the member’s questions, but I just want to reflect on the first half of what Mr Bayly just said and the absolute absurdity.

So we have had a shifting of position, even just within this particular debate, about whether or not what the Government did during COVID-19 was useful. We previously had Nicola Willis saying it’s all terrible; David Seymour saying it’s all terrible; now, we’ve got Andrew Bayly saying, “OK, the $25 billion that you did on business support via the wage subsidy scheme and resurgence support payments, that’s good, but the next lot is not.” Well, I’ll tell you what the next-biggest one after that is, Mr Bayly: the health system. The money that we actually gave to make sure that New Zealanders got vaccinated, to make sure that our health services were ready to be able to deal with that, to be able to make sure that we had the staff that we needed—

Nicola Willis: Don’t have the staff—a thousand short.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: —that we had the testing kits that we needed; all of that. Ms Willis can say whatever she likes; Mr Bayly has just called that spending, that saved thousands of New Zealanders lives, “crap”. That’s what Mr Bayly’s just told us all: that spending is “crap”. Well, that’s why we did this in New Zealand: it was so that we could protect people’s lives.

So, yeah, sure, we can debate the merits of some parts of the recovery part of the COVID Response and Recovery Fund. Personally, I think it’s a good thing that we supported our artists to stay in jobs when their work dried up. Now, the Opposition doesn’t think that was a good thing. Well, we can go out and debate that. That, as an amount of money within our total response, is marginal compared to the money we spent on the health system, compared to the money that we spent supporting businesses, and compared to the money through Ministry of Social Development that we spent supporting households so that they could put food on the table and look after their families. That’s the vast bulk of the COVID Response and Recovery Fund, and that’s what Andrew Bayly tells us is “crap”. Well, I could not disagree more with the member on that point.

In terms of the member’s questions around large-scale asset purchases, to answer the second of those questions, the member may not recall, but there were two phases to the programme. The first of those was a dollar figure, but we then moved, in order to create some parameters to this, of the bonds representing up of 50, 30, and 30 percent of the different bond markets that we use. So we said, within a market we’ll set a percent cap than a dollar cap. So that’s how we did put some parameters around it.

Andrew Bayly: A quantum limit?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No, because we set it as a percentage of the bond markets that we were operating in. So there was a cap within that, because that was a much more sensible approach, given that a large part of what we were doing here was trying to induce some market confidence. That’s what the member again forgets, given the time frame we were in: the fact the markets were spooked, and part of what this was about was making sure that the bond markets were able to continue to operate. We have to have good faith to that.

The member is concerned that, in the process, we didn’t take advice about what would have been the impacts. I’ve already told the member that we did take that advice; we considered those downside scenarios and that one of those downside scenarios was that interest rates would rise.

Andrew Bayly: By 2024.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Ha! And, again, I invite the member to take himself back to that time. He can try and claim that he knew that the official cash rate would be where it is now, but, actually, that wasn’t what was being forecast. But, to answer the member’s question, yes, that was considered as part of the advice, and we weighed that up against the enormous economic impact that could come from us not stepping in and allowing the Reserve Bank to go forward with its monetary policy, or, indeed, undertake our fiscal policy.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, a couple of minutes ago, the leader of the ACT Party took a point of order which I dealt with. The member then approached the Chair. His behaviour was disorderly, and I require the member to stand, withdraw, and apologise.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I withdraw and apologise. Point of order. Madam Chair, if a member can’t approach the Chair and ask for the reasoning—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The member will resume his seat. I’m going to give the member one warning. The member will not contest the Chair’s ruling.

NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National): A simple question: does the Minister appreciate that supporting the independence of the Reserve Bank does not preclude assessing its performance? When he quotes the Reserve Bank’s least-regrets approach, does he, as the Minister of Finance, acknowledge any regret for the massive house-price inflation that resulted from the stimulus, the 32-year highs in consumer price inflation that resulted, and the large impact on families, communities, and, ultimately, the financial stability of the New Zealand economy that resulted, and, if he does not have any regrets at all, does he acknowledge that some people do and a review is warranted?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): In answer to first part of the member’s question, the Reserve Bank has a board, and the Reserve Bank board has a responsibility to oversee the operations of the bank. The independence remains important to me. I think that New Zealand has been well served by having an independent central bank.

We did a review of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act, and out of that we did make some alterations. That included moving to a monetary policy committee. It included creating a more conventional board structure, and I’m sure that at certain points in the life of the Reserve Bank in the future they may well choose to use that. I’ve already indicated that I have a belief previously—and not just today—that there will be a time when there will be a comprehensive review of the Government’s COVID response. That time will not be when we are still dealing with the outbreak that we’re dealing with now.

In terms of the second part of the member’s questions around questions of regret, we do not get to govern in hindsight, and I know that the Opposition spokesperson is now a disciple of hindsight economics, but, actually, we are not in a position to do that. So, as I said in an earlier contribution, did we get absolutely everything right in our response? Of course we didn’t—no Government in the world did, and, indeed, I’m sure that if the central bank governor was speaking, he would say the same thing about monetary policy.

But I think what we did get right—what we did get right—was that we moved quickly to support New Zealand households and businesses. We moved quickly to fund our health system properly. We entered into a vaccine roll-out programme that was among the most successful in the world, albeit there were problems about the pace that people worried about, but in the end, the outcome of it—the number of people vaccinated—was a success. We moved to make sure that those vulnerable families had money. We supported numerous organisations around New Zealand to make sure that there was food security for our people during this period of time. We made sure that we ran public health programmes that helped people understand what they could do, as well.

So the money that we spent was spent to make sure that New Zealand got through a one-in-100-year health shock and the prospect of a one-in-100-year economic shock. That is a least-regrets policy, and it’s one that I stand by.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) (remote): Tēnā koe. To the Minister, I really appreciate all of your comments. Of course, I think most of us in this House appreciate the steps the Government took to provide financial security to many people during the COVID-19 pandemic and the investment in the health sector.

The question the Greens are raising is: what systemic changes can be made to our tax system to ensure that those who are profiting or benefiting more from these sorts of interventions are really paying their fair share?

I think there’s several areas that it’s really obvious; it’s easy to make lots of money in New Zealand. We know supermarkets, energy companies, banks, construction supplies, and petrol companies are all areas where there’s an ability to wield huge market power because we are a small market, because we’re far from other markets. And we have a situation of duopolies or oligopolies, which enables super-profits.

So the question is: how do we make our tax system fairer so that when companies are in a position to be able to make these excess profits, enough of that is coming back to the community? I note that the National Party and the ACT Party complain constantly about Government spending, but you never see them complaining about the arguably under-contribution of corporates in this sector.

I guess, following Nicola Willis’ contribution about how the Reserve Bank pumping lots of money into the economy did lead to an inflation in asset prices and house prices, one way that Government could come in and ensure that that doesn’t become a privatisation of what was public policy—a private benefit from public policy—would be through a wealth tax, which the Greens previously proposed and which is very common in other jurisdictions, in other countries that we would compare ourselves to.

So it’s not so much a question of was it right for the Government to step in and spend money; the question is: how do we make sure our tax system is fair so that private individuals or corporates who are operating in sectors where there’s limits to how much competition you can get—how do we make sure the tax system is fair so that more of that excess profit can come back and benefit the community?

Ultimately, it’s not down to things those businesses are doing that has led to their excess profits. It’s not going to discourage investment, if we stop the excess profit; in fact, they’d still be making money. It’s just a higher tax rate on the excess profit, which would enable Government to invest more in public health, to invest more in cost of living payments, to raise incomes from the bottom, which is what we need. It’s a rebalancing of the whole economic system that’s needed, and I want to know what this Labour Government is going to do about it, if anything.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Thanks, Madam Chair. I’m conscious of both the fact that we have relatively little time left, but also that the question that the member has asked—while it’s a good question—is not necessarily directly related to the Estimates that we’re dealing with here.

What I can say that the Government has done, and is covered by what we’re doing here, is address within the sectors that the members raised: supermarkets, the construction sector—the competition aspects of those—the fuel companies. Ones that we’ve dealt with through the Commerce Commission’s inquiries and we are now pursuing regulatory solutions. We did have the legislation, as I mentioned earlier on, when it comes to the covenants on land. So we’re acutely aware of where there are sectors in our economy where I don’t think New Zealand consumers are getting a fair price and where we should be focused on. So we are doing that.

In terms of the tax system itself, I mentioned earlier, obviously, we are seeing a greater corporate tax take. That money comes back in and is redistributed to provide for the services that the member wants.

Beyond that, she’s asking questions which are, essentially, about tax policy, and, obviously, all parties in Parliament will have tax policies that they take to the 2023 election.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to return to a response to the Minister of Finance that I wished I could have made immediately after his call. He asked, what is the—

Hon Grant Robertson: Point of order, Madam Chair. I regard the comment that the member has just made as challenging the ruling that you made. I did actually witness briefly what occurred up here.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you. The member will withdraw and apologise.

David Seymour: I withdraw and apologise. I’m simply stating that I think—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): No. No. The member will resume his seat.

David Seymour: Point of order. It may be the Minister of Finance’s view, and it may be that he doesn’t want to hear more from me, but you don’t even know what I was going to say.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The member will leave the Chamber.

David Seymour withdrew from the Chamber.

SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I appreciate a little bit of time to go. But I’ve got a question leading off from Nicola Willis’s questions in regards to Labour’s unsustainable deficits and, in effect, a Government living beyond its means.

The interest costs bill for the debt of this Government at the moment is in the region of $2.8 billion, that is slightly more than the entire police budget of $2.45 billion, forecasted by the end of 2025 to be in the region of $4.9 billion, which, for context’s sake, is the same amount that we spend on the entire Vote Health and urban development of $4.6 billion or on the defence budget of $4.9 billion.

My question, Minister, is quite simply: is he concerned that one of the fastest-growing Government spending programmes is the repayment of Government debt? Because I think that is a significant concern, and for those people out in the public, looking and saying, well, look, the more we spend on the repayment of Government debt is less money available to spend on front-line services.

My second question is around the fact that—is the Minister concerned with the fact that the Government repayment of debt is going to be one of the fastest-growing areas of Government spending. The implication on that is a reduction in the ability to be able to spend on front-line services such as teachers, police, and our healthcare workforce.

Lastly, in the interests of time, I want to ask a question in regards to three waters, which is a significant element of Government expenditure. I want to know from the Minister of Finance whether he believes the nearly $3 billion that has been allocated to local government for the three waters “no worse off” funding is good value for money? The context for that is that part or a portion of that payment in Auckland, $127 million, was utilised to repay an operating deficit from a prior period. It didn’t lead to one single metre of water pipe going into the ground in that country, and I’m sure that is probably a joint concern for both of us.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I’ll try and keep it short so that there is a possibility for another contribution.

In terms of deficits, I just would point out to the member that the National Party ran six deficits between 2009 and 2014. We are forecast to run five in response to COVID-19. Our largest deficit was 7.2 percent of GDP in 2020; National’s largest deficit was 8.9 percent of GDP in 2011. Our deficits are forecast to average 3.2 percent of GDP; under National, they averaged 3.6 percent of GDP.

So I do take the point that the member is making that clearly, when we have to respond to a crisis in the way that we do, there is going to be pressure on the Government’s books. The balance sheet is strong enough to manage this. Let’s be really clear: New Zealand’s level of debt is significantly lower than most other countries in the world. The debt-servicing costs, which I’ve already run through twice in the House during this session, are historically very, very low.

When it comes to the second part of the member’s question—around three waters—look, the “no worse off” policy was the subject of discussion with Local Government New Zealand. It was a recognition that there was a change in the status of the assets that were available for local government. We did negotiate that with them. There are rules and requirements around how that money can be spent, but the member is right to recognise how Auckland Council used it—he may not be satisfied with it, but in fairness to Auckland Council, the “no worse off” agreement was one made with Local Government New Zealand as part of the way that we managed three waters process.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): I’m going to take another call. Members have to be mindful I have to close the debate off 6.05 p.m. Happy to do that—members, wish to work within that?

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to respond to the Minister’s rebuttal of my earlier question. Look, National Party—and this is what a Minister always does, is it’s all or nothing. “We had to spend the money, and everyone, or the Opposition, said, ‘You shouldn’t have to spend any money.’ ”

The second line of defence is saying, “Of course, we would have cut spending on health services and all that sort of stuff.” The Minister knows that National would not have done that; that’s not what I suggested. I did acknowledge that there was some other good spending other than the wage subsidy, but there’s $25 billion that’s unaccountable for and that was my point.

The second point: the proposition that the Minister was in a new environment and quantitative easing and we had no idea that would lead to higher rates of interest, particularly over the course of the bonds—which some are extending out to 10 years—is, again, absurd because many economists knew about this. People like Charles Goodhart and a number of other monetary economists knew about this and were talking about it. And, of course, we have had periods where we’ve had quantitative easing before—actually in the history of the world, Mr Robertson; it wasn’t just a one-off issue.

The question I want to put to the Minister now, though, is that there’s $56 million set aside for the venture capital fund. The understanding I have is that this is going to be a plan: work with banks to provide money to small businesses to try and help those who can’t get access to traditional finance. Why is it when I talk to banking executives, they say, “Well, we don’t know about it; we haven’t agreed to it and don’t really have any intention to do this.”? So it’s just a fascinating thing that there’s a lot of rhetoric about supporting small businesses. The key part is the banks, but the banks don’t seem to know much about it and certainly haven’t agreed to it.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I’m very happy to respond to the member in regard to the Business Growth Fund, which is a little bit more than $56 million; $100 million is the contribution that the Government is planning to make. This based on very similar funds around the world. The UK and Australia are the two models that we’ve looked closely at; the UK one, in particular, has been very successful in ensuring that small businesses can keep going.

It’s not just the funding; the business growth fund in the UK also has linked to it the provision of support, in terms of how to grow a business—so, for example, people being seconded on to the boards or the governing bodies of small businesses, as well as access to patient capital.

The critical involvement of the Government is to crowd in the retail banks. I think I said on Budget day that there was still a bit of work to do with the banks to get them to fully agree and sign up—but it’s completely untrue to claim that they don’t know anything about it. I’ve met and spoken to, I think, the chief executive of every major bank in New Zealand on this subject. The Reserve Bank is doing its work—

Andrew Bayly: Any commitments?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: —and there has been a very solid level of commitment to keep talking to us about how this will work. So I did say that there would be more work required but that doesn’t mean that we have to have some completely, fully formed, perfect idea before we even talk about it. It’s an exciting prospect, and I’m sure banks will want to be involved in it.

I’ll also point out to the member that there’s been a significant amount of other support for small businesses, including the Small Business Cashflow Loan Scheme, the work that IRD’s done in terms of supporting people with various taxation requirements, and, obviously, the wage subsidy scheme itself.

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

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

Environment, and Oceans and Fisheries

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Good evening, members. When we broke for the dinner break, we were debating the Estimates. We now have the Minister for the Environment and for Oceans and Fisheries. The Minister is available from 7 p.m. until 8 p.m.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Chairperson of the Environment Committee): I’m pleased to report from the Environment Committee, which examined Vote Environment, Vote Conversation, and Vote Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, but we’ll focus on Vote Environment here. There are three very comprehensive reports on the committee’s examination of each of these Votes, and, of course, Vote Environment also included Vote Climate Change on Parliament’s website.

In terms of Vote Environment, it’s $2.9 billion, but the Minister for the Environment, who’s with us today, is responsible for nearly $557 million of that. There has been a significant increase in funding in Vote Environment, largely because of the significant programme of work in resource management and water management reform since 2018-19, and quite an increase in this current financial year 2022/23 in funding for waste management water reform and policy advice there, and, of course, for resource management reform. The committee was interested in the significant increase in the staff of the Ministry for the Environment—up to 825 staff compared to 372 in 2018-19. A lot of those staff are working on the resource management reform programme, also in the Essential Freshwater programme which, of course, really got up to speed in 2020. We looked at things like the amendments to the wetlands regulations and the major investment in Budget 2022—some $35.6 million in farm plans for fresh water.

One of the other issues the committee considered was the funding for the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), and, because it relies quite heavily on revenue recovery from its fees, the revenue has dipped by half a million dollars in the current year compared to last year, and that means it is under some pressure—for example, it’s got 43 chemicals that it has identified as a priority for reassessment, but it can only do one or two of those each year. But we were heartened by the fact that there is a review under way of funding for the EPA, which the Ministry for the Environment is involved in.

I’m really pleased that there’s quite a significant increase in both funding for waste minimisation through the increase in the waste levy, which was initiated last term, and a lot of work being done on policy in this space in terms of the container return scheme; a long-term infrastructure plan for waste; Government’s plans to divert organic waste from landfill; and a new waste strategy. The committee also looked at Jobs for Nature, both for Vote Environment and Vote Conservation, and heard that some 378 projects have been contracted across the programme, and 8,000 nature-based jobs created as part of that.

In terms of the climate change appropriations, there has been quite an increase there and, obviously, a big programme of work with the emissions reduction plan and the new Climate Emergency Response Fund, which takes the proceeds from the emissions trading scheme which are earmarked for spending for action to reduce emissions. We also heard a little of the new Climate Change Chief Executives Board, which, given the 300 actions in the emissions reduction plan, has chief executives across Government agencies working to coordinate that.

So a huge body of work is happening both in Vote Environment, in Vote Conservation, and the work of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, and I do encourage members and the public to look at the committee’s reports. Kia ora.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): I call the Hon Stuart Smith—oh, sorry, the Hon Scott Simpson.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): He will soon be, Mr Chair—soon be. Not long to wait now.

The Environment Committee chair, the Hon Eugenie Sage, has actually done, I think, a very good job in summarising the nature of the hearing that we had back in June to discuss Estimates with the Minister for the Environment. But when I was listening to her assessment of what we discussed, I could not help but draw the conclusion, actually, that, for the last five years, we have heard very similar commentaries from the select committee chair: a lot about what’s going to happen, a lot about the money that has been spent and the increase in taxpayer money that has been allocated, a lot of talk about the increased number of people working in the Ministry for the Environment, but almost no delivery, in that five years. Very little—still talking about the same things that this Government was talking about five long years ago.

Now, we find that the much-vaunted resource management reform programme appears to be utterly mired, stuck somewhere either within the Government caucus or the factions that lie within it, or in the Ministry for the Environment’s huge staff numbers. But somewhere in amongst all that, it seems not to be making progress. We were told that the Minister hoped to introduce the two fundamental pieces of legislation in October, and so one of the questions I have for him is: is he still confident that that date will be met, and will the natural and built environments legislation and the strategic planning legislation come to this House before Christmas? Will it be in this calendar year, and, if not, why not?

One of the issues that I want to traverse is the $178 million that was allocated over four years for implementation of the new legislation, and the new regulatory environment that will accompany it. What I’m keen to know from the Minister tonight is: how much of that $178 million has already been spent? What has it been spent on, and, by whom, and where? And what are the benefits so far, to date? We heard back in June, from the Minister, that the select committee—we were given an assurance that the select committee process would not be truncated, that it would be a full select committee process, even though the two pieces of legislation would be considered by the select committee and the Parliament simultaneously. That, we know, creates difficulties and challenges for the committee, but also difficulties and challenges for those people who are interested in submitting—for councillors, for councils, for stakeholders, for environmental NGOs, and for citizens. That will be a tricky call.

So those are my first few questions, and I’d be happy to hear from the Minister on those.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Mr Chair. Can I thank the Environment Committee for the work that they did examining the Estimates, and thanks for the chair’s summary.

Responding to the Hon Scott Simpson’s questions, the suggestion has been made that we’ve been dragging our feet on Resource Management Act (RMA) reforms, so I thought I would explain to the committee the process that has been run. Of course, in the nine years of the National Government, there was a suggestion that the RMA should be reformed, and it never was. We came to office—

Hon Scott Simpson: That’s because Labour opposed every single initiative.

Hon DAVID PARKER: It’s because Labour opposed it? Actually, we weren’t in Government; the National Party had the votes, but they didn’t choose to prioritise that. Notwithstanding the fact that the RMA has, for a long time cost too much, it’s taken too long, and it hasn’t properly protected the environment; nor has it enabled the development outcomes that we need, as evidenced in part by the lack of housing opportunities that we have in New Zealand, which have driven land prices so high.

So when we took office, we realised that RMA reform was necessary, but we also realised that there were two urgent matters that needed to be addressed first. One was making advances on land supply, which we’ve done through instruments like the National Policy Statement on Urban Development, and the medium-density residential zone, which the National Party, together with the Green Party, cooperated with us on. And we also needed to make progress on water quality, because freshwater quality has been degrading in the country quite badly, to the point where the majority of rivers and lake sites that are monitored by councils for safe swimming are not safe to swim in, in summer, according to World Health Organization standards.

So we made significant progress on both of those issues during the last term, and then, towards the end of last term, kicked off a review of the RMA system led by the Hon Tony Randerson QC, a retired Court of Appeal Judge. He, in turn, built on earlier reviews, one of which was done under the National Party—and I thank them for that—by the Productivity Commission. Other reports were by Local Government New Zealand, through the Environmental Defence Society, the Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern) Inc., Infrastructure New Zealand, the Property Council, and, of course, another report by the Waitangi Tribunal. We then said, “Look, we’ll broadly implement the Randerson report.” And we are following that. The $178 million that is in this Budget moves towards implementation of that.

The implementation money is spread over four years. We’re already starting to spend that this year on putting together the national planning framework, which is the consolidated form of national direction that provides guidance. If you have the Natural and Built Environments Act (NBA) and Spatial Planning Act (SPA) sitting at the top, the next layer of rules sits in the national planning framework, which then inform the SPA and NBA plans. So in order for the new system to operate, you need the national planning framework to be in place. We also have money for draft plans, including assisting probably three regions with their first SPA and NBA plans. Plan formats and some electronic tools are being developed. All of those things are necessary to make sure that this new system launches efficiently, because, I think, one of the lessons that we’ve all learnt in this House, across the House, is that the lack of national direction, the lack of standard plan formats, the lack of central government assistance in the first plans to manage out, if you like, unnecessary complexity and divergence between plans—so I think that answers the member’s question about money for implementation and RMA time frames.

Final point: yes, we are intending to introduce legislation in October, and we still expect a full six- month select committee process.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. Minister, the Infrastructure Commission stated that consenting infrastructure cost New Zealand about $1.3 billion in the last year. That’s just the paperwork—just getting the consents. That’s not building a sediment detention pond, that’s not turning up on site and moving the owls or shifting the frogs—that’s just the paperwork, Minister.

Auckland quarries have been, essentially, sterilised by the freshwater rules, which prohibited developing anything that is a wetland—and a wetland being a 3-square-metre patch of bulrushes in a wet field. That’s regulation that the Ministry for the Environment produced that you signed off and that is now affecting the ability of infrastructure projects to proceed. More recently, consents have been declined to extract sand from off the North Auckland coast—that vital special sharp sand used for making concrete in the City Rail Link project and in the Central Interceptor waste-water project; a project to keep sewage off Auckland beaches. Without these consents for vital resources, Minister, infrastructure cannot proceed, even if we could afford $1.3 billion just to get consents.

So, Minister, I have three questions for you this evening. How will enshrining race-based co-governance in planning legislation make it easier to consent vital infrastructure, say, for example like Port of Tauranga’s wharf extension; Transpower’s transmission lines over Tauranga Harbour?—question 1.

Question 2: in reply to a written question that I asked the Minister about the Port of Tauranga being refused the opportunity to use the fast-track Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) consenting process to consent their vital wharf redevelopment—which they believe is vital in order to avoid major blockages in the supply chain for New Zealand’s largest export port by volume and revenue—the Minister has declined to allow that consent to proceed through the EPA fast-track process. So, Minister, how will the Natural and Built Environments Bill (NBE) reforms and Spatial Planning Act reform make it easier, whether it incorporates co-governance—or what other methods would make it easier to consent this type of infrastructure? Because that’s just not clear from the reform agenda or from the information we’ve had back from officials, Minister.

Finally, there’s been great apprehension expressed at the Environment Committee recently on the emissions reduction plan, no less; that the Resource Management Act (RMA) as it currently stands and the Natural and Built Environments Bill—the replacement bill for the RMA, which we’ve analysed as an exposure draft at Environment Committee—will actually make it harder to get consents to achieve a renewable energy target. They claim that the environmental bottom lines, which are included in the NBE Bill—a lack of provision for offsetting environmental effects by this inevitable dilemma we face: if we want to build infrastructure, whether it’s a renewable energy, whether it’s a waste-water treatment plant or a road, we build it in the natural environment, and the submitters have claimed that without the ability to offset environmental effects, they’re not going to be able achieve our renewable energy targets.

So, Minister, could you please provide assurance? Will you be enshrining race-based co-governance in your resource management reform? Will you allow for fast-track consenting for vital infrastructure now—right now—and in any subsequent reform? And will the natural and built environments—or whatever the replacement is for the RMA—allow for offsetting for environmental effects? Thank you, Minister.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Thank you for those questions. In respect of the first comments around infrastructure and costs of infrastructure, one of the objectives of this reform is to reduce those costs because they are absurdly high in New Zealand. The cost of consenting infrastructure, according to the Infrastructure Commission—an organisation that this Government created in the last term—it had an investigation into those costs and they have increased for mid-size infrastructure by 150 percent over about 10 years, so those consenting costs are now 250 percent of what they were a decade ago; an absolutely absurd waste of money. One of our objectives is to reduce those costs, and we will.

How are we going to do that? In a number of ways. The new national planning framework (NPF) will include a development chapter which addresses infrastructure matters, and that work is being led by the Infrastructure Commission with assistance from other agencies. It’s not being led by the Ministry for the Environment; it’s being led by the Infrastructure Commission. That chapter in the national planning framework will be one of the few new chapters in the NPF, the rest being transitioned in from existing national directions. Otherwise, you just can’t land it.

The effect of that will be that spatial plans identify routes for, for example, a new highway or new rail route, or they might identify another area; once you have population growth, it ought to be opened up to housing and therefore needs roading infrastructure or a school or a hospital or a police station. Those sorts of things will, at a high level, be identified in a spatial plan under the Spatial Planning Act, and they will then flow through into Natural and Built Environments Act plans, including designations which can last for longer. And the activity, once a trigger is met—it might be population—means that we need a new rail link out to the south of Auckland or something like that, that will flow a lot easier and, on occasions, will be a permitted activity rather than something that requires a complex consent.

Now, in order to do that, some of the complexity that lies in bespoke conditions of an individual consent has to be standardised. So there will be a series of standards that are promulgated, for example, for sediment control. And there might be a series of standards—there might be standard A for a small project or standard B, C, or D if it was becoming more complex. The sediment problems in the likes of Transmission Gully would be more complex than in a small subdivision. And so the applicant might say, “We’re proposing standard A.” and the council might come back and say “Standard C”, but in either case that standard doesn’t need to be set out in bespoke detail.

In respect of the question about direct referral and the Tauranga example, the applicants and the council agreed to refer that directly to the Environment Court. It is a contentious project and it’s one that we thought the public should have the opportunity to make a submission upon, which they don’t get the opportunity to if the fast-track process was used. That was one of the reasons why I, as the responsible Minister, declined to put that through fast track.

One of the problems that they’ve encountered in that case is a dispute as to who should be notified. Currently, under the Resource Management Act, those disputes can only be resolved by way of judicial review of the non-notification decision to the High Court. That can slow processes down and add cost, and it’s being proposed that plans are a lot clearer as to the classes of people that should have to be notified and shouldn’t have to be notified. And in the event that there is still doubt—because you can’t cover every eventuality in the plan—those disputes will be resolved by the Environment Court rather than judicial review to the High Court.

In respect of the questions around wetlands, the member is correct that there have been some problems with the definition of “wetlands”; we didn’t get that quite right. The member is wrong to suggest that has meant that we can’t supply concrete to Auckland, as evidenced by the fact that concrete shortages have not been in the news; Gib shortages have been. But we’re building twice as many houses as were built when we came to office, and we’re supplying them all with the concrete that they need.

In respect of the changes to the wetland provisions, an exposure draft was provided to the industry because there is a lot of important detail in it, and we have received feedback on that and we’re expecting those changes to be promulgated—is it by October? Yes, my officials confirmed by October, we’re expecting the final document.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Stuart Smith.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you, Mr Chair. You missed the “Hon” you gave me earlier; I was hoping that might stick around a bit longer.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): I’ve been put right in the interim, thank you.

STUART SMITH: Well, you’ve got a version of it. Thank you. And thank you, Minister, for the answers that you’ve given. I want to talk about, and get some information about, seabed mining. The Minister will be aware that the Prohibition on Seabed Mining Legislation Amendment Bill has been introduced to Parliament—a member’s bill that seeks to ban seabed mining and retrospectively ban existing seabed mining consents.

I’d like to point out to the Minister that he will be well aware that the oil and gas ban had a very significant effect on New Zealand’s reputation in terms of our sovereign risk. I know from feedback from business contacts that significant lending institutions overseas now view New Zealand as very high risk in terms of sovereign risk, and that has a chilling effect on investment right across—not just in the oil and gas sector or in mining sectors, or extractive industries—that is “New Zealand Inc.” is seen as a sovereign risk. So I would like the Minister to clear up: does he have any intention to ban seabed mining, and, if he does, does he have any intention to retrospectively ban existing mining consents—seabed or otherwise? And what evidence has he seen—if he has seen any—that shows that seabed mining can be carried out without detrimental environmental effects? Thank you.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for Oceans and Fisheries): Thank you, Mr Speaker. We haven’t, in the Labour Party, taken a position on the Prohibition on Seabed Mining Legislation Amendment Bill that the member refers to, which is a Māori Party member’s bill. So I can’t illuminate the member any more in respect of that. In respect of the earlier ban on the issue of additional mining areas other than on land, we stand by that decision because we recognise that you can’t keep developing fossil fuels and meet your climate targets, as a world, and we think that was appropriate. New Zealand isn’t running out of gas—

Simeon Brown: We’ll just import the coal from Indonesia!

Hon DAVID PARKER: The member opposite said we just import the coal from Indonesia—that’s got absolutely nothing to do with the offshore oil ban. And the member will be aware that, under the New Zealand electricity system, in a dry year, we are reliant upon Huntly and supplies of coal for it. Until we get to the point where we can retire Huntly, we’ll continue to need it, which reminds me of a question that Simon Court raised that I didn’t answer, which was this tension between climate and consenting renewables. That is a very real tension. You can’t resolve all of those tensions through legislation, because you can’t say that all renewables ought to be always consented. Sometimes they ought not to be, because there’s an alternative project that would be better, with less environmental damage. But members will be aware that I’m quite interested in quite a controversial plan down south in respect of Lake Onslow that would be controversial to consent, but should still be able to be properly considered as being part of the energy mix that we need in the future so that we can retire Huntly, for example, and therefore not need to import coal in a dry year.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Thank you very much, Mr Chair. The Minister is responsible for the Rangitāhua/Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill. Vote Conservation allocates $1.86 million over four years for progressing that bill. So is there any prospect of the bill being progressed and having the sanctuary established in the current financial year, given that $345,000 has been allocated to that, or does the fact that the funding has been allocated until 2025-26 mean that we won’t get a sanctuary until then? What recent discussions has he had with mana whenua Ngāti Kuri and Te Aupōuri about the sanctuary, and is it correct that the agreement that the Minister and his officials may have negotiated with Te Ohu Kai Moana may not be accepted by mana whenua—my first question. And then, in terms of the south-east Otago marine protected area network, public consultation on that finished in August 2020. There were two rounds of consultation under the Marine Reserves Act. There was also a quite diverse stakeholder group, which consulted the public and provided its recommendations. So why, some two years later, has there been no announcement about the establishment of new marine protected areas? What are the barriers to their establishment, and when does the Minister expect to announce any progress?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for Oceans and Fisheries): Look, Mr Speaker, I don’t mind answering these questions, but those are Vote Fisheries. Are we having this debate together?

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Yes, yes—just for the information, members, these debates will be held together.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Thank you. In respect of Rangitāhua, or Kermadecs, the member asks when I last spoke with northern iwi Te Aupōuri, Ngāti Kuri, and a third, whose name I forget—I apologise for that forgetfulness. In fact, I’ve spoken with representatives of all three iwi in the last week. When would have been the last time I spoke with them? Probably, with two of the three, I would have spoken with them during the prior month. Have I spoken with other parties? Yes, including Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd. Is there a prospect of this being finalised this year? That’s possible. Is it certain? No. I think that answers that question.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): I’ll give the call to Jo Luxton. Just as a consequence of explaining that the Minister’s two portfolios will be heard together, it’s appropriate that the chair of the Primary Production Committee have a call.

JO LUXTON (Chairperson of the Primary Production Committee): Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s a pleasure to rise and take a call as the chair of the Primary Production Committee. I’d just like to acknowledge my fellow committee members; we are a great committee, very collegial, and we get some really good work done. This year, we looked at the fisheries appropriations. The total appropriations this financial year are $82.6 million. It’s estimated to be 13.7 percent less than the estimated actual expenditure of 2021 and 2022, and $65.4 million is to inform, assist, direct, and enforce adherence to fisheries laws. We heard from the Minister about this.

We spoke to the Minister about several things. We questioned him about changes to fisheries enforcement and monitoring, funding for research and development, marine protected areas, frequency of fisheries stock assessment, the risk of ecosystem shifts, and increasing cost of marine fuel. When we asked the Minister what he expected the outcomes to be for the $65.4 million that was going to be going into enforcement and monitoring, he felt that it would improve compliance and that would largely be through the introduction of cameras on fishing vessels. He noted that was something that would likely be able to happen through the Fisheries Amendment Bill that was actually before the select committee at that time. Cameras on fishing vessels has come about through successive work by the last few Governments wanting to make that happen. So that’s a really positive thing that we heard from the Minister.

Regarding the funding for research and development, the committee noted that despite there being funding available, there didn’t seem to be a lot that was put in to research and development. The Minister actually agreed with that, and said that he felt that there was enormous potential to increase profits by being more resourceful with fishing catch, and that new technologies would actually be key to increasing productivity and reducing environmental harm from fishing.

We’ve heard, as I said, that the Minister was happy with the frequency of fishing stock assessment, even though it had reduced from around 200 days a year to 60. So, all in all, we heard just a few things from the Minister. The fisheries, we feel, is going to be in really good shape.

I just want to acknowledge the Minister and the officials and the clerks of the select committee who put a lot of time and work into preparing these reports for us. Thank you, Mr Chair.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d like to come back to resource management issues. In particular, I’m keen to know from the Minister what progress has been made on the templated plans, and, if there has been progress, when will they be made public?

Secondly, has he finalised which three regions will be selected to develop the first Spatial Planning Act (SPA) and Natural and Built Environments Act (NBA) plans?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): There is work that is being done by the ministry to develop templates. They’re not finished yet, and they will be developed as the first three model plans are prepared. To a certain extent it’ll be “trial by doing”. We did consider having one format and just doing one trial plan, but we thought that we would learn more if we had three running and took the best of them rather than just thinking we would get it right in one.

In terms of which areas will be the three, we haven’t finalised that. We’re anticipating that decision being taken by about November—I think it is, from memory; might be October. I think it’s November. We’re looking to have a variety of different regions. I would like one region to include the mix of a metropolitan centre, rural issues, and provincial centres and their suite of environmental and development issues. Another one, which could be a unitary authority which covers both regional and district council functions, and a third where there are complex overlapping iwi issues.

Which reminds me that another question that I didn’t address of Mr Court’s was whether we’re proposing a co-governance model. We’re not proposing a fifty-fifty co-governance model, but we are proposing that Māori have a role on the planning committees. But it won’t be a co-governance arrangement in the manner that he describes.

MARK CAMERON (ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. Minister, if we could just go back to Vote Environment again, carrying on: essential fresh water and $35 million spent for farm plans. It’s sort of come to my attention that 60-odd percent of those farm plans have been enacted and/or enabled, and that, suffice it to say, leaves a fair old percentage that are not. Is he concerned about the overburden in that regard, and how that is reconciled? Then, for the love of all things common sense, how do you that in play so that by 21 November—as you can imagine—these winter-grazing realities to do with those winter farm plans can, in fact, be enabled?

I’ve heard anecdotally that many councils are now concerned that they are going to have to go through a whole lot of consent regimes, and the sanctioning or granting of those consents because of that. How does he reconcile that with the exorbitant amount of money that’s being spent, and is he concerned that this will then, by virtue of the fact, create an animal feed shortage, especially for those farmers that use it?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): In respect of farm plans more generally, as opposed to the intensive winter-grazing module, having farm plans as an alternative to resource consents was an idea that was promoted by the farming community, which Government accepted. It allows a farm-by-farm solution to local issues. The farming community wanted this, and, in the end, the regional council sector and Government officials agreed that that was the way forward. In order for them to be a substitute for legally binding resource consent conditions to control adverse environmental effects, they do have to have some rigour about them, and people have to be held accountable if they’re saying they’re going to do something a certain way to, for example, reduce sediment load.

Now, we have serious problems in New Zealand with sediment load getting into our rivers, to the point where we haven’t just got clogged-up estuaries without any flounder left and dead cockle beds; we’ve also got degraded inshore fishing areas. We have kelp beds that are far, far smaller than they used to be, and the kelp beds that are remaining are much thinner. An example was given to me recently by a fisherman who is in his late 60s or 70s now. He said that when he started fishing, you couldn’t drive through kelp beds in your fishing boat at low tide; now you can, because they’ve thinned out so much. This is because of a lack of photosynthesis in deeper water caused by increased turbidity, which is caused by more land-based sediments getting into the water, and I think most people in New Zealand, including farming groups, want to do better on that.

Now, you can try and do that by way of rules and plans, but you’ll end up over-regulating some things and under-regulating others, and it can become more complex than it need be. So we’re going to use farm plans as a substitute for that. A farmer might say, “Look, these are the critical areas that are the source of sediment on my property. It’s that face over there. I know that we all need to do our bit. I’m going to fence that off so that the cows can’t get in there”—or the sheep or whatever—“and we’re just going to let a bit of vegetation regrow in that and plant a wee bit extra.” Now, that will be recorded in a farm plan and someone will give it the tick as saying that this is an adequate farm plan, and then someone one day will come back and check that it actually has been fenced, because otherwise it’s less likely that it will be.

So that farm plan regime is being stood up, including with assistance from central government. Now, these systems aren’t new to the country. Some regional councils already have similar systems, so we’re just trying to take best practice and push it out to the rest of the country.

In respect of the issue about intensive winter grazing, we know that in the parts of the country that are reliant on supplementary crops, or fodder crops grown in winter, if that’s done in the wrong way—and it has been at times in New Zealand—then that creates a lot of sediment. We’ve all seen the pictures of cows just about up to their udders in mud in a way that’s not good for animal welfare, and it certainly can spoil adjacent rivers all the way down to the estuaries.

So, again, we developed a standard. The standard was said to be impractical, so we pulled the plug on that and pushed it out another year. We worked with industry groups to develop an alternative winter-grazing module, which we’ve landed, and that’s intended to be in place by the end of this year. For those people who don’t meet the terms of that intensive winter-grazing module, they can still apply to the council and say, “Hey, I can’t do it that way, but I can do it this way, and that’s fair enough. Can I have a consent for it?”, and there are some who say that that’s inappropriate and that you have to get a resource consent outside of the intensive winter-grazing module. That, at the moment, is the law as it currently applies.

I’ve had some representations, as it happens, just today from Federated Farmers, saying that we should look again at whether we need to just delay that implementation to enable full farm plans to come in. I’m not yet convinced that that is necessary, but I will consider it.

RACHEL BROOKING (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chair. And may I take this opportunity to congratulate you for being elevated to that position. I have some small questions on Jobs for Nature; it’s something that we hear a lot about in Environment Committee in both annual review and Estimates, and the Ministers from the Ministry for the Environment. I was wondering if the Minister could give some examples of where Jobs for Nature is doing what’s on the tin, where it’s working for nature, and how this will continue to deliver for New Zealand’s environment.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Thanks for that question. You know, when we responded to COVID and things were pretty dire, particularly in some of the economies reliant on tourism, we decided that part of the stimulus and the support that we would have to keep people in employment would be through Jobs for Nature, which was a term we used to cover a range of projects that were divided between the Ministry for the Environment, the Department of Conservation (DOC), Land Information New Zealand, and the Ministry for Primary Industries. It’s been remarkably successful, indeed. Recently, when Kevin Hague retired from Forest and Bird—a former member of this House—he said that it was the most influential, practical on the ground project that he’d seen in his working life, essentially. He was very complimentary about it, and I do have some stats here as to what’s been done.

There have been plants planted. There’s this sort of riparian planting and the like; there is an estimated 14.7 million that are going to be planted, of which 4.3 million have been. Wilding conifer areas controlled—that was a bit easier to get racing earlier, because there were already wilding pine control programmes in the country and we just had to ramp them up rather than do something new. There is a projected 2.5 million hectares controlled, of which about half have been done—1.25 million. Other pest control across 670,000 hectares—330,000 has been done. Wallaby control; we’ve got a problem with wallabies spreading in the South Island, particularly—681,000 hectares were predicted to be done and we’ve done 522,000 roughly so far. These were as of the end of March; more will have been done since. In other animal pest control—this is primarily DOC work—2.6 million hectares predicted, 1.6 million so far done. So far, as of the end of March, there have been 3.5 million hours worked. There have been 8,000 people employed—“employment starts”, we call it. People currently employed at the end of March was 3,315 out of lifetime fulltime-equivalent roles of over 8,000 people.

The other thing that this has done—it’s enabled a lot of communities to come together and agree as communities that they want to continue on with things like catchment management groups, which are also being funded. Coordinators are being funded by central government. Groups of farmers and interested locals are getting together and geeing each other along and encouraging each other along so that they can make improvements. So this project is making a big difference but perhaps its greatest influence long term will be bringing communities together to do even better in the future.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d like to go back to Lake Onslow—the New Zealand Battery Project—which the Minister brought up before. I’ve been, and I’m sure the Minister has been there—probably several times, I’d imagine. I’ve certainly been there; it’s a beautiful place. I would like to know if he’s satisfied about whether that project will not damage, should it go ahead—and I think if the Government changes it won’t, but that its environmental impacts don’t outweigh the viability of the project.

The last that I heard, the feasibility work or the investigations that are going on there still don’t have one of the consents. It’s around lizards, and they’re going to be affected by that investigation work. I understand they have to put in lizard fences. The mind boggles when you think about a lizard fence, but is the Minister aware of that? And is the Minister satisfied that the environmental effects of the construction of that dam, should it go ahead, and the lake and how much bigger it will be, that those environmental effects are worth the project?

I’d also like to know that—unfortunately, the Cabinet paper that’s been released doesn’t identify where, if the water take is below the Roxburgh Dam, it will require another pond. That’s clearly going to have to be built somewhere on probably highly productive farmland. Is that why that was redacted, so that people wouldn’t know where they were going—whose property was going to be up for the requiring authority to take that off those people? So I really look forward to the Minister’s answers. I know he’s looking forward to giving them.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Well, I have limited ministerial responsibility in this, in that that feasibility study is being done under the auspices of the Minister of energy, although I am aware of the local environmental issues, and I’m happy to talk a little about those.

Of course, the underlying thesis is that New Zealand, although we’ve got one of the best electricity systems in the world, as another member has already observed, in a dry year, we’ve got a reliance on Huntly and coal, and as we have more renewables, we become more vulnerable to renewable intermittency and dry-year risk. So there are ways that that has to be ameliorated, and one of the ways that is being considered is whether we increase our hydro reserves by building a giant battery, effectively, in Lake Onslow, by raising the level of that. It is actually already artificially raised a bit.

The environmental damage that would be caused by that—and I would observe that any form of electricity generation carries with it some environmental damage, whether it’s the visual effect of a wind farm or, you know, the serious effect of changing a running river or climate-changing emissions from coal power. You can see that there are no easy choices here. The local environmental effects there would include a scroll plain that leads into Lake Onslow, which would be a loss. It would be contrasted with the scroll plain in the Upper Taieri, which is a much more significant feature.

In respect of lizard reserves, I can inform the member that I’ve volunteered at the Aldinga lizard reserve close by, near Earnscleugh, which is predator-proof fenced, and we actually have the return of giant Otago skinks and other lizards which are protected in that reserve in a way that they didn’t used to be. So these things are possible.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Thank you very much, Mr Chair. So going back to the oceans, total funding allocated for fisheries, as part of Vote Agriculture, Biosecurity, Fisheries and Food Safety, in this financial year is $82.6 million—that’s 14 percent and $13 million less than what was allocated last year. The Minister told the Primary Production Committee that the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd’s deep-water research vessel the Tangaroa, which provides a platform for research on fish stocks, is doing less than a third of the number of days at sea. It’s been a reduction from 200 days to 60 days annually. The Minister said that the fishing industry was not particularly keen on increasing the frequency due to the cost recovery involved. So does the Minister accept that there’s a risk of the public seeing him and the Labour Government as being unduly influenced by the fishing industry when it relies on their reactions to determine how many days the Tangaroa goes to sea, and when the Government has failed to increase the funding for fisheries science, which is a basis of doing the ecosystem-based management which the Government says it’s interested in?

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you, Mr Chair. A couple of quick questions. The Minister hinted that or confirmed that there would be no fifty-fifty co-governance arrangements in his new resource management reform package, but that there would be iwi involvement in the planning committee. So I wondered whether he could just expand on the nature of that, please.

Second question is: what progress has been made to the long-promised standardisation of kerbside recycling nationwide, and why is it taking so long?

Thirdly, what’s happened to his plans to set up a container deposit or return scheme? If he is intending to proceed with that in the 15 months or so that his Government still has in office, is he committed to the 20c per container price setting?

Simon Court: Mr Chair?

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): I call the Hon David Parker—given there’s a large number of questions there—and we’ll have time to come back to you.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): I’ll try and whip through them reasonably quickly. In respect of funding for the Ministry of Fisheries, there’s no change to the funding for core services at the Ministry of Fisheries, including research. There is a significant impost on the fishing industry in the next few years coming from cameras on boats, although there is a taxpayer subsidy for it that is still an additional cost to the industry. So more environmental services, if you like, are being cost recovered from the industry in respect of that, though I do accept the point made that the number of days that Tangaroa is sent to sea has decreased over the decades. I think some of that is explicable from the fact that, at the start, they were gathering completely new science. Now they’re updating existing datasets, and they probably don’t need as much time at sea to do that. There may also be some other technological advances in modelling that enable them to have less time at sea. But, none the less, I accept that is an issue that we need to keep an eye on.

In respect of the make-up of the joint planning committees, I won’t go into that in detail but I would refer the member to a speech that I gave to the local government conference where I laid that out.

In respect of kerbside recycling, the consultation on the standardisation of kerbside recycling has concluded. I’m not sure of the date offhand, but I can get back to the member informally at the end of this, after I find it out, but it’s this year.

In respect of container deposits, no final decision has been made as to what the level would be. Although, I would observe that the rate of recovery of recycled containers is substantially lower at a 10c deposit compared with a 20c deposit.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Just coming back to recycling, Minister, currently glass and aluminium have very high recovery rates. It appears that it’s the plastics that have little value and are therefore the problem to solve with recycling. We’ve heard from packaging industry representatives and brewers that the container deposit scheme could add $6 to $8 on to a box of beer—$6 to $8 in the middle of a cost of living crisis at 20c a can; $6 to $8 to those of us who like a beer. Yet the packaging industry have said they would be prepared to set up their own scheme at no cost to the taxpayer and they believe that they can get recycling rates up to something that the Ministry for the Environment believes that the Government could with its own scheme.

So would the Minister give assurances that any container deposit scheme will, firstly, not impose a cost on business? The scheme, as currently devised, proposes to locate container deposit banks in supermarket car parks and to force supermarkets to accommodate these things—busy supermarket car parks in urban environments, which are already under pressure, already struggling with supply chain issues, health and safety issues in car parks. So would the Minister give an assurance that a container deposit scheme won’t add any extra cost on to that box of beer for those of us who like a beer and like to buy it in bulk; it won’t add any cost to households; and certainly won’t add any administrative costs to taxpayers who, unfortunately, under this Minister’s Government, appeared to be carrying the can for a whole lot of bad policy, Minister?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Look, I won’t try to compete in the recycling puns. I can absolutely assure the member that his beer’s not going to go up by $6 to $8 a pack of beer. The Queensland Productivity Commission recently did a report on the container deposit scheme that’s been introduced in Queensland. Virtually everywhere in Australia now has one, a lot of countries in Europe have them and, indeed, New Zealand used to have them for beer and fizzy drinks and we think it would be progress if we went back to that. I would refer the member to that productivity commission study. I won’t quote the figure because I think I might get it wrong but the cost per beverage container has turned out to be much lower than was even modelled and certainly was much, much, much lower than the apocryphal stories that were told by critics of the scheme over there before it was introduced.

In respect of the supermarket issue, I do find the criticism ironic, really, given that most of the waste streams that we’re trying to deal with actually come out of supermarkets in the first place. So I don’t have too much of a problem making it convenient for people to return their containers when they’re going to the supermarket. When they’ve got them in their boot, they can take them and put them into a reverse vending machine in large supermarkets. It won’t happen for every supermarket but we know from overseas experience that the success of these schemes depends, in part, on the convenience of the return venues that are accessible to people who want to return their containers.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you, Mr Chair. I just want to come back to Jobs for Nature and particularly focus my last question on the funding. The $1 billion or more that was invested in the Jobs for Nature programme was, of course, part of the Government’s COVID stimulation package to pump money into the economy. Some of the projects have been very worthwhile—there’s no denying that—but some have been less effective.

My question to the Minister is: what is going to happen to the effective projects that will require ongoing funding when the money runs out? I’m particularly concerned about the conifer and wilding pine eradication programmes that require ongoing treatment to ensure that seed viability over sometimes a decade or more doesn’t just wipe out the good work that has been done to date.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Thank you for that question. I agree that there’s not much point funding things that rely upon continued effort to be sustained, if you can’t rely on the continued effort. I sat on the panel of Ministers that approved projects and that was one of the things that we quizzed officials on, in respect of projects. That’s obviously true of some of the Department of Conservation predator control work in respect of native forests. They assured us that the projects that we were funding were likely to be enduring.

In respect of wilding pine control, the member will be aware that there’s been some decades of work done there already. We’ve managed to give it a gee along, but it won’t be finished in the time that Jobs for Nature finishes. There is some good news about that, in that there are new control techniques including some selective poisons—herbicides that didn’t used to be available—which meant that there was a much more expensive form of wilding pine control involving actually physically cutting down the tree. But now sprays are able to substitute that.

I expect, in the future, there will be new technologies including, probably in our lifetimes—touch wood—the use of drones and other things to particularly target individual, or groups of, trees.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): I move, That the committee report progress presently, and move to consider the Overseas Investment (Forestry) Amendment Bill.

Motion agreed to.

Progress to be reported.

Bills

Overseas Investment (Forestry) Amendment Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Amendments to Part 2 (consent and conditions regime)

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Members, we now come to the Overseas Investment (Forestry) Amendment Bill. I’ll remind members that they’re able to participate remotely. If you’re on Zoom and want to take a call, please type “call” into the chat. You should also use the chat if you want to raise a point of order.

If we receive any 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 of members to ask multiple questions—if they have them—of the member in charge during their call. Members, we now come to Part 1. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you, Mr Chair. We’re in the exciting stage of being able to ask Minister Parker some questions. I think the first thing is, when the original test was changed by the Rt Hon Winston Peters, there was already at that stage a great deal of opposition concerning those provisions, because many members—and I was one of them—expressed concern that it would lead to rapid escalation. At the time, the element of New Zealand production forest owned by overseas entities was estimated at 72 percent. I do note that the—I think it’s the Overseas Investment Office (OIO) recalculated the figure and slightly downgraded it. But, whatever the case, it was by far—even at the point that the Rt Hon Winston Peters, supported of course by the Labour Government, chose to increase it, there was substantial foreign ownership.

So here we are. Winston Peters left—I’ll just pause for a moment on that—and now we’ve got this absolute change of heart by the Minister and the Labour Party. I’d just like the Minister to explain why we arrived to this point, when already the concerns that we were expressing—that a number of people across this House were expressing, at the time it was introduced—why we’ve had this come-to-Jesus moment, if I can use that expression.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Mr Chairman. Because we couldn’t rely upon the votes of the National Party to pass the legislation last term that we needed to close a gaping loophole in the overseas investment screening arrangements for forestry.

The situation was that under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the class of investments that can be screened under overseas investment regimes closed from the date of inception of that agreement. So unless there was a screening regime for a class of assets in place by that date, the Government of New Zealand could not thereafter introduce it unless they withdrew from CPTPP and other agreements that relied upon the most favoured nation clause relating to investment protocols, which sucked the CPTPP restriction on new classes of screening into earlier agreements, including the China free-trade agreement.

So the Government decided, and I was responsible for both the investment side of it and the trade side of it—we realised that we needed to move quickly, after the date of signature but before the agreement came into effect, to include within our screening regime classes of investment that we might want to screen in the future. Now, once a class of investment is within the screening regime, the rules as to how it is screened can be toughened or loosened under those agreements, but you can’t have a new area of screening.

The area of deficiency in forestry related to the lack of screening under the Act for forest registration rights. If you want to invest in forestry, you can either buy a freehold interest, a leasehold interest, or a forest registration right. A forest registration right can last for multiple rotations; it can last for a hundred years. It’s a bit like a very long-term lease. And unless that was within the screening regime for forestry, the country didn’t have an effective screening regime for forestry because there was an avoidance mechanism through forest registration rights. We also had evidence that that avoidance route through forest registration rights was increasingly being used by overseas investors.

Therefore, to have a cogent screening regime, we needed to include forest registration rights. We did that. The National Party didn’t favour that legislation and we were reliant on votes from the New Zealand First Party to get that, and the New Zealand First Party—and there was some good reasons for this. They didn’t want to disrupt overseas investment into our forestry sector, because they wanted more trees planted for climate and environmental reasons as well as for the interests of that industry. Therefore, they said, “Well, we will agree to forest registration rights being included in the Overseas Investment Act, but we want what the Hon Shane Jones called the primrose path.”, which was a very low regulatory route applied to forestry relative to other sectors. In order to pass the legislation, in order to have a cogent overseas investment regime, we agreed with that request, and, as a consequence, we got to where we got to.

In the period since, partly because the economics of forestry have improved, there has been an increase to the risks caused to rural communities of planting out mid-quality land in forests, in a way that is worrying some of those communities. And we think part of the answer lies in slightly toughening—not toughening to the extent that some people want, but slightly toughening—the rules that apply to overseas investment in forestry, whether it’s freehold, leasehold, or forest registration right.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): I’d like to acknowledge the Minister for such a fulsome answer. But to be honest, my sense of history is perhaps just a little bit different in the sense that my recollection—and I was on the committee at the time, so I remember going through it quite explicitly. So at the time that the original change, which allowed up to 1,000 hectares to be acquired by a foreign owner to come in here with very loose requirements for approval—basically, you could buy up to 1,000 hectares—was, from my recollection, actually a New Zealand First initiative supported by Government. But if you want to say it was Labour supported by New Zealand First, it’s fine. But at the time that that was introduced, the members of the committee in Opposition parties were saying that they were concerned about the ability of foreigners to come and buy, with a huge amount of ease, a relative ease to come and buy swathes of land. That’s not to say that we weren’t interested in supporting the forestry industry; we were. But we were all very concerned. The Opposition parties were all very concerned about the ease of it.

So here we are. Just to go back to my original question, that was the result of arguments put up by you—and I’m talking to Mr Parker here—and New Zealand First as to why we should do that, right? Now here we are, a few years later, and, hey presto, we look like we’re going back almost to where we were before, which is a much more regulatory approach. What are the drivers, and why didn’t you listen to people at the time?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Because the National Party refused to back bringing in forest registration rights into the screening regime. That’s the reason.

Andrew Bayly: So you thought it was a good idea to do 1,000 hectares?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, if we hadn’t done that, New Zealand would for ever have an ineffective screening regime. The member has just said he thinks there should be some restrictions on overseas investment into forestry and that there should be a consent regime around it. There would have been no effective consent regime because you could get around buying freehold and leasehold interest by buying a very long-term forest registration right. And it was happening and that was explained by me to the House at the time.

DAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. This is an industry where it’s great to see investors taking a 30-year view in New Zealand. I wish this could happen in all major projects, apart from forestry, in this country, because it would—the classic example of this forestry programme is that, if you take a 30-year view, you’re not making money until later on down the line but you’re prepared to make the investment. I think there’s a model in here which is very effective for the rest of the country. As you know, we’re very pro foreign direct investment, and we want to see more of it in this country.

I mean, the number of players in this sector—

Anna Lorck: Sell off New Zealand.

DAMIEN SMITH: I’m getting it as well—which are very limited; might be 20 or 30. They’re the ones taking the risk. We feel comfortable with this test, as it’s been reported in the bill. But one of the things that does make me nervous, and I’d like to ask the Minister a question, is: they were all asking that the regulator should be required to produce clear guidance about the factors they’ll have to have regard to and the way these will apply those factors when assessing an application under the “benefit to the New Zealand” test. To me, giving them that clarity was very important, and I would like to ask the Minister why that specific requirement wasn’t added to the primary legislation, even though the Finance and Expenditure Committee decided that wasn’t necessary.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Can I first agree with the member that the balance test here is appropriate, that it’s not as tough as the test that applies for farmland. Before I respond to his particular question, I would say that, for me, and for the Labour Party, there is something special about land. In a world where there are some—you know, there’s a lot of places overseas who’ve got more problems than we’ve got. We’re not a perfect country; we’re a pretty good country, and we’re a safe place to invest, and we’re a safe place to live. We’ve got to be careful, in my opinion, that with those attributes we don’t allow the opportunities of New Zealanders to be distorted by the interests of overseas people when it comes to land assets. I remember reading an article by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Telegraph. He’s a commentator on economic issues that I follow. He’s a right-wing commentator, but I agree with quite a few of the things he says, and he says there is something special about land that is intrinsic to your sense of countryhood and self. We must be careful that we don’t separate ourselves from one of those rights of being a local Kiwi to actually have some preference in respect of land assets relative to overseas investors. That’s what drives this side of the House in respect of some of the restrictions that we’ve got on overseas investment, be it in residential land, farmland, or forestry land.

That said, we don’t think, in general terms, there’s something quite so special about forestry. It’s a bit different from the, you know, the farmland that’s adjacent to a beautiful lake that is effectively just such a special place to be able to live in and own and control. So we think that whilst there should be controls on overseas investment in forestry, they don’t need to be quite as strict as they need to be in respect of farmland. That’s why we think the balance is struck between facilitating investment on the one hand and managing the risks on the other hand by applying the general “benefit to New Zealand” test for forestry conversions. We’re not applying that to on-sale of existing farms to another overseas buyer. One of the things that is important to an overseas owner is to be able to change the ownership of that, either through changes in shareholding in their own entity or by selling to somebody else.

In respect of whether there should have been more particularity as to some of the factors that are going to be taken into account by the Overseas Investment Office when they apply that criteria, we did hear the suggestion from some members that there should be more detail in the Act. We thought that would be too rigid, and we thought that that guidance should be provided outside of the Act rather than codified within it.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m interested in the Minister’s comment that there is something special about land, and previously he’s also said that it’s a privilege to be an overseas investor and own land in Aotearoa. There’s Supplementary Order Paper 219 in my name, which does seek to change the test for land being bought by an overseas investor for forestry to the farmland test, where there is attention to the participation and oversight by New Zealanders and the economic benefit that would be provided by that overseas applicant.

Mr McKelvie, in the second reading, highlighted that there wasn’t a lot of difference between a walnut tree, I think he referred to, and a pine tree. Similarly, the Green Party can’t see any difference between a pine tree and a kiwifruit vine. Now if the overseas investor is wanting to buy farmland to plant kiwifruit, they have to go through the farmland test, but not if they want to plant vines.

The Climate Change Commission has highlighted that an overemphasis on afforestation undermines, potentially, the need to reduce emissions to mitigate climate change. Given that regardless of whether you’re planting the trees for permanent carbon forestry or for production forestry, you can be part of the emissions trading scheme and claim those carbon units, what is the problem with buying farmland for forestry on an even playing field with buying farmland for farming for kiwifruit vines, for horticulture, or for whatever, given that it is land and it is a privilege for overseas investors to buy land?

We heard from Treasury that the difficulty was showing the economic return, because the trees wouldn’t be harvested for some decades, but that seems a rather superficial reason not to have a level playing field for whatever purpose farmland is being bought for. So could the Minister expand on why we can’t go back to what it was pre-2018 and New Zealand First’s involvement, and having the farmland test apply for land being bought for forestry?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Well, the first thing I would say is that we have tightened rules around investment in farmland for a number of reasons. Some of those I’ve already outlined about how we don’t want New Zealanders outbid, but often by a very small amount, by an overseas investor for the same piece of land. We tightened that by, in part, changing the letter of direction that had been given by the prior Government.

Members may recall the controversy around Crafar Farms some years ago. There were New Zealand purchasers who were outbid by a small amount by an overseas group that had purchased those farms, and it caused a furore in the country because it was one of the largest groups of farms in New Zealand. The then Government said that it was opposed. It introduced yet another condition into the Overseas Investment Act regulations, and then sent a letter around the back door to the Overseas Investment Office that said, “Oh, by the way, look favourably on applications to buy farms up to 10 times the size of the average unit of that type of farm—i.e., up to nine dairy farms—and then turn down the 10th one.”, and we didn’t like that. So we took away that letter of direction, and then we codified into the Act the regulations so that for these things, if a future Government wants to loosen up on them, they’re going to have to convince Parliament that they should be loosened up, rather than do it through executive action, which we thought was wrong.

So if you wanted to go back to the prior status quo, you sort of can’t, really, because the situation in respect of farmland is now tougher than it was before all those changes were made, and we don’t think overseas investment in forestry ought to be that tough, even though we think it ought to be a bit more rigorous than it currently is. The reason why we think the general “benefit to New Zealand” test is appropriate is that, firstly, the more stringent farmland benefit test would discourage the productive investment that we need in the production of forestry sector. Now, members might say that they wish that wasn’t the case, but, as Andrew Bayly observed earlier, about 70 percent, or thereabouts—

Andrew Bayly: 72.

Hon DAVID PARKER: —72 percent—thank you—of our forests are foreign-owned and they are reliant on foreign capital, so we didn’t really want to put at risk that sector by closing that route down too strictly.

Secondly, the risk to productive land can be managed under the general “benefit to New Zealand” test because the investor must demonstrate benefits that are in proportion to the sensitivity of the land. So proportionality in this sense means that overseas investment in our most sensitive land must demonstrate a higher degree of benefit for the land than land that is not so sensitive. Now, that sensitivity goes partly to economic productivity. We don’t want lots of our high-class lands planted out in forests, I don’t think, as a country, and there are a lot of communities concerned that you can go too far in that regard. So that now is relevant for the Overseas Investment Office as to whether this is inappropriate land to be planted out in production forestry.

It could also consider whether it is land of high conservation value, because even if it was unproductive land, sometimes there are conservation values which mean that it shouldn’t be planted out in pine forests, for example. Even though there is not an environmental test within the environmental legislation, it’s not within the Overseas Investment Act—it’s not the Resource Management Act, and it shouldn’t pretend to be.

Finally, the farmland benefit test captures a broad range of land, including that which is unproductive or unsuitable for agriculture or horticulture, and in those cases it could be disproportionate to impose a burden of the farmland test on investments in that case. So we think that this test is right for those reasons, and, accordingly, the member’s Supplementary Order Paper that seeks us to go further and apply the farmland test in respect of forestry investments won’t be supported by the Labour Party.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Mr Chair. Now, look, I just want to touch on some of the Minister’s earlier comments. Initially I thought it was quite interesting, his recollection of how this bill came to be in the state it has been over the last few years, basically saying that the Labour Party were making the calls on it, they were driving this, and they had New Zealand First’s permission to say so. You know, what we saw was quite clearly that New Zealand First were driving this, and the Minister can say, well, he didn’t have the National Party’s support around the screening regime for forestry. I’d be interested on his views around whether that’s a necessary requirement for any other land-use purposes. He was rushing to get it through the Trans-Pacific Partnership—or with the additional letters added under that Government. And I wonder whether that was a consideration for him outside of the forestry—whether there were any other issues around horticulture, for example, or agriculture, or even aquaculture—on land use as well that needed to be considered under that, and whether they are now at risk because of the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement being in place.

Also, I’d be very keen to have an understanding from him on the adverse effects, if any, from his perspective over the last few years that the legislation has been in its current state, on those rural communities, in particular, where we have seen a significant area of land converted to forestry, fast-tracked through the OIA process under the special forestry test, and outcompeting other New Zealand potential purchasers. The Minister raised the example of Crafar Farms, a bit over a decade ago, I think it was, at that stage. But what we’ve seen in communities around New Zealand, as a result of the legislation as it currently sits, is that sheep and beef farmers have been outbid by overseas investors wanting to put quite productive land into forestry.

I was interested by the proposal put forward by the Green Party, the Hon Eugenie Sage in Supplementary Order Paper 219, looking to try and level up that playing field again, because my concern is that any time the Government is getting involved and meddling in a market, you’re seeing perverse outcomes. And that’s exactly what’s happened here. Because of New Zealand First and their influence over the Labour Party, and Labour wanting to have the Government benches, we saw a perverse outcome that significantly skewed the market and resulted in a massive increase—tens and tens of thousands of hectares—of productive sheep and beef country going into forestry.

Now, in my view, forestry should be able to compete in its own right, if it’s the most economic land use. If it has the best environmental practices on a particular area of land, then so be it; that should be justification enough without having to have special exemptions to outcompete in the market, and that’s where we’ve got to under this. So I’d be very interested to know what adverse outcomes there were from it, because I’m sure they must have done some analysis of that when considering how far to wind back those rules put in place, because the Minister touched on his view that winding it back to the level of agriculture was too far. I’m surprised by that because, actually, we still have obviously more onerous requirements for any overseas investors wanting to invest in agricultural land. That was part of the submission from Federated Farmers as well, noting that farmland to forestry, going through the general benefit, as opposed to farmland to farmland sales still having to go through the more stringent test for farming, where the benefits have to be substantial and more than what a New Zealand owner could do.

The example the Minister used around potentially non-productive land being put into forestry—their not being able to show that demonstrated additional value—I don’t accept because, ultimately, if the land is so unproductive that it can’t even generate a viable outcome or economic contribution from sheep and beef, or sheep, then surely having forestry on there will significantly increase that. So I think bringing it back would be a more appropriate consideration. Those are my initial questions, and I’ve got plenty more for him soon.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): I think some of the concerns of rural communities about forests being planted in the wrong place or the quantity of forests being too great—they’re heartfelt. In some areas, they are borne out by the statistics; in some areas, they’re actually not. Overall, the number of hectares of additional forests that have been planted in the last few years is, last time I checked, still less than the deforestation in the prior decade. So I think we have to be a bit careful not to be too panic-stricken about the issue.

I’m a strong believer in the efficiency of markets, and I’m also a strong believer of internalising into economic transactions within those markets environmental externalities, and I’ve spent a fair bit of my life trying to achieve those ends. Sometimes it seems futile in the imperfections that we end up with in New Zealand, given compromises that are made either on the way through or by subsequent Governments that undo them. But one of the drivers of forestry for people that own land—and they’re not all overseas owners; they’re New Zealand owners, often—is that they’re actually doing it for the money, because they can make more money out of forestry than they can alternative land uses. Well, that’s how markets are meant to operate, including, particularly, the internalisation of environmental externalities that sometimes leads to that outcome.

Now, that said, I also recognise that economics are not the be all and end all in all transactions, including as to land use. I could make more money from my residential section if I could put up, in my residential area, a hundred-storey hotel, but I’m not allowed to because there are non-economic factors that are relevant to the planning of the use of my residential land. I also accept that, in rural areas, there are appropriate planning rules that are more than economic and go to socio-economic outcomes. If local communities don’t want their mid-grade land planted out in numbers of forests, I think they should have a planning function that enables them to do that, but that’s outside the terms of the Overseas Investment Act.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you. I’m going to return to a question, but I just want to acknowledge a couple of people. The first one is the Hon Stuart Nash, who I know has deep roots into the forestry sector—very deep roots. Of course, I was watching an interchange just before, with him and the member for Tukituki, Anna Lorck. What just crossed my mind is on one side we’ve got a Minister who’s absolutely an advocate for making sure all our farmland goes into forests—I know he’s a very strong advocate—and, of course, I was thinking about Anna Lorck’s electorate and thinking, “Well, you’ve got a whole lot of farmland going into forestry, actually—very productive land.” I was just wondering how that interplay was going, that interchange. So I’m hoping the Minister, the Hon Stuart Nash, might take the opportunity to say whether in fact he supports this cutting back, this scaling back of forestry investments, because I know he is very keen that there’s an opportunity for overseas investors to come in and buy lots of land with little controls.

So I just want to go back, the last time—because this is the third time I’ve asked the question. As I understand the logic for this come-to-Jesus moment, and I hope that expression’s OK, but if I understand the logic of what the Minister said earlier, he said that, and he quoted National—but let’s just say that because there was no framework for a forestry registration scheme, the only option was to go from that point to a situation in 2018, and Winston Peters was somehow involved in it, which is described even by your officials, Minister, as being a very, very permissive arrangement for allowing foreigners to come in and buy New Zealand farmland.

So my question is: here we are, we’re going backwards; why did you think it was appropriate in 2018, whether it was your bill or Winston Peters’ bill or whoever—but, you know, the Government of the day, of which you were a member—to have such a “permissive environment” and now you think it’s appropriate, only 4½ years later, that it’s so desperate we have to scale it back?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Forestry): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I actually need to respond to that member’s comments. I am the Minister of Forestry and I am incredibly passionate about forestry, and I believe the right tree in the right place has a huge ability to influence not only our economic but our social and, of course, our decarbonisation aspirations. My vision is that in a hundred years’ time we will have a million hectares of land that is currently bare in indigenous forest. Because the thing about land use is that land use change has not kept up with the economics of farming.

The thing that happened in the mid-1980s, as we know, pre the loss of all the subsidies, is farmers were paid on how much land they cleared and therefore how much stock they carried. Of course, when that changed, there was a whole lot of land that became uneconomic from a farming perspective but what happened to that land is it wasn’t planted out. So the Forest Service has actually identified about 1.2 million hectares of land that is only suitable for the permanent forest category. And by the “permanent forest category” I mean land that will probably never be harvested either from an economic perspective—and by that it’s too far from a port or not close to a processing facility or too expensive to harvest—or it won’t be harvested from a health and safety perspective because, again, the ability to harvest this in a way that meets the expectations of health and safety in the 21st century just doesn’t exist, or from a conservation perspective; i.e., harvesting land which is too steep just is unconscionable.

If we can get that land planted, then we will mitigate, for example, the 5 million tonnes of silt that goes into Hawke’s Bay every single year, but we are not talking about the permanent forest category here, because this always had to go through the Overseas Investment Act if you were planning primarily for carbon. What we are talking about here is trees that are planting for harvesting. Now, the Forest Service, apart from that 1.2 million hectares that’s been identified for the permanent forest category, has also identified about 1.25 million hectares that is only suitable probably for production forestry because it is very, very marginal for farming. And keep in mind, about 86 percent of all forests in the emissions trading scheme are in classes 6 to 8 land.

So we are not taking out huge swathes of productive land. In fact, I got my forestry start dealing with a farmer in the Tukituki who won the Farmer of the Year Award. What he did is he won a whole lot of fertiliser, and that’s why he fertilised his whole farm—it made not much of a difference. So what he did is he took out every part of his farm that didn’t carry at least 3.5 stock units per hectare. And you know what? He didn’t lose one unit of stock whatsoever. He planted that marginal land in trees. And what he did—he was a guy called John Aitken, a very, very innovative farmer, and he was one of the leaders of the farm forestry movement. So what he did is he took out the uneconomic land for farming and he put it into forestry, therefore, diversifying his farm and his sources of income.

Now, I absolutely support this. The last thing I want to see is productive farmland planted in forestry. I want to see our farms, our rural landscape, a good mixture of farming, of production forestry, and of carbon farming, and it has always been about the right tree in the right place. So if anyone suggests—and to be fair, this is the first time actually anyone has suggested, certainly to my face anyway—that I want to see swathes of productive farmland planted up, that, Madam Chair and members of this committee, is the last thing I want to see. It’s why I support this to the absolute hilt and I reckon the Minister is doing a fantastic job. Thank you very much.

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much, Madam Chair, for looking past Andrew Bayly—which is a difficult thing to do, in all kinds of ways! My contribution will be brief; I don’t profess the policy background that other learned colleagues on this side of the House—and maybe even some on the other side of the House—would claim in this space. So a reasonably tight question, a narrow question; indeed, one that the Minister in the chair, might be well placed to answer, maybe almost from his legal background, and if he were to wear the hat of Attorney-General he might be equally well placed to answer it.

So it goes to the provision in Part 1, whereby clause 4, subsection (3), that the inserted subsection, new—well, I don’t want to get too caught up in cross-referencing. If the Minister is able to identify where it says, “Subsection (1C) does not apply if the relevant Ministers are satisfied—” and then it lists a number of different points of satisfaction that are needed—such that subsection (1C), which already exists in the primary legislation.

My question, really, is: what is the satisfaction of the relevant Ministers to be based on? Would it be submissions of applicants? Would it be maybe other parties who are interested in the matter—might have a commercial interest; might have a general, perhaps environmental advocacy interest; might be local to the area and have a geographical interest, therefore? And so I wonder how the Minister would contemplate that relevant Ministers, as defined and as used in the legislation, would come to that decision and feel satisfied that those various points apply.

In particular, I’m interested to know whether the Minister would feel the need to seek independent advice of those various interested parties—so advice that could be regarded as independent, such that they could come to those decisions, and thinking particularly from a point of view protecting against judicial review or otherwise questions of the decision?

So that was my sole question for Part 1, and I thank Madam Chair for the opportunity to ask it and in anticipation to the Minister for answering it.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Madam Chair. The information that the Minister relies upon is essentially the summary of submissions as analysed by, well, the summary of the application, because there’s not a third-party submission process. That’s the summary of the information that is provided by the applicant for the consent.

There are some general provisions relating to forestry land, such as that it is forestry land that, on occasions, are not true of part of the land; there could be, for example, a house and curtilage that is part of the land that is not going to be forested, but the Overseas Investment Office can none the less say that overall this falls within the class of forestry land and should be approved according to that net-benefit test.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Junior Whip—Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. I just wanted to come back to my earlier question the Minister hadn’t addressed yet either, in relation to his comments around the need to progress this change back in 2018, I believe it was, with haste to ensure that the appropriate changes could be made before the Trans-Pacific Partnership came into being.

Hon David Parker: Comprehensive and Progressive.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN: And yes, with the additional letters that the Government chose to add to embellish it somewhat and try and sell it better to the public, having opposed it very vehemently over the previous campaign election, up and down streets across New Zealand. But I digress somewhat. Anyway, the extra letters and suddenly it was all OK.

So I’m interested in whether or not there are any other land uses that have potentially been impacted in his mind—or could be impacted—by not having been put through the same process that he was very actively keen to put forestry through, and whether that’s something that we need to be addressing under this or potentially in a future iteration as well.

Then I just wanted to pick up on the comments from the forestry Minister as he came in with his contribution as well. Because I thought it was quite interesting that he was a strong, fierce lion in support of maintaining property rights for agricultural purposes and yet, four years ago, was nowhere to be seen when New Zealand First were advocating for this particular bill.

I think it’s really important because I’ve heard consistently from a lot of farmers who have been very concerned by the impact that this has had. And the Minister made the comment that we haven’t yet seen a level of afforestation at a level in line with the deforestation that happened over the previous decade.

I’m interested to know whether he is setting that as a benchmark; that he wants to see that same number of hectares converted back into forestry before he will be satisfied that we might make changes that bring the tests to a comparable level for agricultural land and also for the forestry land as well. I’ll leave it there for now. Thank you.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): I’m sure many members present will join with me in saying that they miss the provincial champion and the billion trees that he promised.

I actually agreed with some of the reasoning of New Zealand First at the time. They observed that the forest industry had suffered quite a lot of uncertainty in the prior years, caused in part by some rapid changes to the price of carbon, which at times discouraged and then encouraged deforestation. Because the price of carbon—when it dropped to $2 a tonne—saw lots of people chopping down their forests at a time when they could do it very cheaply, including through purchasing, if they wanted to, Ukrainian hot air units that were admissible at the time into the New Zealand emissions trading scheme.

So New Zealand First were concerned that whilst we introduced forestry registration rights into the screening regime, that we didn’t disrupt the forestry sector, and that’s one of the reasons why. Although they agreed for the green forest registration rights into the scheme, they wanted an easy regulatory path.

Are there other areas that we see the need to change regulation on? No, we did urgently—one of the reasons we opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership when the prior Government was promoting it was that they were refusing to move on overseas ownership of New Zealand homes, which, if we hadn’t moved on before the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership came into effect, no future Government would have had the regulatory space to control overseas ownership in New Zealand housing stock, which is something that we fixed at the time.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to talk. I just want to acknowledge the Minister of Forestry and his contribution, because he talked about that utopian vision for land and forest living in harmony, and, obviously, he referred to the Aitken farm where he thought it was fantastic that their farmer had planted up, obviously, steep, unproductive land, left the productive soils, and that actually had a beautiful arrangement which he’s very supportive of. I think everyone in New Zealand probably shares that view.

But, unfortunately, the 2018 regulations didn’t actually create that. What the 2018 regulations did has actually made it much more permissive for foreigners to come and buy that land. The rules now under this arrangement—up to a thousand hectares. Now, let’s assume this farm, the utopian farm, is still in existence and owned by the Aitken family; they still remember Stuart Nash fondly. Now, what is the test under the new proposed arrangements? So let’s assume that Aitken farm—beautiful trees all grown up now; a foreigner wants to come and buy it, and it’s over a thousand hectares. So what are the new rules? How will the new tests be executed? And the sense is, is there a requirement for a counterfactual? Is there a requirement to set out what the benefits are of converting that utopian farm now into a pine forest? What are the new arrangements? And also, I’d quite like to understand about the capability of the Overseas Investment Office, but I’m going to leave that for my next question.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): I’ve actually already addressed that issue on a number of occasions. The member is incorrect that the changes that we made in 2018 made it easier to invest in forestry. It didn’t—it closed a big loophole in respect of forest registration rights that otherwise was an avoidance pathway that made a nonsense of the controls of investment via freehold and leasehold interests. In respect of the test to be applied, the general “benefit to New Zealand” test—I’ve explained that in detail as to how that applies and I’m not going to do it again.

Andrew Bayly: Can you give us an example of the counterfactual?

Hon DAVID PARKER: In respect of whether there’s a counterfactual test: no, there isn’t. The test is applied compared to the current state of the land.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East): I move, That the question be now put.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): I call Tim van de Molen, but I am now looking for new debating points, and I’m getting a sense of some repetition, so let’s hear you.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Absolutely—absolutely. There’s plenty of beautiful farmland around the country so reiterating some of that is bound to happen but I do just want to come to the point the Minister was touching on around—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Was the member just reflecting on my ruling?

TIM VAN DE MOLEN: Not at all, Madam Chair. I would never do such a thing.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The member will withdraw and apologise.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN: I withdraw and apologise.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Tim van de Molen.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN: Thank you, Madam Chair. The land classification that Mr Bayly was touching on hadn’t been addressed by the Minister in terms of what happens now that we have the separate requirement for farmland to forestry versus farmland to farmland, or rather the continuation of that requirement, and the 2018 legislation did make it significantly different for someone wanting to come into New Zealand and invest in forestry. That pathway was much easier and it was for someone wanting to come into New Zealand and invest in agricultural land.

At a time now where we have significant global concerns around food security, food supply issues driven in large part off the war in Ukraine—you know, we’re looking at our productive capacity here, which we can still ramp up significantly if we are investing in the right manner, enabling that investment to then generate greater productivity. That comes to the comment that the forestry Minister made as well around looking at the Aitken farm, I think it was, where they had been able to increase productivity from the land even though they had taken out some pockets of it—the less productive areas, I think you said, under 3½ stock units per hectare—and planted those pockets, and the overall productivity remained the same or potentially increased. Look, we have a fantastic track record of doing that in New Zealand in general. If you think now we have about 26 million sheep in the New Zealand flock. That dropped from a peak of 70 million, and yet we are producing more value from that 26 million sheep flock than we were from 70 million.

So we have a fantastic track record of innovation in the food and fibre sector in New Zealand and I’m interested in the concern I raised before that he hasn’t touched on yet around the impact of the split. They’re still favouring the forestry investor because if you have two investors coming in, two foreign investors, one’s wanting to acquire a farm for agricultural purposes to generate food production, someone else wants to buy the same farm for putting into forestry. Yet they’re coming in both as overseas investors—investors with a different playing field—and that to me seems patently unfair. We are screwing the scrum and it is to the detriment of food production in New Zealand and I’d like to hear what consideration he’s given to that point.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Madam Chair, just before I do that, officials have just told me that in answer to Mr Bayly’s question, when I said we don’t have the counterfactual test, and then I said that the test is compared with the current state of the land, the test is compared with the current state of the land but that’s what the counterfactual test is.

Andrew Bayly: Thank you for correcting it.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Thank you. In respect of the last point the member’s made, we disagree with that. We don’t think we should be applying the stringent test that applies to farmland to forestry land. If the member wants to do that he’ll be backing the Greens’ amendment, which the Labour Party is opposing but which I understand his party is too.

DAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Thank you. This is my final question to the Minister: how confident is he that Land Information New Zealand can record and have recorded all trees in the right place; and, going forward, if this industry grows, how confident is he that they will be able to keep those records so we can all be informed?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): The Overseas Investment Act records only deal with approvals or disapprovals of applications to buy land that is covered by the regime and monitoring of conditions if conditions are imposed. For example, if someone sought to acquire a farm that was mainly forestry land but had some high-value agricultural land, and they said, “We’re going to subdivide it and sell off the highly productive horticultural land.”, they’d monitor against that. But they don’t do that, in general, for all land in respect of the overall vision that was described by the Minister of Forestry, the Hon Stuart Nash, and it is good that we’ve got a Minister who has a vision for the sector. That’s actually achieved through not just the overseas investment rules but it’s partly rules that lie in district plans and through the emissions trading scheme, as well as in overseas investment settings.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour—Banks Peninsula): Thank you, Madam Chair. I move, That the question be now put.

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Minister, I was interested in your comments earlier where you said that land is special. And it’s certainly something that I think most people who work and live on the land in New Zealand would agree with. In particular, those who are producing food certainly think it’s special and it’s their communities—and certainly in my electorate of Southland, it’s something I hear regularly. It is the benefit of a community, of people who grow things on their land, and the schools, the children, all the various businesses who provide services to the farmer and make the local economy work.

I’m interested in why you’ve chosen the benefits of New Zealand test relying on seven different factors. And if you are able to step us through why those seven different factors will be better than the farmland benefit test, which I note was another alternative that the Government looked at but said that in its view the farmland benefit test is more complex than the “benefit to New Zealand” test, which this legislation is changing to. If land is special and farmland is obviously providing food and is special, why not use that test rather than the seven benefits to New Zealand assessment test?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): I have been through this a number of times and I’m not allowed to mention whether members have been in—

Andrew Bayly: Well not really; not tonight.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, I’ll actually read out exactly what I read last time so that there can be no ambiguity, because it’s the same words I’m reading from: there are three reasons why the general “benefit to New Zealand” test balances these objectives. First, the most stringent farmland benefit test would discourage the productive investment needed to support the sustainable growth of the production forestry sector. Additionally, the risks to productive learning could be managed under the general “benefit to New Zealand” test because an investor must demonstrate benefits in proportion to the sensitivity of land. “Proportionality” in this sense means that overseas investment in our most sensitive land must demonstrate a higher degree of benefit than land that is not so sensitive. The assessment of the sensitivity of the land goes beyond its economic productivity and includes land of high conservation value, for example.

Finally, the farmland benefit test captures a broad range of land, including that which is unproductive or unsuitable for agriculture or horticulture. In these cases, it can impose a disproportionate burden on some investment. The Act already recognises this by providing for exemptions from it. The bill provides that forestry conversions should be a fourth exemption to the farmland benefit test.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you. I just want to acknowledge my colleague Damien Smith who raised the issue of the Overseas Investment Office (OIO), and I alluded to that I was going to ask some more questions on that earlier.

So we are supporting this bill, and we’ve made that clear, obviously because it is a slight tightening up on the regime. We do welcome foreign ownership or foreign investment into our forests but we want to make sure that these new rules do work. So can the Minister just provide some certainty to the committee and certainty to the people who will be listening as to the role of the OIO?

Obviously, this is a more stringent requirement, so they require specialist skills. So not only the ability for OIO to process these applications in a timely manner, to do it on a fair basis, and also in terms of the point that Damien Smith raised, was the issue around monitoring once the arrangements have been agreed, the capability of the OIO to do that, and, certainly, that it will do that, because there have been some claims that the OIO have been less than robust in following up and monitoring investments. I’m not talking in the forestry industry particularly, but on other foreign investments. So what certainty can the Minister provide to the committee and also to the people looking to potentially invest in New Zealand that they will be dealt with in a speedy, timely, and appropriate manner?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): I’m confident that the committee can be assured that that will be the case. We actually have changed the fee regime. There’s cost recovery on this to enable those jobs to be done properly. We’ve also taken out some of the unnecessary minutiae of detail that used to have to be provided by applicants, so that it is somewhat streamlined and more efficient while still meeting the policy objective.

SARAH PALLETT (Labour—Ilam): I move, That the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, the question is that the Hon Eugenie Sage’s amendments to Part 1 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 219 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 10

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 108

New Zealand Labour 65; New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10.

Amendments not agreed to.

Part 1 agreed to.

Part 2 Other amendments

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, we come now to Part 2. This is the debate on clauses 8 to 10, and the Schedule—“Other amendments”. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Again, I must confess to a contribution that will be reasonably narrow in its nature. Again, I don’t profess to be an expert in the bigger-picture policy matters. I do understand, I think reasonably well, the different factors being played out. I look forward to the Minister explaining those further and those all around the Chamber interrogating him on those, too.

My relatively narrow question, then, is in relation to clause 10 of Part 2, which amends Schedule 4 of the Overseas Investment Act 2005. What’s happening there is that there’s a replacement of “applicant” with “persons referred to in subclause (2A)”; so broadening what it means to be an applicant and have that status. What we see in that provision is that what was previously understood to be the applicant also now includes not only the applicant themselves but also the applicant’s associates and also the individuals with control of the relevant overseas person.

I understand in general terms, of course, that we have such things as overseas persons; it’s at the heart of the overseas investment regime, whether in relation to forestry or otherwise, that we distinguish between those who are not overseas or—roughly speaking, I suppose—New Zealanders with the right, as opposed to the privilege, to purchase land and other sensitive assets within New Zealand. That much is understood; it’s obviously a key distinction between overseas or not.

And then we’ve got a relevant overseas person—of course, a person in the law can be not only a natural person, what we regard as a human being walking around, but also may be a legal entity. So to the extent that that could be a trust or a company, I do wonder—well, actually, a trust specifically. With the language there in clause (2A) and then in (c), “the individuals with control of the relevant overseas person.”—I wonder if the Minister could confirm that it might be possible for individuals or natural persons to have control of a trust, and therefore be its legal owners, but actually the beneficial ownership is the relevant test really, in terms of the overseas investment regime.

So my question to the Minister, and I think I might know the answer but I think it would nevertheless be useful for the Hansard to record his answer—his views are more persuasive than mine, as the member and indeed the Minister putting it forward, and therefore whose intentions are going to need to be understood by courts and applicants and so on. Is it intended that those individuals that have control of a relevant overseas person, if that person is a trust, if we’re talking about beneficial ownership as well as legal ownership—because, of course, what we don’t want to have is a scenario where New Zealand - based individuals; perhaps lawyers, accountants, or other such persons; I’ll choose my words carefully as a former lawyer myself. If such persons might have control of a relevant overseas person or trust on behalf of those who are, to all intents and purposes, overseas persons.

I know I’ve said “persons” a lot. I’m going to stop saying “persons”. I’m going to stop saying words altogether, actually. I’m going to resume my seat and hope that the Minister can provide some light on that subject.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): This clause was added at the recommendation of the Finance and Expenditure Committee to clarify that when considering an application for a forestry standing consent, the regulator can consider the compliance record of the wider group of relevant entities and individuals associated with the applicant. I would have thought it would include, for example, the directors of a company if it was a trust that was purchasing it. I’m not sure as to whether that would be caught, but I can get that information from officials if the member desires.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): I’ll take a call on this and give Minister Parker, hopefully, some time to provide a more fulsome answer for Mr Penk’s very probing question there on clause 10.

Now, I have a question in relation to the new clause 8A, around including the exemption for accommodation if the accommodation is for forestry purposes. So, obviously, the exclusion is—it can’t be residential properties on the land, but this creates the exception for that, if that accommodation is there for forestry purposes only. I think it’s that last bit, “for the purpose only of supporting forestry activities”, that I just wanted to test with the Minister, because I have some concern that there may indeed be accommodation on a forestry piece of land that is used for dual purpose—perhaps for both the forestry aspect in terms of managing that particular title of land, but also perhaps an agricultural use in terms of managing an adjacent property, a sheep and beef property or whatever it may be, and therefore having a use that is not forestry only. Or, indeed, having someone who has a property on a title working in the forestry aspect, but other tenants in that house are working on the neighbouring side of the fence, an adjacent title of land that has agricultural purposes.

Is that therefore excluded under this reasonably tight definition, being “for the purpose only of supporting forestry activities”? I would like to think that it would not exclude situations where there is a dual use. Or, indeed, it may be that it’s not necessarily the same house or dwelling but it may be in adjacent sharing quarters, for example, that just happen to be located on this block of land instead of across the fence. This sometimes may be the case in farming senses, where properties end up where they are most conveniently located, from time to time, and that may of course have preceded a particular land use that has evolved over time but, in the broader context of that area, the ongoing land use remains for agriculture purposes from some part of the property or one particular dwelling in a wider curtilage sense and not another.

So can we clarify whether or not those particular examples might still be considered acceptable in terms of the carve-out under new sections 17(5)(a) and 17(5)(b), set out in clause 8A? Thank you, Minister.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): In respect of overseas companies that are trusts, yes, the grouping of people whose, for example, compliance records can be assessed overseas by the Overseas Investment Office goes wider than the legal entity to include those who are in charge of it or in control of it.

In respect of the issues most recently raised in respect of new clause 8A, this was another minor technical change that was recommended by the Finance and Expenditure Committee to, effectively, give a little bit more flexibility to the Overseas Investment Office to approve sensible arrangements in respect of buildings that are on the land.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Junior Whip—Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Goodness me! The other aspect I thought was interesting of Part 2 is clause 8A, which amends Schedule 2 of the Overseas Investment Act, and that is talking about a certain subclause within that, and it’s all about what could be regarded as land that’s supporting forestry activities. And, of course, forestry activities is an important definition. It’s an important concept to the bill. That’s what we’re interested in, of course, here we’re talking about the importance of forestry, and, you know, from a “New Zealand Inc.” perspective. Of course, one weighs up the various competing considerations, whether that’s property rights of those who own land and should, you know, on the face of it, be able to sell those to whoever they should please, versus, of course, you know, the more strategic aims that we might have in terms of the land being put to its most productive use overall.

So, of course that’s really significant, what we regard as such land. In this particular provision we see that where “… accommodation is being provided for the purpose only of supporting forestry activities … being carried out on the farm land … or the relevant land …”—and—“all the buildings being used for that accommodation are located on [the] land on which some or all of those forestry activities are being carried out …”, etc. So I think what’s happening there—but again, as always, grateful for the confirmation of the Minister—is that we’re saying that well, there might be land that’s ostensibly or mostly being used for forestry activities, some bits of it may not be, but they may not be in a way that makes sense, in the sense that they are enabling forestry activity. So there might be accommodation but we’re not talking about a hotel or other commercial accommodation. It’s that specifically which is used for supporting forestry activity. So it seems to me that that’s consistent with the purpose of the bill, the intent of the regime as a whole, and I think that’s probably a sensible interpretation that anyone looking to invest under this Act should have regard to.

I think that would be the way that it would be interpreted if there’s a line call that the courts might be asked to make or, indeed, the office itself might be asked to make, where there might be accommodation that’s perhaps ambiguous as to where it starts and ends, and there might be activities that are ancillary. Maybe it’s accommodation to support forestry with workers but the workers might stay on longer in New Zealand if they’re temporary for the purposes of a holiday or whatever. So any comments the Minister can make in relation to that to help clarify the intent of the regime, and, indeed, this particular provision, I think would be really helpful and interesting.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): I think that’s the same issue that Mr van de Molen just raised, and so I refer him to that answer, respectfully.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Respectfully, there was a slight difference there, Minister, between Mr Penk’s contribution and my own, his initially being around the definition of forestry activities and then the use of that land. Mine was more around whether there could be accommodation either in the same dwelling where one person in there is working on the forestry land; another person, tenant, or worker in the same accommodation is working on adjacent land or, indeed, there are adjacent sharing quarters, for example, that are on the forestry land but have no use for that, but are used on an adjacent land and are perhaps rented to that farmer, or, indeed, in the sense where we have forestry workers coming into the accommodation for a period of time to carry out pruning, for example, and then leaving again, and the accommodation—is it then able to potentially be used for other purposes outside of the time when it is being used for forestry purposes?

So, obviously, there are seasonal elements or specific times when forestry work will be required to be carried out, and plenty of times when it will not be, and the accommodation may not be used at all. So during those times, can it be used, for example, as shearers’ quarters for a neighbouring farm when they are having their peak shearing season or for accommodation for school camp groups, for example? Are these sorts of activities enabled? Because it seems to be a very tight definition around purpose only of supporting forestry activities. My understanding, not being on the Finance and Expenditure Committee, but my understanding was, and to your point earlier, the intent was to allow some more flexibility, so can I get confirmation from the Minister that the examples that I have given would be allowed under his understanding of the intent of this? Because certainly it would be for me an appropriate consideration, especially if it’s not at the cost of forestry work. You know, if that work can be carried out and then, when it’s not being used, it can be utilised for some other cause, as long as it’s not impacting on that forestry use, then surely that should be enabled as well.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Madam Chair. I can confirm that, but that’s not in the schedules; that’s in the first part of the bill, which does contain provisions to allow that flexibility. But we’ve already considered that part of the bill.

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you, Madam Chair. Minister, I wonder if you could just give the committee a little bit of clarity around the purpose behind amending Schedule 3, which is in clause 9.

So I note there’s a focus here on unconsented forestry rights. I’d be grateful if you could just clarify, for the record, why it was necessary to change this to focus on unconsented forestry rights, and noting that in clause 9, new clause 7, it says, “In this clause, unconsented forestry right means a forestry right that is acquired otherwise than in reliance on a consent”—that’s been changed to say—“any of the following: (a) a consent: [or] (b) an exemption in, or an exemption granted under, this Act or the regulations (other than an exemption under this clause).”

So the secondary part of this is why an unconsented forestry right could be otherwise then—the exemption; what is meant by an exemption granted under this Act? If you could provide some more information, for the record, on what that means, as well, please.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): This is another minor and technical change which was made to clarify that when determining whether the 1,000 hectare exemption applies only unconsented forestry rights are considered in that calculation, i.e., if they’ve already been approved elsewhere, they don’t need to be counted again.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, the Hon Eugenie Sage’s amendments to Part 2 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 219 are out of order as being inconsistent with the previous decision of the committee. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

Part 2 agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the Schedule stand part.

Schedule agreed to.

Clauses 1 to 3

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, we come now to our final debate, clauses 1 to 3, “Title”, “Commencement”, and “Principal Act”. The question is that clause 1 stand part.

Clause 1 agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that clause 2 stand part.

Clause 2 agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that clause 3 stand part.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment.

Bills

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

In Committee

Debate resumed from 9 August.

Part 2 Oversight of Oranga Tamariki system (continued)

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, we come now to further consideration of the Oversight of Oranga Tamariki System and Children and Young People’s Commission Bill.

I don’t believe there’s anybody likely to wish to take a call, if they do, they know they write “call” in the chat. If we receive new tabled amendments, I’ll let members know so that they can refresh the House pages to see the new amendment. And finally, it would be helpful for members to ask multiple questions—the flow of the debate goes extremely well when that happens—if they have them of the member in charge during the call.

Part 2: this is the debate on clauses 12 to 42, “Oversight of Oranga Tamariki system”. Members, when we were last debating the bill, we were debating the question that Part 2 stand part.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): As we resume the debate on Part 2 today, I wish to respond to some of the points that were raised at the end of the debate last night, given I didn’t have an opportunity to do so. There were a few matters raised by the National Party and the Green Party that I’d like to respond to this evening.

Louise Upston expressed concern that the monitor isn’t independent enough, that, perhaps, in her mind, it was sitting too close to the centre of power, and that its work would be subject to what she called political considerations. As I’ve previously made clear, the monitor will be a statutory officer with a duty in legislation to act independently. It will have the ability to initiate reviews of its own accord, and although Ministers will be able to ask the monitor to look into an issue, they cannot direct it not to.

Once the monitor completes its reports, the agencies they relate to must respond, and respond quickly, because our Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 209 will substantially shorten the time frame they have to explain how they will address these matters of concern for our tamariki and rangatahi. The reports and responses must then be published by the monitor online and the reports tabled in the House. So the monitor will be free to investigate whichever systemic issues it sees fit, and the recommendations and the responses of the agencies to which they relate will be published, without any changes by Ministers or anyone else, for all to see.

Despite this, Jan Logie expressed her concern that having a monitor reporting on Government agencies, she felt, was like a junior chief executive critiquing a very powerful one in the same Public Service. I want to make it clear that the decision about where the monitor sits is actually not in the bill. It was a matter for Cabinet, and that matter was determined by Cabinet. I also want to make clear that the monitor is a statutory officer. It will be operationally autonomous from other departments, including the Education Review Office, in relation to its monitoring role, as well as acting as a trusted adviser to the Children and Young People’s Commission, the Government, and the public.

I wanted to also just share that the concept is not new within Government. The Government Statistician has their duties and independence outlined in legislation, fulfilling a trusted role in the provision of data to both Government and the public. The monitor is also a critical role in the Oranga Tamariki system, and one that is of great importance to the wellbeing of our tamariki and rangatahi.

I want to note, again, that our SOP has reduced the time agencies have to respond to reports by the monitor to increase the accountability of these agencies and the teeth of the monitor. The National Party had some conflicting views on independence. Unlike his colleagues in the Green Party, the member Christopher Penk expressed concerns that the monitor would be too independent. But I think perhaps the conflicting point made by National members actually goes to show that we may have struck the right balance on the independence of the monitor in this bill. Christopher Penk also worried about the requirement that the monitor produce a state of the Oranga Tamariki system report every three years, which he was concerned was too long to wait. I’m pleased to advise Mr Penk that that is just a minimum requirement for that particular report. But I did talk about the other reports that would be required much more regularly than that particular one. The monitor—again, I will just share—can also carry out additional reviews on anything relating to the delivery of services or support through the Oranga Tamariki system as set out in clause 25. And if a matter requires urgent attention, the Minister and chief executive can also request they carry out a review—clause 24.

I thought it would be worth reminding the committee that the Independent Children’s Monitor has actually already published four reports on its website, including its first full report on agency compliance with all the national care standards and related matters and regulations earlier this year. Before there was progress reported last night on this debate, Jan Logie discussed a report from public policy analysts which she brought up to support an argument that she had regarding her thoughts that we didn’t need to separate the monitoring and advocacy functions in the Oranga Tamariki system, and her concern that the different parts of the systems could inform and learn from each other and prevent—and Jan Logie had numerous points throughout the debate in relation to the separation of the monitoring and advocacy. I just want to point out that the redress report that has been received from the royal commission actually stated that they supported the separation of those functions to ensure that the monitoring could be done in a robust way. That is why the bill clearly sets out and separates the functions of each entity in the system to make it as simple as possible also for our tamariki and rangatahi, and avoid the trade-offs between advocacy and monitoring that may happen if they are performed by the same entity. This separation does not mean that no one will be working together or learning from each other; in fact, our SOP further clarifies in clause 9 our expectation that the entities work more closely together than ever before.

The bill also—and this is in relation to questions that were raised—provides for information to be shared between the commission, the monitor, and the ombudsman if “the sharing of information would minimise the burden on individuals and agencies”, or “the sharing of information would assist [the commission] the Monitor or an Ombudsman in the performance of each of their functions, duties, and powers.” And, absolutely, children and rangatahi are at the heart of that entire system.

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. May I start by saying that I don’t appreciate the Minister’s mischaracterisation of my interrogation of the legislation last night in the committee of the whole House stage. A diligent member of Parliament takes this opportunity to tease out issues in the legislation, and to represent me highlighting the fact that accountability and independence should be weighed in the balance—they’re competing considerations to some extent—seeking to reconcile them, inviting the Minister’s comment, and to misrepresent that as somehow arguing in favour of more or less independence than my colleagues, I find rather, well—

Simeon Brown: Shameful.

CHRIS PENK: I’ll just say irritating; we won’t go further than that.

As for the point regarding reports not needing to be made any more frequently than three years—and the Minister says, “Well, that’s the minimum requirement”. That’s my point. I pointed out that it was a minimum requirement; it could be as much as three years. Of course, it could be less. It could be three days, it could be three months, it could be three whatever—whatever intervals that might be used. I can’t think of any others, of course; I’ve gone general on it, but that’s the whole point. This is a very serious matter.

I presume the Minister agrees, and no doubt that she’s trying her best, not only to get most of the sector off-side but her best to actually do the right thing. I presume she’s trying to. I did presume, until such time as she actually doesn’t seem to take seriously reasonable questions about accountability mechanisms within the bill. This is the whole thing. The whole thing is about accountability. The whole thing is about transparency. Yes, independence is an important value, but so too is the need for those who are involved in the system, those who are not involved in the system, but would critique and monitor it, and, most importantly, those who are so deeply affected by the system as to have their rights and freedoms curtailed by the system. It’s important on all their behalf that we take these questions seriously, we ask these questions, we answer these questions, and we don’t belittle these questions.

So I will take the opportunity to ask some serious questions, in good faith, about some aspects of Part 2 that I think are interesting and important. I hope the Minister shares my view that they’re interesting and important, whatever substantive view she might have in terms of how those should be answered.

So my question is in relation to the role of the Ombudsman. We see in Subpart 2 of Part 2 that the purpose of the subpart is to provide the Ombudsman with additional duties and powers when dealing with matters that fall under the Ombudsmen Act 1975. These relate to services and support delivered by Oranga Tamariki—or OT as it’s commonly known—or care or custody providers. So that seems helpful, actually, just to throw a bouquet out there. It seems helpful that the Ombudsman, who is an officer of Parliament, who has a role to provide some accountability through this House, we know, effectively—I suppose one might say, on behalf of the House. I don’t know that I’ve framed it particularly well, but, roughly speaking, it’s a positive thing that we have someone who is part of the arrangements of the State but not part of the Government of the day, not part of the executive, even. It’s part of Parliament, which is technically separate, has got some accountability mechanism there.

So notwithstanding that that many people who have commented on the bill are dismayed, or at the very least questioning, but many are dismayed at the changing in responsibilities in relation to the Children’s Commissioner. This, at least, so far as it goes, might be said to add an element of accountability. So that’s fine. My question is, in terms of not only complaints and investigations that might be initiated by others, if the Minister sees a role for the Ombudsman in maybe initiating matters of inquiry. Of course, the Ombudsman has a role in relation to our prisons, so obviously a different kind of context, but at a level similar in the sense that people’s freedoms of movement and so on are being constrained by the State—pretty serious matter. So I just wonder if the Minister can explain how she would see circumstances in which the Ombudsman could actually initiate investigations into how OT is using its powers. I look forward to that. I think that would be helpful not only for the purpose of the committee, and I sense the Minister’s ready to answer that question, so I’ll simply resume my seat and say that I look forward to it.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Yes, and I will also mention that a number of complaints received from the Children’s Commission in recent years have been sent over to the Ombudsman because they do have the power and functions to be able to receive those complaints. Many of the complaints—and I’ve spoken to the Ombudsman about this—have been able to be resolved without getting to the point of inquiry. However, absolutely, if they are not able to be resolved easily, then they can be escalated to an inquiry. This is not a new function for the Ombudsman. However, the bill in front of us provides much greater clarity with regards to the Ombudsman, complaints, and his ability to be able to receive those.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ll, firstly, just respond and thank the Minister for addressing some of the points I made last night. I do find it a bit frustrating to get the response about the concern about the public sector positioning of this—to say that was a decision of Cabinet, it’s not in this bill—when, actually, the whole shape of this bill is formulated on the changing of the functions of the Children’s Commission—and will be the Children and Young People’s Commission—to sit alongside a monitor that sits within Government. That doesn’t feel entirely, I don’t know, open.

I also want to address the point the Minister made, to say that, actually, to have it within a department and a statutory office is not unique. I recognise that that point was addressed in Improving a System when Young Lives are at Stake, written by David King and Jonathan Boston, who pointed out that same point, that the Government Statistician, the Public Service Commissioner, and Commissioner of Inland Revenue are also all statutory officers. They go on to say, though, “However, the circumstances surrounding these positions are quite different. They are areas where constitutional norms and consensus have built up over time, to all but guarantee full independence.” Except they go on to say that the Public Service Commissioner could not be viewed in the same way, and, actually, there’s a very close relationship in that sense to the Minister.

I also want to address the point the Minister made about saying this was a recommendation of the royal commission and just express my real frustration in relation to that when, actually, the Royal Commission Forum, who have been observing those processes, wrote to the Government and to every member of the committee asking us to advocate, to pause this legislation until the royal commission finally reports, and noting that the interim report that the Minister is drawing on to make that comment—they’d only heard, like, about 20 percent of the evidence. They hadn’t even looked at any of the material in the Children’s Commission. They were only just identifying research gaps that they needed to try and fill. So to rely on that, in terms of justifying this legislation, feels very flimsy and problematic to me.

I would also like to ask the Minister, in terms of the monitor and some of the other critiques that have been raised about this: we hear the Minister saying that there will not be the ability for the Minister to take work from the monitor—I understand that—just to be able to give them work, but there’s no visible, at least, budget that goes with that. To me, that creates a real potential of actually saying “Here’s work, here’s work, here’s work.” that then means other things they’d planned fall off. Or, at the very least, it creates a tension for them in terms of their own independent programme.

Also, the up to three-yearly report on the state of Oranga Tamariki, which is similar, I would argue, to the reports that were done by Russell Wills, in terms of the Children’s Commission, that were hugely influential and important for us as a country, my understanding is that the content of that report is going to be defined by regulation. That is political. That is not independent. So I would like to hear the Minister address that point and tell me how independence is actually maintained in that context.

I also want to speak to the point where the Minister has previously said that they can’t support our Supplementary Order Paper to remove the clause to ensure that the monitor has an objective of supporting public trust and confidence in the Oranga Tamariki system. And I just re-emphasise that for many people, for myself, but many other people, that is a real point of concern. When we discussed this in the select committee, we were told that this has been a key objective for the bill since its inception, that the bill was borne out of reviews, due to reported failings of Oranga Tamariki system, and the resultant diminished public trust and confidence, so the system needs public trust and confidence in order to function. I ask the Minister: when everyone is saying, “Do not do this. We do not trust this proposal.”, how can she think that is going to build trust and that just telling the organisation that it has to deliver trust will do it?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Speaking to Part 2 of the bill and referring to the functions of the monitor again and the concern that the member has raised about the fact that we have allowed for the Government to be able to ask the monitor to undertake some work, I just want to refer to clause 24, that says, “The Monitor must carry out a review on any topic within their monitoring function at the request of the Minister responsible for the Monitor. However, a request under subsection 1 must not require the Monitor to stop carrying out any one or more of their monitoring activities currently under way or scheduled to begin in order to prioritise a review of the matter to which the request relates.” So no request from a Minister can override what is being asked of the monitor through the legislation.

Also, I want to give some justification to why I actually think that that’s really important. I actually think that Government after Government—and I won’t even just say this one; I will say previous Governments—have had concerns and have expressed their concerns about the Oranga Tamariki system. And if we’ve got a monitor in place, we want to be able to ask them to actually look into any areas that we think may be of concern or underperforming in some way, because I think, fundamentally, in this House, we all believe that we need an oversight system that works for those children.

So it is not imposing something that I think is unfair or unreasonable on the monitor. I think that, actually, collectively, we might want independent advice on areas we are genuinely concerned about—and I don’t even think that’s just us as a Government; I think the previous Government may have wanted the same thing as well.

But as I said, it can’t undercut what is required or override what is required of the monitor through the legislation. The member has asked about budget; that’s not something I can speak about with regards to the bill. And the member has asked about—trying to think what else was asked about—I think it was mostly to do with the monitor and the expectations around the monitor.

Oh, the member did just raise concerns about the royal commission and the report that will be due next year. It’s actually kind of related to Part 3—well, it’s definitely related to Part 3—because we actually put a Supplementary Order Paper up in that part that reduces the time frame for the need to report back on the system, with the purpose of really responding to some of the calls out there for us to reduce that period of time. But that is for discussion in Part 3, so I won’t continue to traverse that.

HARETE HIPANGO (National): Thank you, Madam Chair. And we are addressing before the committee of the whole House Part 2 of the bill. Part 2 covers clauses 12 to 42. I’m just going to touch on—the Minister referenced to Part 3, and we’ll address it appropriately when we get there. But the time frames were issues that I reiterated at the select committee and was dispensed by officials and members from the Labour benches as not being significant to this. Child-centric is what I keep emphasising and reiterating.

On that note, coming back to Part 2, talking about the monitor’s responsibilities, I addressed and put before the committee of the whole House last night—last evening—Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 230, it’s one of my SOPs, and that was to do with clause 16. And, again, the Minister, on advice, it would appear from observation, has been advised that that’s not relevant. I’m going to bring that SOP 230 up again—number 230.

I’ve heard the Minister talk about the role of the Independent Children’s Monitor, that there have been about four reports that have been filed thus far. It’s well known that the children’s monitor was established, the office and the appointment, in 2019. Here we are in 2022 and this bill—soon to be law, and it will go through undoubtedly—is about requiring what the functions and the duties are of the monitor. That’s three years or four years post the establishment of the monitor who’s put out four reports. I have one of those reports to hand, and I remind the Minister that the Independent Children’s Monitor has reported the importance of the children and young person’s voices, and I quote, “allowing them to have a voice regarding decisions made about them, particularly when that child is in care.” Further quote, “children will need to have a voice in the system”, not about the system mentioning and referring and looking at other organisations and the overview of the Independent Children’s Monitor, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, soon to be board, in an advocacy role, and the Ombudsman in terms of investigating complaints. But there’s no specific reference to the positioning of children in the system. That’s what my clause, the Supplementary Order Paper 230 was precisely doing.

I reiterate, the bill in terms of the Independent Children’s Monitor’s tools and monitoring approaches, clause 16(2)(b) reads, “operate in a way that recognises the importance of children’s and young people’s families, whānau, hapū, iwi, and communities …”, doesn’t actually insert and include that it should operate in a way that recognise the importance of children and young people and their families, whānau, hapū, iwi, and communities. I reiterate that this is a direct recommendation coming out of the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, and for some reason has just been parked and dispensed with. Our children should be centre and central and pivotal to what the function of the Independent Children’s Monitor is.

So that’s why I say directly to the Minister, directly to the public who are listening in, and directly to the Office of the Children’s Commissioner: I’m advocating for the inclusion and the importance of children and young people’s voices being particularly factored in to what the tools and monitoring approaches are of the monitor.

Further to that, in the Supplementary Order Paper 209, clause 16(4) “In developing their tools and monitoring approaches, the Monitor must consult—(a) the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki: (b) the chief executive of services approved under … Oranga Tamariki Act … (c) the Commissioner of Police”. Where’s mention of consultation, engagement directly, with the children and the young people? So my proposed amendment, is that there be the insertion of a clause 16(4)(d) “care-experienced children and young people and their whānau.”

So the Independent Children’s Monitor report emphasises the necessity and the importance of that. And, again, I quote page 6 of the children monitor’s report, dated May 2020, “child-centric approaches. Considerable importance was put on placing tamariki within the context of their whānau.”

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Some of what was brought up by the member was discussed last night, and we talked about the Government Supplementary Order Paper—a lot of what came up from that member was discussed last night. We talked about the Government Supplementary Order Paper and, I think, actually, one of the Green Party ones as well, which further enhances the need to ensure the best interests of children and that children are consulted.

The issue with the Supplementary Order Paper that that particular member has put up is that that member is asking us to consult with every single child in care.

Harete Hipango: No.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Now, that is not practical—it is—and that would result in the slowest-moving system ever, which would not support or protect the children in the way that she is voicing that she would like to see them supported. The Independent Children’s Monitor, as it currently exists—and she is right; it has been around since 2019—has already been consulting with care-experienced children when developing their tools, but it is certainly not practical to consult with every single one.

KAREN CHHOUR (ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to this issue. During the select committee process, it was very clear how distraught some of the submitters were in regards to the independence of the monitor and having trust in the monitor that it did have independence. Now, I’d just like to speak to a report that was sent to the Minister on 16 April 2022, and this is a report I got from an Official Information Act request. The purpose of the report was to provide advice on specific independent provisions for the Oversight of Oranga Tamariki System and Children and Young People’s Commission Bill and it set out four different options on how you were going to look at putting independence into this bill. I have a few questions around some of the things written in this report, and one of them was—it states “MSD had initially explored a more explicit independence provision when drafting the bill similar to the independence provided to the Chief Archivist under the Public Records Act 2005, as there was a clear recognition that the monitor needs to be perceived to be independent in order for public support in trust and transparency. However, the Public Service Commission was not supportive of including this explicit legislative independence provision of this nature.”

Would the Minister mind letting us know why they weren’t in support of having that kind of independence added into this bill?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I just want to reiterate that the form of the monitor was a decision by Cabinet and is actually not traversed in this bill at all. The decision was made, and now we have drafted a bill that is in front of us with the level of detail around how it will work, but it’s certainly not something that was in the bill.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to take a call on this piece of legislation. I want to raise a couple of questions in regards to the appointment process for the monitoring of the Oranga Tamariki system. I would like to ask around the appointment process for the independent monitor of Oranga Tamariki too. The question—I note from the debate—has been around the independence. I’d like to have the Minister outline how the independent monitor is going to be appointed and what the process of that will be, because I think it’s important that this committee understands how that process is going to be undertaken, who will be responsible for it, because, I think, in the interests of making sure that this committee appreciates the independence—if that is what it is to be—that process should be clearly articulated by the Minister.

I also just want to make a quick couple of questions in regards to clause 17 in regards to the Māori advisory group. I note that the monitor must appoint a Māori advisory group in order to support meaningful and effective engagement with Māori. I’d like to understand, again, the process by which the appointment process for that must take place. It says here in clause 17(2), “A person must not be appointed as a member of the Māori Advisory Group unless, in the opinion of the Monitor, the person is qualified for appointment, having regard to the person’s—(a) experience and knowledge of children’s and young people’s rights and issues in the context of the Oranga Tamariki system; and (b) experience and knowledge of tikanga Māori.” Now, obviously that has some criteria involved in that, but as we’ve seen from recent appointments to the ministerial advisory group on Oranga Tamariki that there have been a number of questions raised in relation to individuals and the fact that CVs were not required or disclosed as part of that process, which I think is absolutely shameful when we are talking about some of the most vulnerable New Zealanders.

Harete Hipango: The checks were not done.

SIMEON BROWN: The checks were not done—the background checks were not done. I think it’s critically important that this committee has assurances that those checks will be undertaken in regards to that.

So this Government has, effectively, in that appointment process, I think, undermined confidence in Oranga Tamariki, and particularly in the Government’s ability to manage that system by failing our young people, by not actually doing that CV check and background check. I think it would be highly useful to the committee to have the Minister actually answer questions to ensure that the processes in place under this legislation in regards to the appointment will be more thorough. And I assume that it will probably be more thorough because it won’t be a ministerial appointment, ironically. That’s the real issue in regards to those appointments was actually it was the Minister who was in control and the Minister wanted to find a quick way through. But here I assume it will probably be more rigorous, but I think it’s important that we actually have that laid out very clearly for the committee to be able to understand. Thank you very much.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I just want to make clear that the bill—and particularly Part 2 of the bill that we’re looking at at the moment—does not seek to amend the Public Service Act with regards to the process for the appointment of chief executives. That stands. It’s the Public Service Act. It still remains with the Ombudsman, for instance, that it’s the Officers of Parliament Committee that takes that through its process, I think, from memory. And the Children’s Commissioner and the Chief Children’s Commissioner, as is in the bill, is still appointed via Cabinet. There’s no attempt to change any of the mechanisms there through this bill in any way, and nothing is stated in here that does that.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, I have time for one more quick call before I need to report progress. I will take Karen Chhour.

KAREN CHHOUR (ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair. So just going back to this report, it states, “submissions at the select committee stage were largely opposed to the bill. A lack of independence of the Monitor was cited as one of the key reasons for not supporting the bill. Some submitters recommended the inclusion of a specific legislative independence provision in the bill, however the majority recommended that the Monitor would be established as a Crown entity to ensure independence from Ministers”—then goes on to say, “Cabinet decided that the Monitor would be a departmental agency hosted by Education Review Office (ERO). Advice on the home of the Monitor was addressed that if the Monitor was housed within ERO, the Monitor would face issues regarding the perception of ministerial influence.” I’m just wondering what kind of advice did you receive on that, and how damaging the perception of ministerial influence would be on public trust?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): We looked at overseas examples of where they had split monitoring and advocacy, and the rationales for that—also the redress report that came through from the royal commission that felt that it was really important to differentiate between the two, and to keep them separate. We had to make a determination, as a Cabinet, when given the different options. We absolutely agreed that the monitor needed to have the level of independence that we have clearly articulated in the bill that we have in front of us. But we also thought, given our experience and sometimes the questions that we’ve had of Oranga Tamariki in general—and I know previous Governments and all parties in the House have—that we wanted the ability to be able to ask them to undertake work where we had concerns with the system. I think that that’s a really important part of what we’re able to do with the monitor, with the way in which we’d set it up. If it had a higher level of independence, we would have no ability to even be able to ask them to do any additional work that may be reflective of the concerns that we might have. So we as a Cabinet—again, it’s not in the bill—made that determination.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, the time has come for me to report progress.

House resumed.

Report of Committee of the whole House

Report of Committee of the whole House

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Mr Speaker, the committee has considered the Appropriation (2022/23 Estimates) Bill and reports progress. The committee has also considered the Overseas Investment (Forestry) Amendment Bill and reports it without amendment. The committee has also further 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.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): The House is suspended, and I will resume the Chair at 9 a.m. tomorrow for the extended sitting.

Sitting suspended from 9.58 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Thursday).

WEDNESDAY, 10 AUGUST 2022

(continued on 11 August 2022)

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Good morning, members. The House is resumed for the extended sitting. I call on Government order of the day No.5.

Bills

Maniapoto Claims Settlement Bill

Second Reading

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations): I present a legislative statement on the Maniapoto Claims Settlement Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I move, That the Maniapoto Claims Settlement Bill be now read a second time.

Tākiri mai ana te ata, ki runga o ngākau mārohirohi. Korihi ana te manu kaupapa, ka ao, ka ao, ka awatea. Tihei mauri ora.

E mihi ana ki a koutou kua tae mai nei i runga i te karanga o te kaupapa o te rā, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa. E mihi ana ki te hunga mate, haere, haere, haere atu. Ki a tātou te hunga ora, tēnā tātou. Te whakamānawatia ngā mana o ēnei whenua e tū āhuru nei, tēnei au, otirā mātou te Kāwanatanga e mihi nei ki te kaupapa o te wā, Ngāti Maniapoto, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[Dawn breaks, a new morning and a dauntless heart. The voice of this issue now sings, a new dawn leads to the full light of day. I now begin.

Greetings to one and all who have responded to the call of this issue to be here today. I acknowledge those who have passed, may you rest in peace. And to us who remain, welcome one and all. To pay tribute to these comfortable lands, I stand here, we the Government stands here acknowledging the present issue, therefore to Ngāti Maniapoto, greetings to you all, greetings, greetings one and all.]

This bill gives effect to the deed of settlement signed by Maniapoto and the Crown in November 2021. The deed of settlement acknowledges all the remaining historical Treaty of Waitangi claims of Maniapoto. Maniapoto is an iwi based in Te Rohe Pōtae, the King Country, in and around Taumarunui, Mōkau, Pureora, Te Kūiti, Ōtorohanga, Te Awamutu, and Kāwhia. Their area of interest includes the adjacent marine environment and part of the exclusive economic zone, and I’ll come back to that a little later in my remarks.

The historical claims of Maniapoto relate to loss of life in conflicts with the Crown. Maniapoto bore the costs of the New Zealand Wars. The Crown failed to uphold promises made in the 1880s relating to Maniapoto land administration and self-determination. The Crown acquired Maniapoto land in an aggressive manner. These actions have contributed to economic and social marginalisation within New Zealand society and the loss of traditional tribal structures.

Now, through the Maniapoto settlement, the Crown will apologise for its actions, and my hope is this settlement will reset our relationship and provide the basis for the Crown to work alongside Maniapoto to help it rebuild its social, cultural, and economic structures.

This bill comprises seven parts detailing cultural and commercial redress, natural resources redress, and the Crown’s apology redress. I look forward to describing this bill in greater detail at its third reading.

Maniapoto has established Te Nehenehenui, the post-settlement governance entity that will receive the settlement assets on behalf of Maniapoto and represent the iwi in its future dealings with the Crown. I acknowledge Te Nehenehenui and all members of Maniapoto’s negotiating team. I acknowledge Maniapoto representatives are in the House today, including Bella Takiari-Brame, chair of Te Nehenehenui; Keith Ikin, chair of Maniapoto Māori Trust Board; Matua Tiwha Bell, former chair of Maniapoto Māori Trust Board; Matua Pat Stafford; and other kaumātua, trust board members, and staff. Your dedication and determination have been vital in the path towards settlement. I also acknowledge and thank you again for the wonderful carving that you gifted me the last time we met.

I also acknowledge the previous Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, the Hon Christopher Finlayson, as well as Government agencies and local authorities for their contributions to the bill. I want to also acknowledge the chief Crown negotiator, David Tapsell, who represented the Crown right from the outset of negotiations. I acknowledge my colleagues in the House who whakapapa to Maniapoto, and in that respect I particularly acknowledge the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, the former lead negotiator from Maniapoto, who began the negotiation process and for whom I know this settlement carries special significance.

The bill was referred to the Māori Affairs Committee on 14 December 2021. The committee reported back to the House on 15 June this year. They received and considered 26 submissions. Two submitters supported the bill and 19 submitters opposed the bill or sought changes to it. Nineteen submitters spoke to their submissions online in March. I’d like to extend my thanks to the committee for their work and consideration of the bill.

The committee carefully considered the evidence presented by Rereahu and Te Ihinga-a-rangi. It sought further advice on the background to their engagement with the Crown, particularly the mandating process. Representatives of these groups are concerned for the loss of their independent identity. These concerns are acknowledged. However, I can reassure these groups that there is considerable scope for their interests and identities to be accommodated within the structure of Te Nehenehenui. I encourage them to remain engaged in the conversation.

The committee recommended minor technical amendments to the bill. I’m satisfied with the committee’s recommendations as they will ensure the redress agreed in the Maniapoto deed of settlement can be properly implemented through this bill.

I want to mention here a special and novel feature of the Maniapoto Claims Settlement Bill. This bill recognises a statement of Maniapoto interests out to 17.4 nautical miles from the coast, within the exclusive economic zone. While this is an existing interest under section 4 of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012, this bill recognises that Maniapoto presented the Rohe Pōtae petition to the House of Representatives in 1883. That petition described Maniapoto interests as extending 20 miles—that’s 17.4 nautical miles—out to sea and it was part of a series of agreements between Maniapoto and the Crown in the 1880s which were intended to set the relationship between the parties.

Rather than creating ambiguity, this explicit recognition clarifies rights under the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act for the area over which it applies. It is not an exclusive recognition and it does not confer additional rights on Maniapoto. It does not preclude or exclude recognition of other existing interests in the same area, but it provides certainty that Maniapoto will receive notifications that they are already entitled to receive. Above all, it honours the agreements and the relationship that Maniapoto and the Crown established all those years ago.

Another feature of this bill I want to mention are clauses 21 and 22, concerning land subject to Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act 2017. Te Pou Tupua is the human face of Te Awa Tupua and it acts in its name. There are or may be small watercourses running through land that will be transferred to Maniapoto, the beds of which are parts of Te Awa Tupua. Maniapoto wish Te Pou Tupua to assume landowner functions for these riverbeds. This does not preclude Te Pou Tupua and Maniapoto, together with Ngāti Hauā in respect of jointly vested sites, from agreeing an arrangement for them to administer such riverbeds at a later time.

The second reading is a part of the last stage of the settlement process that seeks to recognise what is important to Maniapoto and to provide redress for historical breaches of the Treaty. This is another step towards acknowledgment, recognition, and reconciliation. I hope that it can allow for Maniapoto to have confidence for the future. I look forward to welcoming back a larger contingent of Maniapoto to the House for the third reading in the very near future. I commend this bill to the House. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

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

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the National Party, as the National Party’s spokesperson for Treaty negotiations, to speak on the Maniapoto Claims Settlement Bill at its second reading. To the members of Maniapoto in the gallery, I welcome you here—tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa—and to all those watching online, I welcome you as well.

This bill gives effect to the deed of settlement signed on 11 November 2021 between the Crown and Maniapoto. The deed will settle all the historical Treaty of Waitangi claims of Maniapoto resulting from acts or omissions from the Crown before 21 September 1992. The Maniapoto area of interest encompasses the King Country, including the adjacent marine environment—part of the exclusive economic zone—17.4 nautical miles out to sea. The principal townships within the area of interest are Taumarunui, Maniaiti / Benneydale, Mōkau, Pureora, Te Kūiti, Ōtorohanga, Te Awamatu, and Kāwhia.

This bill contains provisions related to settlement redress that require legislation for their implementation. Other aspects of the settlements are provided for only in the deed, because they do not require legislative authority.

The signing of the deed of settlement between Ngāti Maniapoto and the Crown has been a process that has taken over 30 years to complete. The settlement is testament to decades of hard work and negotiation between Maniapoto and the Crown, and signifies the beginning of a new relationship between both parties based on trust, cooperation, and respect for the Treaty.

Maniapoto’s historical grievances relate to loss of life in conflicts with the Crown, and bearing the costs of the New Zealand Wars. The Crown acknowledges that it deliberately undermined Maniapoto independence, failed to uphold promises made in the 1880s relating to Maniapoto land administration and self-determination, and acquired Maniapoto land in an aggressive way.

It has been a long journey for Maniapoto to reach the journey that we are here today. No settlement can ever compensate for the mamae that Maniapoto have endured for many generations. However, this is a very big and important step forwards, and I wish to acknowledge those who whakapapa to Maniapoto in the House, and in particular the Hon Nanaia Mahuta. I know this has been a big piece of work for her as well over many years.

The settlement package is one of the largest negotiated, and it includes financial redress which will, in total, be worth approximately $177 million, relationship agreements with various Crown agencies, the transfer of 36 sites back to Maniapoto as cultural redress, the first right to purchase Crown lands in the future, an agreed historical account, and an acknowledgment of Treaty breaches and a formal apology for those breaches.

We heard a number of submissions on the Māori Affairs Committee, of which I am a member. There were some significant concerns raised by Rereahu and Te Ihinga-a-rangi. The committee carefully considered those and we sought further advice, particularly around the mandating process, and we also carefully looked at the Waitangi Tribunal, which had considered a lot of these matters. We acknowledged those concerns, and I take heart from Minister Andrew Little’s speech before, where he reached out to them and asked them to remain engaged in the process.

There was an issue that I did raise that we wished to have clarification on at the very first reading of this, around clauses 124 and 125 under Subpart 9 and section 4 of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environment Effects) Act, and the interplay between those. I engaged with the Minister and I’m thankful for the clarification received from his officials, which were incorporated into the report back to the House.

The commentary states—and I’ll just read it out—“Clause 124 provides Maniapoto’s statement of interest in the [Exclusive Economic Zone]. Maniapoto’s interest extends to 17.4 nautical miles out from the coast, not to the full extent of the EEZ. Clause 125 provides for Crown recognition of that interest as an existing interest under section 4 of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012 (EEZ Act). The recognition provided by clause 125 is only for the purposes of the EEZ Act. It is not an exclusive recognition and does not confer additional rights on Maniapoto. It does not preclude or exclude recognition of other existing interests in the same area.

“The EEZ Act already requires the responsible Minister and consent authorities to notify iwi authorities of any proposed regulations, proposed EEZ policy statements, applications for marine consent for a publicly notifiable activity, or applications for marine consent for a non-notified activity if the Environment Protection Agency considers an iwi authority may be affected by the application.

“As such, Maniapoto would already be notified under existing statutory requirements of such applications within the Maniapoto rohe. Other iwi authorities would also be notified should the application also fall within their rohe. This process provides for Maniapoto to submit about impacts on their interests, which must be taken into consideration as relevant matters in decision-making by the Minister and consent authorities.

“The recognition provided by clause 125 will give more certainty that Maniapoto will receive notifications it is already entitled to receive, and provide a clear basis for Maniapoto to assert its right to have impacts on its historical interests considered by decision-makers. The recognition provided by clause 125 does not amount to a new interest, an exclusive interest, or a veto on proposed regulations, proposed policy statements, or applications for consent.”

So that provided clarity around the questions that I raised in the first reading, and I’m grateful that those have been clarified, as I hope they would be through the process, and I thank the Minister and his officials for engaging with that to provide that clarification to the select committee and, ultimately, to the House.

This is an important moment. We obviously have the third reading still to go, and that will be the culmination of this process and the start of a new process for the relationship between the Crown and Maniapoto. It is a privilege and honour to be part of this process today and to be part of the journey towards creating that new relationship, which is a hugely important one, and recognising the importance and the growing future which will be a very exciting one for Maniapoto. With that, I’m very happy to support this bill through to the third reading, and I look forward to its further progression and the completion of this process and the beginning of a new one. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Tuatahi, he mihi tēnei ki a koutou o Ngāti Maniapoto. Tainui waka, Tainui tangata e mihi kau ana ki koutou katoa kua tae mai nei ki te tautoko i tēnei kaupapa, tō pire.

[Firstly, I greet you of Ngāti Maniapoto. The Tainui canoe and the Tainui people acknowledge your coming here to support this issue, your bill.]

I would like to first of all just thank our manuhiri who have come here today to witness and to be part of this process. So often over this COVID pandemic, we’ve had nobody in the gallery, so it’s really nice to have warm bodies in the House to be able to talk to. So I just want to acknowledge that, first and foremost.

The Minister has outlined the couple of changes that the select committee requested, but I’ve got to say that it’s never easy. When you’re talking about historical Treaty settlements, they are never easy, and they’re made harder by the fact that there is a deed of settlement that happens, everybody signs up to it, and then it comes to the select committee for a formal process through the parliamentary system. We can’t substantially change the things that occur in the deed of settlement from the time of the deed of settlement to now—and nor should we—but we should be able to scrutinise the process, and if we believe that the process has been wrong or if we believe that something needs to be raised, then we do.

Part of that process is the submission hearings, where we have to listen to everybody’s side of the story, and sometimes that comes with a lot of heartache and a lot of pain. In this particular situation, we felt that heartache and we felt that pain that has gone on between some parts of the iwi who believe one way is the right way, and other parts of the iwi who believe that they are right and that they want to pursue things the way that they did.

The Minister did briefly say that, in total, we’ve had 26 submission: only two in support, 11 in opposition, nine wanting to see changes to the bill, and four where we would actually say, “No position expressed.” They’re the aunties and the uncles that just want to be heard about something. We get to the end of their submission and we say, “Did they support it or not?” and we don’t really know, so they go down as “No position expressed.”

However, some of those people that didn’t support the bill just generally oppose the Treaty settlement process. They believe that it’s divisive or they believe that the Crown is not doing enough, but they came forward and they had their voice heard.

Some of the submissions talked about the Minister and talked about the fact that in their position, they felt as though there’d been a lack of consultation with the Minister, and I want to say that we had to scrutinise that as well. We had to find the information on how many times did this particular group meet with the Minister, and we were satisfied that there had been due diligence on that part.

This has been a long road for the people of Ngāti Maniapoto, and, again, it was made harder because there had been these differing factions. We worked out really early on that there was amongst the people that were causing a bit of dispute a real, fundamental whakapapa recollection about Rereahu and about Maniapoto and about Ihinga-a-Rangi and where everybody sits in that, and what became clear to us was that this was a conversation about mana and about where people felt as though their mana was, where they wanted it to be, and the impact that they felt was going to be felt by people if they didn’t sort this out.

So this became very quickly a conversation about who had the mana, was the mana handed over, or could mana be handed over, and these are really deep philosophical issues for the Māori Affairs Committee to have to grapple with. It’s easy when everybody agrees, but, actually, when they don’t, you really have to sit down and ask the questions: has the process been followed, and what exactly is our job in this House? There’s one thing that is not the job of the Māori Affairs Committee to do, and that’s to decide what the right whakapapa is or who gave mana to whom.

We have to go with information that’s around us, and I want to point to a very pertinent clause. It’s an important argument. The Rereahu position was summarised in a submission by Grant Erskine from Afeaki Chambers, which said that the bill would remove the ancestral association of two iwi, Rereahu and Te Ihinga-a-Rangi. The submission stated that it didn’t want to prevent Maniapoto from settling with the Crown, but it didn’t want Maniapoto’s claims to, effectively, confiscate the land over which Rereahu iwi and Te Ihinga-a-Rangi iwi have mana whenua. The submitters claimed that Maniapoto do not have a mandate from Rereahu or Te Ihinga-a-Rangi to agree settlement terms which relate to them. The submission states that “The Bill, if enacted, would create a fresh grievance.”, and that’s something that we don’t ever want to do. We never want to create a grievance out of a grievance.

What we did in that position was we took advice from the Waitangi Tribunal report, and, again, this parliamentary process that we’re going through is just one part of the process. Our iwi have been on this process for a long time, working through the Waitangi Tribunal and working back at home with the iwi. There have been many incarnations of this. In the tribunal report, Whatu Ahuru, and also the other report, the Maniapoto mandate report of 2020, the report provided findings and recommendations on how to settle claims with the rohe of Pōtae region, and it acknowledged that there are alternative readings of the Rereahu whakapapa. But the tribunal came down in favour of the interpretation that Rereahu had conferred his mana tangata on Maniapoto and that the Crown had been guided by this finding in its approach to the mandate challenges.

In the right of reply that we have from the Maniapoto Māori Trust Board, they acknowledged that a stand-off had happened between the aspiration for a collective settlement versus the aspiration for multiple settlements, and that was at the heart of what most speakers had gone and put forward. We believe that the Maniapoto Māori Trust Board always wanted a collective settlement, but argued that this didn’t meant subservience for any of those individual groups which would make up the new governance entity, Te Nehenehenui. We were satisfied that the new entity Te Nehenehenui would keep the door open for those other iwi that wanted to come and sit at the table, and that’s what the structure currently looks like.

There is a need and a want to get this show on the road, and this has been far too long, whānau. So I look forward to the third reading, where we can actually tick this off so that our iwi can move forward with confidence. They can start investing, they can start building, and they can start on their journey of reparation for what this Crown did—the Government in this Parliament that was standing in right here. We need to be able to just give the money over and say sorry and do what’s right and put things right, and that will make us feel better in here, but, actually, it’s the start of a whole new journey for the iwi.

So I congratulate you on getting this far. I want to thank all of the submitters that appeared before the select committee, even though many of them didn’t support where this was going. But we know that this is a process, this is a journey, and I’m looking forward to moving this journey out of this House so that our whānau up there can actually move on with their settlement and with their lives so that they can make the decisions that our tamariki mokopuna need them to be able to make hei oranga mō te iwi [for the well-being of the people].

Nō reira, e te whānau huri rauna i tēnei Whare, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, mauriora ki a tātou katoa.

[So to the family all around this House, greetings, greetings, and life to one and all.]

HARETE HIPANGO (National): Tēnei taku karanga ki te pānuitanga tuarua o tēnei pire.

[This is my call on the second reading of this bill.]

This is my call to make an address to the House and, importantly, ka nui te mihi ki ngā manuhiri [I acknowledge the guests]. Haere mai, nau mai rā i tēnei Whare, Ngāti Maniapoto, ngā uri o Ngāti Maniapoto.

[Welcome to this House, Ngāti Maniapoto, the descendants of Ngāti Maniapoto.]

In taking this call at second reading, I stand as a member of the National Party. Importantly, I stand as uri of W’anganui and always carry that, as we know, being descendants of the rohe of the tribal peoples that we come from.

In speaking to the Maniapoto Claims Settlement Bill, this is the second reading. To explain to members of the public listening and gathered, the second reading is when we bring the bill back to the House after there’s been scrutiny at the select committee level, and colleagues have addressed the House explaining some of that engagement and kōrero that occurred.

Before I move further to address the components of the bill, I acknowledge the Hon Andrew Little as Minister for Treaty settlements, his predecessor, the Hon Christopher Finlayson, and, importantly, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta for the fact that you have led and picked up the mantle from generations before to carry that through, amongst the other leaders and representatives gathered in the Whare today.

In so far as addressing what the second reading of the bill is, and picking up on the addresses that have been made by Minister Little and also by the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee, Tāmati Coffey, I do sit on the Māori Affairs Committee, alongside my colleague Joseph Mooney. But regrettably, because I was called to participate in other matters, I didn’t hear all of the submissions, although I have read them. There is a difference, though—reading as opposed to being present and listening—because of the heartfelt settlement that goes with that level of engagement kanohi ki te kanohi. So I’ve picked up on that from listening to the kōrero of my colleagues but also, as much as I possibly could, from reading the documents and from the small part that I did have of the engagement in listening to some of the commentary.

So it has been traversed, the chronology of the passage of where this bill has arrived at today. The history is encapsulated in the bill. The bill is comprised of seven parts, 233 clauses, and six schedules. Encapsulated within the bill, importantly, is the factual historical account, and I always encourage New Zealanders who are listening in to these debates about the importance of what the factual correct account is, because what many of us have been exposed to through our education system and the learning of my generation before is the inaccuracy of that. So these bills put the record straight.

The Māori Affairs Committee has provided a report back to the House and that report is indicating what amendments are proposed after consideration of and listening to the submissions—the evidence, importantly, from the people most affected and afflicted—and then also listening to the advice of the officials from Te Arawhiti. It’s detailed in the report, and I’d hoped that the people of Ngāti Maniapoto—and it’s been addressed in the House today also that there have been some disputes around the positioning of mandates and authorities, and as to whose account takes precedence and priority. In the Māori Affairs Committee, when we receive the bill and we listen to the accounts by way of evidence, we do take that to heart. We factor that in, and I am often cognisant that by the time we receive this information, so much has gone on before that it is somewhat perplexing as to what we are able to do.

It’s also important that any of the tensions, the conflicts, the challenges—the raruraru—that has been canvassed further before the select committee—it’s preferable that those matters are resolved amongst the people who come to us, and the history has been accounted by way of various disputes that have been put to the Waitangi Tribunal and the rulings that have been made accordingly. So we’ve heard some of the raruraru and the associated mamae and feelings and tensions in relation to the story from Rereahu and Ngāti Te Ihinga-a-rangi. That has been taken into account but—importantly—so has the date of settlement and the journey that has been traversed through that period of time to arrive at that point.

So the report that the select committee has presented back to the House is indicating proposed amendments, and those proposed amendments, in particular, happen to refer to my people. In relation to Te Awa Tupua—the W’anganui River—and the land subject to that in terms of the course and the flow of Te Awa Tupua—W’anganui River—through Ngāti Maniapoto lands. So one of the amendments that has been proposed—two of the amendments, clauses 21 and 22—is just indicating that ownership of certain Crown-owned parts of the bed of the W’anganui River, including its tributaries, be transferred to Te Awa Tupua, which is the recognised legal personification of the river, and the representatives of that—two are appointed our Te Pou Tupua, who are the human face in the representation, and, as is often the case, we whakapapa to many who were involved in the course of history and the course and flow of the stories that go with this. So the two Te Pou Tupua of W’anganui are my cousins, and, in fact, my aunties—cousins intergenerational. We are of similar age: Keria Ponga and Turama Hawira. Prior to Keria’s appointment, it was Dame Tariana Turia—whanaunga.

So what I’m stressing is the importance of the relationships, the interconnectivity, and the fact that we feel and we acknowledge the importance of that. So the two Te Pou Tupua—Keria and Turama—will assume the landowner functions on behalf of Te Awa Tupua and uri of W’anganui. They are landowner functions for the beds of these tributaries of where the river courses through the lands of Ngāti Maniapoto. When I saw that provision within the bill, I was somewhat concerned to ensure that Te Arawhiti—our officials—had engaged to explain what that means and the onus and the burden of responsibility that comes with these positions. We’ve been advised that that has been appropriately addressed, and the responsibility will be carried by Te Pou Tupua—importantly—of the relationship and association with Ngāti Maniapoto.

There’s so much to cover in the course of these debates in such a short time. That’s the benefit of this being shared with other colleagues who will stand to address the House. The bill is detailed thoroughly, and when we have the privilege to speak at the third reading, many of us will address significant portions of that. I have a tendency to always come back to the acknowledgment of the Crown and the apology in terms of the history, the imposition of the wrong, and the injustices that have occurred there.

I’m just going to share too with Ngāti Maniapoto that before I stood to take my call, my phone buzzed, and, of course, we don’t take phone calls in the House. I flicked it open to see that it was a phone number from Ōtorohanga, so I’m sensing that it was somebody from your people, your regions, trying to make contact with me, and I will attend to that at another time.

Also, as I stand, I’m adorned here with a piece of jewellery, and, just to share, this is a piece of jewellery designed and created by Tania Tupu, who is based in Raglan. What is inscribed or positioned on it is a heitiki with a heavy Crown weighted on its head. I share that because, as Māori, when we stand in this House now in our role and capacity as Crown agents, we feel the burden and the weight that goes with this responsibility, and I acknowledge the Hon Nanaia Mahuta—Minister—the weight and the burden that we carry of generations before and the privilege that we have to stand today. But it is I, as a Crown agent, who acknowledges Ngāti Maniapoto in endorsing and commending the bill to the House. Kia ora, Madam Speaker.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister for Māori Development): Tēnā koe, tuahine, mō tō kōrero, mō tō tautoko ki tēnei pire i tēnei wā.

Koutou Ngāti Maniapoto tae mai nei i tēnei wā i whakarangatira i a mātou, ngā mihi ki a koutou. Kei te tino waimarie mātou i te mea kei konei koutou ki te whakahōnore, ki te tautoko i tēnei pire. Ki a koutou ngā rangatira, Tom, Uncle Tiwha, mihi ana ki a kōrua i ārahi i te kaupapa mai i te tīmata. Nō reira, koutou katoa i tae mai nei i tēnei wā, tēnā koutou, ā tēnā anō tātou katoa.

[I acknowledge you, my friend, for what you have said and for supporting this bill at this time.

Ngāti Maniapoto, we are honoured to have your presence here at this time, we acknowledge you. We are very lucky that you are here to honour and to support this bill. To the leaders, Tom, Uncle Tiwha, who have lead this matter from the beginning, I acknowledge you. To all that are present at this time, I extend my greetings to you all.]

Just acknowledging that kōrero from our previous speaker Harete Hipango. Very important some of that kōrero, particularly in terms of tautoko, I think, for our chief negotiator, who I’m sitting by—Minister Mahuta—who shepherded this kaupapa all the way through, right from the start. It was a terrific job that she did through the different processes, and I want to mihi to her, first of all, in terms of some of the women who have championed this. It’s not an easy world in Te Ao Māori for some of our women who are leading some of the kaupapa, and they’re coming to the fore, so I mihi to her.

I mihi to Bella Takiari-Brame too, for her mahi. She’s one of our people who we are investing in. We’ve got her on some of the boards now. We have her on the ACC board, and we need more and more Māori women coming through. So I just wanted to acknowledge some of them today.

I also want to acknowledge one of my kuia who died in our whānau. She was the last of the Batley whānau, my Auntie Kath—Kathleen Te Whare. She was 98, and she was the last of the Batley siblings of Ngāti Maniapoto and Ngāti Tama heritage. You know, Tom, she wasn’t kāore ia he matatau i te reo. Engari he nui tana mahi i runga i te marae [she was not proficient in the Māori language. However, she did a lot of work on the marae]. She was the backbone and helped at Maniaroa Marae. She was part of a whānau of 15 who were key in the building of Maniaroa, and we laid her to rest about a month ago. She was proudly Maniapoto and was one of those unsung kuia who were always there, and we remember Auntie Kath well.

So I want to mihi to our women who have been such a big part of things. To yourself, Tom Roa, Uncle Tiwha Bell—we wouldn’t be where we are today without your mahi.

Can I say today, I was listening to our chair, Tāmati Coffey, and it is a reminder of the problems we have as Māori MPs—the process that we have to go through. It doesn’t matter what side you’re on as we traverse this process, where we have friends and whānau who will come up and oppose us, and, like our people in the audience, I’m sure they have been approached. I’ve been approached by different whanaunga and friends, and some are all there and some are a bit crackpot—

Hon Members: Ha, ha!

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: —well, we know this, eh; it’s just a fact—and you think, “Oh God, we’ve just got to get on with the mahi. We’ve just got to do the business.” I know how hard it is on the Māori Affairs Committee, having been one of the chairs of the Māori Affairs Committee many years ago. I was thinking about it and, on first look, you look at the people who oppose it and you think “Oh, there’s all these people against—against—us.”, but that’s just the nature of the beast. We also know there’s a huge amount of people who tautoko, but they don’t necessarily come up at select committee.

But I want to mihi to our chairman, Tāmati Coffey. He’s been doing a terrific job, because he has. If you don’t know this process, you don’t know how difficult it is. I was thinking about it when he was chairing the Ngāti Rangitihi process, and the biggest opposition he got in the process in terms of the bill was from my wife, who absolutely opposes the settlement. It made it a little bit tricky for myself, of course—made it a little bit tricky for myself. My wife and her sister, I think, were the biggest opposition—weren’t they, Tāmati?

Tāmati Coffey: My auntie.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Yes—poor old Tāmati. He’d come up for some tautoko; I made sure I wasn’t around the place. But these are the difficulties we have. I’m not going to tell my wife, who was a Treaty lecturer for 15 years, the history and the background of the bill. She could give you every reason, and if you read her you’d just about support her, but I couldn’t go down that track.

These are the things that—this is not an easy process, and what I ask today is if there’s another one, please tell me, because what we have is what we have. So sometimes you have to say, “Yes, we hear you. But, no, we’re getting on with the job.”, and that’s what we’re doing here with this particular process.

Look, let’s not kid ourselves—let’s not kid ourselves. There are some good reasons that come from people who oppose the bill. This is not perfect; you know, the settlement process has never been perfect. It was designed by National and supported by Labour, but until we get a better one—until we get a perfect one—we have to deal with the cards that we’ve been dealt. That’s why I mihi to our select committee for being reasonable, for showing our people respect, and for always saying to our people that “Even though kāore koutou e whakaae [you don’t agree], and we acknowledge you and we acknowledge your mana, there’s a bigger purpose here.” The bigger purpose is that our people have had so little that we have to grab what’s in front of us, sometimes, and that’s the reality in terms of the process. If we wait for the perfect process, Māori people will be waiting for ever and a day—we’ll be waiting for, for ever and a day.

So we work very collegially with our mates on the other side, because before we came to Parliament, many of us had worked in Te Ao Māori together, so we know that we have to find a way forward so that our people can see the benefits and feel the benefits and get the opportunities they deserve. Even though it’s on a pūtea that is probably worth 2 percent of what the settlement was worth—right?—we all know about the economic benefits. We all know that our people could have put up 10 times—we all acknowledge they could have put up 10 times what the final settlements are. We have to do a deal for the benefit of everyone. That’s why I congratulate our chair, our committee, and all members of the committee on both sides—Government and National—for understanding what the final goal is, and the final goal has to be opportunity for our people. So well done to the select committee.

I don’t want to say too much else today. I want to say we’ll have a really good kōrero in the third reading—I think we will have a celebration. But I just want to mihi to our committee, all our members who have contributed, and our whanaunga who have come here today to support a really important process. E mihi ana ki a koutou. Tēnā anō tātou katoa.

TEANAU TUIONO (Green): Tēnā koe e te Pika. Te manako nui he pai katoa ngā āhuatanga ki tō Willie Jackson whare i te rā nei, i te mutunga o tēnei kerēme whakataunga.

Heoi anō, e mihi ana ki te Whare. Tākiri ko te ata, he manu kororī, he manu kororā, he manu i ahu mai he reo nō tuawhakarere. Ko tōna reo kia mana anō tēnei mea Te Tiriti o Waitangi, tōna aronga o te wāhanga tuarua te tino rangatiratanga o tō tātou nei ao Māori.

Te tuatahi me mihi atu ki a Ngāti Manipoto ka tika. Te āhua nei kei runga, kei te nā reira e mihi ana ki a koutou. Nā koutou anō tēnei pire. E mihi ana ki tō koutou nei māia kia oti ai tēnei tukanga pire. Kei te hoki ngā whakaaro ki tērā o ngā whakataukī, nā koutou, nā tō koutou nei rohe. I a au e rongo ana kua whakapau te toru tekau ngā tau kia tae tēnei pire ki tēnei wāhanga, ko tēnei whakataukī i pūpū ake ki taku hinengaro, arā, “Kia mau ki tēnā, kia mau anō ki te kawau mārō! Whanake ake, whanake ake, whanake ake.” Ko koutou anō tērā ki roto i ngā toru tekau ngā tau i kaha te para te hurarahi kia tae anō ki tēnei wāhanga o te pire. He tauira tēnei o te pūmautanga o te iwi i roto i ngā tau maha e whakatūria ana i roto i ngā mahi ōhanga i te whakatūnga ki roto i Te Rohe Pōtae, otirā Te Nehenehenui, me te tiaki i ō koutou nei iwi me ōna tikanga.

I a au e whakarongo ana ki te roa, te riu o tō koutou nei rohe, ko tēnā o ngā tāone rongonui e noho ana, te Te Kūiti ki te manawa o tō koutou nei rohe, kei te puku o te ika, kei te tonga o te pae maunga o Rangitoto. Ko te kōrero e whakaponotia ana, ki te rapa te uira ki aua maunga he tohu anō o te mate. Nā reira e kōrerohia tērā te wairua o tō koutou nei rohe. Ko te kōrero ko te maha o ngā papakāinga kei ngā whanga me ngā whārua pērā i a Waipā. E ai ki ngā kōrero koinei te nohoanga o Waiwaia te taniwha o te iwi. Nō reira kua mihi atu ki ngā taniwha, ngā tipua huhua o te takiwā. Nō reira e mihi ana ki te rohe, te rangi, ki a koutou katoa. Tautoko katoa au i ngā mihi ki a koutou ngā kaitakawaenga o tō koutou nei iwi, e kaha te whakapau werawera ki roto i ngā tau kia ea tēnei kerēme whakataunga.

I tautoko au i ngā kōrero i tō mātou nei tiamana o te Komiti Whiri Take Māori, a Tāmati Coffey me tō māngai a Harete Hipango i te mea ehara tēnei tukanga i te tukanga māmā, ehara tēnei tukanga i te tukanga māmā. I kaha haere mai ngā whānau me te mea atu ko tēnei mea te whakatau kerēme Tiriti o Waitangi, ehara i te mea i kotahi ai te iwi. Kei te wehewehe noa te iwi. Kei te whawhai te whānau me te whānau, te teina me te tuakana, te matua kēkē me te whaea kēkē, tērā āhuatanga anō. I kite tērā āhuatanga ki roto i e hia kē ngā pire i tau ki mua i te aroaro o te Komiti Whiri ngā Take Māori. Tērā te āhua nei e noho nei mātou ngā Mema Pāremata e kaha ki te whai ara anō kia hāpai atu i te mana o te katoa ki roto i ngā tukanga.

I āta whakaarohia e te komiti ki ngā kōrero taunaki a Rereahu, koutou ko Te Ihinga-a-rangi. I kimi kupu tohutohu mātou mai i ngā kaitohutohu e pā ana ki ngā kōrero tūāpapa o ō rātou whakawhitinga kōrero ki te Karauna. Ina koa mō te hātepe whakamana rōpū e ārohi ana i ō rātou nei āwangawanga. He āwangawanga anō hoki nōku ki te whakaaro anō ki ngā kōrero i tau mai. Engari i tika te kōrero, tē taea te komiti te mea atu kei tērā tangata te mana, ko tērā tangata te tuakana rānei, te teina rānei. Nō reira, ko tō mātou nei mahi ki roto i ngā tukanga o tēnei pire ko te whakarongo kia whai ara anō ki roto i te horopaki o te tukanga.

Heoi, ki a mātou nei ngā Kākāriki ko ngā whakatau kerēme pēnei i a koutou, ehara i te tīmatanga me te whakamutunga o tēnei mea te piringa o Te Tiriti o Waitangi, e kīia nei he full and final settlement. Kāore mātou i te whakaae ki tērā, i te mea mai rā anō tō tātou Tiriti o Waitaingi, i tērā atu o ngā rautau tae noa ki tēnei wā, he oranga i tua atu i tēnei kerēme. He oranga ki roto i ngā tatūnga o te kerēme, engari he oranga anō kei tua atu.

I a au e whakaaro ake anō ki tērā, i pēnei aku nei whakaaro ki a koutou ngā kaitono i haramai ki te Komiti Whiri ngā Take Māori, ehara i te mea ka oti atu tēnei kaupapa mā koutou. Kei te kapo au i tērā whakataukī o tō koroua, a Rewi me te mea atu, “Pēhea te roa o te whawhai? Mō āke, ake, ake, ake.” Tērā te manako nui o Te Tiriti o Waitangi i tana wāhanga tuarua.

Āe, kua tae ki tēnei wāhanga kua riro kia hokia mai ētahi o ngā rawa, ngā whenua ki ngā ringaringa o te iwi. Heoi anō, me kaha koutou katoa ki te whai i ērā āhuatanga katoa kia tino piki ake te tino rangatiratanga o ngā hapū, i te mea kei reira te kōrero o Te Tiriti o Waitangi e hāpai atu te hapūtanga ki roto i ngā āhuatanga o Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Ka tahuri ake ki te pire. Kua kōrerohia te Whare ngā āhuatanga. Ka whakamana tēnei pire i te whakaaetanga whakaataunga i te waitohu rā e te karauna me Maniapoto hei whakatau i ngā kerēme hītori Tiriti o Waitangi. Nō reira, tautoko mātou ki tērā. Kei roto i te pire ko tētahi whakarāpopoto o ngā tātai kōrero o ngā kerēme tae atu ki te ōhanga ā-tinana, ā-ahurea, ā-wairua hoki o te iwi. Kei mahue hoki ko ngā whakaaetanga me te whakapāha atu ki te tāpae rā e te Karauna ki a Ngāti Manipoto.

Kei roto i te pire nei ētahi ritenga e pā ana ki tētahi puretumu whakataunga me mātua whakature kia ū ai, tae atu ki ngā rawa ahurea, ngā rawa taiao, te puretumu tauhokohoko me ētahi ritenga e pā ana ki te whakahounga hanganga kāwanatanga me ētahi atu o ngā take.

Ko tētahi mea hou i rongo ki roto i tēnei tukanga i mua i te Komiti Whiri Ngā Take Māori ko ngā pānga o Maniapoto ki te āpure ōhanga rāhui arā te exclusive economic zone. I whakaarohia e te komiti ngā pānga o te āpure o taua rāhui. Nō reira i kōrerohia e te Minita mō tērā o ngā āhuatanga ka tae mai ngā pānuitanga ki a Ngāti Maniapoto ka tika kia mōhio mai mēnā ka pānga tērā āhuatanga o tērā ture ki tō rātou nei āhuatanga ki roto i a Ngāti Maniapoto. He pānga anō kei roto i te Ture o Te Awa Tupua, nō reira me mihi atu ki tōku whanaunga nō te awa o Whanganui i mea atu ngā pānga o tērā ture ki a ia, otirā ki te awa tupua. E hāngai ana te rārangi rua tekau mā tahi me te rārangi rua tekau mā rua ki te whenua e pānga ana ki te Ture o Te Awa Tupua, nā reira e pai ana ki te tiro tērā āhuatanga. Te āhua nei kua whakaae katoatia e ēnā iwi i manako nui, i mana nui ki roto i ngā āhuatanga o Te Awa Tupua. Nā reira he pai ki te tiro tērā atu o ngā āhuatanga.

Nō reira he nui ngā piki me ngā heke o tēnei o ngā pire engari ko te mea nui, kia kaha koutou. Kia kaha koutou ki te toro atu ngā ringa ki te hunga kāore e hiahia tēnei pire. Kia kaha koutou ki te whakaraupapa rautaki i te mea ehara tēnei i te otinga, he tīmatanga noa iho tēnei haerenga ki tōku nei whakaaro. Kei te rekereke o te maunga he tihi anō hei pikinga mā koutou katoa.

Nō reira, Ngāti Maniapoto, otirā ō koutou nei whānau katoa puta noa i Te Rohe Pōtae, Te Nehenehenui, anei anō ngā Kākāriki e mihi ana ki a koutou, otirā tēnā tātou katoa.

[Greetings, Mr Speaker. I hope that everything goes well at Willie Jackson’s house today, at the conclusion of this claims settlement.

I also acknowledge the House. The day is dawning, birds on the land, birds on the sea, their call is from ancient times. They call for the Treaty of Waitangi to regain authority, to take heed of article two, the unqualified exercise of chieftainship over our Māori world.

Firstly, it is appropriate that I acknowledge Ngāti Maniapoto who are seated above, therefore I acknowledge you. This is your bill. I acknowledge your courage to bring this bill process to completion. I recall the whakatauki from your region. When I heard that it’s taken 30 years for this bill to get to this stage, this whakatauki came to mind, “Hold fast to that, hold fast to the swoop of the cormorant!” This has been what you have been doing for the past 30 years, paving the way to get here, to this stage of the bill. This is an example of the steadfastness of the tribe throughout the many years that you have undertaken economic activities in the King Country, in Te Nehenehenui, and also protecting your tribe and your customs.

As I was listening to the expanse of your territory, that well-known town Te Kūiti sits at the heart of your region, in the central North Island, to the south of the Rangitoto mountain range. There is a saying that is understood, if lightning flashes above those mountains, it is a sign of death. This talks about the nature of your region. It is said that most of the settlements are around the harbours and in the valleys, such as Waipā. According to tradition this is the home of Waiwaia the taniwha of the iwi. I acknowledge the many taniwha and tipua of the region. I acknowledge the region, today, and I acknowledge you all. I absolutely support the acknowledgements to you, the mediators of your iwi, who have worked hard over the years to settle this claim.

I support what the chairman of the Māori Affairs Committee, Tāmati Coffey, said, as well as your representative, Harete Hipango, because this is not an easy process. The families have come in force to say that this claim settlements process is not something that has united the tribe. The iwi has been split. Families are fighting, older and younger generations are fighting, uncles and aunts are fighting alike. We’ve seen this happen through the many bills that have come before the Māori Affairs Committee. These are the predicaments we find ourselves in as members of Parliament who are actively working to find other ways to enhance everyone’s prestige in these processes.

The committee has carefully considered the evidence of Rereahu and Te Ihinga-a-rangi. We sought guidance from the advisors in relation to the pre-negotiation communications with the Crown, particularly regarding the procedure of mandating groups who are investigating their concerns, because I also have concerns, if I was to consider the information that was presented. However, what was said was correct; the committee is not able to say who has authority, or who is the more or less senior. So our job, through the process of this bill, is to listen so that we can pursue other avenues in the context of the process.

So, to the Green Party: the settlement claims such as yours are not the beginning and end of the relationship with the Treaty of Waitangi, said to be full and final settlement. We don’t agree with that because since former times, from the 19th century up until now, our Treaty of Waitangi has given other relief outside of this claim. There is relief in the resolutions within the claim, however there are other benefits outside of this.

As I was thinking about that, this is what I thought about your applicants who came to the Māori Affairs Committee, this won’t be resolved for you. To quote your ancestor, Rewi, “How long will we fight? For ever and ever.” This is the great desire within the second article of the Treaty of Waitangi.

We have come to this stage: what’s left is to return some of the resources and lands back into iwi hands. Nevertheless, you should all be strong in pursuing these things in order to build the autonomy of the subtribes because the Treaty of Waitangi says it will support the autonomy of subtribes within matters of the Treaty of Waitangi.

I turn now to the bill. The House has spoken about the matters. This bill will give effect to the settlement agreement once signed by the Crown and Maniapoto to settle the historical Treaty of Waitangi Claims. We support this. In the bill is a summary of the history of the claims including the physical, cultural and spiritual economy of the tribe, not to forget the agreements and the apology to be offered by the Crown to Ngāti Maniapoto.

In this bill are provisions for settlement redress that must be enacted so that is fixed, including the cultural and environmental assets, commercial redress and provisions for revising the governance structure and other issues.

Something new that I heard in this process before the Māori Affairs Committee were the interests of Maniapoto in the exclusive economic zone. The committee considered the effects of that exclusive zone. The Minister therefore spoke about how this will affect Ngāti Maniapoto, as they should know if that legislation will affect the situation in Ngāti Maniapoto. There are also connections with the Whanganui Settlement Claims Act, therefore I acknowledge my kinsman from the Whanganui River who explained the effects of that legislation on him and the river. Sections 21 and 22 pertain to the land affected by the Whanganui Settlement Claims Act, so it was beneficial to look at that aspect. It seems that those iwi that were ambitious and influential through the Whanganui Settlement Claims proceedings, have agreed entirely. It was good to look at that other aspect.

Accordingly, this bill has many ups and downs, but the most important thing is that you are resolute. I encourage you to extend your hand to those that oppose this bill. I encourage you to put in place strategies, because this is not the end, this journey is just the beginning, in my opinion. At the foot of the mountain is yet another peak that you all must climb.

To finish, Ngāti Maniapoto and all your kin throughout the King Country, Te Nehenehenui, again, the Greens acknowledge you, and also acknowledge one and all.]

KAREN CHHOUR (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in support of this, the Maniapoto Claims Settlement Bill. We believe that when people are wronged, that it should be righted, and it should acknowledged when people are wronged.

I can’t stand here and claim to understand the whole settlement process, because I haven’t been involved in one myself. But what I can do is speak to people who sometimes sit there and say, “What’s the point of these settlements? You know, it’s in the past. Why do we keep dragging this through the settlement process?” I was reading through this, and some of the points that are made are actually very pertinent so that we don’t repeat history.

So I was reading and I was wondering what happened. I saw the Crown did not uphold its promises between 1890 and 1905, and Māori lost ownership of more than 250,000 hectares of land, or one-third of their district. Now, let’s just bring that into this time and think about it: if you’re a family and you own a home and that’s your piece of land, that’s what you call home, and somebody comes along and just takes that from you and your family is now displaced with nowhere to go and with no acknowledgment of that wrong. I think people need to understand that and think about it in that context. What would you do if your family was suddenly displaced through your land being taken in an aggressive manner by the Crown? Would you sit back and say, “Oh well, so sad. Let’s not worry about that.”?

I want to acknowledge those who are here today who are seeing through this process that has taken a long time. Now, I heard this has taken over 30 years from the beginning of the process—I was still in primary school. When I think about that, that hurts. I was lucky enough to be raised by my grandmother. She may not have spoken to me about stories about land and issues like that, but she spoke of the pain of the things she went through when she was younger, growing up as a Māori that felt displaced in this world, not really knowing where she belonged in this world. Those stories are important so that we don’t forget.

I want to acknowledge the courage it has taken where this has happened, between 1890 and 1905, and this has been passed down through generation to generation to make sure that this wrong is acknowledged. Now, no money can take away the fact that you’ve been wronged. As victims, I think sometimes the pain that we spend every day fighting, fighting, fighting, and fighting can take it from us, and I hope that the acknowledgement of the wrong helps heal some of that pain and helps with the process of moving forward and seeing a better future for tomorrow for your people and the next generation.

So with that, I would just like to commend this bill. I hope that the people of Ngāti Maniapoto feel that their voices have been heard, feel that their pain has been acknowledged, and, hopefully, understand that we all just want to see a better future for tomorrow for everybody in this country, especially people who have been wronged in the past, and that needs to be acknowledged.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Associate Minister for Māori Development): Tuia te rangi e tū iho nei. Tuia te papa e takoto nei. Tuia te here tangata. Ka rongo te pō. Ka rongo te ao.

E mihi ana ki a koutou, Ngāti Maniapoto i tae ā-tinana mai hei whakakanohi rātou kua wehe atu arā, ngā mahuetanga iho. Nō reira, tēnei e mihi ana ki a koutou katoa. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[Fasten the sky above us. Bind the earth below us. Unify the strand of man. Darkness is borne. Daylight is encountered.

I acknowledge you, Ngāti Maniapoto, who are present today to represent those who have passed on, you are their legacy. I acknowledge you all. Greetings, to you all.]

It gives me great pleasure to be able to make a contribution in the second reading. I want to thank members of the Māori Affairs Committee on the Government side who ceded their time so that I could take this opportunity to offer a few thoughts. I want to also make some acknowledgments, because over the period of time since the agreement in principle signing to now, we’ve lost a number of whānau within Ngāti Maniapoto who made a strong contribution to not only the settlement but actually the right context for the conversations to take place, to ensure that the spirit of those tūpuna, the original negotiators of the settlement, could be carried through to this day. So I want to recognise them.

I also want to recognise the most current negotiators of the settlement, Glenn Tootill and Keith Ikin, for stewarding through many of the much-needed conversations to materialise what we are debating here in the House, and also the Crown negotiator David Tapsell and his team, because it has not been without effort in terms of making sure that the clarity of purpose has been absolutely consistent, again, from the beginning of this process and right up until the third reading. So thank you all very much.

I also want to acknowledge the rangatira who are here in the House. I tried to, I guess, characterise the long journey of negotiation that has taken place, and I had to go back to the 1883 petition—Wahanui’s petition—that he brought to this House. I want to just take a brief moment to read some of that, because in order to understand the long journey of negotiation of Ngāti Maniapoto to get to this point, you really have to go back to the historical record that has been captured in the deed and in the legislation. With that, I also acknowledge Paul Meredith—who’s here—because he sacrificed his PhD so that we could have a good historical record. If this is going to be your PhD and your legacy, Paul, the clarity of the apology and the historical record will put Ngāti Maniapoto in good stead to teach history in our schools so that they know who they are and who they were destined to be, and it will be through this historical record.

But when I went back to the petition and read some of it, which I will share with you in the House, it went something like this—and I just plead with you for a little—“We have carefully watched the tendency of the laws which you have enacted from the beginning up to the present day. They all tend to deprive us of the privileges secured to us by the second and third articles of the Treaty of Waitangi, which confined to us the exclusive and undisturbed possession of our lands. We do not see any good in any of the laws which you have enacted affecting our lands when they are brought into operation in adjudicating upon lands before the Native Land Court at Cambridge and other places. All the practices carried on at the Land Courts have become a source of anxiety to us and a burden upon us. Through our ignorance of those laws we have been induced by speculators (land swallowers) and their agents to allow some of our lands to be adjudicated upon so that our lands might be secured to us. But having allowed some of our lands to be adjudicated upon, who is it that became possessed of them? It is true that after the investigations the natives received a certificate of title showing their right to the lands, but through the superior knowledge of the Europeans we accepted foolishly what the lawyers recommended to us by the speculators (land swallowers) thinking that they were to act in our interest, but in reality they were intended to prolong their investigations, thereby increasing the expenses to so great an extent that the natives were unable to defray them, so that they (the speculators) might seize the land,”. And so it goes.

Now, I read that little excerpt from the petition because it goes on to say that Maniapoto were doubly impacted during the time that the Native Land Court was established, and you will see in pictorial form that there was quick succession of the loss of land to Maniapoto when the Native Land Court was established. But, more than that, when the Land Wars occurred, not only did Ngāti Maniapoto look after themselves; they looked after people who were made dispossessed in the north from Waikato and in the south from Taranaki. So there was a doubling of the impact on Ngāti Maniapoto during two successive impacts on many Māori within that part of the region. It’s all set out in the historical record, but to understand the intricacies of the deed, I think you do have to go back to the historical record.

There are three aspects of the settlement that I want to speak to. First, there was the matter raised by the member Joseph Mooney in relation to clarification of the interests in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Again, the historical context goes back to those early conversations about the domain that Ngāti Maniapoto had explicitly referenced and expressed. But if the legislation—and, from what I hear, the select committee has considered this—clarifies the purpose and the interests of Ngāti Maniapoto in the EEZ, it will be a very useful thing, because what it will mean is that it is very clear and express how Ngāti Maniapoto can reference their interests in this area when it comes to marine biodiversity protection when it comes to other issues that happen in that area, and, if for nothing else, it enables Ngāti Maniapoto to assert the values which they will consistently assert on land and in the sea. So I think it has been a useful exercise for the select committee to go down that pathway.

There are a couple of other aspects that I think make clear Ngāti Maniapoto’s intent going forward. Nga Wai o Maniapoto—many of the select committees may or may not have heard that the Nga Wai o Waipa had been settled earlier. The thinking behind Nga Wai o Maniapoto and the natural resource aspects in relation to water have been carried forward into this settlement. I see that as fantastic progression, especially given the challenges in relation to the fresh-water and general water environment now.

Thirdly, I go back to the matter that Harete Hipango referred to, and that is in relation to Whanganui. I just go back to the relationship element of it. The headwaters running into the Whanganui River come off the Pureora, which is clearly in the Ngāti Maniapoto area. But if I go back to the rangatira agreement that was at the time, I understand, agreed to in relation to the late Archie Taiaroa and Tiwha Bell, effectively, the conversation went something like this—and forgive me, because I’m paraphrasing it. Between these two rangatira, they both agreed that “I’ll look after your interests in my rohe and you look after my interests in your rohe.” At the end of the day, relationships will underpin the successful implementation of the intent of our tūpuna but also the intent of Ngāti Maniapoto to ensure that at the headwaters we have got great care and custodianship of the waters that feed into Whanganui. So I hope that in terms of taonga tuku iho and kōrero tuku iho, the leaders within our respective iwi, we continue to maintain the relationship, because it’s kōrero like that that will ensure that the relationship and a way of working together will actually give essence to the intent of the settlement.

As for Rereahu, I may spend more time on that in the third reading, but it’s very clear in the settlement that the intention was always to be for the unified purpose of everybody, Rereahu included. So if there is any, I guess, thought from any member in this House that that would be an exclusion of interest in so far as the Ngāti Maniapoto settlement goes, that is misplaced. Every part of the way, these kaumātua and those before them maintained that the benefit of any resolution of outcome for Ngāti Maniapoto would solidify and build the unity of purpose of all of Ngāti Maniapoto, including Rereahu. The proof of the pudding will be in the practice, but, again, that will always come down to relationships.

I’m so proud that Minister Little has been able to steward this legislation through to its conclusion in a way that Ngāti Maniapoto will feel the historical issues have been addressed, and we can move forward into the future. Tēnā koutou.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call. I call Simon O’Connor—five minutes.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I’m actually not going to speak for too long, with the primary purpose being, as we’ve heard in the House and those in the gallery know, you’ve waited 30 years, and having this little Pālagi speak for far too long doesn’t actually help. This is actually a claim settlement that I have followed quite closely, because, amongst other things, my wife whakapapas to Maniapoto, so I’ve read all the documents. I won’t say whether or not I’ve given her advice on the voting or otherwise—that could get me into trouble in a whole lot of ways.

But one thing I just want to pull out of this—and look, the document is significant, the bill obviously is significant. But one aspect—I want to stress, there’s only one aspect—is around reparation. So utu or moni whakaea, that’s only a small part of it—the place of reparation. In English, obviously, “reparation” but also, I often think, in Latin for a variety of reasons is “reparatio”, and the original meaning of “reparatio” is to make ready or to begin again. The fundamental challenge here—and I think it was Minister Jackson who touched on it—is that no settlement can ever fully settle or pay back. There’s no way it ever can, I would suggest, even with the best of intentions.

So reparatio says we still have to make ready, and making ready is to start again, start afresh, from both sides, and that’s not from—I don’t speak for the Crown, but from the parliamentary side, that doesn’t mean that we want to cover over what’s happened. Despite any political parliamentary debates, the reparation, that reparatio, that utu, that moni whakaea side comes with a massive opportunity but also, I’d suggest, a massive burden to say that we are going to make ready and start again together, and—to finish on that—I find that a challenge as much to myself to make ready, to make reparation, to be prepared, to start again with all the imperfection that exists.

So, as I said—and I try to be a politician who’s honest—I said it would be short, so I’ve only taken half the time. There we go—thanks very much.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā rawa atu ki a koe. Kaupeka ki runga. Kaupeka ki raro. Kūī kūī whiti ora e.

E mihi ana ki a koutou, nau mai, haere mai ki te Whare nei. Mihi ana ki a koe, te kaiurungi o te kaupapa nei, a pāpā Tiwha, tēnā rawa atu ki a koe. Ki a koe hoki e te tuahine o Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, Val, tēnā koe. Nō reira e mihi ana ki a koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[The Speaker of the House, I greet you. Kaupeka above. Kaupeka below. Kūī kūī whiti ora e. I acknowledge you, welcome to this House. I acknowledge you, the leader of this matter, Uncle Tiwha, greetings. Greetings also, to you, Val, my friend from Te Wānanga o Aotearoa. I acknowledge you and extend my greetings to all.]

Can I acknowledge you, Matua Tiwha. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you. I spent a lot of time in my early teens occupying your couch, potentially your pantry and your fridge, down at Te Awa Avenue with my cousins, your namesake, Tiwha, and Kōwhai and Emere. It’s through them that I’ve followed this particular bill, and, as a member of the Māori Affairs Committee, you connect back with the whānau that you know—their history, their stories, and their whakapapa—and you keep in contact with them as you hear the stories of their whānau.

I acknowledge some of the comments from the Hon Willie Jackson, who acknowledges our whānau and some of the complexities, I guess, of how we perceive such bills like this, or such challenges in front of us, and most of all, I guess, some of the hurt and grief that we’ve faced over many, many years until we get to this point.

I opened with a whakataukī from my home, Mōkai Pātea, Ngāti Whitikaupeka, which is not too far away from yourselves. We are in the process of our journey of settlement, and it’s a challenging one as you learn more and more about your stories: the hardships, the loss, and the grief that we have experienced, no matter which iwi that you have come from.

So today I stand and I take the place of the Māori Party, which this space is normally scheduled for, because I want to speak in support of the Maniapoto Claims Settlement Bill as a member of the Māori Affairs Committee and as a member who heard all of the submissions across the way.

The Maniapoto Claims Settlement Bill gives effect to elements of the Maniapoto deed of settlement signed on 11 November 2021 between the Crown and Maniapoto. The explanatory note to the bill states that the deed provides for the settlement of all historical Treaty of Waitangi claims of Maniapoto against the Crown. The bill aims to address the aspects of the settlement that require this legislation, and this goes a little way—some would say a long way; I would sit in the centre—to acknowledging the loss and the grief and the hurt. But it acknowledges the pain that Maniapoto have faced in the loss of their land, and this seeks to address this.

My speech today is a very short one just to acknowledge the whānau, and to acknowledge this piece of legislation and the settlement that is going before us. But as I listened to those submissions, I encourage all whānau to come together at some point to work through the challenges that you experience that is set up, yes, by this process, but also look to the opportunity that redress puts in front of Maniapoto, the opportunity for generations to come for our tamariki mokopuna to set up good education opportunities, good housing opportunities, and, most of all, a future for themselves and Ngāti Maniapoto. Nō reira e mihi ana ki a koutou. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, mauri ora ki a tātou katoa.

[I acknowledge you. Greetings and wellbeing to all.]

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Ki te Whare e tū nei, tēnā koe. Ka karanga atu ki te whenua o Te Rohe Pōtae, tēnā koutou katoa ngā mema o te iwi o Ngāti Maniapoto. Tēnā koutou, ngā mema o tēnei Whare.

[Greetings, Mr Speaker. The House that stands here, I greet you. I call to the lands of the King Country and greet you, the members of Ngāti Maniapoto iwi. To the members of this House, greetings.]

I want to start by acknowledging our guests in the gallery and to say that usually at these second reading speeches for Treaty settlement bills, we all stand up and give very formal speeches. I want you to take it as a sign of absolute and utmost respect for you, and all of your uri who will be watching today, that the members of the Māori Affairs Committee and the Ministers involved in this process are still having an open conversation and coming together and airing the grievance we have heard, airing the differences we have heard, airing the mamae that we have heard in this process. It’s a sign of respect for your process, for your people, and for the depth of hurt in what has gone before the moment today, when we acknowledge this very important milestone in the Treaty settlement process.

I also want to acknowledge my colleague the Hon Willie Jackson and the member opposite, Harete Hipango, for their comments about those people who have disagreed with this process. We know, as Māori and in Te Ao Māori, that disagreement outside of here is a sign of respect, that we are debating those ideas with each other, and that we are talking more about how not only are these issues effective in law and in our constitutional framework but also to us as people. I know that they both know, and I know that members of this House know, that the Treaty settlement process is hard on the people who go through it and that that mamae that comes out is an important part of that. But I want to give this House a little bit of context about how that has occurred and for Mr Jackson’s comments about why the settlement is not perfect.

I’d like to step us back and take us through why we haven’t come to a perfect outcome. Without going too far back—Mr Speaker, if you’ll indulge me—I’ll start in 1857, and quote the Chief Judge of Native Land Court. Judge Fenton is often quoted in this House with his pro-colonial positions and his pro-Crown positions, but it’s this quote which I’ll start us with: “No system of government that the world every saw can be more democratic than that of the Maoris. The chief alone has no power. The whole tribe deliberate on every subject, not only politically on such as are of public interest, but even judicially they hold their ‘komitis’ on every private quarrel. In ordinary times the vox populi determines every matter, both internal and external. … no individual enjoys influence or exercises power, unless it originates with the mass and is expressly or tacitly conferred by them.”

It’s important that we start there, because we have come to a context for Māori society that was inherently democratic, where things were discussed, where there was raru in the open, and where we talked amongst ourselves and then came together as a group before any decision was made. So when the story of Ngāti Maniapoto and the Crown’s apology begins, we start at the Taranaki Wars, and in this bill, the Crown acknowledges that Ngāti Maniapoto carefully weighed the justice of the war in Taranaki in 1860 before intervening in the conflict. My colleague the Hon Nanaia Mahuta read that consideration of the conflict, which was careful and which was open and which was openly discussed between not only leaders but also ordinary people. When you look at it like that and you think about the clash of culture that was happening at that time, where land wars were happening over title of land ownership, which simply did not exist in the culture of Māori at the time, and when you consider the decision-making structures that were being used for people who opposed those land takings, it is no surprise that there is a history in every decade since the 1860s of clash between those tribal structures and Crown and an inability to make decisions that made sense to one another.

The next is the labelling of the Taranaki people and of Ngāti Maniapoto as rebels, and then followed the Waikato Wars and confiscations. My own tīpuna took refuge in the lands of Ngāti Maniapoto, and in this bill the Crown acknowledges of Ngāti Maniapoto to peace after 1865, when they gave sanctuary to Te Kooti for a number of years after he had agreed to also abandon warfare and to live in peace.

We have, then, an agreement between the Crown and Ngāti Maniapoto, and if I’m so lucky to give a third reading speech, I will take you through my longer, more formal speech about what that meant for Ngāti Maniapoto and the Crown in the years after. But I think what that shows us is that when we have these conversations about why a Treaty settlement individually isn’t perfect—and there are still parties who disagree even at this period in second reading—and where we all around the House acknowledge that people need to come together to find that spirit of kotahitanga, it’s built on these complicated, interwoven strands of more than a century of having the ability to come together and the ability to find kotahitanga undermined. We have that within us.

I have hope for this Treaty settlement process, which leads us to a place where we get to start again and we get to come together and to build those bridges, but it really is a heavy expectation, a heavy burden, that now Te Nehenehenui bears. When you hear it from members of this House that you hope we come together, I also hope that you see that as a mark of respect that we respect the work you have done to be able to put yourselves in a position where you can bear that burden of responsibility and of leadership, because it’s not an easy thing when you look at the history of how the Crown has both deliberately and recklessly undermined the ability of an iwi, a hapū, a whānau to be able to do that for themselves.

I think as well that there are a few important things in this Treaty settlement which are different and unique and which can be really celebrated as part of that going forward. One has been commented a lot already in this House already, which is the rights in the exclusive economic zone, but I also want to acknowledge the taonga tūturu protocols in this bill. The select committee did discuss these. One thing that I always get a lot of hope from in Treaty settlement processes is the ability of one entity within a group of people to be able to have responsibility for the claiming, the receiving, the gifting, and the making available taonga tūturu when they are discovered to the people. That again is a hefty responsibility, when taonga are found, to be able to enjoy them with iwi, and it’s so important in this bill that that has been given effect to.

My final comments are just to thank everyone who has come today. To all of the submitters, you’ve made the select committee process vibrant. We’ve had so many really robust debates around the table. It’s been an opportunity for me personally to really understand where my colleagues’—not only National members but also Government members—understandings and postures towards the Treaty settlement process are. Your settlement is a very important and special one, and it’s been a privilege for me to work on it. I thank you for coming here, I thank you for sticking with it, and I’m looking forward to working with you on it in the future.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a privilege to speak on the Maniapoto Claims Settlement Bill as it nears the end of its second reading. Having spent some time in that area—and I’ll touch on that shortly. It’s a great part of the country. But, growing up in Matamata, I’ve recently been through this process as well and had some great discussions with Ngāti Hinerangi as they have worked through their settlement process there. When I think about the challenges of going through these sorts of processes, it’s never easy and I don’t think anyone would say that it’s full and complete and satisfactory to all parties.

Indeed, I think we’ve seen that through the select committee process here as well, with 23 submitters with a range of different views on whether this bill is sufficient, insufficient, or too much—the real spectrum that I think highlights that over time, everyone comes to the table with different views, different priorities, and different expectations. At some point, you have to put a line in the sand and work forward from there.

Having spent a bit of time in the wonderful rohe of Maniapoto on-farm, chasing sheep around slippery hills, mustering, and hunting, it’s a beautiful part of the country, and I am delighted—I still have family down that way at the moment. When I think about the opportunity and the challenges, as I say, it’s complex over a long period of time, and I think what I love about these sorts of bills is that it enables a springboard to be developed and an opportunity to be created to not put aside everything that’s happened in the past but, of course, to acknowledge it and, as I say, put that line in the sand and then take the opportunity to move forward.

When I think about that in the context of where to from here, any time there’s a challenge—and we all face challenges in our lives in a whole range of areas. But how we respond to that is really what defines us, more so than the challenge. When we look at the key settlement details here in terms of the apology for historical breaches of the Treaty, an agreed historical account, cultural redress including the vesting of 36 sites of significance, and financial redress of $165 million, these aspects are all part of helping to enable that progression to the next step.

I don’t think anyone would want history to be forgotten, and, indeed, history is an important part of any society in terms of building that understanding of where we’ve come from, where we are now, and indeed what the future might potentially look like. That’s the part that excites me, because we are still in a place where we have massive opportunity as a country—huge potential all around our beautiful country—to do some amazing things, and I think we can rightly be proud of that.

Maniapoto should rightly be proud of their rohe—the beautiful King Country area that I’ve spent time in—but more broadly, about the potential that’s on the table now. When we look at the opportunity, there is limitless potential, and I think that, for me, is one of the most appealing opportunities. As I say, it’s about how respond, how we move forward, and what the future might look like as we try to create that next journey, and for Maniapoto, that presents a really exciting chance to redefine what the future might look like for their children and their children’s children. That’s an exciting time. For me, with young children, I look at their future, what that might be for them and where they might go, and what they might look back on and say about what we did and how we operated at the time.

History is always just a snapshot of what was happening at the time. It’s important, and I’m encouraged to see that we’ve been able to get to the point now where there is an agreed historic account, apologies have been made for breaches that occurred, and now we can look to the future with more confidence. As I said, that springboard enables Maniapoto to look at how we can get on with improving and taking that opportunity to explore new ventures, improving the understanding and the education, and taking the opportunity within the broader iwi and across all the different communities within that area as well.

So look, we are very pleased to be able to support this bill, noting, as I mentioned, that of course there’s never a perfect solution. There are always a range of different perspectives on these things, but, ultimately, it’s not so much the challenge that should define us but our response. I look forward to seeing the response of Maniapoto in the years to come as they redefine what I’m sure will be a more positive future for them and their iwi. Thank you.

ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou, Ngāti Maniapoto. Nau mai ki te Whare. It is a very humbling place for me to be, to stand and take the final call on the second reading of the Maniapoto Claims Settlement Bill. Welcome—it is really good to see you here.

It’s all been said, of course, so, again, like everyone else in the House, I wish to acknowledge all of the negotiators. It has been a very hard journey—as it always is, from what I hear—and your strength, your patience, and your grace is what has got us here today and I acknowledge that.

I just want to take a moment to consider something very special that comes from this really difficult process that every settlement process has gone through, and I want to thank you for it. That special taonga that you bring to the House today is your story. It is a unique story—they all are—but that story that you take the time to ensure is clear, is correct, and sets the record straight is so important. The Hon Nanaia Mahuta talked about the detail. She gave some detailed descriptions and explanations which show us and explain the scars that are borne today by your whānau and by your whenua, and the impact that this story has had over the years. It’s really, really important for us.

I come to this House from having been a part of the New Zealand education system as a teacher. I taught young people who whakapapa to Ngāti Maniapoto, I taught young people who whakapapa to settlers, and what you have given to the system, to the teachers, and to those rangatahi is so important and so valuable. The burden that we put on our rangatahi—we talk about opportunity and how wonderful it is going to be that they’re going to look after us in our old age and they’re going to build this incredible future. It will be made slightly lighter, because what you have given is an opportunity for these rangatahi to be clear about how we got to where we are so that they can build a bright future together. Maniapoto will be able to—rightly—have their mana intact and will lead that and show their classmates what they can do to support their self-determination.

The history, that detail that is so important to acknowledge, and the disregarding, time and time again—I’m using words from the bill—of solemn promises, not just Te Tiriti but all of those other very solemn commitments that the Crown made and broke time and time again. It’s very humbling to hear, and it’s very, very important for our young people to know very, very clearly that those transgressions through legislation, through war are really important to acknowledge.

I want to just reflect on some of the words in the bill about the acknowledgment about the education system and the scars that are still borne by our system today. It talks in the bill about the attempts in the late 19th and early 20th century to assimilate your people and to beat you if you spoke te reo on the school grounds, and the impact that that has had and that contributed to the loss of identity, the understanding of tikanga and mātauranga, and, of course, the socio-economic impact on generations down the line. The acknowledgment that the Crown didn’t protect te reo Māori but actively beat it out of your people—that is something, again, that is actually a very precious lesson for those of us who have been in the education system or who remain there and who have taken up the challenge to change things. Knowing that and having it as a matter of public record, and having the commitment in this House to support you to make redress is going to be really important for teachers in the system as they try their best to build an education system that sees those scars go away.

The only other thing I really need to acknowledge today is this. A wise man said to me quite recently, “As Pākehā, what place do I have in this House? What obligation do I have, on reflection, in this process?”, and he reminded me that my job is to uphold this apology. It will never be real unless it is upheld, and we must ensure that we never again pass legislation in this House that fails to uphold the mana of Ngāti Maniapoto. We need to make sure that policy in very practical ways—like in our education system—never again fails to uphold your mana.

So I just want to just reflect for one final moment that it is about the stories of hope. We’re not there yet, and sometimes we need to find the strength to take those last steps, when I imagine you’re tired.

I just want to reflect on Mōkau. I haven’t wrestled sheep in your rohe, and I certainly haven’t slept on anyone’s couches or raided their fridges. But I have had the privilege of spending time in Mōkau, on the beaches there, and recently I was up on the marae. I think that’s the best view in the country—there’s nobody from Taranaki here, right? But, you know, you’re up on that marae, and it was the most amazing day. It was a vaccination day for COVID, but the wonderful thing was not just the kai—there was a lot of it—and the bouncy castle, but it was the fact that everyone in the community responded to your leadership. We had farmers—grumpy old farmers—coming from up the road, being brought by their wives to come down to not just get their COVID vaccinations but their flu shots, and that comes from that leadership and the collaboration and the grace with which you are going to forge your way in the future but you are going to allow us to come along that journey with you.

So I will close there, and I look forward to the next steps in your journey in this House and beyond. Thank you.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This bill is set down for committee stage next sitting day. Kua whakaaetia te Mana Whakawā o te Whare kia tuku mai he waiata mai i a koutou o Maniapoto. Otirā i mua i tērā e tika ana kia tū ake au e whakapiri taku mihi ki ngā mihi kua mihia ki a koutou mai i ahau, tō koutou mema Pāremata, i tēnei rā whakahirahira. Nō reira koutou mā, kei a koutou te wā.

[The Speaker of the House has agreed that you, Maniapoto, can sing a waiata. However, before that, it’s only right that I stand and add my acknowledgments to those before me, from me, your member of Parliament, on this important day. The time now is yours.]

Waiata

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): I declare the House in committee for further consideration of the Oversight of Oranga Tamariki System and Children and Young People’s Commission Bill.

Bills

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

In Committee

Part 2 Oversight of Oranga Tamariki system (continued)

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Members, we now come to further consideration of the Oversight of Oranga Tamariki System and Children and Young People’s Commission Bill. I’ll remind members that they are able to participate remotely. If you are on Zoom and want to take a call, please type “call” in 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 of the bill during their call.

We are on Part 2. This is the debate on clauses 12 to 42, “Oversight of Oranga Tamariki system”. I will take the next call on Part 2.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. I just would like to speak to, in this contribution, Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 215 in my name that seeks to make an amendment to clause 16A, and I specifically want to speak a bit of a context to this, and I’ll acknowledge the author of the report that I’ve mentioned quite extensively in this debate, David King, one of the co-authors to Improving a System When Young Lives are at Stake, who wrote to me with a suggestion for an SOP based on information he had gained through an Official Information Act inquiry, trying to understand the independence that we’re hearing about of this organisation and what it meant for those who were drafting the bill.

What he found out through that Official Information Act inquiry that he received from the Public Service Commission—and I will note that what he received was a draft document. The final document is held by the Ministry of Social Development, who, as he wrote earlier this week, and I will quote, “is refusing to provide me with any information in a timely manner.” But what we do have in draft form clearly shows that the independence of the monitor is not what we would normally understand by the term “independence”. It is “appropriate independence which allows the monitor to work in a trusted manner with the Minister”. In public sector speak, that means the monitor doesn’t advise or advocate, as the report puts it, in favour of any changes to policy, only improvements to practice within current policy.

Now, this is a really, really critical point for the public, because there are such strong concerns around the practices and the policies of Oranga Tamariki. Since the initial policy work started on this piece of legislation, we’ve had a Waitangi Tribunal hearing, we’ve had a lot more submissions through the royal commission, we’ve had the Children’s Commissioner doing two very in-depth investigative reports, we’ve had the Ombudsman that has also had a really scathing report into the functioning of Oranga Tamariki, and there are very strong views that question whether it can be fixed as it is at the moment. So to hear that this is being set up to provide advice, accepting that we will not move from or challenge the existing policies, actually goes to the heart of our concern of needing to know: can this model be fixed? Many of us, actually, we’re not convinced that it can be fixed in those existing policy settings at the moment. The Waitangi Tribunal very clearly said that, actually, they were on the side of “No, it can’t.”, and that a Māori transitional authority needed to be set up to deliver for Māori, because harm had been caused, and disproportionate harm to Māori, by the Crown incursion on the rights of tino rangatiratanga over kāinga. That was done through this existing model.

So my SOP 215 makes an amendment to be able to just give us some more confidence that, actually, that monitor will have the ability to critique the Crown policy as well as providing increasing trust for the Government, which we’ve had so much debate and concern about. We’ve heard from the Minister earlier that this amendment isn’t necessary, and I’ve heard that, but this has come from somebody who knows legislation, who knows Government departments, who has said this is a provision that would give us a little bit more confidence that this could possibly have a degree of independence that we could have confidence in. I really encourage the Minister to consider it, because she’s told us she’s doing other things just to give us confidence, even though they’re not really needed. So why not this point?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): We’ve discussed this, but I will go into a little bit more detail on this. I know that what the member is seeking is the assurance around independence, and I do understand that. I want to refer the member to clause 16A of Part 2, which is about the duty to act independently, which says “The Monitor must act independently when (a) carrying out their monitoring function under section 14; and (b) developing tools and monitoring approaches under section 16. (2) 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.”

The objectives are derived from the functions, so we don’t need to then specify the independence of the objectives. In many ways, it doesn’t make sense, given the strength of provision around the monitor’s requirement to act independently. With regard to the objectives, though, it’s very clear in clause 13(1) that the objectives of the monitor are to carry out objective, impartial, and evidence-based monitoring, and then it goes on. That, paired with the explicit wording in clause 16 of this part, absolutely—absolutely—can provide assurance that the independence is there.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you. I just wonder if the Minister, then, could speak to the information, the points around the information, in the Official Information Act request that indicated that the independence and the monitoring was really meant to be within the scope of existing policy as opposed to critiquing the policy, which is—and this is where the public concern is had. We’ve seen the Children’s Commissioner speak out and challenge the institution and call for radical change because the policy settings are causing our children harm. And this is in our name, right? So we need to know—the public needs to know—that we are going to have somebody to stand up and do that. I know that the Minister might say, “Well, the Children’s Commissioner will still have the ability to advocate.”, but that will be advocated severed from the ability to shape the information that is being monitored—to be able to get the full range of information to be able to have the strongest possible advocacy. That’s a real concern for the public. We’re just not getting that this system is going to enable the truth to be told as opposed to providing a voice that will say how we can make this a little bit better and progress things, which is, I would argue, not in the fundamental interests of our children.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): We’re going down the route about the difference between advocacy and monitoring again. It is important that we have objective monitoring. The Children’s Commission, or the Children and Young People’s Commission, will still have the power to take that information and to use it to advocate. One of the tensions between advocacy and monitoring is that advocacy can shape the monitoring information. It is not, then, objective. We need the advocate to be strong, but we need the monitoring to be objective, to provide the Government, the Children and Young People’s Commission, and also the public the information that they need. The advocate can then take that, and then the advocate can advocate on behalf of the children if they see something that is of concern to them. They can still undertake the level of inquiries that they have to date, too—for instance, the uplifts inquiry that the Children’s Commission in recent years has undertaken. No one is taking that power away. We’re deviating a little bit from exactly what’s in here, but I thought I would give the member a response to her question.

KAREN CHHOUR (ACT): Just going back to that Official Information Act request and the report that I was speaking to yesterday, there’s a section in there on the ability to build and maintain the trust and confidence of the public. It states, “the ability to build and maintain the trust and confidence of the public, in particular Māori, it is important to ensure the Monitor’s findings are robust and well informed. If Māori do not trust or have confidence in the Monitor, it will be difficult for the Monitor to freely engage and present an accurate picture of how the system is impacting on Māori.” And I think it’s the same for all children: if we don’t have their trust, how can we guarantee that we’re going to get an accurate picture of how the system is working?

I still don’t think the Minister has presented an argument as to why this process could not be done under the commissioner in its current form. We’ve talked about the Independent Children’s Monitor being under the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) for a while now; how has that worked, has there been any findings on how well that has worked under MSD, and is there any particular reason why that could not have been transported into the children’s ministry not under error?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): We really have traversed the form, and I have made it clear in this House that the decisions around form were a Cabinet decision; they are not a matter for this bill, let alone this part of this bill.

With regards to trust, I have already mentioned that clause 16A in Part 2 clearly outlines the independence that is required of the monitor, and so, without wanting to repeat myself, I can’t further explain it, because I’ve traversed that quite clearly.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Junior Whip—Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I’ve listened to this debate and it is getting repetitive in some areas. I won’t accept the closure motion at this stage, but if there’s any new discussion, then now is the time to bring it out.

HARETE HIPANGO (National): Kia ora. Thank you, Mr Chair. I address the committee in speaking to Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 232, which addresses a proposed amendment to clause 14, which is in direct regard to the monitoring of the Oranga Tamariki system. Clause 14: this is where “The function of the Monitor is to monitor the performance of the Oranga Tamariki system in the context of its interface with other systems.” And subclause (2) is “For the purposes of subsection (1),” which I have just read, “the function includes (without limitation)—”. The proposal, Mr Speaker and Minister, is, as is detailed in SOP 232, clause 14(2)(c), to insert where it says “assessing outcomes for children, young people, families, and whānau, and iwi who receive services or support through the Oranga Tamariki system, and changes in outcomes over time, with particular regard to Māori children and young people and their whānau.”—the request for the proposed amendment is also to include “disabled children and young people.”, because it’s well known that disabled children have particular special needs and are often overlooked—and to push to ensure that in this oversight bill, as an amendment, there is no oversight of addressing the particular and special needs of disabled children.

I also call on the invitation that was made earlier to raise multiple issues within the opportunity to stand and address the committee. So an additional matter to SOP 232, which I’ve just spoken to: yesterday, the Minister raised in the Chamber the importance of consultation with children and that had occurred. I’d invite the Minister to respond accordingly that there was a report prepared by her ministry, dated September 2018, titled Insights from Children and Young People that is relevant to the review of independent oversight of Oranga Tamariki and children’s issues. If the Minister would please explain or clarify who SV8 Consulting Ltd are, which was the group that conducted the engagement in July 2018 for the purposes of providing this report back to her ministry, because it’s been reported that they are an “expert” group in terms of engagement with children; and why only 29 young people of a total of 1.1 million under-18-year-olds—who make up 24 percent of New Zealand’s population—were consulted and that her ministry deemed that that was sufficient to report a representation of young people’s views under the ambit of the September 2018 report. It’s been challenged and put to the Minister, time and time again, the importance of inclusion of children’s and the young person’s voice within the detail of this legislation.

I addressed the committee yesterday on a proposed SOP to clause 16 that’s been dispensed with, placed aside. The response being “No need for the particular and specific inclusion of children and young person’s interests.” I invite the Minister to explain, in terms of her ministry’s consultation under “expert” consultancy agency SV8, why only 29 children’s views were taken into account when it has been well heard in this Chamber. The representative voice, which the Office of the Children’s Commission engages regularly with—VOYCE - Whakarongo Mai—was not included at any stage whatsoever, and that’s based on the information that they have provided to members in Opposition. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): With respect to the first point raised around the Treaty obligations in monitoring, they are Treaty obligations, and so they don’t extend—

Harete Hipango: Point of order. Thank you. I didn’t address the Minister on any Treaty obligations, sir.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That’s not a point of order. It’s an opinion—you have to sit down—and a debating point. The Minister is addressing it, and so it’s rather disorderly to interrupt the Minister doing that.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Thank you, Mr Chair. There was mention of the Treaty obligations with regards to reference to the monitor, and I just want to respond to that member by saying that that would not be the place to make mention of disability, because of the fact that it is specifically about Treaty obligations. The member should know, at Part 3, she will see that there is specific mention around disabled children, and we can certainly traverse that when we get to that. And with regards to consultation, that is not specific to this actual section either. It’s not specific to this bill.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Junior Whip—Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

KAREN CHHOUR (ACT): I just want to speak a little bit more about a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) in my name, SOP 195. It’s in regards to entering facilities. This amendment would grant the commission entry powers to Oranga Tamariki facilities, acting in response to a request or a complaint by or on behalf of a child or young person in order to strengthen its performance as an advocate. Now, I speak to this from the point of view of young people that have said they would like to know that when they are in a situation where they feel that something is not right within a facility—they don’t feel safe or they feel that there is a chance of something going wrong—their advocate would be able to come in and advocate on their behalf.

I appreciate the Minister has spoken to this and said that authorities should be called in that situation, and, yes, I do agree, but it’s also to do with trust, once again, with young people. They need to know the person coming to them is somebody they can trust. As a young person that has been let down by the system myself—and I’m speaking now not just as an MP but as a victim of this system, and I want my voice heard as well, because I feel that my voice and what I went through is being trounced on in this process also. So as a victim of the system and as a victim of the people that were meant to be there to protect me, that I called and begged for help—they did not help.

What is the incentive to ring those people again who never helped you in the first place? If you’re in a facility and you’re feeling unsafe and they send in the very people that have let you down before instead of a person that you trust will advocate on your behalf, how are we going to get an accurate picture of the safety of these young people within these facilities? Many times we have seen where these facilities have gone wrong, within the media. The commission just even recently, through monitoring and advocacy side by side, found an issue where children were being held in these facilities where they shouldn’t have been, and they advocated for this to change. That just shows having monitoring and advocacy side by side can work. Thank you, Minister.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Mr Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Jan Logie.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Oh, sorry, Minister. Thank you, Mr Chair. I feel like I’ve been elevated suddenly. But thank you for this opportunity. I did want to speak a bit more on some of the specifics in my Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 214 and to get the Minister’s response around the particular points. From the position of the Green Party, we don’t think that this bill can be fixed in terms of meeting our Tiriti obligations or giving public confidence, because of the process that’s been followed as well as the lack of independence from the State in terms of the monitoring. But we have put a lot of effort into trying to work out how we could actually strengthen this bill to help us meet the recommendations of the Waitangi Tribunal. So in our SOP 211, we’ve put forward the suggestion that when developing monitoring priorities, work programme, and monitoring approaches, the monitor must ensure that they’ve got the key priority—the need to support improved outcomes for children, young people, particular attention to the need to support improved outcomes for Māori children, young people. We’ve added, “and their whānau”, and to uphold the rights of Māori to tino rangatiratanga over kāinga, as guaranteed by Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the Treaty of Waitangi.

This is about trying to get the Crown to be acknowledging the Hauroa report, and those recommendations, of the fact that Māori do have tino rangatiratanga over kāinga. So, therefore, any child protection system - related legislation really should embed that, because we have not acknowledged that. I know that there’s a view that this is a constitutional issue and therefore the Government can’t go ahead on this. Actually, it’s about our understanding of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and how we embed that in legislation. It needs to be done legislation by legislation, consistent with those rulings, the Greens would argue.

I really want to, on that point, call back to some of the submissions that came through from the Hon Dame Tariana Turia, Dame Areta Koopu, Dame Iritana Tāwhiwhirangi, Merepeka Raukawa-Tait, and Lady Tureiti Moxon, where they were saying this bill creates new oversight, and considers problems and complaints after they’ve occurred. It’s tweaking, it’s talking about maintaining a system, and nothing in this bill gives mana rangatiratanga, and it relegates Māori to provider level.

This amendment would help shift that deeply problematic—and, we know, hugely harmful historically—dynamic. We also had that view confirmed by Waikato-Tainui, who had been consulted on this legislation, even though they said that, actually, the consultation did not engage in the content that’s in this legislation. But they said that this bill adds more cost and more administration and more State incursion into the role of iwi—because it increases monitoring of iwi activities as we devolve power—and that is really problematic. We heard that very clearly from the Māori Women’s Welfare League, as well as other submitters. So this is our attempt to address those concerns that came up in the Social Services and Community Committee, as well as the Waitangi Tribunal’s ruling.

Another of the amendments in our SOP is to also put that in for the duty of the Ombudsman—in relation to complaints and investigation—to require them to incorporate tikanga Māori approaches for their complaints and investigation processes, including the need to have regard to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the Treaty of Waitangi, and the tikanga of whānau, whakapapa, and whanaungatanga. So I really—I really—just can’t understand why our legislation can’t reflect our fundamental constitutional relationship and acknowledge that right of tino rangatiratanga over kāinga.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Junior Whip—Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

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

Ayes 65

New Zealand Labour 65.

Noes 53

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

Motion agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 2 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 209 be agreed to.

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

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that Jan Logie’s amendment to clause 13 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 211 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 85, Noes 33.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that Harete Hipango’s amendment to clause 14 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 229 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 43

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10.

Noes 75

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that Harete Hipango’s amendment to clause 14 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 232 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 amendments to clause 14 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 231 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 14A set out on Supplementary Order Paper 226 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 16 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 230 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 43

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10.

Noes 75

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

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that Jan Logie’s amendment to clause 16A set out on Supplementary Order Paper 215 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 Jan Logie’s amendments to Part 2 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): Karen Chhour’s amendments to clause 27 replacing “or 24” with “24, or 25”, set out on Supplementary Order Paper 188, is out of order as being the same in substance as a previous amendment. The question is that Karen Chhour’s remaining amendment inserting clause 27(ca) set out on Supplementary Order Paper 188 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 Karen Chhour’s amendments to clause 34 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 195 be agreed to.

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

Amendments not agreed to.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Point of order. I want to refer to Jan Logie’s Supplementary Order Paper 211. I believe the New Zealand National Party voted 33 votes opposed to that. If that’s what the record shows, I seek leave for the National Party’s vote to be changed to 33 votes in favour.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Leave is sought. Is there any objection? There’s no objection. That can be amended. The result is that that is now unanimously agreed.

The question is that Harete Hipango’s amendments to clause 38 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 225 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 Part 2 as amended stand part.

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

Part 3 Information provisions and other matters

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Members, we now come to Part 3. The question is that Part 3 stand part.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I’ll just offer some brief opening remarks. This part sets out the information provisions and other matters relating to the monitor and the Ombudsman, including the empowering provisions for regulations and review clause.

Notable changes from the Government’s Supplementary Order Paper 209 for this part include reducing the time for the review of the Act to three years from five years, clarifying that the monitor can share non-personal information in specific instances to support effective monitoring and reporting, and the insertion of new clause 53A, which places an explicit duty on the monitor to notify a person prescribed by regulations if the monitor becomes aware of harm or abuse. Notable changes recommended by the Social Services and Community Committee include adding a new clause that overrides the Ombudsman’s secrecy obligation in instances where abuse or harm come to the Ombudsman’s attention. I’ll leave it there. Questions?

HARETE HIPANGO (National): Thank you, Mr Chair. Part 3 is specific to clauses 43 to 57. A question to the Minister in terms of the recent address to the committee and the reduction of the time of the five-year review and reporting on that to three years—again, arguing from a child-centric point of view, and that the whole point of this legislation proposed is to provide an oversight of the systems that are to be critiqued and reviewed as impacting on the children who are in State welfare care. So I acknowledge and I’m pleased that the advice that had been given at select committee—particularly from me around time frames and impact, critically, on children, and how their concept of time is so very different to that of an adult—has finally been taken into account. So I acknowledge the Minister for the reduction in time, but, again, three years is a significant period of time in a child’s life.

Although there’s no formal Supplementary Order Paper on the table, I invite the Minister to take that factor into account. It has been, with some of the time frames. I’m grateful for that, Minister, on behalf of the children—this legislation is framed supposedly in their interests—but, again, I invite the Minister to reflect and consider. Rather than looking at it from an adult, bureaucrat, Minister’s point of view, the whole point of this is time frames as impacts on the children. I’m aware that it takes time in terms of assessing the impact of a system over a period of years, but, again, it needs to be recalibrated in terms of perhaps even looking at an interim report for those initial reviews impacting on children and their lives.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I take the points made by the member. The issue is you do need time for a system to be able to embed to be able to report on it correctly or accurately, or to have the information that you need. However, this is a minimum review period as well. We took on board the advice that came from members that are in the Social Services and Community Committee as well as submissions with respect to the redress report that is due next year from the royal commission. We have said that it’s a minimum of three years, because if there is anything that comes out of the royal commission report that may inform potential changes that need to be made to the oversight system, then we will certainly be receptive to that happening, and the legislation will allow for that to happen. There are other reports that I spoke of that will of course be produced at a much more regular rate than this overall review of the system as a whole, and they will be very important for us being able to hold the system to account and to be able to have that transparency and accountability with respect to how it’s working.

KAREN CHHOUR (ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. Just on the note of reviewing the bill—and I appreciate that it’s been brought down to three years—I just thought it could have gone a little bit further, to give some assurances to those who have done the most courageous thing that I can think of: put themselves out there and speak to the royal commission review about the atrocities that they went through growing up, either in care or how they were let down.

I’ve got Supplementary Order Paper 189, that looks to amend clause 57 and make it so that the review must commence no later than six months after the delivery to the Minister of the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, and it must be completed no later than 12 months after its commencement. The reason for this is it would just give assurances that these people haven’t spent the last few years trying to advocate for change and find that it was just pointless because the Government has already pre-empted what they feel needed to be changed—and there’s a fear out there that the royal inquiry into abuse in care may just not be worth the paper it’s written on if it’s not acknowledged. So to acknowledge those who have been courageous enough to come out and speak to those atrocities and deal with that trauma again, I just want the assurance that we’re going to actually review it and take into account what this inquiry has said.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Again, it’s just to restate that it’s a minimum of three years from the commencement date of the bill, and so therefore it can be done earlier if there is something significant that could impact or influence the legislation. I’ll just remind the member that there may be things that come out of the royal commission’s redress report that are not specific to informing any changes to the legislation but may actually have an impact on the operations that exist within the system. I mean, I think that’s important to note, because then, actually, the system will have the opportunity to take on board those things that inform operational changes, and then, potentially moving forward, when we get to the review period, there’ll be an opportunity to check that those things were incorporated into the practice.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. It might be the first time in my life that I’ve spoken in support of an ACT Party Supplementary Order Paper, but I do want to on this occasion, and part of it is around—I understand what the Minister is saying on the three years. Our preference, along with all of the submitters and a huge number of other advocates, is that this legislation would have been delayed until the royal commission reported, because, in our view, that is the best way to pay respect to the people who are going through that process of historical as well as, in some instances, current experiences of abuse. While I hear the Minister saying that three years is a minimum and so it might happen earlier, it will be up to the Government of the time, and if we’re looking at restoring trust, then, actually, that degree of flexibility is not a clear commitment.

Karen Chhour’s amendment directly links it to the royal commission and tells them that this House is united in wanting to ensure that, actually, this system is addressing their experiences. I think that matters because it is a huge undertaking. It took years to get commitment for this royal commission, and I know there’s concern coming through from the Royal Commission Forum and others that the Government isn’t as engaged as it should be in following and knowing what’s happening in the commission. It is a very real concern that there’s a disconnect, and this would be one of our ways of things that we could do to help restore a sense of connection to that work and to honour those people.

I do want to acknowledge the Government, though, for the change around notifying abuse when it’s found. That is something that did come through really strongly in select committee and it is important, from my perspective, because it did seem as if that could have been deeply problematic for people to go in in their monitoring duties and discover abuse, but there not being any obligation for them to report that. So we are pleased with that change.

I will also just briefly in this contribution—and there isn’t, I think, much more. My further comments will be reserved for Part 5. But at this point it’s around our amendment to clause 57 around the review of the Act, and we’re looking to add a new provision to that to ensure that the monitor is upholding tino rangatiratanga over kāinga. Again, it links back to the point I made in the last part about the legislation reinforcing the findings of the Waitangi Tribunal and ensuring that our whole system is working towards recognising that right, which is so blatantly and consistently trampled on. So that was my contribution and question.

HARETE HIPANGO (National): Thank you, Mr Chair. Again, Minister, speaking to Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 209, your SOP, which is addressing clause 57 and the amendment there and the reduction of time, and speaking to Ms Chhour’s SOP in relation to that, I just refer the Minister to what the core principles of this Act are as detailed specifically in clause 5. Clause 5, “Principles”, states “A person who performs a function or duty or exercises a power under the Act must have regard to—”, and one of your proposed amendments was the inclusion of “the best interests of children and young people” and “the perspectives of children and young people.”

So, Minister, with the amendment, you propose a reduction of the time from five years to three years. At a minimum you’ve emphasised again that there is a contradiction in terms of perspective of children and young people in the concept of time frames and the impact that the review of this Act and also the review of the operation and effectiveness of the Act and the monitor under this Act will have on the children. So, Minister, the reduction of time from five years to three years in my submission to this committee on behalf of children, having worked with them for many years and that concept of time, although it may be amenable to the State, the Government sector, the system, in terms of review—and taking heed of Ms Chhour’s proposed amendment to clause 57, a commencement no later than six months after the delivery of the royal commission of inquiry—is very, very important.

The whole point of this proposed legislation is about an oversight, not overlooking the impact of this on our children who are in State welfare care but having the insight—not the oversight, the insight—to their perspective of time frames and the impact that a review at such a significant expended period—a minimum, as you say, of three years—is a considerable element, in part, of a child’s life.

The whole point of this bill, as the Government and you, Minister, have declared is about what is going to provide for the best interests of children and young people—and you’ve acknowledged that by way of an amendment to the core principles in clause 5—and the perspectives of children and young people. The time frame is a considerable insight into their lives. Don’t dispense with and dismiss that with an oversight.

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

KAREN CHHOUR (ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. I just want to talk about collecting information from a child or a young person. It’s clause 46, and it just talks about complying with the requirements of the monitor’s code of ethics in respect to engaging with children and young people.

All through this bill, it says it’s all about engaging with children and young people in a respectful and meaningful way, but what does this actually mean? And if our children don’t trust the monitor that’s trying to collect this information and children just will not give their consent and caregivers will not give their consent, how are we going to collect relevant information, and how would the monitor go about requiring that consent?

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

KAREN CHHOUR (ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m also wanting to look at the way the monitor will share or disclose this information, and what obligation the monitor has in sharing the information with the children’s commission. I’m just wondering, is it all their reports and information—and I know we’ve discussed this—or is it what they feel that the children’s commission should know? And if they are coming across information that should be advocated about but under the clause they’re having to uphold the good name of Oranga Tamariki, is there a conflict there? If they hand this information over, it may not be upholding the good name of Oranga Tamariki. That was just something that submitters did talk about. It may not be an issue, but I just wanted it clarified.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

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

Ayes 65

New Zealand Labour 65.

Noes 53

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

Motion agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 3 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 209 be agreed to.

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

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Karen Chhour’s amendment to clause 57 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 189 is out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee. The question is that Jan Logie’s amendments to clause 57 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 Part 3 as amended stand part.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 3 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 3 as amended agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Members, we now come to Part 4. The question is that Part 4 stand part.

Part 4 Amendments to other legislation

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Brief remarks just to lead out. This part relates to the monitor and Ombudsmen and makes necessary amendments to other legislation, including the Official Information Act, the Ombudsmen Act, the Oranga Tamariki Act, and secondary legislation. This part has not been amended by the Government Supplementary Order Paper. The notable amendment recommended by the Social Services and Community Committee was to remove the Children’s Commissioner from the list of persons who have access to specific court document. As the commissioner will no longer have an investigation function, access to these documents are not required, however, can be obtained if necessary through the standard process of requesting them from the court.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that the Minister’s amendment to Part 4 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 209 be agreed to.

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

Amendment agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 4 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 4 as amended agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Members, we now come to Part 5. The question is that Part 5 stand part.

Part 5 Children and Young People’s Commission

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): This part sets out all matters related to the Children and Young People’s Commission. This includes the establishment of the commission; all functions, duties, and powers; and review of the Act. The notable change from the Government Supplementary Order Paper is reducing the time for that. The review of the Act must commence within three years—a change from five years.

Notable changes that were recommended by select committee include providing for a Chief Children’s Commissioner, explicitly providing for the commission to report to the Prime Minister, and requiring members of the board of the commission to have knowledge and understanding of the Treaty of Waitangi.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. There are a few points to make in relation to this part of the bill, and I certainly will start by acknowledging the change that was proposed from the Social Services and Community Committee to have a chief commissioner put into the legislation. We’ve been told that it was possible anyway, but to actually ensure that there will be at all times a known face—at least one—for this organisation and to be able to hold that voice and make that connection to our young people and our children is a really important change as far as it goes.

I would say that I have been disappointed with these changes, which were not part of the primary consultation. While I understand there has been some consultation, the consultation with young people, to my knowledge, around this part of the bill has been very limited. The reality is that the Office of the Children’s Commissioner is their office—it’s the office of children and tamariki around this country—and they need to have confidence in that institution. I would have thought that any changes of this nature really should have been from a quite considerable consultation and a deep consultation.

I know that there were issues that came up at one point in discussion around diversity which possibly led to the idea of a board, and that’s absolutely something that the Greens are keen on, but this was not a proposal that was tested against other proposals. Really, it was hearing some ideas—or this is how it’s certainly come across to me—and then coming up with “This is a solution.”, as opposed to really working through with young people on what they wanted their organisation and their voice to be looking like. So on that foundation alone, the Green Party don’t support these changes.

There were very strong concerns raised at select committee around this, and I’ll raise just a couple. One from Starship Hospital during the select committee was saying that they “felt the change would stop any efforts to fix the system, which would largely be felt by whānau Māori.”, and the “Separation of these functions will disperse relevant information and processes and will create more layers of bureaucracy, delaying outcomes for tangata whenua/mana whenua, and their tamariki.”

Judge Eivers and other Children’s Commissioners—who know the workings of these agencies and the possibility of them, as opposed to the limitations that they’ve experienced through what I would describe as starvation funding for many years—have opposed these changes really strongly, and I do want to link this to the point that there were many other possible solutions. One of them could have been just—and I’m recognising that none of us are standing here and saying that, actually, we didn’t want to strengthen advocacy and the voice and monitoring for children. Nobody in this House or in the community is saying that. But people are saying that they wanted it to be independent and that there was trust in the Children’s Commissioner, whereas there isn’t trust in our other Government agencies.

There is a concern, so that is a clear point, but also funding—they’re running on $3 million a year. So of course the detail of monitoring for all of their functions on $3 million a year was not enough.

I remember raising this when National was in Government, and we heard from the then commissioner Russell Wills clearly telling us at the time that, as commissioner, he was having to prioritise their monitoring into specific areas because they did not have the resources to be able to cover the whole system, and that is on the previous National Government to be held accountable for that. He produced some very impressive reports at that time, and the Māori Women’s Welfare League in their submission clearly argued that we would not have got to the point of public awareness of the problems within our child protection system if it had not been for his monitoring and reports. However, they were constrained—and he admitted that—and the Children’s Commissioner has been in front of the royal commission apologising for those failures because of a lack of resourcing.

So how we get to the point from acknowledging that as a problem to removing those functions, in effect, by diminishing those functions and putting them in other places is a bit beyond me, and people are really a little bit hōhā over seeing so much money going to the monitor and the Ombudsman—I think it’s another $18 million—in the face of the fact that the Children’s Commissioner, who’s managed to do such a great job on $3 million. What they could have done with that money would have been truly impressive.

I just want to speak to some of the other possibilities that have been on the table that could have been possible. One of them was just doing that increase in funding and doing a consultation—like a proper consultation—with young people across the country to hear their voices about the agency and how they wanted it to represent them, or to even increase the independence of the Children’s Commissioner further by making it an Office of Parliament and to have them funded by Parliament rather than by the Government to remove that sense of them becoming a political football.

What I would say, from my perspective, is that under the National Government, they actively—actively—starved the agency of funding to be able to reduce their advocacy. We don’t want that happening, but this bill is not solving that problem, and, in fact, I would argue, as others did, that by the dismantling and separating out of functions it actually creates more risk in that sense. We could have implemented the Waitangi Tribunal’s recommendation for a Māori transition authority that would have had monitoring and accountability—not to the Crown—that would have enabled that independence as well as ensuring Te Tiriti obligations were met.

There’s a real concern that came through in terms of submissions about the sense of this view about advocacy and monitoring being in conflict, and we’ve heard the Minister articulate it as not being consistent with the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment—that is, they monitor and they advocate. The newly established Health and Disability Commissioner also has those dual functions, and the view of many submitters was that making that statement was actually saying that people will lose their functions if they advocate too strongly in a way that the Government doesn’t like what they’re saying.

This is a very strong concern, and I haven’t heard anything that allays my concern about that. Jonathan Boston made some quite strong statements in select committee—which I’m not going to repeat—that showed a very real concern of people who know the functioning of Government, which is that Government is in this instance silencing an advocate for children because it doesn’t fit with the Government’s agenda to maintain and tinker with the status quo, as opposed to delivering real transformation, and that they’re prioritising the trust of the public in the status quo over delivering for our children. That is being done through, I still say, a gutting of our commission.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I’m going to speak to the points that were made by the member, but I will point out the ones that are relevant to this part and the ones that are broader.

The point around the form and the ask, I guess, that was made by the member Jan Logie to consider that the Children’s Commissioner become an Officer of Parliament needs to be responded to. Officers of Parliament are not allowed to be advocates. They have to provide objective information, and it is explicitly stated in their roles that they are not able to be advocates, so we would not want the Children’s Commissioner to be an Officer of Parliament.

They have maintained their absolute independence through this legislation, the same independence that they had prior to us bringing this bill to the House. The one thing I will say that is one of the things that has changed is that they now have more extensive powers to get information or to require information than what the Children’s Commissioner was able to gather before, and that is to bolster what informs the advocacy of the Children and Young People’s Commission.

The member asked about consultation around the system. Again, that’s perhaps traversing slightly beyond what I am meant to here, but I will respond to it. When the consultation occurred with the Beattie report and in the lead-up to the Independent Children’s Monitor being established, it was consultation about the whole system that was in place, which, of course, is what we’re talking about today: the monitoring, the advocacy, and the complaints and investigation function. So all of that was traversed, and children were consulted during that process.

One of the things that came out loud and clear was that children wanted diversity in the advocacy that they were able to access, and what we’ve done with the Children and Young People’s Commission is to bolster the advocacy by requiring a governance board that must have people on it who—and this is referring to clause 92, “Experience and knowledge of board members”, in Part 5. It states, “(1) The Commission must have, on a collective basis, among its board members—(a) experience and knowledge of children’s and young people’s rights and issues; and (aa) knowledge and understanding of te Tiriti o Waitangi … and (b) the required skills and leadership expertise to reflect the needs of children and young people of interest to the Commission.” So it is actually bolstering the representation that will be able to inform the advocacy.

This is so important. The previous Children’s Commissioner Judge Becroft actually was so concerned about the need to have, particularly, Māori advocacy present that he created a position, which was the assistant Children’s Commissioner for Māori. We’re going beyond that with what we are proposing here.

He recognised that there was a lack of diversity. Despite the fact that our Children’s Commissioners have been amazing advocates for children—and I say that about them wholeheartedly—when we reflect back on the Children’s Commissioners that we have appointed in this country, seven out of nine of them were Pākehā men. Now, that is in no way a criticism, but that is a reflection of the lack of thought that went into diversity in the Children’s Commissioner for the representation of children, the vast majority of whom have always been Māori children, with an overrepresentation of disabled children.

So the governance board is in no way taking away from the role of the Children’s Commissioner, depleting its powers, or undermining the role of a chief Children’s Commissioner. It is extending its ability to advocate effectively for the children that end up in the care system.

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much, Mr Chair. This might be my final chance, at least for now, to comment, and I congratulate you, Mr O’Connor on your current elevation to the role of Chair. I won’t do so at length—I appreciate that the debate has to move on—but as a fellow member of the parliamentary cricket team, I thought it might be helpful for you to consider that if members are speaking outside the scope of the bill, then a “wide” might be appropriate. If you don’t accept a point of order, I suppose you’d have to say “that’s a no-ball”, and, finally, if any more of us are sent from the Chamber, then that’s obviously a dismissal.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): I’ll be very wary of bouncers, actually.

CHRIS PENK: Very good. Thank you for that guidance, Mr Chair. I’ll try to avoid imparting too much spin.

Clause 95, in Part 5, notes that there’s to be the appointment of a judge to the commission, so I just wonder if the Minister can tell us—I appreciate that it’s a fairly arcane point and she might not know; that’s fine—whether the judge and their actions and contribution to this process would be subject to the Judicial Conduct Commissioner arrangement. Ordinarily, of course, a judge performing their duties in a normal courtroom setting could be the subject of a complaint in terms of their conduct, and I don’t know if that would apply to the role they would do as part of this regime, because we see that for all purposes the judge’s service as a board member is taken to be service as a judge. So I’m curious to know, but I’m comfortable if the Minister is unable to answer.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): It’s explicitly stated in clause 95, in Part 5 of the bill. Clause 95(2) states that “For all purposes, the Judge’s service as a board member is taken to be service as a Judge.”

KAREN CHHOUR (ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. I just want to just make note of, once again, my Supplementary Order Paper 189; it’s inserting clause 118 to make sure the review is commenced “no later than 6 months after the delivery to the Minister of the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care and must be completed no later than 12 months after its commencement.” It’s very similar to what I was speaking to in regards to the last part of this bill. It’s just giving assurances to young people and to survivors of abuse in State care that we actually take that seriously, and we are going to make sure that the recommendations are taken into consideration.

HARETE HIPANGO (National): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m almost certain—in fact, I’m quite confident—that those members of the public listening in to this debate who have worked in the specialised area of child welfare sector care, and also those members who are part of the current Office of the Children’s Commissioner, would find that not only has this bill—from the time that it was introduced to the House—a sense of foreboding but an attitude of “Government knows better than anybody else”, anybody who has dedicated their professional and their personal lives to this, and the submissions that have been made to the Social Services and Community Committee have been disregarded almost in totality.

So this part of the bill, Part 5, is comprised of clauses 82 to 122. Clause 83, “Purpose of this Part” is “to establish the Children and Young People’s Commission”. I put a proposal to the House that actually it’s to vanquish truth to power with the decommissioning of the current Office of the Children’s Commissioner. I say that because the truth to power is that the Office, despite its inadequate, deficient resourcing, for whatever reason, despite the pleas for additional resourcing, with submissions before this Government in select committee, the decision had been made back in 2019 to reroute that funding to the appointment of the Independent Children’s Monitor. It had been rerouted in resourcing, prioritising, and bolstering the function, the role, and the purpose of the Office of the Ombudsmen, all in a staged transition to the decommissioning of the current Office of the Children’s Commissioner and the Children’s Commissioner, and vanquishing that truth to power. By now, fleshing out and proposing—and it is a done deal; always was, right from the first day that this came before select committee. I knew full well when I heard the advice and the pushback on the proposals and the recommendations from those in the public, in this specialised sector of child welfare and advocacy, from those of us who have worked in the sector too, to be told we don’t know much really, and, frankly, the Government knows better.

Coming back to the purpose of this part. Clause 83 says, “to establish the Children and Young People’s Commission to promote and advance the rights, interests, and participation of children and young people”. Well, as has been well heard in this debate, the voices, the views, the input of our children and young people through their specialised advocacy groups, for example, VOYCE - Whakarongo Mai, all of whom the select committee and those of us in Opposition have engaged, met, listened—not just heard; listened to, and taken to heart, heeding what their life experience is in State welfare care. So the Government has seen fit to disband that very important representative advocate voice and face, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, by establishing a board. The State—the Government—knows best, and is telling, again, that specialised sector and the children in lived care experience and, also, those who are still giving evidence before the royal commission of inquiry, that the State, the Government, the Minister know best and they will disestablish truth to power by the appointment of a commission board.

I heard the Minister talk about the importance of experience and diversity, and, actually, the experience and diversity is fully representative in the current Commissioner for Children, Judge Frances Eivers, who is whakapapa Māori and whakapapa tauiwi.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Yes. We appointed her.

HARETE HIPANGO: Yes. It’s known that Judge Eivers was appointed by this Government. But it’s also known that Judge Eivers put on notice that this bill was coming before the House, because—

Hon Member: She was.

HARETE HIPANGO: —and if that’s the case, Judge Eivers hasn’t had the opportunity to speak and present that publicly because of a compromised position. But it’s well known that those persons who have advocated in this sector and given a lifetime’s service—former Commissioner for Children Judge Becroft, former Commissioner for Children Russell Wills, and others, and it’s going to be very interesting when this gets signed off with Royal assent.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. I wanted specifically to speak to one of the provisions in our Supplementary Order Paper in a minute, but I’m also keen to hear from the Minister, to address the points in the Auckland University Aotearoa New Zealand Centre for Indigenous Peoples and the Law report, Time to Taihoa, around this provision in the bill, that was saying that it breaches Te Tiriti and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the following ways”: that “It fails to recognise Māori tino rangatiratanga over kāinga, which includes the right to oversee and monitor that the rights of tamariki Māori are respected and upheld.” It said that “Māori should have participated in [the] decision-making on whether the Office of the Children’s Commissioner should be reconfigured and, if so, what form any new body … should take, and how it should be governed.” And that the bill fails to “explicitly state that Māori must be represented on the proposed Children’s Commission’s Board.” and I’ll get into that more, and that it “provides that a nominations panel and the responsible Minister have the power to decide who will represent Māori on the … Children’s Commission. In line with te Tiriti and the … Declaration, Māori must decide who will represent them”, and that it “fails to provide the Children’s Commission with any monitoring or complaints oversight functions, both generally and in relation to Oranga Tamariki.” And “Considering the disparity faced by tamariki Māori and the extent to which their rights as tangata whenua, te Tiriti partners … are violated … essential that … [the commissioner] as … New Zealand’s national child rights institution, is independent and effective and has all the necessary powers and functions to monitor, investigate …, and promote and protect children’s rights in line with international standards.”

I’m interested in the response to those points, but I would like to get into a little bit more our suggested amendment to have at least half of the board members have experience and knowledge of tikanga Māori and whakapa Māori. There was a very strong support for this that came out through the select committee process. I acknowledge that this clause has been strengthened slightly through the select committee process, but it does not include that requirement to whakapapa Māori. Some of the advice that we were given was that it might be discriminatory to do so, so we sought advice as a committee from the Human Rights Commission on that point and their advice was really clear: that it would not be and that, actually, it was consistent with the guarantees of partnership, active protection, and equity under Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and that rationale is further supported and affirmed by the rights, standards, and obligations outlined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. And the Waitangi Tribunal’s recent report emphasised that Māori must lead the transformation of Oranga Tamariki and it is their view that this leadership role must extend to the oversight of the agency and the composition of the Children and Young People’s Commission governing board. The commission further noted that there were also strong grounds for including whakapapa Māori around special measures around the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (BORA), let alone Te Tiriti obligations, saying that under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act they’re required to address significant inequalities for tamariki Māori and measures to achieve equality are provided for under the BORA and under international human rights law.

So I’m very concerned that there’s a view that actually providing explicitly for whakapapa Māori, in terms of our governing arrangements of the commission, but more generally, is somehow problematic when I think that’s really at the very foundations and heart of our country to enable that, and considering the history of harm, the Green Party would argue there should be a duty for that.

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

KAREN CHHOUR (ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. I just want to speak to Part 5 as a whole—replacing the Children’s Commissioner. I have a huge fear that the Children’s Commissioner, who has built up a brand of trust within the community, with our youth, within organisations, is now having that trust factor taken away. Whether the Minister feels this is true or not, it’s perception from young people that matters the most, and young people have expressed huge concern that youth are going to fall through the cracks in this new scheme where we are separating monitoring, advocacy, and oversight. It’s been stated by quite a few people who have knowledge from the ground that young people need a simple system so that they know where to go, what’s going to happen, and the processes. This just seems to have complicated the issue for young people more. Many times the Minister has said the problem is they just don’t understand or we don’t understand—it’s a misunderstanding. If it is that complicated that even people who have years of experience with legislation and with writing policy—the Minister is saying they just misunderstand—how are our youth supposed to understand this?

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

HARETE HIPANGO (National): Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s a question to the Minister in terms of having spoken to clause 95, “Appointment of Judge to Commission”. Minister, if you are able to take advice, perhaps, and give clarity to why we’re seeking specifically the appointment of a judge to the commission. Is it because the current Children’s Commissioner is a judge, and to make room for the Children’s Commissioner, who is now going in as a result of an amendment to this bill that has been proposed, as a chair?

So I directed the question to the Minister to clarify that, because I do have it on authority that judges are unlikely to be given permission to apply or sit on a Crown entity in that capacity whilst they’re serving as a presiding judge—so they’re unlikely to be given permission to apply or sit on a Crown entity board as a part-time board member due to constitutional conflict of interest issues. As I say, I do have that on good authority.

So I’m interested as to how this clause came to be in terms of appointment of a judge to the commission when the presiding or the current Children’s Commissioner is a judge, not giving service quite at this time as a judge—one day may go back to that position of service—but also is a person, as I referenced earlier, as have been a number of people, who comes from lived experience. As is well known, Judge Eivers was a specialist child welfare Family Court lawyer, advocate, representative in other sectors too—representing, advocating for our children and young people as a specialist lawyer—before appointment to the Family Court bench, giving approximately 13-14 years’ service in that capacity before her appointment as Children’s Commissioner.

So clarity around clause 95 and some of those potential constitutional conflicts of interest and how that’s to be addressed.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Briefly, to this one, there’s no expectation through the legislation that the person appointed to the Chief Children’s Commissioner role needs to be a judge. The provisions in this bill are carried over from the other Children’s Commissioner legislation. There’s nothing new in this. There have to be provisions that allow for alignment between any legislation where judges may have some kind of connection, and that is it.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you. This will be a fairly brief contribution—the Minister might be relieved—but I guess it’s to the point around the functions and investigations and the removal of that to the Ombudsman. We’ve heard from the Minister previously about the fact that the Children’s Commissioner actually does that already. They give the complaints through to the Ombudsman. And I think the Minister’s said in an answer to a question in the House that there’d been 78 complaints referred to the commissioner in recent years. I wanted to know whether the Minister would take this opportunity in the committee in terms of acknowledging that those figures conflicted with the material in an Official Information Act request that said actually only 26 cases have been referred over the last 12 years and that the Children’s Commissioner has provided evidence to the committee about how quite often when people come to them with complaints, they engage and they seek resolution early, as does the Ombudsman but that they are set up in terms of the focus of their systems is around child-friendliness and engagement.

There’s now going to be a huge amount of resource and effort that is going into trying to create that expertise within the Ombudsman because they’ve acknowledged they don’t have it. And that really feels a bit wasteful when we could have just put more resourcing into the Children’s Commissioner to enable all of that skill to be used in its fullest extent, and for that information that came from those complaints to inform their work much more broadly as an organisation. So that is my contribution. I’m interested in the Minister’s answer.

HARETE HIPANGO (National): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m referring to the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 209 with the multiple proposed amendments, some 10 initially, which are more substantive amendments. Then, on the face—I haven’t done a specific count—are the minor and technical changes which traverse the entire scope of the bill, not just Part 5.

So, Minister, a question: why is it that towards the end when we get to the committee of the whole House at least 10 substantive amendments have been proposed to Part 5—at this point in time when advice has been given at select committee and your members of Parliament of the Labour Party did not in fact take heed but the Minister has at the eleventh hour? Could the Minister please just clarify that? I think the public is probably due an explanation when they are the ones who have made their submissions at the earlier stage and the anguish that they’ve been put through. And finally, Minister, it’s acknowledged that it’s been taken heed but why the delay?

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you for that. I’m going to just hear some more contributions. I’m very aware that Part 2 contains a number of Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs). I’m also aware that this part began its debate at 11.52, so with all those things in mind, I will just see where we go. I’ll be looking for relevance and addressing SOPs and making sure that we’re not going over old ground.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Do you know we’re on Part 5? You said Part 2.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Part 5—yeah, Part 5. Thank you. That was a bit unorthodox, but the message got through. Thank you. It’s obviously been a long morning. Right—easy. The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 5 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 209 be agreed to.

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

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that Jan Logie’s amendments to Part 5 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 10

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 108

New Zealand Labour 65; New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10.

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Karen Chhour’s amendment to clause 93 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 194 is out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

The question is that Karen Chhour’s remaining amendments to Part 5 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 194 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 20

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

Noes 98

New Zealand Labour 65; New Zealand National 33.

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that Karen Chhour’s amendment to clause 94 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 190 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 (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that Karen Chhour’s amendment inserting new clause 102A set out on Supplementary Order Paper 195 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 20

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

Noes 98

New Zealand Labour 65; New Zealand National 33.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Karen Chhour’s amendment to clause 118 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 189 is out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee. The question is that Part 5 as amended stand part.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 5 as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 65

New Zealand Labour 65.

Noes 53

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

Part 5 as amended agreed to.

Schedule 1

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that Schedule 1 stand part.

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

Ayes 65

New Zealand Labour 65.

Noes 53

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

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Schedule 2

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the Minister’s amendment to Schedule 2 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 209 be agreed to.

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

Amendment agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that Karen Chhour’s amendment to Schedule 2 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 194 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 20

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

Noes 98

New Zealand Labour 65; New Zealand National 33.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that Schedule 2 as amended stand part.

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

Ayes 65

New Zealand Labour 65.

Noes 53

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

Schedule 2 as amended agreed to.

Schedule 3

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that Schedule 3 stand part.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Schedule 3 be agreed to.

Ayes 98

New Zealand Labour 65; New Zealand National 33.

Noes 20

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

Schedule 3 agreed to.

Schedule 4

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that Schedule 4 stand part.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Schedule 4 be agreed to.

Ayes 65

New Zealand Labour 65.

Noes 53

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

Schedule 4 agreed to.

Clauses 1 and 2, and new clause 2A

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, we come now to our final debate, clauses 1 and 2, and new clause 2A. I call Harete Hipango.

HARETE HIPANGO (National): I apologise, Madam Chair. We are speaking to a proposed motion to divide the bill into two bills—is that where we’re at? Title and commencement?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Oh, I’m sorry. I was looking at my sheet. Could the member repeat her—is the member taking a point of order?

HARETE HIPANGO: No, not at all. I was taking a call, thinking that we were addressing the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP).

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: No, you were asking what it was. You don’t even know.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): I don’t need the Minister’s help here.

HARETE HIPANGO: Thank you. I may have misheard. I didn’t want to miss the call and let the opportunity lapse. Are we speaking to SOP 210, which is about the proposed motion to divide the bill into two parts?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): If the member wants to raise a point of order, she says “point of order”.

HARETE HIPANGO: Title and commencement. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): There is clear confusion, and I’m sorry if it’s me that’s been the cause of it, so I will start again. Our final debate is on clauses 1 and 2 and new clause 2A.

HARETE HIPANGO: Thank you for that clarity on the matter. So in terms of the title, this bill is proposed to be named the Oversight of Oranga Tamariki System and Children and Young People’s Commission Bill. On that note, that is the bill that had been put to the public, to the House, and to the Social Services and Community Committee for consideration. However, there is a proposed motion before the House, so in speaking to the title of the bill, it is pre-empting what that motion will be, and that’s on the premise that this bill has been addressed in five parts, and that those parts have dealt with the three specific oversight entities and mechanisms of the Independent Children’s Monitor, the Office of the Ombudsmen with their complaints investigation role, and the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, soon to be, under this bill, the Children and Young People’s Commission. So the title that has been proposed is that of Oversight of Oranga Tamariki System and Children and Young People’s Commission Bill; I understand that’s not how it will eventuate in time.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair, and I’d just like to in this contribution speak to the commencement, really, and again, make the point—and if it’s uncomfortable for some in this Chamber to hear and maybe they’re bored with it, I’m OK with that because actually our community is telling us so clearly that this bill should not be going ahead and definitely not at the point of commencement before or in July 2023, just next year, about right when the royal commission’s report is due. So on this commencement date and the continuation of this bill, I want to bring the voices of all of those who have been strongly opposing this again into this Chamber.

We were requested to put this on hold by the Royal Commission Forum, which is made up of survivors, as well as some long-time members of the Labour Party and people with very senior experience within Government and researchers who have spent lives monitoring our child protection service and speaking up on behalf of the children who have been harmed: the Auckland University Aotearoa New Zealand Centre for Indigenous Peoples and the Law; Māori submitters, including the Māori Women’s Welfare League; Waikato-Tainui; all of the dames; VOYCE-Whakarongo Mai, who are set up to be the voice of young people in care right now; Save the Children, the children’s rights advocacy organisation; the Children’s Rights Alliance, which has a role of monitoring our obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child; Starship hospital; YouthLaw; Pacific Law providers working with children—it’s been overwhelming the call to pause, to go back, and ensure that children are part of shaping this system to ensure that it meets their needs as opposed to institutions’ or Government needs.

At the heart of any system—which has been acknowledged in the papers around this, but in a very weird way—is that for monitoring and complaints to work, you’ve got to trust the people who are doing those roles enough to tell them if something’s going wrong. And when everybody in our community and our young people in care are saying they do not trust the proposed model, how are they going to trust those people enough to go to them to tell them that something is wrong? The potential of harm being silenced because of a continued lack of trust and we have to remember that we are starting from a point of very, very low trust.

The Government’s answer to that is to tell the monitor that it has a duty to improve public trust. That’s not how trust works. Trust works from changing behaviour when you’ve messed up. It doesn’t work from telling people, “You need to trust me.” It needs to work from changing behaviour and listening and building relationship because at the heart of everything is relationship. This bill going through in this way is another severing of relationship, and it’s doomed to fail. Even if it was the right thing to do, it will be doomed to fail because it is again undermining the trust of people with whom we have so much work to do to rebuild trust with. So, so disappointed—just so, so disappointed.

KAREN CHHOUR (ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair. I too would just like to speak to the commencement around this Act, and I too am disappointed that we are carrying on with this and that there is a date when this bill will commence. Over and over again, we’ve heard that youth voices are the most important. Getting youth involved in the decision making around their lives is important. We can’t afford to get this wrong anymore. For too long, we’ve got this wrong. We have too many victims in the past of a broken system and too many in the present of a broken system. And from hearing the voices of the people that work on the ground with these youth, we’re going to end up with too many victims in the future, because we continue to get this wrong. We’re not breaking the cycle of allowing Governments and public servants to make decisions around our youth and around their care instead of actually going to the people who work with these youth on a day-to-day basis and actually listening to what they are saying, because listening and actually doing something from what you’ve heard are two different things.

Actions speak louder than words, and the actions from this Government today, still pushing to put this bill through, show us that they’re just words. They’re meaningless. Our youth feel like they are meaningless again. Victims of abuse in State care feel their voices are meaningless again. We can say, “Your voice matters.” We can say, “We want you to be involved in the decision making that affects you and your future.” But, as I said, actions speak louder than words. How many came forward and said that this will put more youth at risk? More youth will fall through the cracks with this bill. But no, we’re still going to go with Government and public servants know best. How much longer can we allow this to happen? I’m just disappointed that this bill is even going to commence.

HARETE HIPANGO (National): Thank you, Madam Chair. I sense that this will be the last stand that I make on this bill before it goes to the third reading. I join in unison in a voice filled with passion with my colleague Jan Logie from the Green Party, my colleague Karen Chhour from the ACT Party, and I from the National Party—all stand in unison alongside the New Zealand public, those who have lived care experience of the State welfare ill-fared system, those who have dedicated lives and service to this sector, importantly, to children and young people of Aotearoa New Zealand. Jan Logie, from the background that my colleague comes from, working in the social justice sector—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! I’m just going to ask the member to focus her comments and contribution on clauses 1, 2, and 2A. Thank you.

HARETE HIPANGO: Appreciate that, and that comes to the title. Talking about Karen Chhour, if I may, and wrapping this in and blending it to the title—Karen, having come from lived life experience of the State welfare and care system, and I having worked as a lawyer advocating for this sector for most of my professional legal career. This brings me to the title.

Speaking to that, this is called the Oversight of Oranga Tamariki System and Children and Young People’s Commission Bill. I put a proposal to the House that this bill is more than an oversight. It is actually blind—a “Blinded Oranga Tamariki System and Deaf to the Voices and the Views of Children and Young People’s Bill”. That’s the title that I submit, which reflects the sentiment and also the expressions and the submissions that have been put before the select committee

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): With apologies—order! With apologies to the member. The time has now come for me to report progress.

Progress to be reported.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Mr Speaker, the committee has further 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.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The bill is set down for further consideration in committee next sitting day. Members, the House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. today.

The House adjourned at 12.56 p.m. (Thursday)