Wednesday, 26 October 2022

WEDNESDAY, 26 OCTOBER 2022

WEDNESDAY, 26 OCTOBER 2022

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

KARAKIA/PRAYERS

KARAKIA/PRAYERS

SPEAKER: In celebration of Tokelau Language Week, I’ve asked Barbara Edmonds to say the prayer today in Tokelauan.

BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Te Atua Hilihili kehe, e kavatu te matou fakafetai mo na fakamanuiaga kua maua e kimatou. E tuku kehe o matou manakoga fakatetagata, kae kimatou manatuagia te Tupu ma e tatalo atu kimatou mo to fehoahoani mai ki a matou tonu e fai, ke fai ma te fakautauta, te atamai, te mea moni, loto alofa, ma te lotomaualalo, ke maua te lelei ma te filemu o te fenua nei ko Niu Hila. Amene.

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

SPEAKER: Mālō ni. A petition has been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

CLERK: Petition of Robyn Parnell requesting that the House pass legislation to prohibit the importation of kangaroo meat, body parts, and skins.

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

CLERK: Reports on selected non-departmental appropriations for the year ended 30 June 2022, for the following portfolios within Vote Business, Science and Innovation:

Tourism

Commerce and Consumer Affairs

Digital Economy and Communications

Sport and Recreation

Economic and Regional Development

Economic Development

New Zealand Growth Capital Partners Statement of Performance Expectations 2022/23.

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

CLERK:

Report of the Business Committee on the recommended sitting programme for 2023

report of the Petitions Committee on the Petition of Social Credit: Stop the Marsden Point Oil Refinery from closing.

SPEAKER: The report of the Business Committee is set down for consideration. The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of bills.

CLERK:

Business Payment Practices Bill, introduction

Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill, introduction.

SPEAKER: Those bills are set down for first reading.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Prime Minister

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

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Acting Prime Minister): Tāloha ni, Mr Speaker. I thank the member for the opportunity to mark five years of the Government securing better outcomes for New Zealanders. In that time, we have added 10,000 more public homes, accompanied by record high building consents and putting an end to overseas speculators rorting the property market. We’re better supporting primary mental health care services with 2.3 million people now covered through primary care providers. We’ve increased the number of nurses by nearly 20 percent; the number of doctors by over 20 percent. Mr Luxon, we’ve lifted 66,000 children out of poverty and served more than 63 million school lunches. We’ve employed 5,200 people through Mana in Mahi; 215,000 people have taken up free apprenticeships and trade training. We’ve kept New Zealanders safe over COVID while delivering low unemployment and an economy that is larger than pre-pandemic. We’ve also cushioned the effects of the global cost of living pressures by lowering petrol excise duty, introducing half-price public transport and the support we’ve given to low and middle income New Zealanders. All of that shows why it’s important to have a Government who has a well thought-through and costed plan, because the alternative of an uncosted, untested, and frankly dangerous set of proposals coming from the Opposition, like UK-style tax cuts for the wealthiest New Zealanders, would take New Zealand backwards.

Christopher Luxon: Why did the Government scrap the target for shorter wait times in emergency departments?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The previous Government’s record on targets was appalling, because what they did was set targets across government that actually didn’t take New Zealanders forward. In the health system, I am extremely proud of a Government that has increased health funding by 43.5 percent since 2017, has increased Pharmac’s funding by 43 percent in that time, and has extended free and low-cost doctors visits to those under 14. We’ve also covered 2.5 million people through mental health sessions. We’ve continued to lift those in the workforce. We’ve continued to support all of those at the front line. But here’s the rub. The health system would have been under even more pressure if we’d followed the National Party’s advice and opened the borders up. That’s when the health system would really have felt the pressure.

Christopher Luxon: Can he confirm that nearly one in four patients are now waiting longer than six hours to be seen at an emergency department (ED), up from just one in 10 when Labour took office?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The last winter in New Zealand has been one of the toughest for our health system. The National Party might want to believe that COVID never happened. The National Party might want to believe that we didn’t have our first flu season for two years. But the truth is the health system withstood a one-in-100-year pandemic, and I’m actually proud of our health professionals. I don’t want to run them down like that member.

Christopher Luxon: Is he aware that in the six years before his Government took office, the proportion of ED patients seen within six hours was never less than 91 percent—a figure Labour hasn’t achieved throughout the seasons now for four straight years?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What I am aware of is a health system that we inherited that was in a complete mess, with underfunding of mental health, underfunding of public health, and underfunding of primary care. That is actually what we inherited. We know that there is always more to do in our health system, but this Government can stand proudly on a record of funding that his party can’t.

Christopher Luxon: Does he really think that, after five years in Government, Kiwis being denied healthcare because of dangerously short-staffed emergency departments are going to buy his desperate attempt to blame previous Governments for failures that are happening on his watch?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What I know New Zealanders see when they go into the hospitals of New Zealand is a health workforce that works incredibly hard on their behalf. They see a health workforce that has increased, in terms of doctors and nurses, by 20 percent since we’ve been in office. They see a health workforce where we’re actually funding the building of health infrastructure instead of the National Party who had zero dollars for two consecutive years for health infrastructure. We know it takes long-term, sustained investment to build a health system, and that is what we’re doing.

Christopher Luxon: What is his response to the letter from senior staff at the previous Bay of Plenty DHB that stated that people with bowel cancer are waiting so long for treatment it is too late to cure them?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Anybody who has to wait a significant amount of time for bowel cancer treatment is something that all of us should want to improve. I note that the letter covers concerns described as being 15 years of failing to plan for the health system. We have invested significantly in the area of bowel screening, with over $200 million over the last four Budgets for bowel screening. I can note for the member that when that letter was written in December 2021, 88 percent of patients in the Bay of Plenty DHB were receiving treatment for bowel cancer within a target of 31 days. By August 2022, 96 percent of patients are now receiving. We’re getting on top of the problems that member ignored.

Christopher Luxon: What does he say to the families of people who have lost loved ones after they were denied access to lifesaving treatment due to the blow-out in wait-lists under this Government’s watch?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As I’ve already said in answer to a previous supplementary question, this has been one of the most difficult winters New Zealand’s health system has ever had to face: illness amongst staff, the COVID pandemic, flu breaking out all over New Zealand. What we’ve done is make sure that we’ve continued to invest. We keep working with all of the health authorities around New Zealand, not washing our hands, not underfunding like his Government did.

Christopher Luxon: Is he embarrassed that nurses in New Zealand are now reporting that they’re fearful of working in our overloaded emergency departments?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Again, I repeat what I said. We appreciate the work that our dedicated health professionals do. I’ll tell you what we’re doing about it, Mr Luxon—we’re paying them properly. We’ve lifted the pay by 20 percent, whereas under that party, it flat-lined. We’re making sure there’s more doctors and more nurses in our hospitals: 20 percent more doctors, 20 percent more nurses.

Christopher Luxon: What possible reason could the Government have for still refusing to offer overseas nurses immediate residency to come to New Zealand?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The Government’s residency offer for nurses compares well to countries overseas. We’ve seen around 400 overseas nurses become registered in New Zealand since July. We have about 500 nurses’ visa applications. We’re working hard to make sure that the workforce we need is there.

David Seymour: Can the Acting Prime Minister imagine anything his Government could do to make it easier for nurses to immigrate to New Zealand, and if he can imagine such a thing, when will he do it?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As I said in answer to the previous question, the Government has got competitive offer when it comes to nurses coming to work in New Zealand compared to the rest of the world. We have a large number of visa applications, and we’re processing them as quickly as we can.

David Seymour: Does the Acting Prime Minister believe New Zealand is a First World country when at least two people have died after being turned away from hospitals in the middle of our two largest cities this winter?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I am proud of the way that New Zealand and New Zealanders found their way through a COVID pandemic that killed tens of thousands of people in every other country—or other large countries—around the world. What we did is protect New Zealanders’ lives and livelihoods. In our health system, we have dedicated professionals who work hard. The member might have all the detail and all the information on those cases; I suggest he carefully works his way through and lets the investigations into them complete.

David Seymour: Does the Minister accept that there’s a serious shortage of staff in our hospitals, with frequent reports such as this from an Auckland doctor, “Four nurses from our department have resigned in the last two weeks, one interventional room now closed as it can’t be staffed. It just goes on.”, and if he does accept that there is a serious shortage of staff in our hospitals, can he tell the House and the people of New Zealand why?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Our health system has been under enormous pressure this winter because of COVID, because of staffing shortages, some of which are a result of COVID, some of which are a result of the fact that, yes, our borders were shut. We covered in the House yesterday why that was an important thing for us to do. I repeat: there has been a 20 percent increase in the number of nurses in our hospitals under this Government’s watch. If we accepted the economic policies of the Opposition, including that member, there would not be enough money to pay for those nurses. There would not be enough money to employ those nurses. We know that’s true because it’s what happened the last time they were in Government.

David Seymour: Is this Government’s handling of COVID-19 a triumphant achievement or its excuse for everything that goes wrong?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I am proud of the way all New Zealanders, not just the Government, responded to COVID. The results are all around us: we saved lives, we saved livelihoods in New Zealand. I don’t know why the member insists on talking New Zealand down.

Question No. 2—Education (Māori Education)

2. TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour) to the Associate Minister of Education (Māori Education): What recent developments has he seen that support Māori students in sciences and technology?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Associate Minister of Education (Māori Education)): Last week, I attended the expansion of the Pūhoro Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Mātauranga (STEMM) academy in Te Tai Tokerau. Pūhoro was established in response to low engagement of Māori in STEMM-related career pathways. It supports rangatahi Māori with a pathway into high-value careers with a transition from secondary school to tertiary programmes, including connections to internships, industry opportunities, and employment.

Tāmati Coffey: Why are programmes like Pūhoro STEMM important?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: The current under-representation of our people in the sciences, despite the skills of our tūpuna in these areas, attests to this; that needs to change. Pūhoro STEMM is a kaupapa Māori approach that seeks to improve equitable access for rangatahi Māori into science- and technology-related pathways. We are seeing great results, with almost two-in-five Pūhoro students gaining one or more science subject qualifications in 2021. This is nearly four times the science subject achievement rate for Māori in mainstream education.

Tāmati Coffey: How many students are supported by this programme?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: The last two years have seen significant growth for the Puhoro STEMM Academy, having engaged 1,503 rangatahi in 54 participating schools and kura across nine regions to date. The expansion into Te Tai Tokerau becomes the 10th region Pūhoro supports.

Tāmati Coffey: Has the programme received any national or international recognition?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Yes, it has. Pūhoro STEMM Academy has been nationally and internationally recognised for the work it does with rangatahi Māori. On a national level, it was the winner of two awards at the Diversity Awards in 2022. At an international level, Pūhoro STEMM Academy is one of three finalists in the global Engineering & Technology Innovation Awards 2022, to be held in November in London. This award recognises organisations who harness a truly diverse workforce or inclusive ethos, recognising the significant efforts of organisations globally that excel in their commitment to equality and inclusion across the diversity spectrum.

Question No. 3—Social Development and Employment

3. RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: Does she consider that current requirements relating to the effect of relationship status on someone’s eligibility to receive a benefit are fair and equitable?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Mālō ni, Mr Speaker. The welfare system is primarily based around income, assets, and the need of a household. We know that family structures have shifted over time. The Welfare Expert Advisory Group highlighted this in their report. I agree that further work is needed on this, and a review of settings that underpin financial assistance and eligibility is on the work programme for the welfare overhaul. However, what I am most focused on is providing immediate support for families in need. Since we’ve been in Government, our changes have led to around a 40 percent increase in after - housing-cost income, inflation-adjusted, for those on a main benefit, and an increase in income of $243 per week for couples with children.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Does she think that disabled people should be able to remain financially independent, no matter their relationship status, and, if not, is she putting more families in need into hardship as a result of these rules?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: We do believe that disabled people should be able to live financially independently. We have moved to increase benefits through our welfare system significantly since we took office, and we have also invested in other measures to support disabled people, including being committed to the roll-out of Enabling Good Lives across the country. There is, as I said, a need for a review of relationship settings within the welfare system, and that’s something that’s certainly on the cards.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Will she pause investigations into issues relating to relationship status for applicants who may lose their income support as a result of these rules while she makes her review?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) staff have to follow the legislation as it stands now, and so there is no way that any fraud investigation can be paused. However, as the Welfare Expert Advisory Group pointed out, the system that we undertake with regards to investigations of potential fraud cases is a three-step process that is fair and reasonable, and that is the process that we will continue to follow whilst these rules are in place.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Does she have confidence in how the Ministry of Social Development is making determinations off the fact of relationship status, and, if so, why are MSD staff tasked with figuring out whether people are in a sexual relationship even if they are financially independent and not living together?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I do have confidence in MSD staff. I think, though, that it would be unrealistic of me not to think that every now and then a determination they make could be wrong, and so that is why we have the review committee in place so that people can challenge those decisions if they deem them to be questionable or incorrect.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Why did the COVID-19 Income Relief Payment, which supported thousands of people who lost their jobs in 2020, have a higher threshold for a partner’s income than the jobseeker benefit before partners lost their income support?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: The income relief payment was not business-as-usual. It was a temporary payment that came about because of the extraordinary circumstances that we were facing with respect to COVID. Many families who did lose jobs would not have anticipated that that was going to happen. We needed to put an urgent measure in place, but, as I said, unlike our welfare system, that was temporary and we had no intention to carry that on.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Does she support changing the relationship settings for main benefits to be consistent with those proposed for the income insurance scheme, which, at this time, has full, individualised support to prevent inequity between different types of support in similar circumstances?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: As I’ve said, a review of relationship settings within the welfare system is something that’s certainly on the cards.

Question No. 4—Environment

4. LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE (Labour) to the Minister for the Environment: Mālō ni. What actions is the Government taking to reduce resource consenting costs for infrastructure?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The current resource management system takes too long, costs too much, and has not adequately enabled housing nor infrastructure, nor managed cumulative environmental effects. An Infrastructure Commission report on consenting infrastructure projects found consenting costs for medium sized infrastructure projects have increased 150 percent in the last 10 years, to 250 percent of what they were a decade ago. Developers are collectively spending $1.29 billion on resource consent processes, or 5.5 percent of project costs—benchmarked against costs in the UK and the European Union, which range from 0.1 to 5 percent of project cost. You can see we’re at the extreme end. Times also increased by 150 percent. This is why we are repealing and replacing the Resource Management Act (RMA), which will improve efficiency and lower consenting costs and improve environmental outcomes.

Lemauga Lydia Sosene: How will the replacement for the RMA reduce infrastructure consenting costs?

Hon DAVID PARKER: There will be major cost savings which will benefit not just the infrastructure providers but the public and private funders of the projects. Improvements will reduce the number and costs of consents. Designations for infrastructure will be simplified, with less relitigation, and designations lasting longer. The designations process will be more flexible and available to a wider group of providers.

Lemauga Lydia Sosene: What work is the Infrastructure Commission doing to assist the Government?

Hon DAVID PARKER: A new chapter in the national planning framework to enable infrastructure is being developed by the Infrastructure Commission. It will enable standards to be used for activities associated with the likes of housing and infrastructure—for example, earthworks or sediment or noise control. This will avoid the need for bespoke conditions and will also enable more activities to be permitted activities.

Lemauga Lydia Sosene: How will the replacement for the RMA improve district plans and reduce costs?

Hon DAVID PARKER: RMA planning documents will be consolidated from over 100 to 15 Natural and Built Environments Act plans. Plans will be fast to prepare, reducing in time from about 10 years under the current system to a maximum of four in the new system. Plan quality will be improved by adopting the independent hearings panel approach, which was initiated by Rodney Hide when he was here. More activities will be permitted with fewer notified consents needed, and the new Act will require councils to publicly report on their performance.

Hon Scott Simpson: Sounds exciting.

Hon DAVID PARKER: It is.

Question No. 5—Finance

5. NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National) to the Minister of Finance: Does he think his job in the short term is to limit growth in spending, especially when inflation is high?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Point of order. That is not the question that was lodged. The question that was lodged with me and that we have given answer to is significantly longer and different than that.

SPEAKER: Did you read it off this?

Nicola Willis: I did read it off the sheet. The Minister is correct; I lodged a different question. It was longer and substantially different. However, the clerks informed me they had changed the question to that which is on the sheet, which is why I’ve read that. But I’m happy to revert to my original question, which I far preferred.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: So do I. So why don’t you do that?

SPEAKER: No, the question is the one written on the—

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I will answer the question as it is on the sheet, because that is the process we have in the House, but I think we need to reflect—and perhaps we can go away and talk about it afterwards. Just after 1 p.m. today, I was advised that the member wished to change the wording of the question that had been lodged, and we had begun working on since it was lodged. My understanding was that the question wasn’t going to be changed, but it’s on the sheet; I’ll answer it as it is.

SPEAKER: There were actually two changes.

Chris Bishop: Point of order. I think the Minister of Finance has laid out what happened. You’re exactly right. I think you just said—that’s the point I was going to make—that the question was changed after it was lodged, quite substantially, and then there was an attempt to slightly alter the wording around 1 o’clock, but that did not happen. And the question is as it is on the yellow question sheet. So it hasn’t changed.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: That advice came after 1 o’clock, Chris. But I said I’ll answer it.

Chris Bishop: No one’s acting in bad faith here.

SPEAKER: It’s not substantially different, from my understanding.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: It’s very different.

Nicola Willis: Mr Speaker, I’m very happy to revert to the original question that the Minister is prepared for.

SPEAKER: No, we’ll have question No. 5 as written on the yellow piece of paper.

Nicola Willis: To the Minister of Finance: does he think his job in the short term is to limit growth in spending, especially when inflation is high?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As Minister of Finance, I have many jobs, one of those is to make sure that spending that is undertaken matches what is set down in the Budget, also to make sure that it is responsible. The latest set of Treasury forecasts show that over the forecast period we are limiting growth in spending. Indeed, Government expenses are set to fall from 35 percent of GDP in the 2021-22 year, which was obviously marked by the responses to Omicron and Delta, down to 29.8 percent of GDP in 2025-26.

Nicola Willis: Has he read reports of the $28 million Australian Budget repair package that unwinds wasteful or unnecessary Government spending, redirecting it towards higher-quality investments and priorities, and will he take a similar approach in New Zealand?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I’ve had a good read, actually, of the Budget that Dr Chalmers laid down last night. It contains a number of interesting things. I look forward to the member endorsing the wellbeing approach of the Government there, getting up to a 45 cent top tax rate, investing in fair pay agreement - type work, all of which is in that legislation. What I do note is that, obviously, the Australian Government will make decisions appropriate for Australia, but in the Budget itself, actual expenses across the forecast period in fact increase as a percentage of GDP in the Australian Budget.

Nicola Willis: Why is the Government prioritising a $370 million merger of TVNZ and RNZ, $35 million subsidising people to buy Teslas, and $60 million to design a jobs tax when New Zealand is in the midst of a cost of living crisis?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As the member is well aware, we have taken a number of significant steps to address the cost of living pressures that New Zealanders are feeling. We also, at the same time, think it’s kind of important to address an issue like climate change and actually make sure that we decarbonise our transport fleet. The member obviously can’t walk and chew gum at the same time; we can.

Nicola Willis: How does subsidising New Zealand’s wealthiest people to buy Teslas help with climate change?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Making sure that we have fewer internal combustion engine vehicles on the road and more electric vehicles on the road is a good thing. I know that the National Party’s approach on climate change is to deny and delay and defer; not us.

Nicola Willis: How does the Minister think the woman who has switched her diet to shakes to cut her grocery bill would feel about him getting up in this House to defend the wealthiest New Zealanders getting subsidies to buy Teslas as his response to climate change?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I’m thrilled the member’s raised the topic of the wealthiest New Zealanders. I wonder what the woman in that article would think about a political party who thinks the highest priority right now is to cut the tax of the wealthiest New Zealanders, because that’s the National Party’s policy. It’s the member who should be ashamed and apologising to that woman.

Hon Michael Wood: Can the Minister confirm that over the last year, the average emissions of new vehicles coming into New Zealand has declined by 19 percent under the Clean Car Discount policy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I absolutely can confirm that, and I can confirm this Government’s commitment to decarbonising our transport fleet. On this side of the House, we believe that it is perfectly possible to support New Zealanders through a cost of living crisis while at the same time getting on with dealing to an existential threat to our planet. The National Party has never wanted to take action on climate change and nothing has changed.

Nicola Willis: Why are New Zealanders’ real wages lower today than when Labour came to office, and isn’t it the case that, just as the Australian Labor Party has shown in the last day, a responsible Government can rein in wasteful spending, deliver tax relief, and repair the country’s finances?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: This Government has a plan to get New Zealand into surplus quicker than the National Party did after the global financial crisis. We’re keeping our levels of debt low. Our unemployment is one of the lowest in the OECD. Here in New Zealand, our Government knows that it is about striking a balance. That member thinks it’s about giving tax cuts to the wealthiest New Zealanders; we think it’s about supporting all New Zealanders.

Question No. 6—Tourism

6. RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson) to the Minister of Tourism: What reports has he seen on New Zealand’s tourism recovery?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Tourism): I’m pleased to report that New Zealand is set for a strong summer as the tourism sector continues to recover. It is encouraging that August 2022 was the first month in nearly 2½ years where a holiday has been the most popular reason for travel by overseas visitors, replacing visiting friends and relatives, which has dominated the reason for travel from April 2020. The August numbers show that demand for New Zealand is still there from international tourists.

Rachel Boyack: What is contributing to New Zealand’s tourism recovery?

Hon STUART NASH: Well, the cruise summer season’s already under way, with over 40 cruise vessels expected over the 2022-23 season, bringing an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 visitors to our shores. Our Great Walks, which opened on Monday, have seen close to 20 percent of bookings made by international visitors, bringing yet more visitors to our regions to see our stunning natural beauty and experience local Kiwi hospitality.

Rachel Boyack: What economic benefits will cruise passengers bring?

Hon STUART NASH: It’s projected that between $350 million and $510 million will be spent over the 2022-23 summer period by cruise passengers. Regional ports, too, will benefit. Timaru, for example, will be seeing 12 cruise ships over the next year—

Hon Andrew Little: Timaru?

Hon STUART NASH: —Timaru, yes—and Stewart Island will see 20.

Rachel Boyack: What major events will help bring tourists into New Zealand?

Hon STUART NASH: Major events are returning to New Zealand at pace. For example, the FIFA Women’s World Cup tournament alone is projected to bring tens of thousands of visitors to our shores, especially now we know we’ll be hosting reigning world champs the United States. There are some huge events hitting regional New Zealand this year. For example, Rotorua will host SIX60, the Whaka100 Mountain Bike Marathon, and Crankworx, all before the end of the year. These visitors will inject much-welcomed money into the sector through accommodation, transport, food, and meals, not to mention visits to our beautiful tourist attractions.

Rachel Boyack: What support has the Government provided to the tourism sector throughout the pandemic?

Hon STUART NASH: I’ve always acknowledged the tough times that the tourism sector has had over the past few years. The Government has invested more than $600 million to help the industry through COVID and help them set up for the return of international tourists. New Zealand’s borders are open, international bookings are flowing in, and we’re set for a cracker summer.

Question No. 7—Children

7. DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori) to the Minister for Children: What reports, if any, has he received regarding the death of Malachi Subecz in State care and what specific actions, if any, has he taken in response to those reports?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister for Children): I’m yet to receive the practice review from Oranga Tamariki as I’m waiting for this report to be finalised and to ensure that Oranga Tamariki has been able to engage with the whānau at their pace before any findings are shared. I’m determined to understand where Oranga Tamariki could have and should have done better and to make sure it doesn’t happen again. That’s why I asked for these reviews to be done. It’s important to remember that Malachi was not in the care of Oranga Tamariki. Reports of concern were made to Oranga Tamariki regarding his safety and Oranga Tamariki recognise their failures to act appropriately on these.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Has the Minister seen or received the draft system review report and, when he does, when will it be made public?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: In answer to the first part of the question, no.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Does the Minister accept the need to overhaul the reports of concern process given there was a failure to investigate multiple reports of concerns regarding Malachi at various levels of Government?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: I expect that’ll be addressed in the practice review report.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Can the Minister confirm that Malachi’s whānau contacted his office to report to him the abuse that he was suffering?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: I understand that someone in my office was contacted on 3 November 2021 by a member of Malachi’s whānau. Concerns were raised that day with Oranga Tamariki.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Who in the Government is responsible when children in State care, or trying to get State care, die?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Well, that depends. First of all, the person who actually killed the child is the person responsible, but we have to make sure that we look under every stone to find out where the system may have gone wrong, which is why we’ve also asked for a system review as well as the practice review.

Question No. 8—Justice

8. GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South) to the Minister of Justice: Mālō ni, Mr Speaker. What changes is the Government making to counter-terrorism laws?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): Last week, I announced that the Government will be strengthening our counter-terrorism laws through changes to the control orders and terrorist designations regime. These changes will improve the effectiveness of the law and make it harder for people who are known threats to undertake terrorist activities. I’d like to thank, as well, just all parties for their constructive engagement on the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill, and I look forward to members’ contributions at first reading this afternoon.

Ginny Andersen: What amendments are being made to the terrorist designation scheme?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: The bill strengthens the terrorist designation scheme by making it explicit that it covers individuals in prisons. Overseas, we have seen examples of how, in prison, terrorists continue to attempt to influence and incite others from behind bars. The bill makes a series of technical changes to further reduce any ability for designated entities to be glorified or to support others in carrying out acts of terrorism.

Ginny Andersen: What amendments are being made to the control orders regime?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: The bill makes changes related to convictions for objectionable publications, home detention and community-based sentences, greater judicial discretion, and more flexible name suppression requirements. In addition, these amendments will improve the effectiveness of the control orders Act and expand the criteria for high-risk individuals who can be covered by the restrictions which limit their ability to undertake an attack.

Ginny Andersen: Will the Government consider further changes to the control orders regime?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: The control orders regime is subject to a statutory review scheduled for 2023. This is timely, given that this is a technical and emerging area of law in New Zealand. Further changes can be considered during that review period to ensure the regime is working effectively.

Question No. 9—Health

9. Dr SHANE RETI (National) to the Minister of Health: How many people with bowel cancer at Tauranga Hospital are estimated to have progressed from curative to palliative treatment plans due to patients having been on the waiting list for months longer than the recommended times?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): The member’s question relates to a letter written by a number of clinicians last year, at what was then the Bay of Plenty District Health Board, to their chief executive at the time, regarding concerns about what they described as 15 years of failing to plan for the health needs of that region, as well as other issues. That 15-year period encompasses the entire time the previous National Government held office. The letter was subsequently passed to Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand when the new health system took effect. One of the statements made in December last year, in that letter, was that “Patients are being diagnosed with bowel cancer, having been on our waiting lists for months longer than the recommended times, and this is leading to palliative rather than curative treatment plans.” Officials have advised me that the only way to answer the member’s question would be a manual review of every patient’s clinical notes. Even if a meaningful assessment could be made in each case, the member’s question has no time frame on it, and it is therefore not possible to answer. What I can tell the member is this: in December 2021, when the letter was sent, 88 percent of patients in the Bay of Plenty District Health Board region who received treatment for upper and lower gastrointestinal tumours did so within the target of 31 days. Secondly, in the most recent reported period, ending in August 2022, 96 percent of patients in that region received treatment within 31 days, and this compares to 88 percent nationally. It’s important to note both that the rates of bowel cancer diagnosis have been trending upwards while diagnosis in emergency departments has been declining. I am advised that this is almost certainly because of the success of the National Bowel Screening Programme, which this Government has invested $203 million into after the previous Government didn’t properly fund it, and which we have now rolled out nationwide.

Dr Shane Reti: Is it correct that only cancer patients who were able to receive chemotherapy were offered a cancer specialist appointment at Tauranga Hospital and others went to their GP?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I can’t comment on that, but given that member’s long track record of getting his facts wrong, I would say it’s more likely wrong than right.

Dr Shane Reti: Has he seen the letter that he just reported to in his first answer, from medical oncology, saying that only patients who are to receive chemotherapy are offered first specialist assessment; all other patients are to be managed by a GP, without the opportunity to discuss their case with a specialist?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I point out, and the member is well aware, that the letter was addressed to the then chief executive of the Bay of Plenty District Health Board and, effectively, called upon that chief executive to remedy a number of issues. But the letter was also very clear that the issues that they were dealing with, as many clinicians today are dealing with, is the consequence of a system that was routinely underfunded for many, many years, including the entirety of the previous Government’s period of time. The reason we are making the changes we are is that we needed to see change and improved performance. This Government inherited a bowel screening programme that had such limited funding and no chance of being rolled out nationwide. We have now committed more than $200 million. We now have a nationwide bowel screening programme that is making a significant difference, because, when it comes to the National Party, they are all talk and no trousers.

Dr Shane Reti: Why did the chair of his waiting list task force say on TV ONE last night that targets were a distraction; yet, as the acting medical officer of Counties Manukau, in the board meeting of 23 February this year, that same person accepted a report titled Metrics that matter, describing surgical targets, and why, then, were targets metrics that mattered in February but, at the Minister’s task force stand-up yesterday, the exact same targets are now a distraction?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: So that question just demonstrates the sheer and utter confusion that that member dwells in. I think the main point is this: it is widely accepted by many clinicians that targets are not a plan. Targets don’t deliver service. Targets don’t improve services. What you need is a plan. The National Party thinks that if you have a target, magically things will happen. What we do know, from the 2019 research into the National Party health targets, is that they were manipulated and dodged and did not deliver good healthcare.

Dr Shane Reti: Did he support the COVID vaccination target?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: This Government follows clinical advice, and there is epidemiological research that says that in order to reach a level of herd immunity, there is a level that you have to reach, and we followed that clinical advice. But, when we are running services, when we are operating services, we focus on having a plan and resourcing it, not like the National Party that declares they’re going to do bowel screening, doesn’t resource it, doesn’t fund it, and lets it flounder.

Question No. 10—Health

10. Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour—Banks Peninsula) to the Associate Minister of Health: Mālō ni. What recent announcement has the Government made regarding maternal mental health?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Associate Minister of Health): Earlier this month, I announced our investment of $10.1 million over four years in maternal mental health. This will result in better and more widely available care for new and expectant mothers around the country. The funding will ensure that children, mothers, and whānau can access specialist services around New Zealand, and access to appropriate Māori services will be improved. These investments continue to build on the funding from the 2019 Wellbeing Budget, which invested in front-line mental health and addiction services and other early interventions.

Dr Tracey McLellan: How will this address gaps in maternal mental health care?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: The funding will be invested to fill gaps in care identified by last year’s maternal mental health stocktake. In particular, it will target support in the regions where it is needed most. The $10.1 million will add more clinical and non-clinical staff, as well as packages of care to provide more support to whānau with higher needs, including home-based supports.

Dr Tracey McLellan: Why is it important to invest in maternal mental health care?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: Supporting parents’ mental wellbeing during their child’s first 1,000 days is important for the long-term emotional, mental, and physical wellbeing of the child. Support for perinatal mental health that is accessible for all pregnant or post-natal women when they need it most is also key. It is estimated that the care packages from this investment will help support approximately 700 people per year following the fourth year of investment.

Dr Tracey McLellan: How does this complement other initiatives?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: This Government is committed to ensuring parents receive the support they need during pregnancy, birth, and in the post-natal period, so as to make New Zealand the best place to be a child. This investment complements several other initiatives rolled out by the Government to support mothers in the post-natal period, including the Well Child Tamariki Ora enhanced support pilots, pregnancy and parenting services, and recognition of maternal birth injuries by ACC.

Question No. 11—Education (School Operations)

11. ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays) to the Associate Minister of Education (School Operations): What percentage of decile 1 students achieved each assessment in the 2022 NCEA Numeracy and Literacy pilot, and what specific questions, if any, were not culturally “appropriate” in this pilot, as she claimed yesterday in question time?

Hon JAN TINETTI (Associate Minister of Education (School Operations)): In regards to the first part of the question: in reading, 195 students participated, with 24.1 percent achieving; in writing, 135 students participated, with 2.2 percent achieving; and in numeracy, 179 students participated, with 10.1 percent achieving. Now, these numbers stand in stark contrast to the decile 10 students, who achieved 84 percent, 61 percent, and 77 percent, respectively. This does point towards the Government’s approach to tackling inequity in the system through our barrier-free access suite being the right one when combined with targeted plans to lift maths and literacy attainment across the country. In regards to the second part of the question: as I said in the House yesterday, feedback we have received from some teachers who participated in the pilot was that—in their professional opinion, which I will not second-guess—the assessment wasn’t culturally appropriate.

Chris Bishop: Point of order. Mr Speaker, I think you know what I’m about to say, which is that the second part of the question is extremely specific, which is about the specific questions, if any, that were not culturally appropriate in this pilot. And as the next part is “as she claimed yesterday in question time”, which has been authenticated and accepted—it’s on the yellow sheet—the Minister is required to answer that question.

SPEAKER: Yes. The Minister should—you definitely addressed it, but considering the answer that you gave yesterday, you haven’t answered it.

Hon JAN TINETTI: As I’ve already said, it’s important that we consider the views of all stakeholders and experts. And as Minister, it would be completely inappropriate of me to second-guess their opinions. About half the teachers who participated in the pilot thought the assessment wasn’t equitable for all learners in reference to the content. I will not second-guess their opinions.

SPEAKER: Just a minute; I’m going to read exactly what was said yesterday. I’m going to give the member two extra questions, and she can ask questions around that, if she wishes.

Erica Stanford: Can she please provide us with one example of the type of question that she believes, or she was told about, that was culturally inappropriate?

Hon JAN TINETTI: As I’ve said yesterday, as a former teacher—and you’ve asked about the type of question—we know that some students, if you put the reading text in front of them and they don’t understand the context, they will struggle to attempt to solve the issue that was put in front of them—as I’ve said, if they don’t understand the context. Obviously, we have people on the other side of the aisles here who don’t understand education at that level. So let me give a specific example. When I was a teacher, there was a PM reader called “Treasure Hunt”. Many times we’ve struggled with our young people understanding the word “clues” because they had no context of what a “treasure hunt” was. That’s an example of what that might be in that assessment.

Erica Stanford: Is she seriously saying that she doesn’t expect 15-year-olds, after 10 years of compulsory schooling, to be able to use the knowledge they’ve gained to write about something they may have not experienced firsthand?

Hon JAN TINETTI: I think that if people even in this House had to look at an area that they had not been involved with—and obviously I can use the example of education, because that’s very obvious from the questions that are coming from the other side—they would struggle to write about it at the in-depth level. We need to contextualise learning. It is a fundamental part of education to contextualise it.

Hon Kelvin Davis: Would she expect somebody who had never been on a marae before to be able to stand up and write about an experience or understand the experience of being on a marae?

Hon JAN TINETTI: That’s a very good question, because, no, I wouldn’t. I would actually, if I was a teacher in that situation, want to contextualise that with our young people first. I’d also want to contextualise it with adults first.

Erica Stanford: What specific support will she implement next year for the 98 percent of decile 1 students that failed the co-requisite to ensure they pass this foundational literacy and numeracy assessment before they leave school?

Hon JAN TINETTI: We’ve already announced some work in this area with our $20 million loss of learning package, and that will work towards and go towards assisting those pupils who are struggling in this area with targeted tutoring. Already, a number of schools have taken that up and are reporting early on that; they can see that this will be a support to them. But this is also something that I want to talk about with the teachers a bit more, because they are the experts in this area about how we can support them as a Government.

Erica Stanford: What sort of questions in the numeracy exam were not culturally appropriate?

Hon JAN TINETTI: We have heard from teachers that there has been a lot of reading in those exams. And if you are an English learner who is second language and struggling to read, it doesn’t give you an accurate understanding of your numeracy level.

Erica Stanford: Isn’t it her Government and under her watch that the Ministry of Education set these exams and have piloted them now twice; and why is it that she is standing up here today telling us that they are not appropriate for children who are unable to read?

Hon JAN TINETTI: That’s exactly what a pilot is. I’m not sure that the member understands the concept of a pilot, but it’s to work through what these exams will look like. What I will say is that this Government is committed to our young people achieving and the integrity of the exam remaining high. To question that integrity is a little bit concerning from the Opposition, who have in the past put in failed experiments as their answer to declining levels of literacy and numeracy over the past few decades.

Erica Stanford: How is she going to ensure that the exams are culturally appropriate to cater for the many different cultures in this country; and is she considering multiple different exams based on the culture of the person taking the exam?

Hon JAN TINETTI: That’s exactly what the pilots are for. And I am concerned the member’s understanding of that word “culture” seemed to go straight to race, and I am not prepared to be race-baited by that member.

Chris Bishop: Point of order. We have been listening very carefully to the Associate Minister’s answers. That’s now the fourth time, in response to very straight, very serious questions about a matter of extreme public importance, that the Minister has had a political flick—in the most recent case, an unparliamentary flick—at the Opposition. My colleague Erica Stanford is asking very serious questions in a very straight manner, and she’s entitled to expect straight answers, not political attacks, from the Minister.

Hon Grant Robertson: Mr Speaker, I take Mr Bishop’s point. However, I also take the rulings that you’ve made in recent days. Throughout the Minister’s answer, there were interjections, continuously, from members opposite, and in that environment it is highly unsurprising that there might be some political flicks coming back.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Mr Speaker, whether or not that is the case, nothing excuses a Minister breaching Speaker’s ruling 44/1 by accusing a member of race-baiting, which is strictly prohibited in this House.

SPEAKER: Thank you, the Hon Michael Woodhouse—that is absolutely correct, and on that matter I will require the Minister to stand, withdraw, and apologise. On the issues raised by Chris Bishop, that’s also correct. I’ve listened carefully. There were elements of out-of-order interjections, yes, but the questions were straight up. They were straight-up questions, and they did not need some of the comments that were made, but on the last one, that was definitely out of order, and so I will require the Minister to stand, withdraw, and apologise. I will award one more supplementary question.

Hon JAN TINETTI: I withdraw and apologise.

Erica Stanford: Does she agree that the purpose of education is to expand a child’s mind outside of their own localised experiences, and, if not, how does she ever expect New Zealand children to succeed on the world stage?

Hon JAN TINETTI: That’s why we are putting these pilots in place: to improve our education system so our children will not only survive but thrive.

Question No. 12—Education

12. CHRIS BAILLIE (ACT) to the Minister of Education: Does he agree with the statement from the Te Pūkenga organisational direction and design - analysis of feedback report that said “Legislation that only allows one CE is a risk to a Tiriti-partnering model”; if so, is he considering amending the Education and Training Act 2020 to allow for co-leadership as a way of honouring the Treaty?

Hon JAN TINETTI (Associate Minister of Education) on behalf of the Minister of Education: No and no.

Chris Baillie: Is the Minister concerned with a statement from the Tertiary Education Commission’s mid-August briefing that states “the overall failure of Te Pūkenga to progress key areas of work over the past two years means it will be some time before the key benefits sought from the establishment of Te Pūkenga will be realised.”, and, if so, does the Minister believe that implementing more co-governance will help to realise these benefits sooner?

Hon JAN TINETTI: On the second part to that question, no.

Chris Baillie: Does the Minister agree with one respondent quoted in Te Pūkenga’s analysis and feedback report, who said that “not having Māori at the chief executive level is an ‘imbalance in mana’ ”, and does he believe that addressing an “imbalance in mana” is more important than addressing Te Pūkenga’s $110 million debt crisis?

Hon JAN TINETTI: No.

Chris Baillie: Which problem does the Minister believe Te Pūkenga Council should be focusing on: addressing Te Pūkenga’s $110 million debt crisis or hiring more bureaucrats, such as co-leadership positions for executive directors, in the name of co-governance?

Hon JAN TINETTI: No discussions have been had around co-leadership.

General Debate

General Debate

CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Leader of the Opposition): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

Well, Mr Speaker, you are no doubt a very well-read man, and I’m sure that you are very familiar with the tale of the emperor’s new clothes, because, as the story goes, two con men promise a prideful emperor a fabulous new suit of clothes. That emperor then parades before his subjects in his non-existent suit until a boy cries out, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!” And then, when the crowd realise the child is right, they roar in laughter. However, the very sad thing is that the emperor continues on his parade because the turn back would be foolish and wrong. Well, here in New Zealand in 2022, the Labour Government is the emperor, and it has for five years—five long years—paraded through town telling people that they care, telling people to be kind, and telling people that they are going to deliver. And, while the people at court in the Labour Party on the other side praise their emperor, the crowds outside of this place are pointing and what they’re saying is they can see five years of failure: a Government that spends more, it hires more, and it uniquely and unbelievably delivers worse in every area across the board.

So let’s look at some of these failures; let’s look at why the emperor has no clothes, because it couldn’t be clearer. Let’s look at the story on the economy because it’s very simply five years of failure: inflation at 7.2 percent, the highest in 32 years; real wages down 4 percent; no one can get ahead; everyone’s going backwards, and there’s no plan to deal with it from the other side. We’ve got mortgage interest rates at record levels. We’ve got interest rates going higher than they need to be, because this Government’s addicted to spending an extra billion dollars more each and every week. At the same time, they’re collecting almost $15,000 more per household in tax, but they won’t give it back to Kiwis to keep in their own pocket, to spend and save as they see fit. Instead, what do we get? We got a rinky-dink band-aid idea called a “cost of living payment” that went to dead people. And what I would say to you: that is the sign of an utterly incompetent Government if you just can’t even give the money away.

So what’s the story on health? Well, it’s five years of failure there too, because every single health metric has gone backwards, every single wait-list time has got worse, and we have 200,000 Kiwis now on a health-related wait-list. We have a health workforce at breaking point; 4,000 nurses are needed and we can’t even fast track them through an immigration process. Meanwhile, we spend money building up a massive bureaucracy when we should be spending it on the front-line healthcare services.

What’s the story on crime? Well, I can tell you it’s a familiar refrain: it’s five years of failure. Violent crime up 21 percent, assaults up 31 percent, gang membership up 50 percent, ram raids up 500 percent. And what we have is a Labour Government soft on crime, and I can tell you National’s going to support the police and we are going to tackle gangs.

What’s the story on housing? Well, it is five years of failure. Homeownership is down. Remember KiwiBuild—1.4 percent of the hundred thousand houses have been built. Now, if you can’t own a home, you have to rent a home, and rents are up $140 a week. And, if you are not lucky enough to rent a home, you end up going on the State house waiting list, and that’s up four times. And, if it’s really grim, you end up not getting a State house; you’re in emergency housing. And 4,000 kids woke up in a motel accommodation today; a million dollars a day is what it’s costing us. And, if you can’t get emergency accommodation, where do you go? You end up living in your car, and that is four times worse than it was when this Government came to power.

What’s the story on education? It’s five years of failure. This is a developed country, and we have 54 percent of our kids not making school regularly. We have 100,000 kids chronically absent from school. And then, if you are lucky enough to make it through the front gates, we’ve got record low, abysmal levels of academic achievement. Here we are in New Zealand and 98 percent of our kids in decile 1 schools failed to pass the most basic writing tests. This is New Zealand; we don’t do that any further. That’s not transforming lives; that’s actually a social failure. It’s a moral failure, and it’s a future economic crisis.

So what’s the story from the emperor’s new clothes? What’s the moral that comes out of it? Well, it’s pretty simple: just saying it’s so doesn’t make it so. Pride becomes a fall, and karma gets you in the end. And I want to tell you, speaking of karma, the New Zealand people are going to be able to say next year “the emperor has no clothes” and they’re going to elect a National Government that wants to put the country back on track, that will deliver, and that is going to take New Zealand forward incredibly positively. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Immigration): This week, I want to wish one and all a very, very happy Labour Day, although I do pass on to the Leader of the Opposition my thoughts and prayers as he has to deal with the trauma and shared mental dislocation of living through a public holiday that he wants to abolish. And, at the same time, I do wish to pass on my apologies to him for the fact that, just days before that, we made an announcement about investing in the national ticketing solution for public transport, given, as we know, that he thinks that public transport should “Stand on its own two feet without any support from Government”.

But, as we celebrate Labour Day this week, the big win for working people is this Government moving forward and reaching that manifesto commitment of legislating for fair pay agreements (FPAs) for the working people of New Zealand. They are about stopping the race to the bottom and closing the door on a 30-year experiment with low wages that that party on the other side of the House has never been able to move beyond.

Fair pay agreements are about a new dawn for the people who clean our offices, who clean this Parliament, who drive the buses around our cities, who care for our old people, and who teach our youngest children. Fair pay agreements—so clearly, in this House, as they have made their way through—are also a marker of values and a marker of priorities because, while this Government stands by low and middle income people and is always looking for how we can improve life for them, the focus on that side of the House is on how they can shovel tax cuts, as much as possible, to the wealthy few. I’ve been doing a few figures on this one because sometimes you can work out how values translate into real-world facts and figures, and this is worth understanding because it makes it pretty stark. That party over there, every single member on that side of the House would give themselves an $8,000 tax cut—that’s what they would give themselves: an $8,000 tax cut.

Well, as it would happen, as it happens, it would take a minimum wage worker, like a cleaner, earning a full-time wage between Labour Day and the end of the year to earn the $8,000 that they would give themselves at the stroke of a pen. And it gets worse, for were Mr Luxon—God forbid—to be the Prime Minister in a position to do that, he would be giving himself an $18,000 tax cut that would take a minimum wage worker five months to earn. That is the difference between this side of the House, who stands with working New Zealanders, and that side of the House, who stands for unfunded tax cuts to the wealthy few. And that is the choice that New Zealanders face.

The increases to the minimum wage that this Government, this Labour Government, has delivered to the lowest-income New Zealanders since 2017—those people who worked so hard up and down our country—$218 more per week in their pockets. Mr Luxon’s tax cut would give himself a tax cut of $346 per week. And so let’s get past—let’s get past—the fine words and the pearl clutching about cost of living and how it impacts low and middle income earners, from that side of the House, because the policies that they would advance, the values that they actually stand for are all about the needs of those at the top, and would do nothing—would do nothing—for those on the low and middle incomes in New Zealand that this Government is supporting.

And that is such a clear choice for New Zealanders, and it just goes on and on because every single policy that this Government puts in place to support working people is opposed by that side of the House. The minimum wage: opposed by National. FPAs: opposed by National. A Matariki public holiday: opposed by National. Ten days’ sick leave in the middle of a global pandemic: opposed by National. Our investment in working people through more apprenticeships for our young people to give them skills and training; cheaper doctors’ visits for our kids; free lunches for our kids in schools put through by Labour Budgets: opposed by National. And that is because that side of the House continues to have a narrow, zero-sum game of investing in working people where they always see it as a cost; we see it as an investment, on the side of the House.

So, as we celebrate Labour this day, I say thank you to the working people of this country for everything that you contribute. Fair pay agreements, this week, will make a real difference. This is a Labour Government that backs working people every step of the way.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Everyone in our country should be able to make ends meet. Everyone should have enough to live a decent life. The Green Party has a vision where everyone in New Zealand has a warm, dry, affordable home to live in. Of course, that is absolutely achievable; everyone should have enough to be able to put healthy kai on the table and the ability to get around.

Now, there are two stories coming out of the pandemic. Right now, we seem rampant inflation, a cost of living crisis—how does that play out for ordinary New Zealanders? There is a family in South Auckland—probably many families—who are renting. Their home is not sufficiently insulated, there is no State support, necessarily, to insulate that unless the owner chooses to do so. It may not even have curtains in the bedroom, and, in the winter, the temperature can get quite cold. The quality of the house means the kids are more likely to be sick, to miss school, to have to visit the hospital. This family was making their energy payments, they are making every electricity power payment. However, that meant that they didn’t have enough to go to the supermarket and buy food. And so they had to go visit food banks.

At the very same time that these families are struggling with these terrible choices—to have to choose between paying the electricity bill, being in a cold, unhealthy home, or putting food on the table—we see companies in New Zealand—the supermarkets, the energy companies, the petrol companies—making record profits. Now, you can’t tell me that there’s not a connection between rising prices and record profits in sectors where we know there are a few big players wielding market power.

So what’s the solution to this? I mean, Government is there to make this system fair, and we can do that. It doesn’t benefit all of New Zealanders to have supermarkets and energy companies and petrol companies and the banks raking in record profits. It’s super-profit. It’s excess profit. There is a difference between making a living—an honest living—and making a killing by ripping people off.

I think New Zealanders can tell that right now, during this time of inflation, no, the culprit isn’t the Government. Government is investing in public services—obviously there’s areas where we differ in some of the focus on projects and there are different trade-offs that the Greens would make. However, we need Government to be investing in core public services like our health system, our education system. We need better water infrastructure; we need public housing.

So what are the solutions? Well, firstly, we need a fairer tax system. If we know that there are record profits—and I can go through what these are. So, of course, even the Commerce Commission study found that supermarkets were making excess profit of $1 million a day—$1 million a day. Meanwhile, we look at the big “gen-tailers”—the big energy companies that generate power and retail this—and I know they do a lot of good work, and there’s good people working in those companies, but the system means that they are incentivised to maximise their profit. As at August, Meridian is up 55 percent, Mercury is up 42 percent, and Genesis is up from a $31 million profit to $221 million—a nearly 600 percent increase.

Now, when those companies are making such huge profits we know there is a problem, and it’s ordinary New Zealanders that are getting ripped off. At the supermarket, on their electricity bills, and on their petrol bills. But there are things that the Government can do about this, absolutely.

Firstly, we want to make sure the tax system is fair; that there’s not this ability or an incentive to rip people off, to make super profits. That’s something that we can change. The Green Party is calling for those sorts of changes.

Other ideas for Government solutions: firstly, we need to have regulations around housing. I know we have healthy homes legislation—it doesn’t go far enough. When someone can rent out a house with no curtains in the bedroom, no heating in the bedroom, no insulation, and the temperature can fall to 6 degrees overnight, we have a problem and a health crisis. It makes sense for Government to intervene. We’ve heard that there are some landlords that are renting places with leaky roofs—that needs to stop. Government can invest in insulation, invest in energy efficiency, and invest in free public transport. We can do that with revenue raised, and fair for those companies that are making super profits to pay more tax so that we can pay for these solutions that help all New Zealanders.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister for Whānau Ora): Tuatahi, ka tahuri ōku mihi ki tōku tuahine ki a Soraya Peke-Meihana kua tīmata mai ki roto i tēnei Whare.

[Firstly, I wish to acknowledge my sister Soraya Peke-Mason’s commencement in this House.]

It’s a real special occasion to acknowledge her and, of course, her entering into Parliament at a very significant time. The numbers have already been raised about how a fair representation of wāhine in this Whare has been reached, but it can’t stop there. It’s an ongoing challenge to this House not to settle for 50 percent but to continue to support and tautoko wāhine into our House of Representatives. I want to acknowledge the new member because she certainly has a big job ahead of her, but I know that she’s cut out for it.

It’s really hard to articulate as well as the Hon Michael Wood just exactly what’s going on here with respect to those who are on middle to low incomes here in this country. But what is clear is that on this side of the House we’re supporting them. I want to lay out in my contribution here in the House just exactly how we’re doing that, and perhaps some tips for members on the other side that, actually, there are ways and means in which we can do it here in New Zealand.

What we hear from the other side of the House is that immigration is the answer to everything. Well, on this side of the House, we agree that immigration does play a role, actually, in the way we might support our labour market. We have, obviously, looked towards the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme to make sure that we can get whānau in here to do the work that needs to be done here in Aotearoa.

But I’m proud of this Government’s record and I want to highlight to the other side of the House that here’s a novel idea: let’s invest in our own people. Let’s make sure that we can train our own people here in Aotearoa to make sure that they can meet the demands of the labour market of the day.

It’s no coincidence that in the 1970s there was a housing boom in this country. Large numbers of houses were built. Like I say, it was no coincidence that Māori trade training was a huge success through the 1960s and 1970s that saw all of those who were able to be skilled and upskilled into the trades seek the opportunity and contribute to the housing boom that we saw during that time.

On this side of the House, I’m proud that this Government has supported over 50,000 apprentices into training to make sure that we can rise to the current challenge that we have with housing now—and rising they are. In fact, from the start of our time as Government and the introduction of apprenticeship schemes, I have spoken to a couple who have already passed through their apprenticeship, are now business owners in this country, and are looking to make sure that they play their part to repay the faith and trust that this country had in them to rise to the challenge to become builders, to become business owners, and to build houses for this country. It’s really exciting to know that in a hard time, like the pandemic that we’ve had, the Labour Party is supporting those here in this country to upskill.

We’re also supporting them with respect to the minimum wage. Now, I want to give a big shout-out to lots of good employers in this country—and there are many; there are many. I think of my own electorate in Tāmaki Makaurau. I’ve met with some awesome employers, who, despite the pandemic, paid their people above the minimum wage. They went to a living wage. They went to support their families that support their businesses. That’s really important to acknowledge those people.

Sadly, though, that isn’t always the case when we look towards our low-income earners and our medium-income earners. So this side of the House has made it clear that we will focus on lifting them. Minister Wood has already outlined what this side of the House is doing. I want to acknowledge that despite the attempts from this side of the House to continue to lift the minimum wage, to support workers, to support new parents who are looking towards supporting their whānau in those early formative years of their tamariki, sadly the other side of the House continue to block our attempts.

But I’m proud—I’m proud that on this side of the House we continue to push on, despite the negativity from the other side that looks towards solutions that aren’t actually fit for purpose here in Aotearoa. So I’m proud that on this side of the House we are focusing on what we can do for low to middle income earners.

But it doesn’t stop there. We know we have challenges ahead of us. We know that, for many of our whānau out there, living is a challenge at the moment, and we have supported them in many ways and we will look to continue to support those families into the future to make sure that when we emerge fully from this pandemic—because it’s a rather convenient lapse of memory on the other side of the House that there was all of a sudden no COVID-19—that we will be stronger and more resilient into the future, and they will know that this Government backed them.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. How appropriate was it that “Napoleon” himself—Michael Wood—led off the Labour Party’s contribution to this general debate, because it was the fable of the emperor’s new clothes that Christopher Luxon, the Leader of the Opposition, started his speech about. Then we had the real emperor himself, the self-appointed next leader of the Labour Party, Michael Wood—“Napoleon” himself—getting up to make a pitiful contribution in the debate today.

SPEAKER: Yeah, I just remind the member to use proper names, not made-up names.

CHRIS BISHOP: Oh, sorry, Mr Speaker—very good point. This Government will go down in history as the most incompetent and wasteful in New Zealand history. It is unbelievable, the increase in spending that they have overseen for so few results: $1 billion more per week compared to 2017—let’s get that very clear; a billion dollars extra per week compared to 2017—massive increase in taxation, $15,000 more per household compared to 2017, through the inflation tax, the inability to adjust the thresholds, the tenant tax, the car tax, we’ve got a jobs tax coming down the line. So $15,000 more, and what have we accomplished for that as a country? On every metric, whether it’s the health system, whether it’s the education system, whether it’s the welfare system, whether it’s housing, whether it’s law and order—on every metric—things are worse now than they were five years ago.

This is a Government that came to power promising to fix long-term problems. Jacinda Ardern swept up the country with her ambition and her good intentions and her rhetoric and her empathy and her kindness and her compassion. And here we stand today in 2022 with 30,000 people waiting longer than four months for first specialist appointments in our health system—it was 1,000, five years ago—30,000 people. At a time of record low unemployment, 50,000 more people are on the jobseeker benefit—when unemployment is 3.2 percent. We stand here, and the Government claims to have spent $1.9 billion on mental health—$1.9 billion. A lot of New Zealanders said, “Fantastic.” A lot of Kiwis said, “Fantastic. We need to do something about mental health; it’s a serious issue.”—$1.9 billion, and the Auditor-General, the independent scrutineer of Government money, doesn’t know where the money’s gone. He literally can’t find where the money’s gone, and certainly can’t see any increased results for it.

The Prime Minister said they’d lift 100,000 children out of poverty. There are more children now in poverty than there were five years ago. In no other area has the Government made more mistakes and failed so badly than in housing. People remember the 2017 election campaign. They remember the Prime Minister saying in August, “I refuse to stand by while children are sleeping in cars.”, and, quite rightly, most New Zealanders said, “You know what? That is a tragedy. Kids shouldn’t sleep in cars.” Here we are today in October 2022, and there are four times as many families living in cars than there were five years ago. There are four times as many families living in motels. The Government spends a million dollars a day housing people in motels. I remember Phil Twyford on his high horse in this House saying $90,000’s too much—[Interruption] $90,000’s too much—and he’s right; $90,000 is too much. I’ll tell you what’s 10 times more than $90,000: that’s a million dollars. The list MP based in Auckland Central, Helen White, complains and moans over there, but I just think it speaks to the poverty of ambition.

Helen White: No, I was just laughing at you.

CHRIS BISHOP: Oh, she’s laughing—she’s laughing. Righty-o. She’s laughing at kids in cars. She’s laughing at kids living in motels. She’s laughing at the—[Interruption] It’s not funny. It’s actually not amusing. It’s an incredibly serious situation, because I’ll tell you what: the kids living in motels in Rotorua and in Wellington and in Tokoroa and Christchurch and all around the country, those kids are the ram raiders of tomorrow. Their life chances are stuffed because of this Government’s total inability to fix the housing market.

This Government will go down as the most incompetent and wasteful at actually delivering outcomes for New Zealanders; the most incompetent and useless Government in New Zealand history. The good news is, in a year or so’s time, Kiwis have got the chance to throw them out and vote for a better way, and I believe they will.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The member who just resumed his seat, Chris Bishop, talked about wasteful spending. He alluded to Minister Wood’s contribution today in the House. The Minister was talking about investing in workers—that is what members on that side of the House consider wasteful spending. “He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.” “What is the most important thing in the world? It’s the people, it’s the people, it’s the people.” It’s also the people who are our economy’s biggest asset, the people that we on this side of the House are investing in.

Monday was Labour Day, a day that is an opportunity to celebrate the progress made by the labour movement to improve workers’ pay and working conditions, a day to reflect on the work that we still need to do in that space, and, unfortunately, a day that the National Party wants to abolish. Today is significant: we will be passing in this House a significant piece of legislation, the Fair Pay Agreements Bill. That is, legislation that will stop what we have seen in many sectors across Aotearoa: a race to the bottom that is fuelled by worsening pay and conditions for some of our lowest-paid workers. Can I acknowledge all those in the House today who, for many years, across various spaces, whether workers themselves or union members, have fought for this.

It is shameful that the National Party is opposing this legislation, but given their track record, it’s not terribly surprising. This is legislation that can improve pay and working conditions for our cleaners, our bus drivers, our security guards, our retail workers, our orderlies, our aged-care workers, and our early childhood educators and teachers. Our society relies on the work of so many of these workers, but the race to the bottom that they have experienced has meant that their work hasn’t been valued as it should be. That, at the core, is what fair pay agreements are about: they’re about valuing work and valuing those who provide that work.

In Auckland, we are seeing the impact of this race to the bottom very clearly. One of the biggest issues that gets raised with me in my electorate in Maungakiekie is the impact of rail closures. I have seven train stations across my electorate that are very well used. Auckland Transport has recently announced that there will be a closure of the rail network across Tāmaki-makau-rau next year, and I understand why that is: it’s to improve the foundations of our network, some of which were built 150 years ago. I get that, at the end of that, we’ll have more reliable and faster trains, and we want that. However, I want to ensure, as the local MP, that we have viable and frequent bus replacements. But there’s the rub, because we don’t have enough bus drivers. We have a shortage of bus drivers, significantly, that was caused by a contracting system that forces operators to lower drivers’ pay and working conditions in order to compete commercially—that’s the race to the bottom.

We’re doing a bunch of things to address this. There was money in Budget 2022 specifically to address this as well, but this legislation, the Fair Pay Agreements Bill, is one that could address exactly what we are seeing and experiencing today. It’s also a piece of legislation that’s—

SPEAKER: I’m going to ask the member—you can talk about the principle, but you cannot anticipate what is about to come up in the House.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: Sure—should the bill pass—

SPEAKER: Yeah. So don’t actually talk about the bill.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: Sure. All of the work that we’re doing on this side of the House is to ensure that many of the workers that we are supporting—and many of them are women, and they are men and women from our Māori, Pasifika, and ethnic communities—the work we are doing is about valuing them and their work. These are also people who face pay gaps and some of them are groups that disproportionately experience migrant worker exploitation. The range of work that we’re progressing on this side of the House will go a long way to address all of those issues: work we’re doing to prevent migrant worker exploitation from happening in the first place, to protect those who’ve been exploited and enable them to leave those situations quickly and safely, and work that we’re doing to enforce legislation to deter further exploitation and also to better hold to account those who do exploit their workers.

Last week, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act 1972. It’s a piece of legislation that’s instrumental in ensuring the legal right to equal pay for equal work in Aotearoa, and we passed an amendment that will make it even easier for people to raise those equity issues.

Dr SHANE RETI (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Labour’s “high-powered” waiting list plan announced yesterday is another failed health outcome—announced on 4 May, and here we are six months later. What have we seen? Well, surprise, surprise—this high-powered task force—waiting lists have actually gone up. Waiting lists have gone up. And furthermore, what they said yesterday, when they had this big announcement, was that they’re not going to deploy anything for another three months. Oh, and by the way, that’ll cost $30 million—that three-month delay. They have had years to come up with a plan, but, in fact, what we saw yesterday, with Labour’s high-powered waiting list plan, was actually a plan for how to shut the door on surgery, not how to open the door. It was a “shutting the door” plan, and I say that on three grounds.

First of all, if you look at the report and look at ministerial answers, what we know is that 10,000 GP referrals per month are declined by Health New Zealand. What we know is that Christchurch district health board shut the door on GP referrals back in August. What we know is that there are GPs who now don’t even bother sending a referral, because they know it won’t be accepted. So the size of the iceberg underneath the water is much bigger than this Government can conceive. What we also saw was that follow-ups have been cancelled. Well, that’s a good plan to shut the door! If you hadn’t thought about it, when a surgeon does surgery, they need to do the follow-up, one, to address complications, but also to quality assure that they did a good job. So, if you remove those follow-up appointments, you remove the opportunity for the person who had the knife on the day to address the patient—“Has everything gone OK?”—and also to quality assure themselves: “I did an OK job” or “Here’s where I can do better.” All of that is gone because Andrew Little and his high-powered task force has said that some follow-ups are unnecessary. Good luck to the Health and Disability Commissioner when that comes back to bite you.

The third part to shutting the door is that, by default, they have set a new waiting list time. Instead of it being that, when you go on the waiting list, you can receive your surgery in four months, the new default time now is 12 months. Health New Zealand is only operating on its priority, 12-month waiting list. Now, we know there are roughly 5,315 on that list who have been waiting more than 12 months. It used to be 4 months—the target. We know that went out the backdoor by default. The new waiting list target for Health New Zealand is 12 months. We have the worst wait times on record. First specialist assessments, those even wanting to see a specialist—36,000. People who are on the surgical list—they were told by their surgeon, “You will be seen within 4 months.” I’ve just said that it is now 12 months at best—28,000 of them. Put those two together—everyone on the list; those “more than four months” and those “less than four months”—and it’s 200,000 people; 1 in 25 New Zealanders on waiting lists. And surprise, surprise, here’s the spinner: when I asked the Minister how many people on waiting lists end up in the emergency department (ED)—“Are you surprised that it’s 30 percent—one in three—on a waiting list eventually end up in ED?”—now, to be fair, I can’t tell that it’s with the condition that put them on the waiting list, but with a high probability that it likely is, and that is adding to our ED wait time problems. ED wait times—76 percent, the worst they’ve been on record.

And let’s look at the excuses, because I heard them here again today. “Worst flu season ever”—that is not correct. Look at the Environmental Science and Research Ltd health stat data of 300 general practices. This is not the worst flu season ever. Find another excuse. So they go to COVID. No, again, wrong—all of the waiting lists were failing long before COVID even arrived. Look back at your own data. Look at what John Bonning, the head of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, said this week around ED wait times: “This is not a COVID blip.” Look at the letter we filed today from all of the specialists, all of the heads of department at Tauranga, and they say, “However, we believe that COVID is providing an excuse for delays in access to care.” And then the third excuse we heard last week was missing data—“The dog ate my homework.” Well, good luck with that! Find another excuse. Find a better excuse, because no one believes, and the data does not support, the pathetic excuses that have been put forward here.

Several things you can do: workforce—turn on the day one pathway to residency for nurses today. Targets: refocus the health workforce, refocus resources and funding on health targets. And, on the question of targets, we clearly have a difference. We have a difference of opinion here, with the Minister and his high-powered task force saying on TV ONE last night that they are distractions, but the real question Andrew Little needs to answer is why, in October last year, he said to reporters “I’m more confident today than I was two weeks ago about hitting the 90 percent COVID target.” Explain why you supported the COVID targets, Mr Little.

ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. It is a great pleasure today to rise and reflect on the wonderful things that this Government has done for workers and their employers. I took a few moments over Labour Day to reflect on the significant work this Government has done and will continue to do to improve working conditions and pay for workers across the country, and, indeed, across the world.

I’d like to take a few moments to reflect on the very real impact that it is having on my community. This Labour Day was one that I know my father-in-law would have been proud of; he was a strong unionist. We will not feel embarrassed about having connections with workers and doing what we need to do to support workers and support the work that workers do to support workers. So I’m really clear—we are very clear on this side of the House—the most important resource in our society and our economy is our people. We have to ensure we invest in them, not consider them a waste of money—invest in them through fair pay and conditions and training and development. This Government has done that and we will continue to do so and do it proudly. Despite the global pandemic and uncertainty, we have continued to fight, because workers deserve us to do that. Employers, workers, and their families have been provided with greater opportunities because of the work of this Government.

So I just want to start at the beginning—shall I?—with our babies. Paid parental leave has increased by $40 a week, all right? And we’ve made improvements to family tax credits: the Best Start payment that provides an extra $65 a week. Giving just a little bit more breathing space for families means that they’re more able to do their best when they’re trying to get our little ones off to the best start in life. Our young people: free period products and school lunches. It’s solid; it works. We know, every time we go into a school and we talk to the students and we talk to their teachers, the very real impact it is having on their lives.

Our workers: the minimum wage has increased to $21.20 an hour. We’ve worked hard to bring about legislation to protect our most vulnerable workers. We’ve stepped up to support industries to provide better conditions for our Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme workers. We’re working to end modern slavery, both domestic and international supply chains—the introduction of the Worker Protection (Migrant and Other Employees) Bill. We passed the Screen Industry Workers Bill. And, of course, there are other bills that we won’t mention that we will continue to progress, quite possibly today. It’s 50 years since the passing of the Equal Pay Act, and the amendment that was made in 2020 meant that we have finished six equal pay settlements, and we’ve got 19 more in progress. There is still more to be done, and we will continue to fight for that.

Lastly, I want to talk about our future. Significantly, we have supported employers and their workers to invest in their workers. This is about lifting productivity. We don’t lift productivity by cutting wages and cutting conditions. We lift productivity by investing in our workers and our young people, by lifting their mana and making sure they know they are valued and what they contribute to their workplace, for their employers, and to our society. I’ve been with young people. We’ve heard about the Mayors Taskforce for Jobs, Mana in Mahi, the Apprenticeship Boost. I have been with young people when they’ve been given their pair of work boots and some tools. It isn’t just about health and safety and having the stuff you need to do your job; these kids look you in the eye, their chins are lifted up, and they know that they are valued. They know that they are going to be supported to become productive members of our society and our economy. That’s what lifts productivity.

But wait, there’s more. Discover Waitomo have been able to take advantage of programmes like Jobs for Nature, and that has meant that they’re better connected with their whenua and they are ready for the tourism reset. I could go on. Shout-out to all of the workers and the unions in the House. I’m going to finish there, because you are the highlight of our day, and it’s great to see you here.

ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, let me remind the speaker who just resumed her seat, Angela Roberts, what lifts productivity in this country: it is kids who’ve got good numeracy and literacy skills. When 2 percent of kids at decile 1 cannot pass a basic foundational test, that is going to be the biggest predictor of our future in productivity in 10 and 20 years’ time. She clearly just forgot to mention that because it doesn’t fit her narrative.

Well, last week, very quietly on a Friday afternoon of a long weekend, from this most open and transparent Government ever, from what we’ve come to expect from them on a quiet Friday afternoon, they quietly updated a website on the Ministry of Education page. And that was the results of the latest numeracy and literacy pilot. The reason that they did it with no fanfare, no press release, and no comment from the Minister—either Minister that could have commented—was because the results were appalling. They were abysmal. They should hang their heads in shame at five years of failure in our education system, at these horrific results.

Only a third of our students would have passed this exam and got their NCEA qualifications. But what’s even worse is those kids from disadvantaged backgrounds and decile 1 schools: 2 percent. Pretty much every single student would have failed these basic exams and not gone on to get their NCEA. The sign of a world-class education system is its ability to lift those kids from low socio-economic and underprivileged backgrounds up and give them the opportunities to succeed in life. These results will not do that for these children.

Now, what did we hear from the Minister on Friday when she was grabbed by the press after this announcement? We got excuses. What we got was, “Oh, well, the test questions were not culturally appropriate”, and then, when asked four times in this House and once on record, do you think she could answer the basic question? Just give us one example—in any one of those three tests—that was not culturally appropriate. Well, she finally—kind of—got there in the end. But the fact is, after four questions, she couldn’t do it. And do you know why? Because she knows she’s on shaky ground. She knows that these are excuses. And what did we get? Well, we got a 15-year-old can’t answer a question with the word “clue” in it because they may not have done a treasure hunt; so, therefore, it’s not culturally appropriate. The question she should have been asking is: why is it that a 15-year-old doesn’t have the oral language skills and the reading ability to understand the word “clue” and know what that means? If I was the Minister of Education, the first question I would be asking is: why is it that all 15-year-olds don’t have the oral language skills to be able to answer a basic question with a relatively basic word in it? And then I would be saying, “This is not good enough, we will be putting in place a range of things, starting at early childhood education, to improve the oral language skills of our very youngest learners, so that by the time they get to school, they’re ready to learn”. The next thing I would have said is, “Let’s get back to basics—

Angela Roberts: Oh, national standards.

ERICA STANFORD: —in our”—not national standards, but thanks for the interjection—“primary school and protect numeracy and literacy.” The Government were told last year by the Royal Society math report to protect an hour of math a day. It was a report that they commissioned. Have they done that? Of course not—of course not. It’s all culturally inappropriate, that’s the problem. It’s not the fact that they haven’t actually done anything that they were told to do to improve kids’ ability to pass these exams. What we wanted to hear from our Minister is what she is going to do. What we wanted to hear is how she’s going to protect numeracy and literacy at primary school to make sure that by the time these kids get to senior school, they are at curriculum and they’re ready to learn.

Let me explain to you what this Government expected of this exam. In Cabinet papers, they said they expect that good year 7 and year 8 kids can pass this exam. And here we are with 15-year-olds at decile 1 and only 2 percent of them can pass that exam. This is an abysmal failure after five years in Government, five years of managing the education system with, frankly, a Minister that has been so busy with COVID, and now police, he’s taken his eye off the ball. He’s handed the reins to a junior Minister in her second term and we wonder why we get these abysmal results. We can do better.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Mālō ni, Mr Speaker. Yesterday was a historic day for women in New Zealand. We had the swearing-in and maiden speech from my friend and colleague Soraya Peke-Mason, and, for the first time in our country’s history, women have equal representation in this House, and long may that continue.

Yesterday, we also saw another milestone for women workers, with Minister Kelvin Davis announcing that community social workers would receive equal pay. Prior to entering Parliament, I sat on the board of Nelson Women’s Refuge. We had many difficulties recruiting and retaining qualified social workers, because they were paid so poorly. It was increased funding from a Labour Government that led to a massive increase in the pay rates of Nelson Women’s Refuge workers, and I was proud to be part of the board that delivered that. Those workers have still been behind the pay rates of many of our social workers within the public sector and that has led to incredible challenges to our NGOs and our community sector to recruit and retain qualified social workers, and so to have this announcement yesterday was remarkable. I am incredibly proud of those workers, many of whom are in the gallery today, who will receive an extra $20,000 to $30,000 increases on their annual salary. Labour is delivering for workers.

Today, we also have another historic moment, and I know I need to be careful about stating what may happen later this afternoon. Many of us today will remember our dear friend and colleague Helen Kelly, who was the driving force behind fair pay agreements in New Zealand. Helen would always say “It’s by design.” The reason we have low wages and poor conditions in this country is because of the design of our system. I was in my early teens when the Employment Contracts Act was passed and it took our country backwards in terms of wages for workers. We saw, for decades, wages fail to increase at the rate of productivity, and workers’ wages went backwards.

I’ve said before in this House, when speaking about fair pay agreements, about the amazing difference that they will make for retail workers and I want to acknowledge some of the people who’ve been involved through the FIRST Union, who are here today, in working towards collective agreements in the retail sector, but predominately at Pak’nSave and New World supermarkets, where those workers tend to be paid around $2 an hour less for doing the same work as those at a Countdown. The bill that we will be discussing this afternoon, the Fair Pay Agreements Bill, will work to correct that wrong and we will finally get justice for supermarket workers in New Zealand who did so much to stand up for their communities during the pandemic. They will finally be recognised as the essential workers that they are.

Yesterday, on breakfast television, Auckland City Missioner Helen Robinson said that what people need the most is an increase in wages. Let us put on the record today that the National Party will be voting against legislation to lift the wages of working people in New Zealand. What they don’t need is tax cuts—that will put us on an economic course like the United Kingdom where we have seen the economy tank one day after a Government announced tax cuts—for the wealthiest New Zealanders. What we see from the National Party today is a party who wants to give tax cuts and more income to the highest earners in New Zealand during a cost of living crisis, while, on this side of the House, this Labour Government—and I am so proud to be a member of this Labour Government today.

I want to acknowledge my friend Jenny Wells, who I hope will be watching, who has stood up for supermarket workers for years and years and years. What we are doing today is for you, for your workers, for the people who hold up this country. It is a proud day, an historic day to—

SPEAKER: The member’s time has expired. [Applause from the gallery] Order! I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, but this debate is for members; not for the public in the gallery. So it would be helpful if you didn’t actually participate. [Interruption] Yeah, I mean that.

KAREN CHHOUR (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. In her Speech from the Throne in 2017, Jacinda said that this would be—

SPEAKER: Order! Full names, please.

KAREN CHHOUR: —Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that this would be a Government of action and that they would take action on homelessness. Five years later, a picture says a thousand words. [Holds up a photo of the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, appearing to give cash to a person begging in the street] The problem has not been fixed, and even the Prime Minister now can’t ignore that fact.

This Government talks about child poverty and Jacinda vowed to end child poverty—Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern vowed to end poverty when she took office, and she likes to pat herself on the back about her performance. But Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has spent a grand total of 17 hours in her ministerial diary on the child poverty reduction portfolio since 2017—17 hours. She has spent more time trying to escape to Antarctica this week than she has on her greatest political passion.

It gets worse. The Ministry of Social Development’s Child Poverty in New Zealand report was released this month, and the Government got straight into patting itself on the back about the figures, but the report didn’t include the 4,000 children living in emergency housing. The Government didn’t include the children that are suffering the most in this country. Whole families are living in dingy motel rooms, often with gang members down the hall and with criminal behaviour around the corner that the Government won’t even take stock of. We’ve heard heartbreaking stories of what’s going on in those emergency motels, but the Government has dodged questions for years on this, saying that they don’t record emergency housing as a location type.

Another instance where the Government doesn’t want to know the extent of their failure is in emergency housing. They’ve excluded emergency housing from police records and they’ve excluded emergency housing from the Child Poverty in New Zealand report. When Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was asked about excluding these vulnerable children suffering in motel rooms under her watch, she had no idea that they weren’t included in the survey. Her office later apologised for the mistake, but, in the same statement, doubled down, saying that it didn’t matter. Her office kicked back against those who are saying that these 4,000 children in emergency housing should have been included. They’re within the margin of error, her office said. Is this how this Government views a group of some of the worst-suffering children—the margin of error?

What’s worse is that in the same statement, the Prime Minister’s office said that these children wouldn’t be in material hardship anyway because the household housing costs would be cheaper than private rentals. So is this the PM’s office saying that the family of five squeezed into a one-bedroom emergency housing motel are lucky? Think of all that money they’re saving on rent. So the PM’s office says that it doesn’t matter that the 4,000 children in emergency housing were excluded from the child poverty report—they’re within the margin of error, and they’re not doing it that tough, anyway.

How typical of this Government to turn a blind eye to the children they are letting down the most, like Minister Davis, who refuses to front up and take responsibility for Oranga Tamariki’s failings, which led to the death of Malachi Subecz. He’s been hiding behind an unpublished internal report for months. When the Ombudsman published its scathing review, saying that Oranga Tamariki (OT) had failed to do the bare minimum to prevent Malachi’s death and calling for OT to apologise, Kelvin wouldn’t take responsibility.

SPEAKER: Full names, again.

KAREN CHHOUR: Minister Kelvin Davis would not take responsibility. “We’re waiting for our own report.”, he said. Is Oranga Tamariki’s report going to find anything different from the Ombudsman’s report, and, if it is, why would it?

This is just another example of the Government shrouding its responsibility behind layer upon layer of bureaucracy and reports. ACT says that this isn’t good enough. ACT would put the children at the centre of its response and would make sure that we are collecting the data of those children who are most in need. We would make sure that OT acted on reports of concern and did not ignore them, as OT did in the tragic case of Malachi. The wellbeing and the interests of children must be at the centre; not protecting the interests of the Ministers and keeping the Government’s nose clean. This Government is utterly failing our most vulnerable children.

HELEN WHITE (Labour): When I hear the rhetoric from the ACT Party and the National Party today, I wonder—I wonder—how they can actually say that we need more support, while having a philosophy that is so far away from that. It’s a philosophy that says the market should rule. It’s a philosophy that says we should actually lower wages, because that’s somehow going to increase production. And it has been an utter failure, and it has led to the problems we see in our society. It has led to the homelessness picture that my friend Karen Chhour just showed, because what happens when you actually pillage people, when you take down their wages to such low amounts is that they can’t survive and their mental health suffers. The median wage in New Zealand is $56,000. I challenge any member in this House to survive on that money, to feed their families on that money. That is a low wage and it is a stressful way to be, and it is a damn sight harder to live, with inflation as it is, when your wage is at that level.

What we need to do in this society is we need to raise our wages. We need to get out of a cycle of trickle-down economics. And yet what has the National Party offered us? It has offered us a proposal that we actually cut the tax of the highest-income earners, putting huge amounts of money into the pockets of the highest-income earners. And let’s just unpack that: what is going on there is that the National Party believe that that is the best way to produce a productive economy, because they believe that if the people at the top have the money, they will produce wealth—well, that has not worked. And the biggest actual signal of that was when we had the working party report come out and it was headed by Jim Bolger, who was the leader of the National Party, and he said it has not worked. What he suggested was that we needed, and he was with Business New Zealand when he did it, a system where we had an actual structural change where we lifted wages at the bottom. And that’s, of course, what fair pay agreements are designed to do.

We need to look at our most vulnerable people in our community and we need to support them. I challenge, again, the National Party and the ACT Party to think: if a woman who is on those low, low amounts of money is working as a caregiver, is she any less worthy because she doesn’t have the bargaining power to get that pay rate up? Because I’ve worked for different unions—when I actually was working as a lawyer, which was 25 years—and what I’ve noticed is you can work damned hard in this country and not make any money. You can do really good work, you can do work that is valuable in our community, and you won’t make money. because you don’t have the bargaining power to do so. So what’s really important is that we change the system and we recognise those groups of people and we lift them up—we lift them up—and they end up in middle-class actual incomes, not scraping at the bottom, not turning into our homelessness problem, because that’s what happens if you leave people at the bottom.

And guess what! Our productivity doesn’t go up. We have actually got the OECD behind us on this. The OECD say what will help our productivity in this country is if we raise the wages of those groups, if our lowest-income earners get our support, get organised, and have collective, minimum standards. That is what will make a huge difference in this country.

Actually, the philosophy—the philosophy—behind tax cuts for the rich, the philosophy behind blaming everybody else for the problems that emerge, and saying the market will actually do its thing and will protect us, that has failed—that has failed so badly. And what we ended up with is we ended with run-down services, run-down infrastructure—infrastructure makes a big difference to house prices. It is a system and this Government knows that, and it’s putting in place structural change, which means better infrastructure, it means actually affordable, accessible healthcare, and it means that we will end up with wages, in this country, rising—not for short term but for long term. I want less inequality, more productivity, and I am absolutely proud to be part of a Government that can see the wood for the trees on this one. I commend this to the House.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Fair Pay Agreements Bill

Third Reading

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): I present a legislative statement on the Fair Pay Agreements Bill.

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

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I move, That the Fair Pay Agreements Bill be now read a third time.

This one’s for Helen Kelly. Over the course of this debate, we’ve talked about the people that fair pay agreements will help—those who clean, those who care, those who drive, those who serve—workers who, for 30 years, have been left out in the shadows of our deregulated labour market. And sometimes, when you know the problem, you need someone who will help to light the way, and Helen was that person for so many of us. Helen spoke directly about the problems; Helen spoke directly and issued challenges to those of us who could make a difference. She said to Rebecca Macfie, who wrote her biography, “We don’t need low wages in this country. There’s no excuse for it. People should be able to go to work, work their hours, and have a decent standard of living at the end of the week.” And, as Rebecca Macfie said, reflecting on that, “It was a matter-of-fact comment that belied a monumental ambition to shake up the movement she now lead so that it worked for all workers and to build the case for a law change that would stop workers’ wages being eroded in a competitive race to the bottom.”

Helen Kelly’s challenge was to all of us: it was to our economy, it was to decision makers in this House, and it was indeed to the union movement—to stop looking inwards and just looking after short-term interests, and to look outwards to the needs of the hundreds of thousands of workers who needed a change. Sometimes it takes the clarity of a crisis to really focus us in on what needs to change. Who was it across our society that we relied on when things were as bad as they could have been under COVID? Who was it who kept our workplaces clean and healthy and hygienic, but our cleaners? Who was it that kept our towns and cities moving, faced aggression, faced danger, faced infection, but our bus drivers? Who was it who kept our households stocked with the essential goods that kept us all going, but those people on the chain in our supermarkets and retail stores? And everyone, at that time, said thank you. Everyone at that time said, “These people are heroes and we rely on them.” Well, the words and the thanks were great, but actually it’s time for action. It’s time to recognise the work of those people in keeping our society going at all times and in the very most difficult and worst of times.

As this debate has deployed in this House over the last six months, I have not heard one acknowledgment from that side of the House about the reality of life in low-wage New Zealand—not one acknowledgment. In fact, from that party’s spokesperson, the Hon Paul Goldsmith, only this week, a denial that people in those roles need better wages. He said this—and I quote—“I accept that the best way to improve worker income is to ultimately improve productivity, so that it is the only way to have sustainable increase in wages.” Well, for those people who actually have watched this area for 30 years, here is what I say: we did exactly what they said we should do, because the National Party stood in this House 30 years ago, when they launched the most radical deregulation of the labour market, when they abolished minimum standards and sector-based bargaining, and they said it would lead to more productivity. They said it would lead to better terms and conditions for workers. And do you know what happened? The productivity went up and the wages did not keep pace. The promises that they made in that funk of deregulation, which they still live in a fever dream of, were proven to be false here in New Zealand and all around the world.

This is an issue that is about priorities, and it is about “We stand where we stand”, and it is about the most basic and longstanding of Kiwi values: the value of a fair go. That is where we stand, and that is what fair pay agreements are about: about the basic ability to have a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work; about not having a race to the bottom in terms and conditions that trap not just low-wage workers but many of our employers, who tell us they want to do the right thing, they want to pay more, they want to have security for their workers, but a race to the bottom system means that those employers are undermined and unable to do what is the right thing.

Fair pay agreements are also about the bigger picture. They are about stopping the race to the bottom. They are about being able to work together—across employees, employers, unions—to actually look at those fundamental issues that we keep talking about but are not making progress on: our chronically low rates of productivity compared to nearly every other country we compare ourselves with. And here is the irony and the reality that that side of the House never ever recognises: that the countries with which we compare ourselves, who have done better on productivity than New Zealand—countries like Australia—have sector-based minimum standards that, since 1991, when that side of the House—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Order! I’m sorry to have to interrupt the member. He has every right to speak in this House and to be heard, and that is why I’m appealing to our friends and visitors in the gallery to please hold their applause until the end of this whole debate. There are 12 speeches in this debate, and each and every member of this House will be heard in silence by our visitors in the gallery. Then, I understand, you have permission to applaud as wildly as you care, and also grant us and favour us with a waiata. So, with apologies to the House, the Hon Michael Wood.

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: For the 30 years that we have not had sector-based bargaining in our economy and Australia has, their average rate of productivity growth each and every year has been 40 percent higher than New Zealand’s over that period. It’s about lifting our sights a little bit higher to recognise that a society is not healthy when the gap between those with the least and those with the most continues to grow. It used to be a conservative value in this country that there was a basic level of security and stability for working people, and that side of the House has fundamentally forgotten what that means for a decent and a stable society.

It is about lifting our sights a little bit to value work, and we cannot say in this House that we value work if we do not properly value the contribution that people make through fair pay, through decent conditions, and through a little bit of stability in their lives. And, it is about once again having proper social dialogue between those who bring their capital and their ideas and the innovation, and those who bring their labour to build our economy, because both sides contribute to our economy and our society, and both sides should have a seat at the table as we consider how the fruits of our production are shared out across the country. Fundamentally, it is about once again forming a social contract in this country where working people have a voice, where working people receive fair dues for the contribution that they make.

I want to work through a number of thankyous as this bill comes to its conclusion. Firstly, to the Rt Hon Jim Bolger and the Fair Pay Agreements Working Group, who four years ago made the recommendations—considered recommendations—that we have based this legislation on. I want to thank the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway, the Minister who commenced work on this legislation and this policy. To the outstanding officials within the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, including Beth Goodwin, Tracy Mears, and their teams, who have written thousands of pages of advice, who have sat through mammoth select committee hearings, and who have ensured that we have a piece of legislation that I believe will be enduring. To Marja Lubeck and all members of the Education and Workforce Committee, who did their job diligently and reported back a bill to this House that was better than the one that we put in at the beginning. And I say thank you to every union and every working person who has kept the faith and has helped to build support for this major change that we will be making for our society today.

This was a manifesto commitment of the Labour Party when we came into office in 2020, and we are proud that we have kept it and that we are delivering this change. It speaks to our values and who we are. It speaks to the fact that we value work and working people. And, in 2022, we still hold to those same values that have been core to our party over the last 106 years, as we have represented working people in this House. And this is a piece of legislation that speaks to Helen Kelly’s values: the values of dignity for working people; about working people not feeling that they have to feel grateful and doff their caps just for having a job; about them having the fundamental right and ability to be at the table and engage in good-faith negotiations about how they should be treated. And it’s also about one of the most important values and contributions that Helen Kelly made. It was the value that we are better off when we are together, when we bring everyone to the table, including working people. The work is never over, but today, through this legislative change, we are one step closer to making work fair. I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Before I take the call, members of the gallery, you have had two warnings from the Chair. I’m not going to give you another warning. You may not intervene from up in the gallery. I hope I make myself very clear. Again, I say to you, you are very welcome here, but you are not part of our debate.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): If ever there was an occasion to dramatically and starkly demonstrate the philosophical and ideological differences between the old-fashioned Labour Government that currently holds a majority in this Parliament—but not for much longer—and this side of the House, it is this piece of legislation. It is fundamentally flawed. It is bad for New Zealand. It is bad for New Zealand business. But what’s worse is it is bad for New Zealand employees and workers. They will be the people who are worst off as a result of this piece of legislation.

I want to make it very clear at the outset of my contribution in this third reading debate that a re-elected National-led Government will, as a priority, repeal this piece of legislation. We will do it because it is the right thing to do.

For 30 years in New Zealand, we have had the benefits of a nimble, flexible, and exciting industrial environment. We have all benefited from that. All New Zealanders have benefited from that.

Here we have, today, on the anniversary of the five years of this Government—and remember: this was a piece of legislation that the Minister said was a manifesto promise, and I recall it was supposed to be implemented within the first hundred days. Well, five years of failure later, it is finally being achieved by the force of brute numbers in this Chamber. That’s the way it works in this Parliament: brute numbers. But it’s not about taking New Zealanders with you. This is a Government that seems now to have a complete disregard for ordinary New Zealanders and what they think—so out of touch, so out of step with the thinking of a modern, progressive, and interesting world that will create a brighter, more bold future for all New Zealanders. With this piece of legislation, they want to take us back to the 1970s.

Now, I’m one of those in this Chamber—and most of my colleagues can’t remember it, but there are a few on the other side who can—who remember how bad those days were. I remember how bad it was when the trade unions dominated the New Zealand economic situation. There’s a reason that that history was rejected by New Zealanders, it’s because it’s old-fashioned, it doesn’t work, and the world has moved on.

Now, what we know from this piece of legislation is that this is really not about fair pay agreements; it is about mandatory union deals. My colleagues, over the last couple of days, have been arguing the detail of this legislation through the committee of the whole House and have been, literally, tearing holes through it. The Minister was unable to answer questions about the detail about how it’s going to work, because the structure no longer exists, because we’re in the 2020s; we’re not back in the 1970s. Those structures do not exist.

What happens now is a Minister is going to have a piece of legislation passed, using brute numbers in this House, that will be repealed, probably, within 12 or 18 months—probably less; maybe earlier if they don’t last the full mile. Then what will happen is that New Zealand businesses and employees are going to have to go through this whole process of change where secret deals are done between lord knows who on behalf of the business side of the table, because there is nobody standing up wanting to be party to this new scheme, and the deal will be done with big unions behind closed doors. The only difference between now and the 1970s will be that those rooms behind closed doors won’t be smoke-filled—thank goodness! But the same ideological and philosophical approach will be taken.

This removes an opportunity from New Zealanders, New Zealand employees, and New Zealand employers to negotiate terms, conditions, and arrangements that suit them—that suit them. They don’t want to have imposed mandatory deals thrust upon them by unknown, faceless people who have no understanding of the individual imperatives that make businesses work.

If it was just as easy as arbitrarily legislating for things to be true in the area of industrial relations, then it would have been done years go—but it was done years ago and it didn’t work; it didn’t work and it doesn’t work. Overseas countries have looked with envy at the New Zealand industrial relations regime and our environment over the years, and they’ve said, “Those New Zealanders have got it right—they’ve got it right.” They look at us with envy. Here we have a Government full, of course, of union acolytes and failed delegates and what have you, who come back to this House to represent the political interests of the trade union movement.

Most members in this House certainly forget the history of the trade union movement. When it was first established back in the 1800s, there was a need, and they decided pretty quickly that what they needed was political representation. So all around the world, in countries like ours, Labour Parties were formed, and they became the political wing of the trade union movement. So we know, on this side of the Parliament, that those connections are historic, they’re political, and they are, of course—

Hon Member: They get the money from them, too.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: —financial. It’s “follow the money, honey.”

What’s happened over the last 30 years since the employment contracts legislation came into effect? New Zealanders have voted with their feet many, many times.

Hon Michael Wood: Point of order. It is well-established in Speakers’ rulings that suggesting that any members of this House are under the influence of an external body and subject to money, as the member just implied, is out of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you for that. The member will withdraw and apologise.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: I withdraw and apologise. The history is well-known—the history is extremely well-known. New Zealanders up and down the countryside know that when they have freedom of choice, when they have the ability to negotiate their own terms and conditions with their employer, or when the employer has the opportunity to negotiate those terms with individual employees, things get done, and they don’t want to have the involvement, necessarily, of a trade union. What’s happened is that trade union membership over those years has plummeted. It’s plummeted because they are not relevant to most New Zealanders. Most New Zealanders know that they don’t need to pay $600 or $700 a year or whatever it for a union that actually won’t help them. Who knows where that money goes? Most New Zealanders do know where that money goes.

So this is a piece of legislation that is designed to boost union influence and union membership in the New Zealand economy just at a time when we are under the most severe economic stress that this economy has had in several decades. What’s happening? We now have massive inflation, we have inflation at a 30-year high, we have a crisis of cost of living, and we have all kinds of issues that are confronting this Government. What is their number one priority at the moment? It seems to be that their number one priority at the moment is to boost union membership. That’s really what it’s all about. It’s about boosting union membership.

In New Zealand, small businesses, particularly, will pay a price for this piece of legislation. It won’t be the big businesses, because they can actually work their way around the increased impost of cost that will come on as a result of this change. It will be small business up and down New Zealand, who are already under immense pressure, who have suffered over the last couple of years in ways that, two or three years ago, businesses could never have imagined that they would suffer, and they are hurting. This will provide further pain and anguish for them.

Treasury advice was very clear. I want to quote from the Treasury advice. It says “there has been minimal identification of empirical evidence for the problem or policy response” that this legislation seeks to achieve. Absolutely damning criticism. What it means is that this is a Government that cares more about their philosophical and ideological agenda and the relationships that they have with their support organisations than it is about anything to do with fair pay or agreement.

What it means is a party that is true to stripe: old-fashioned socialism—old-fashioned socialism. While some of them over there still deny being socialists, actually they are. They’re old-fashioned socialists. There are several of them who are going to be finding themselves back in the workforce very quickly because New Zealanders don’t want this piece of legislation.

I want to finish where I started off. If ever there was a piece of legislation that dramatically showed the ideological differences between this side of the House and a socialist, old-fashioned Labour Party Government, it’s this piece of legislation. This is a piece of legislation that, at the first possible opportunity, a re-elected National-led Government will repeal and we will do so because it is the right and proper thing to do on behalf of New Zealand citizens, on behalf of New Zealand workers, on behalf of New Zealand employers, and on behalf of “New Zealand Incorporated”. Taking us back to the 1970s is simply not a credible proposition, even from a Minister who himself came from the trade union movement. This is a thoroughly bad piece of legislation. We will repeal it.

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Minister of Customs): E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. Otirā ngā mema katoa o te Whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa. Here’s my prediction. To that member Scott Simpson, who’s just resumed his seat: in about maybe 10, 15, 20 years’ time, this side of the House is going to enable a platform in which he is going to get up, like the Rt Hon Jim Bolger, and say “I got it utterly wrong—I got it utterly wrong!” That’s my prediction. That’s what’s going to happen.

He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata.

[What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, it is people, it is people.]

I say that whakataukī because it talks to this bill, the Fair Pay Agreements Bill, and I am really proud that we have come to this day to see the introduction of this third and final reading.

I come from a long line of freezing workers and I’m going to stand up in this House and talk about the freezing worker sector and how they were prior to the introduction of the deregulating Employment Contracts Act (ECA). I come from a long proud line of freezing workers. I live in Whakatū, which was the home of the largest freezing works in this nation before it closed, which is now Silver Fern Farms but was once upon a time Richmond Pacific, just down the road from where I live.

Can I tell those in this House what the conditions were in our little community of Whakatū prior to the removal of the rights of our workers and the rights of our unions to negotiate on behalf of our workers. I’ll tell you this: every member that worked at those freezing works owned their own homes. They owned their own homes, they owned their own vehicles, and children were in school. We didn’t need mental wellbeing support, because people had employment to look after their families. We didn’t have the crime rate. And I’ll challenge anyone on that side of this House to go and look at the stats. Back in the 1980s, before this Act was introduced, families took care of families and communities took care of communities. And believe it or not, we actually knew who owned our freezing works, because their kids went to the same school. So there was a commitment to community investment and wellbeing that we saw. Wages were high; productivity was high. There was not this foolishness that we’re hearing from that side that’s all doom and gloom.

This is the picture that I am painting of the 1970s, of the 1980s, and the early 1990s before the introduction of the Employment Contracts Act. In my little community of Whakatū, it was thriving. Kids were going to school, parents had double incomes coming in. They had their own homes. They were self-reliant—the very thing that this side of the House represents is our people, our community. And I want to come to this House to talk about the community of Whakatū and all the other little communities that operated around this country prior to the introduction of the Employment Contracts Act.

But what happened when the Employment Contracts Act—because I also want to turn to the devastation from the introduction that the ECA had in 1991. And I want to tell you: families were against families on picket lines. My grandmother had to pull in our family, because it was sister on sister, cousins on cousins. Before, as I just painted, we all lived really, really well in my part of the world. Everyone was independent financially. Kids were engaged in learning. Homes were owned. And then the ECA came in and it pitted families against families. We had families and communities devastated through the introduction of the ECA. But does that side acknowledge it? No, they don’t. They think it’s all about the employer.

What about the communities in which these businesses were in and the contribution those communities had to those businesses? Where are their rights—where are their rights? That’s why I’m in this House saying it is a good day—it is a good day. It’s 30 years late, but it’s still a good day. Recognition of those communities that stood up, that were on school boards, that helped coach the schools and sports clubs—all dissipated. They were all dissipated with the introduction of the ECA.

So I’m proud, and before I came to this House, I rang my mother—I rang my mother, who’s 84. She worked for Silver Fern Farms with her sister and her other sister—a combined total of 126 years between three sisters. And I said, “Mum, you came down here in the early 1990s and you stood up for our freezing workers, and you went to the Employment Court and you talked about the removal of seniority. You talked about protection of seniority. You talked about the union’s right to represent workers. And it is your day.” It is just like we’re saying to all the others who have made this possible.

I want to talk about the little people. I want to talk about the people I come from, the freezing workers, and I want to acknowledge their contribution on this day. I want to talk about their contribution and their acceptance of something that’s so long overdue, which is the rights of our workers—the rights of our workers—and not just the bottom line. It’s about wellbeing for our communities. It’s about wellbeing for our schools and sports clubs. This is what the ECA decimated, which is why I’m so proud to stand.

This is a beautiful day in recognition of all the pain and the suffering that the ECA 30 years ago had on communities. Let’s not forget that. And so I’m proud to stand here to say it is timely that we rectify a wrong. Of course, things have moved on; it’s 30 years on, but we have lost lots of people from communities.

I want to say how proud I am to stand in support with Minister Wood and to acknowledge everybody who has helped get this to where we are today. There has been mention of names. I want to endorse the work of the select committee. I want to endorse Helen Kelly for the work that she did. But I also want to talk about two uncles that are no longer here. I need to acknowledge them, because they were national presidents of the freezing workers, Bill Bennett and Rangi Paenga, who were stalwarts in looking after the rights of our freezing workers up and down this country.

I know I only talk about one industry, but I am so passionate about this because it devastated the very community I lived in and come from, which is Whakatū. So it’s important that I come and stand in support of this bill rectifying something that incredibly undid and decimated our community of Whakatū. Good people come from there; many left. We had suicides, for goodness’ sake, and families uprooted and moved to Australia. Those are real clear examples of the human cost when we take away the rights of workers to get a fair deal.

A fair deal—that is what we’re talking about here. We’re not taking away the control of the business owner. We’re just asking for a fair deal. And we’re also looking for recognition that we don’t just come to work, but we actually invest in the community in which we reside. Where’s the passion in that? That is why my opening statement, “He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata.” is so critically important when we are talking and debating about this important bill, the Fair Pay Agreements Bill.

It’s been 30 years in the making. I’m so proud of Minister Wood and what his work has done—and all my colleagues on this side, who always put our workers first, and in no better way than this bill that acknowledges the workers up and down the country who do the hard yards, who put themselves up on the line, who all just want a fair deal. That’s all they want. I’m proud to stand with this side of the House to acknowledge that they deserve a fair deal; they do. And I can now take a breath and know that the people that I represent of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, of the community I reside in at Whakatū, will celebrate this day, along with many who have come to witness the third and final reading of the Fair Pay Agreements Bill. I commend this bill to the House.

ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m very pleased to rise to take a call in the third reading of the Fair Pay Agreements Bill.

I think it’s important to call this bill for what it is—and Paul Goldsmith mentioned it many, many times in his many contributions over the nine or ten hours we debated this bill in the committee stage—the compulsory union deal bill; this—as my colleague Scott Simpson mentioned—fundamentally flawed piece of legislation that we are not supporting and that we will repeal at the very first opportunity that we get.

I think it’s worth going through the parts of the bill that are so egregious, and I think the first point to mention in the bill that we have as presented back from the committee stage is a bill that forces employees and employers to the table with only 10 percent—or 1,000 workers—of a workforce. The important thing to note here is that the 1,000 workers may not even be 1 percent. For particularly large sectors where you’ve got hundreds of thousands of workers, this could actually only represent 1 percent of the workers. The other minimum they said is 10 percent.

The bar is so low, you would be forgiven for thinking that people wouldn’t want to be part of this deal given that they set the bar so low. You would be forgiven for thinking, by listening to the speeches—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Don’t bring the Speaker into the debate.

ERICA STANFORD: Sorry. You would be forgiven—sorry, “you”, yes, I understand. Members would be forgiven—thank you, Madam Speaker, for setting me right, there.

Members would be forgiven, Madam Speaker, for thinking, after listening to the speeches from the other side today so far that employees would be clamouring to be part of a fair pay agreement. Yet they set the bar so very low that it may actually only be half of 1 percent of employees in that sector that sign up to start the bargaining.

In fact, they’ve snuck something else in that means not a single worker needs to sign up to start a fair pay agreement negotiation. The public interest test, which has snuck into this bill, means that no one needs to sign up. A union—

Hon Michael Wood: Snuck in! Snuck in in broad daylight through the House of Parliament!

ERICA STANFORD: I say “snuck in” because they don’t like talking about it very much, because what it means is that no one wants to be a part of this bill, and yet the unions can go and claim that there is a public interest to start a fair pay agreement (FPA).

There’s no choice for employers, there’s no choice for employees. They are forced into it, whether they like it or not. And there is no ability to stop this process, reverse it, or ever get rid of it—an FPA—once it’s started. Once an FPA is started, that’s it: there will be a deal, there is no exceptions, there’s nothing in the bill to stop the process, ever reverse it, or in fact, get rid of an FPA once it’s been negotiated. An FPA can be varied, it can be renewed, but it can never, ever end. It can never be taken out.

Now, my colleague Scott Simpson talked about the ability of our employers to be nimble and flexible. And what we are getting at the end of today, I expect, will be an Act that replaces this flexibility and this nimbleness with an overly complex piece of legislation—11 parts of it.

An example of that overly complex nature of this bill—and this was discussed at select committee and again at the committee of the whole House stage and what we ended up with—is that if only 25 percent of your job is covered by the work of an FPA, you will be included. Sorry, not you, Madam Speaker. The person—the worker—will be included.

So you can imagine the labour inspectorate going around businesses, checking to see the employees who, for example, might be working in hospitality—working on the front desk one day, changing sheets the next, maybe in the bar the next—checking to see whether or not 25 percent of their work that’s being done meets the fair pay agreement that’s been negotiated.

An interesting point to note in this bill is about the information—the private information—that will now be held by unions. Not of their members, but of every single employee that is subject to this FPA.

Interestingly in the bill, the unions are able to use that private information—not just of their members but also of everyone else—in order to sell their union membership. They are allowed, under this bill, to use that personal information to contact employees who are not their members and say to them, “If you join our union, we will negotiate so that the—”; we will join our union; there was no “you” in there. Pretty sure of that. “If you join our union, we will negotiate through the FPA process that the fees that you pay will be repaid to you.” So basically, it’s free union membership. They’re able to use that.

Now in clause 16, it clearly says the unions are not able to entice people, using this information, into their union, apart from the ability, of course, to write to them all, to communicate with them all, to say to those non-union members, “If you join the union, the fees that you pay will be paid back to you, so therefore it’s for free; come and join us.” But of course, if an employer does anything like that—at all, any enticement at all—there’s a $20,000 fine immediately.

One of the things that the Minister was never able to answer—either in select committee or at committee of the whole House—was what’s going to happen with migrant workers? Because migrant workers, for the most part, are required to be paid the median wage—$29.66, come February. How will that affect negotiations? I asked the Minister so many times to clarify that, and he was never able to do so.

The fact of the matter is, if people are in a negotiation, they’re able to say, “Well, I’m a Kiwi worker and I’m paid $24, $25. Now, the migrant worker standing next to me is paid nearly $30 an hour.” Now, how will that affect the negotiation? Will that automatically ratchet up every fair pay agreement to what the migrant worker is paid standing next to that Kiwi worker? Now, the Minister was never able to answer that and it’s important because he’s in charge of both systems; he’s put one in place for migrant workers and is unable to explain how that will impact on the negotiations.

What this fair pay agreement legislation will mean, and we’ve traversed this a number of times, is that the small business that we’ve mentioned—well, the one we made up—the business in Haast with two employees will be required to pay the same base floor as an Auckland business who employs 10,000 employees, regardless of any of their circumstances or costs.

Now, one of the things that was never addressed, again—in any of the discussions—was the unequal bargaining power of the large employers and the very, very small employers, because you can imagine—sorry, this House could imagine—the ability of large employers to get together, to negotiate for terms and conditions and rates that are not favourable to small employers, and thereby putting them at a significant disadvantage.

I want to finish by talking about productivity, because the Minister spent a lot of time today talking about productivity and his view—and it’s the same in the immigration space as well—is that if one was to simply just pay more, there would be improved productivity, like those two things just are equal. If one was to pay more, then there will be more productivity automatically.

Hon Scott Simpson: Fantasy land.

ERICA STANFORD: Fantasy land, as my colleague says. It’s interesting because the Minister then goes on to say, “Well, the employers are getting undercut and therefore they need these fair pay agreements.” But by his own logic, if they just paid more, they would get more productivity and would be better off. But those two things don’t sit well together, but I’ll leave that to members opposite to explain. And I look forward to voting against this bill.

MARJA LUBECK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker, and a real pleasure to take a call in this third reading of the Fair Pay Agreements Bill. Our COVID-19 recovery plan is about investing in our people, and fair pay agreements are, of course, part of that. As we have said often, we are building back better, and, in fact, what Minister Grant Robertson usually says is that there is a silver lining on the darkest of clouds, when COVID hit us. And at this moment in time, we are at that silver lining where we are building back better.

Things have to get better, because for too long New Zealanders working in critical roles like our bus drivers, our cleaners, our supermarket workers, our aged-care workers, our security guards, and all those people who worked very hard during a pandemic to keep our country going and to keep us safe haven’t had the bargaining power to ensure that they had better wages and conditions. So we’ve had very long periods in New Zealand where workers did get their fair share, but over the last three decades those workers have fallen behind. We heard that very clearly before from Minister Meka Whaitiri—the human cost, the cost to our communities—when she spoke about what happened with the workers in the freezing works.

I spoke in the second reading about that particular problem. It’s a pattern that developed in New Zealand after the start of the Employment Contracts Act (ECA) 1991, and within a few years of the ECA starting, New Zealand saw wages and conditions for workers across many industries falling down and reduced significantly, and the freezing works were but one example that we heard about today. Opposition MPs shout about the good old times and how well we fared under the previous system. Wasn’t it them who invented the term “rock star economy”, when we, in fact, had people starving and living under bridges? So that was their rock star economy under the current settings.

But one of the consequences of New Zealand’s very weak employment protection was that the share of the economic growth went not to the workers; we actually became one of the countries in the OECD that had the lowest share of the pay in 2014. What happened is that the rich got richer and the poor got poorer—actually, the poor had to work harder to even stand still.

It’s actually important to note that even at the time, the IMF and the OECD have actually come out and recognised that inequality is bad for social stability and even bad for economic growth. In fact, papers were published after the global financial crisis that argued for strengthening of bargaining, because it would also strengthen people’s terms and conditions. So fair pay agreements (FPAs) will be part of that mahi. FPAs will ensure that parties, unions, and companies will be able to negotiate a set of industry standards below which it can’t be negotiated.

So the FPA legislation is going to change things significantly for workers and make sure that workers have fair, decent conditions and a voice in the workplace. Over the years that I’ve been a delegate and a union president and an organiser in the union, I’ve met many people who felt that they didn’t have a voice. Now, we heard about Opposition MPs who’ve said that everybody is the same, everybody can negotiate a contract, and I know we’re going to hear more about that. But what they do forget is a fundamental aspect of the Employment Relations Act 2000 is where it’s acknowledged that there’s an inequality in the power in the employment relationship. That’s why we have employment legislation and that’s why we need fair pay agreements, because the inequality most affects the workers that are more vulnerable, and that’s especially the case for our Māori, for our Pacific peoples, for our young people, and people with disabilities. They are overrepresented in the occupations that could actually benefit from these FPAs.

One of our submitters—Council of Trade Unions Runanga—noted the disproportionate benefits that Māori would receive from FPAs, and said that “Given they are particularly affected by a lack of standards, they would benefit from a system of better wage fixing than the one we have, which has failed them.” We heard similar sentiment from the Council of Trade Unions Komiti Pasefika, for Pacific peoples.

Well, workers are mentioned in my very first speech on this important piece of legislation, workers like Leava, Jess, Sui, and Gadi. They have suffered under our current system. They don’t feel empowered to speak up, and they also don’t feel they have a say in their working conditions. So the workers are at the centre of this legislation, and that’s why I want to mention a couple of their stories here in this third reading speech; I’m sure they will be listening.

Leava came to us talking about working in excess of 70 hours, but after three years in the same job, she is still on that casual contract, earning not more than minimum wage. She hardly ever sees her family because she works night shifts, so when she works, her kids sleep, and when she sleeps, her kids are awake. But it also means she can never help them with their homework, she can never help them with their activities, she can’t take them to church. She is basically never there for them. The company she works for recently lost its tender and they had a different contractor come in. Leava remained with the different contractor but her hours got cut; the workload stayed the same. So again, she can’t speak up because she has seen with other colleagues what happens when she speaks up.

One of her colleagues is Gadi. She is a security guard. She has real mental health issues due to feeling that she has failed as a mother. This is the human cost that we heard Minister Meka Whaitiri talk about. Gadi started to think about suicide and she went to her doctor. She works 12 hours a day, five days a week, on the minimum wage. It’s a rotation. She either works 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. or 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., but there’s no training, there’s no career progression, and she describes her life as just being in survival mode.

Sui is a security guard who works alone at carparks, at railway stations, and often she doesn’t feel safe. She’s casual, and it means her roster can change at any moment in time. She may work three hours at the library in Mount Roskill, and then she works three hours in Māngere, but if the distances are too far and she can’t use public transport, she basically has to decline the job because she doesn’t have a car. She said she can’t plan anything in her life because of the uncertainty of her work and always having to be ready because she may be called to work at very short notice.

Now, all those workers have one thing in common: they work in industries that are trapped in what has been called a race to the bottom. So many of their employers would probably like to pay better and would like to look after them and give them better terms and conditions, but they are unable to do so because their competitor offers less, and as soon as they offer more, they will be out of a job. So in the case of Sui, Jess, Leava, and Gadi, their employer ends up cutting costs by cutting their hours, but not the amount of work. They make them pay for their own uniforms, they take away training opportunities, but they are required to do the same workload when their hours are cut. That means the quality of their work suffers and health and safety suffers as well.

Now, the Minister spoke about our friend Helen Kelly, and I once heard Helen Kelly describe this particular problem as a “jobs narrative that is being driven up to hammer any worker who might want to have a voice in the economy or world of work.” She told her story like this: “work is a benefit, business is the benefactor, and workers are merely the beneficiaries. Workers should be grateful for a job; a job is a privilege.” Employers should be lauded for the contribution they make to growing economic wealth. But as the Minister has said, both parties in this working relationship should be able to reap the benefits of their hard work.

So FPAs will help good employers by stopping the race to the bottom and getting undercut by the bad employers. So in the case of Leava, the cleaner on 70 hours a week on minimum wage, her employer actually wants to do the right thing, and like many good employers, they want to offer better pay, but, of course, if they do that, under the current setting, they would be disadvantaged. Without a floor, an employer who wants to do the right thing can’t do so because to be successful, they need to drive down terms and conditions of their workers. I spoke about this in the second reading, because it’s exactly what happened with the bus tendering process.

So FPAs are really common overseas. We see it in Scandinavian countries. Germany and Denmark are examples of countries that have really successfully worked with sector-wide agreements in place, and, of course, did I mention Australia? The Opposition frequently mentioned that the wages are better there. Well, Australia has been operating with this system for as long as I can remember.

So on flexibility—I googled this term because it’s been used frequently by the Opposition. Flexibility says, “reduce minimum wages, reduce the power of trade unions, make it easier to hire and fire workers, and support zero-hour contracts in legislation.” That’s where we would be heading if they were to get another go at it. So I’d like to thank the Minister for taking this important legislation to the House; our officials, advisers, the Parliamentary Counsel Office and Office of the Clerk for their advice and support; the members on the Education and Workforce Committee; the Fair Pay Agreement Working Group; and all the submitters and all the unions who for so long held the tide back and worked so hard to get us to this point. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s not often I feel like singing and dancing in celebration in this House. Right now I’m going to save you all from that trauma, but I’ve got the feeling inside, because this is truly a day to celebrate. This is a turning point for our country where we start to bring back some balance, and that is about raising those who have been doing the work, the work of keeping us safe through a pandemic—of cleaning our spaces, of providing us with food, of getting us around, of doing that caring work for our kids and our elderly and our people, of producing and packing and getting that food to the supermarkets and those stores. So many jobs; so many of our people who have been looking after us—those of us, whether it be transitory or not, who are in a position of privilege in this country. This is about raising them to the place they deserve, to enable them to get some benefit from their work, benefit that helps them stand tall and proud, that recognises that their knowledge may have some value to their workplace and to their industry; to enable them to afford rent and put food on the table and pay an electricity bill—unattainable things, at the moment, for so many people in this country.

I do just need to say that in terms of the context of the inequality that is not being mentioned by the National Party or the ACT Party in this debate, New Zealand had the world’s largest increase in income inequality, the largest increase in the world, in the 1980s and 1990s because of decisions made in this place. It wasn’t a change of the work habits of our people or their ability to bargain; no, it was the decisions made in this place to take away the power and the ability to collectively organise from working people, as well as the slashing of benefits—we’ve still got some work to do on that. But this is about restoring that. It was such a profound increase in inequality, where the top 1 percent’s incomes doubled over those 20 years while they only increased for those at the bottom by about 30 percent, from low rates, and the value of the top 10 percent became nine times what the lowest-earning 10 percent was, as opposed to the five times more it had been before. That was a profound social change that has impacted every single person in this community, and it brought me to tears when the Hon Meka Whaitiri was describing the impact of that on her community. That was a familiar story to me, from having grown up through that time in Invercargill. It has impacted communities in every part of this country, communities of geographic location as well as communities of identity, and that some of our young people have never known decent pay or stable work conditions is a shame.

But that’s what National and ACT are defending, that flexibility that they want to hang on to, which has resulted in Pasifika women earning 25 percent of the wage of a Pākehā man—entrenched, embedded inequality that is unjustifiable and is only a result of discrimination and a thing they call unconscious bias, that is a result of our laws. This is a point of turning that around.

This is not just about pay. We talk about pay, but it’s also about—the “mandatory to decide” aspects will be wages, hours, training and development, and leave. National says, “How do those things impact productivity?” Work a 16-hour day with no training, day after day after day—you’re going to be a peak performer, aren’t you? It may be a low cost of business, but you’re not going to be as productive as you would with training and clear hours.

That is an aspect of this that we haven’t discussed much that I do want to just touch on, which is that the fair pay agreements (FPAs) are bringing working people’s representatives together with business to actually tackle problems across industries. We’re seeing this with bus drivers; the potential in hospitality I think is huge, as another example where we know the potential of bringing those voices together will help our businesses. There’s been research done that has shown that poor leadership in our businesses is costing the economy $5 billion a year. We do not have good managers in this country as a rule, and that is backed up by research. But, flexibility! The core problem with the leadership is a focus on driving down costs and not recognising the value of people, in investing in them and listening to their experiences and being able to learn from them to improve the business. Fair pay agreements create an ability to actually address issues right across a whole industry that will make work life significantly better for workers, but also a chance to actually reduce wastage and improve productivity.

We do need to recognise, too, that status quo, where, in hospitality, the research that was given to us in the committee was that half of workers surveyed in hospo had experienced harassment, 80 percent of them had not been given any training, over 20 percent of them weren’t getting their legal entitlements of holiday pay or rest breaks, and not even 30 percent had even been made aware of their health and safety risks. This is the status quo that National and ACT are fighting so desperately for.

Mark Cameron: I hope you can validate that.

JAN LOGIE: Yeah, it’s an Auckland University of Technology verified survey—quite well respected; quite verified, I would say.

These are the things that this bill has the potential to change, and I really just want to touch—we’ve heard from National saying that, you know, the problem of this is that once you start an FPA it can never be stopped, you can never take it out. I mean, you know, there are issues in terms of review periods, and they’ve got time frames on them and all of that, but we’ll ignore that and we’ll say they can never be taken out. But, you know, as if we need to be scared of better conditions—frightening. Frightening that we might get better conditions. Frightening that we might sit down with the employers and have a discussion—frightening. I’m not really sure what world they live in that that is so threatening, and that they see the unions as frightening when the unions are the collective of working people. But that tells us what they think of working people—that they’re scared of them.

Hon Member: Rubbish.

JAN LOGIE: That is what I hear in that argument when they’re saying, “Unions!” as if they’re so bad. Actually, they’re scared of working people, and I don’t think they should be. Like, part of me wants to say, “And they should be, because union power, we’re going to take them down, that 1 percent.” I do hope that does happen, but, actually, that is not what this is setting up. This is just setting up a process of bringing people together to find that base rate that enables people to live decent lives. It’s not an awful thing. It is a thing that will help transform our country, and we are proud to support it.

CHRIS BAILLIE (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I think that’s a great example of where this debate has got to. It’s become emotive—

Marja Lubeck: Factual.

CHRIS BAILLIE: —versus fact, and I think that’s a great example.

We come to this place with different experiences. I’ve been in the workforce for 43 years and I’ve been an employee for that length of time. I’ve belonged to unions, I’ve had employment contracts, and I’ve owned a business for the last 12 years. This legislation is a silly piece of legislation. It’s a silly name for the bill. It’s not fair, it’s not about pay; it’s about everything else—well, not only about pay. And it’s not an agreement if one party can make a decision.

We don’t oppose fair pay, we actually think the opposite: employees who work hard should be paid really well if they are productive for the business. Good, hard-working, loyal employees are the ones that are going to suffer from this legislation.

And Michael Wood has said that compression—compression—of wages is a good thing. And I think workers need to really understand what that means: if you work hard, you’re not going to get the reward that you deserve.

Jo Luxton: That’s rubbish.

CHRIS BAILLIE: Absolutely true. Such a backward idea, it shows a complete ignorance of what actually happens in businesses around the country. We’ve heard this rhetoric of a race to the bottom. Here’s Retail New Zealand: supermarket grocery workers’ average wage, $24.82; food beverage cafe workers’ average wage, $25.92; hardware, building, garden, and pet supplies average wage, $28.23. The minimum wage is $21.20. That doesn’t include in-store discounts, the flexible working hours that the employees want, and other stuff that just doesn’t make consideration.

The bill takes the rights of the worker to plan their own destiny. And even if they don’t want any involvement in a fair pay agreement (FPA), they have no choice. And in the retail sector, as was mentioned before, half a percent of the employees can start an FPA—that 99.5 percent; if they don’t want it, tough luck.

We will see a return to the industrial chaos of the 1970s and 1980s industrial awards, an era where the Minister wasn’t around, I’m sure, and lots of his colleagues. I grew up in a very pro-union household where my father was a marine engineer and I remember well the strikes of the rail ferries, generally around Christmas time—Christmas time. One particular one—

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Have you read the bill?

CHRIS BAILLIE: Oh, absolutely. I could see the dangers of unions as a 12-year-old. And just watch this space when the beds are going to be want to be made and included in FPAs.

The current employment contracts legislation has provided for the necessary safeguards and flexibility for employees, and they’ve proven to be very successful over the last 30 years. The fact is that, after declining through the 1980s, employees’ pay and conditions have improved substantially since the introduction of the Employment Contracts Act in 1991. There’s a chart that Mr Wood will ignore, but it actually shows that, since 1991, things have been improving.

Employment contracts—it’s as if the previous speakers I’ve been listening to have never seen or heard an employment contract. They cover everything—everything—that this bill purports to cover and even more. This is just an absolute waste of time. I was asked the other day, how is a 16-year-old meant to negotiate with a 50-year-old employer. And the employment agreement specifically says you take it away, you get advice, and after a week, you come back—it’s all covered. And I had to ask whether that person, in particular, thought that 16-year-olds should get the vote as well. And you can imagine what they said.

Once again, the most divisive Government in this country, in New Zealand’s history, has excelled in pitting one section of society against another, whether its landlords against tenants, farmers against townies, and employers against employees. The philosophy of divide and conquer is obvious, and it’s no more evident than in the bill. Clause 92D: “Each employee bargaining side for a proposed FPA must use its best endeavours to ensure that Māori employees are represented effectively in the bargaining process … seeking and considering feedback from representatives of Māori employees;”, etc. No mention of Chinese, Pasifika, women, or disabilities—I have a lot of faith that New Zealanders will treat this division with the contempt it deserves.

Business owners, those New Zealanders with a work ethic and a vision, were once employees. They know what it’s like to work hard and get ahead, or at least try. Anyone who owned or bought a business before 2017 must be wondering why they bothered. Before taking the step to buy a business, due diligence has to be done to make sure the business is viable—you can pay your bills, you can pay your rates, your insurance, your everything else, but, most importantly, wages. Make sure you can pay the wages. Business owners pay their staff before they pay themselves. They have had to take out loans in order to pay their staff. Business owners aren’t the evil, evil enemy that Labour likes to portray them as.

But all businesses have gotten are constant attacks from this Government, with the minimum wage, the extra sick leave, and extra statutory holidays, to name a few. They even tried to push through a bill which would make employers liable for their employees attending parent-teacher interviews. They don’t even think—they don’t even think—that annual leave is worthy of their kids. I heard Jan Tinetti say today, in the House, that you can’t expect to write about or understand something if you haven’t experienced it. And I think it really does explain Labour’s ignorance when it comes to business.

This insidious bill amounts to unionism by stealth. New Zealanders can join a union if they want to, they shouldn’t be forced into joining one just because of Labour’s blind ideology. It’s bullying to the extreme—forcing people to participate in a process they don’t want to, and threatening the already overburdened business owners with bureaucratic nonsense and ridiculous conditions. That’s bullying. And the scary thing is Labour and the Greens just can’t see it.

This bill is unnecessary, complicated, and it will cause more problems than it seeks to fix. I’ll end with a quote from a submitter who has 40 years’ experience in collective bargaining, both for employees and employers. “We anticipate workplace divisions, inflation, vulnerable-business closures, unemployment, lowering of the New Zealand productivity rating, increase in disputes, and lots of emotional disruptions and litigation. A marked increase in mental health issues will likely result due to individuals sensing they have lost another control over their lives.” For the sake of the hard-working employees of this country, ACT opposes this bill and we’ll get rid of it as soon as we can, next year. Thank you.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): E te Māngai o te Whare, ka nui te koa o te ngākau ki te tū ki te kōrero i runga i tēnei kaupapa o tēnei ahiahi—it is a pleasure to stand and speak on this significant bill for its third reading: the Fair Pay Agreements Bill. The day has finally arrived.

In the general debate, we have just had the Leader of the Opposition start with a folk tale, and I want to counter with another one, one we all know. It is the tale of Chicken Little. Chicken Little was hit on the head by the falling acorn, and we know how the story goes. Chicken Little concludes not that the acorn has fallen but that the sky is falling, and Chicken Little rushes around telling all of the farmyard of the imminent destruction they all face. There are some similarities here to Chicken Little in the Opposition.

We heard the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, Michael Wood, go over the list of improvements for the lives of working people that the Government has brought in in the last five years and the National Party’s opposition to that. We heard about how they opposed the increase to sick leave during a pandemic, we heard about how they opposed the increases to the minimum wage, and we heard about how they opposed the introduction of Matariki as a holiday, but it is not just in this term of Parliament that we have heard the same oppositional rhetoric from the National Party to increases to working rights.

This is something that has happened again and again, and if we look back to the Employment Relations Act 2000, we see that very similar arguments were used as have been used in this bill today. The Rt Hon Jenny Shipley, in the first reading of the Employment Relations Act 2000, alleged at the time that Labour was “Taking New Zealand back to ideas that most people thought were extinct” and that it was “no way to forge the future for this country.” Does that sound familiar? It sounds quite familiar to what we heard from Scott Simpson, who was saying that we were old-fashioned and that we were taking the world back to the 1960s.

Then we look at what Max Bradford said in relation to the Employment Relations Act 2000. He said, “why is the Labour-Alliance Government digging up the old processes, the old institutions, the old dinosaurs of the past in order to get it? … We have a grand march backwards into the past”—same playbook, same old tired arguments, same unfounded scaremongering about the improvement of workers’ rights.

So why is the National Party telling New Zealanders to believe that fair pay agreements will really cause the sky to fall—why? Because workers are getting a fairer deal. The sky did not fall because of the improvements to workers’ rights in the year 2000 under the Employment Relations Act—in fact, we’ve heard from the other side how things have just got better—and the sky will not fall because of fair pay agreements in 2022.

Good employers will take advantage of the new opportunities to compete on quality and service and not slashing the wages of the people they depend on. Good employers and their representatives will participate in bargaining in good faith. Good employers—and I note most employers in New Zealand are good employers—will often say that their employees are their greatest asset, and while this is true, it is important to remember that workers are far more than the return for their labour. They are people, and we have heard again and again from this side of the House “He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.” They are people, and they deserve respect.

Working people deserve to live a life of dignity. They should feel secure and be part of a society that treats them fairly, and this is what fair pay agreements are all about.

Good employers will adapt to fair pay agreements, they will go about their business, and they will turn a profit, only this time, under fair pay agreements, they will have more secure, contented, and, likely, productive employees. The sun will shine and the sky will not fall.

On a more serious note, the fair pay agreements that the Government is bringing in are to build a fairer and more resilient society for all New Zealanders: business owners, workers, unions—people. It is why we came to this place—to make this type of change, to change the frameworks that we work under to make a better New Zealand for New Zealanders, and strengthening our industrial relations framework through the fair pay agreements makes a fairer and more equitable society for everyone.

I want to take a moment here to thank the unions and working people that they represent. This has been a long time coming and has been the result of the work of many, many people, and I just want to note a few of the unions who I know are listening to this debate today. The Council of Trade Unions, E tū, FIRST Union, the Public Service Association, and the Tertiary Education Union are just some that I note who represent hundreds of thousands of working people who will benefit from these fair pay agreements. So I just want to note that this, today, is a result of many, many hours of work and many struggles from many different people.

The Minister has said that we must value work. When I came to this House, in my maiden speech I said that I was brought up to believe that a job worth doing was a job worth having, and a job worth having in this country and a job that must be done in this country should be treated with respect. This is fundamentally what this framework of fair pay agreements is all about. As the Minister has noted, we have been in this party fighting for the rights of working people for over 106 years. This was a commitment in our manifesto to bring in fair pay agreements, and that, today, is exactly what we are going to do.

I just want to note, before I conclude, a comment made by the ACT member Chris Baillie, talking about how there’ll be an increase in strikes. It is fundamentally untrue that there will be strikes as a result of this piece of legislation. Strikes are not permitted—some have argued they should be. But they are not—if you read the legislation—allowed under this bill, so it is purely disinformation to suggest otherwise.

In the first reading, I reflected on the legacy of union leader and my friend and mentor Helen Kelly. We have heard again from the Minister today about the work that she did that resulted in this bill before the House. In my maiden speech, I shared Helen’s vision that she articulated in 2013 at the Labour Party conference, and I will quote from this: “We need a new vision … one that recognises the best of human nature and … that our individual happiness is dependent on each other’s rights and needs as much as our own.”—our individual happiness is dependent on each other’s rights and needs as much as our own.

Fair pay agreements recognise that as a society, we can do better. We can set minimum standards across occupations and industries, and it will be better for everyone in New Zealand once that floor is set. Because Helen said that our individual happiness is dependent on each other’s rights and needs as much as our own, I would like to note that through these fair pay agreements, that is what we are progressing today.

Helen Kelly passed away in 2016, but her commitment to working people did not die. It lives on in this bill today, which I, again, proudly commend to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The next call is a split call. I call Sam Uffindell—five minutes.

SAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Firstly—you obviously know where I’m going to go with this—I just want to thank everyone that’s been involved. I know there’s a lot of people here and, obviously, on that side of the House as well, for whom this means a lot. So I appreciate that this is a big moment for you all and I just want to recognise all your hard work on that.

I would also like to start with the Minister because there are a few things that weren’t addressed during the previous stage, mainly around how it would apply to professional services. I know that this is probably not intended to address that, but this is a very big part of the economy—

Hon Michael Wood: It’s the stockbrokers and the merchant bankers, that’s who we’re here for, buddy.

SAM UFFINDELL: —and it was never talked about. It’s a very real concern, though, Minister, and I would like to have understood how it would apply and you never answered me. I also continually asked for feedback on how this would work when people, say, in sales roles—and you’ve done a bit of selling before as well, I know that—and how that would apply when they are paid on commission instead of just a wage. Because the truth is a lot of people don’t just get paid a wage; they get paid a commission instead. A lot of people—and you mocked me for this, when I was talking about technology companies, young enterprising start-ups around the country—instead of paying higher wages, they give employees share plans. I know that most people don’t get that Minister, but some people do, and that’s where a lot of growth is going to be in the future. It’s already happening overseas, and that’s why I asked it. I wasn’t just having a laugh. I wanted to know why we are applying it in such a broad-based manner. And that is what you have done. I can get where it does apply, and, yes, I know that everyone’s really passionate and that’s probably what everyone here represents, but it’s across the whole economy, across all industries. You are really going to hammer people, because it takes no account for the differences in businesses, it takes no account for the small businesses, it takes no account for people who pay or live in sales roles, and I really wanted that addressed.

My colleague Erica Stanford also talked about migrant workers, and close to where I live—in the country—we have Recognised Seasonal Employer workers around and they are on the median wage. They are above Kiwis, and we wanted to know how that would operate, and we didn’t get an answer for it. They are also entitled to minimum hours the whole time—Kiwis are not. That wasn’t addressed. You didn’t listen to Business New Zealand; they doubled down on how bad this was. Despite widespread concerns—the coercive nature of this—you retained all the bad elements. In fact, it actually got worse after the select committee process, and that’s what the Employers and Manufacturers Association said as well. You were also given advice about how it wasn’t going to be all rosy like you thought it would by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and by Treasury, and they were ignored. That’s a common theme with this Government, that you just don’t consult properly with people because you don’t really believe in consultation outside of your own echo chambers—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! This is a warning I’ve given this particular member in the past. Please don’t bring me into it. Whenever you use the term “you”, you’re not referring to the Minister or anyone else in this House; you’re referring to me.

SAM UFFINDELL: My apologies, Madam Speaker. I am learning and will continue to learn. Thank you for that.

People on that side of the House don’t get into consulting. People on that side of the House live in echo chambers. People on that side of the House actually haven’t had a lot of experience in the workplace. I read something recently about your top five: Ardern, Robertson, Woods, Wood, and Hipkins—five years in business, and I know a bit of that was selling fish and chips and Christmas trees, but I’m trying to get you guys, and have been this whole time, to understand how the employer could look at it. And you never have, and the consultation that you’ve engaged in has been very poor.

So I will strongly stand against this bill, and I am looking forward to when there is a National Government in power next year, and there will be, because that side of the House has put constant costs on to businesses; whether it be inflation; whether it be the Minister not letting workers in here and having an enormous bottleneck in that area; whether it be the jobs tax that’s coming up; huge, reckless spending; and now this. The businesses in New Zealand—when you go talk to them—have got real concerns with this Government. So I am looking forward to us coming into power and repealing this bill. Thank you.

ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. It is a great, great privilege, and I am very humbled, to stand and take a call on the Fair Pay Agreements Bill for the third reading—finally.

We’ve heard a lot from the other side of the House—from Chicken Little and his mates—about how old-fashioned we are. There is nothing old-fashioned about approaching a problem collectively. As a society, we look after each other, we lift each other up, we get through the tough times, and we cherish the good times. There is nothing old-fashioned about that.

Something that is old-fashioned is something that came in over 30 years ago: Employment Contracts Act. That divided this country, forced us into neoliberal economic policies—that is old-fashioned. Even the IMF says it ain’t working. We’ve had plenty of time, an entire generation, to work out that it didn’t work. It is a failed experiment, it is old-fashioned, and it is time we move on, and thank goodness!—because of the huge amount of work we’ve already heard and acknowledged today from workers, from advocates, from staff, from members of Parliament, from members of our communities for years—this old-fashioned idea is out.

An interesting observation when we reflect on the years of work that has gone into this bill, is the diversity of world views that came to the table. We’ve heard about Helen Kelly and Jim Bolger; they came and they worked on this because they knew it was important. Jim Bolger said, when he accepted the offer to chair the working group, “The goal of the report was to support workers and firms to drive productivity growth and share the benefits.” Who can argue with that? We came together, we did the mahi, and we are here today.

We’ve heard from the other side “get a better job” about workers who aren’t getting paid enough or who have poor conditions. Fair pay agreements are about making your job better. Some has got to do it and we are grateful that they do. It isn’t about getting a better job; it’s about your job being better.

We’ve heard from the security workers who do not have the right gear or training to deal with situations that none of the rest of us are able to or want to deal with. We heard from the bus drivers who have split shifts and never see their families and can’t coach the next soccer star. We’ve heard from our cleaners about the fact that they never see their babies or their grandchildren. The work that they have done to make their children’s lives better cost them the living of their own lives. They work so hard.

I just need to finish—I could go on for a long time, and I’m really aware that we’ve got progress to make. I just want to, I guess, talk about the bargaining. This is about collaboration; it will be able to be nimble and responsive because people will have to sit down. They won’t be able to go on strike and they won’t be able to walk away. There is an obligation to conclude because it’s important work to be done for all of society.

I want to acknowledge the Hon Meka Whaitiri when she talked about our communities that were decimated. My husband’s family comes from Waitara. My father-in-law was a freezing worker and a staunch union leader. We have communities like Waitara and Patea who are still suffering today.

This legislation, when it has passed, will make every one of us in this country richer; not just with a coin, but for our lives. It is with this, I commend the bill to the House.

HELEN WHITE (Labour): It’s a privilege to take a call on this particular bill, the Fair Pay Agreements Bill, because I worked as an employment lawyer for 25 years. So I first want to acknowledge the pain that Minister Whaitiri talked about. That pain is something I saw repeatedly in my career. I saw those rundown towns. I saw the dependence on the State from people who were actually working. I saw the stress that it caused. I saw the hopelessness that it caused. I saw the mental health issues it caused. I saw the alcoholism it caused. I saw all the problems that are caused by just not being able to make ends meet. That is an undignified thing, and it is absolutely a shame in this country that we were ever in that position, and we are actually having to build our way out of it.

The whole point of this legislation is to focus on our most—most—vulnerable. So when Erica Stanford is perplexed by the public interest test, I would urge those listening to this to have a look at that test, because it protects those who have little bargaining power, those who have low pay, those who have long hours, those who have no career path. It gives them better pay, more bargaining power, better hours, and a career path. That’s what Government is for, to protect people like that. That’s our job, and I’d ask Erica Stanford, amongst others, to look at it, because she is talking often about the protection of migrants. So she has those protections in mind, and we need to actually join the dots here, people. We need to make sure everyone in this country earns a decent living. So I’m not actually that worried if we actually have to meet the cost of migrant labour in our own hometowns. I’d like them to be earning the same amount. I think that’s a really good start.

One of the things that I talked about the other day, when I was talking about this debate, was a woman who had haunted me. It’s really hard when you’re a lawyer, because you can’t tell many of the war stories. The best ones are, of course, secret. But it was a situation where the woman was on such low pay that it was just above the minimum. She was in her sixties, and she had worn herself out because she was a caregiver, and you lift people. The answer for that was to frustrate her contract: no one’s fault, she goes, small payout. And I never felt right about it. I was dealing with a lawyer on the other side who earned, probably, $600,000, and for him, I suspect, it was a game. I suspect it was quite fun to knock that woman around and to get the lowest possible price for his client. I don’t think that’s a funny story. I think it’s utterly disgusting that that happened in our country.

I also had a case with a beautiful union called the Amalgamated Workers Union, and it was for the workers up at Golden Bay Cement. In that case, it was about people who actually fought for a career path. They bargained for it, and they got that career path, and then the employer said, “Oh, you can’t have that, because only the union members get it. So you can’t have it, because that would be discrimination.” Well, we took that case all the way through the courts system, and a full court found that that was not a problem and that they had bargained for it and it was important. But I still remember the evidence in that case about how important that career path was, because that career path meant that those workers could go from lifting concrete, lifting bags, to something that was actually going to be sustainable through their entire career. That’s an incredibly important thing if you’re in the working class—that you can keep working.

I have never forgotten that, but I’ve also always contrasted the two stories. One person was a female, she was isolated, she was in a different situation; the others had collectivised, they were working together. What this actually will do is mean that the worker that I was talking about—the caregiver—has a hope, can actually be protected, can actually be given at least a minimum. That’s all it does. It actually doesn’t take away great flexibility. You can always argue for more. You can always bargain for more. These are the minimum standards. And, actually, what it does is give, also, an employer who does the right thing the chance not to be undercut by somebody who’s prepared to cut wages or terms and conditions or career paths. It actually levels the playing field, and, for me, feels like an incredibly important piece of the puzzle.

I want to just move to something really sad that happened to me this week. I found out that a person who volunteered for me, who was my friend, Peter Barrett, had died suddenly. Peter was a lovely guy who had a lot of very strong values. He had opened a business with his partner, who had actually come in as a migrant and she had been working as a masseuse, and they’d opened this beautiful spa. He pays the living wage. He was very clear that that was one of the things they wanted to do. You can see the situation here was one where his partner would have come in on very low wages, and actually now she was in a business, working with her partner, and they were paying the living wage to their workers. Well, why would it be fair that someone else, somewhere down the road, could open a spa and actually pay workers less? Why wouldn’t we want there to be a minimum standard for those workers? Because it’s not very much. It’s not asking the sun, the moon, and the stars. Actually, if you don’t pay people properly, who do you think pays? This is one for the National Party: who has been paying? The taxpayer has. We have been subsidising those workers over and over again.

We have to put food in schools, and that’s because we need food in schools under our current economy. And I am proud we do it, but one day I want it to be a situation in New Zealand where wages for everyone are dignified, where everyone stands on their own two feet, and that is a society I want to live in. And that is a stark contrast between the National Party and the Labour Party today—that we understand that; that we understand where we’re going. Now, it is true that it is worth remembering that there are epiphanies in this place. That Mr Bolger, the Prime Minister of this country for some time, actually was the person who was the author of the report. He’s the architect of this report. And what he said, which is true, is that we work longer hours in this country and we are less productive than most OECD countries. So he crafted this, which has turned into this bill, and it is a bill that actually is all about fair wages, it’s about sharing benefits, and it’s about higher productivity. So I commend this bill to the House.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, here we are, five years to the day since this Government was sworn in, I believe—five years—and the Prime Minister’s in Antarctica. She doesn’t want to celebrate five years; Parliament’s sitting and she’s in Antarctica.

What are we celebrating after five years? Endless failure to achieve anything. When it comes to housing, what have they achieved? Where are the KiwiBuild houses? Nowhere to be found. When it comes to emergency waiting times at hospitals, nothing there. Mental health? Nothing there. Education? They haven’t even got the kids to school. Law and order? The ram raiders are running all over the place. The slow tram coming down Dominion Road? Not to be found. But there is one thing. There is one thing that this Government can do; it can pass bills. That’s one thing it can do. And so, yes, they’ve got a majority to pass a bill and they’re all here and they’re celebrating the union movement. They can pass a bill. That’s the only thing this Government is capable of doing.

And, yes, there’s not a person in this country who doesn’t want to see higher wages for New Zealanders. Everybody wants higher wages and they want better resources. The question is: how do you achieve that sustainably? This Government believes the way to improve wages is to pass a law to have higher wages. That’s how they think they get higher wages. Or the other way. There’s two ways you can get higher wages under Labour’s thinking. One is to pass legislation to legislate for higher wages. The second way is to shut the borders and stop immigrants coming in. And so if you have no immigrants coming through, you have a worker shortage, therefore wages go up. That’s their approach to having higher wages.

Well, our view is if you want to have sustainably higher wages, you need to have more productive businesses. That’s how you get sustainably higher wages. Productivity is improved by investment and by higher skills and by all those things that are not related to Governments passing legislation. I stood up during the committee stage and tried to suggest to the Minister that perhaps one of the things that could be considered and talked about during the development of a fair pay agreement might be the productivity of the business. And, of course, he voted it down. He did not want any discussion of productivity as part of these misnamed fair pay agreements. So I can commit to the House that if National is fortunate enough to win the next election, this will be gone. We’ll be repealing this. It will not exist. So you can campaign on the mandatory union deals all you like over the next year, because they won’t survive a change of Government.

Why are people concerned about their living standards? It’s because we’ve got uncontrolled inflation. Wages are going slower than inflation under this Government. New Zealanders are going backwards. They’re struggling because of the cost of living crisis. Wages are behind and people are feeling the pinch. And we’ve heard lots of stories of people who are struggling in this country. There’s no question. There are many New Zealanders who are struggling; not just people who are on wages but also many small business operations are struggling to stay afloat, and they are being confronted every day, first, by the difficulty of finding workers, and, second, by the difficulty of dealing with all the additional costs and regulations that this Government passes and a whole host of other challenges that they face. If they are a small retail business, they’re facing ram raids and smash and grabs every second day. They’re struggling with all sorts of issues.

But what this Government knows how to do is add extra cost and difficulty for those businesses as well. So their response is to legislate for higher wages, to stem the flow of immigration, and hope that will force up wages. That, of course, is not sustainable. What you need is higher productivity.

So if we look at this bill, what does it do? What it does is it undermines the flexible labour markets that have been one of the pillars of our relative economic success over the last three decades. It’s part of the reason why we have such low unemployment rates in this country, and they want to unwind that to a one-size-fits-all approach whereby if you’re a cleaning operation—an example has been used many times—and if you employ 5,000 people you still have to deal with the same situation as if you were a mum and dad operator with two people. Michael Wood has recognised that there is a need for regional variation—he recognises, grudgingly, I think, that there’s a difference between Auckland and Eketāhuna and the needs and requirements of businesses operating in both those environments.

So there’s a little bit of flexibility for regions, but he refuses to recognise that there’s differences between very large businesses and small businesses. What you can cope with if you’ve got 10,000 employees in the supermarket context, in terms of terms and conditions and hourly breaks and penal rates and holiday time and all those sorts of things, research and development and training—all those things you can cope with if you’ve got 10,000 employees are not necessarily things you can cope with if you’ve got two employees. But they don’t recognise that. So if you’re running a little Four Square in Hokianga, you’ve got to be exactly the same as if you’re running a big operation in central Auckland, and that doesn’t work. It’s not practical and it’s going to make it difficult.

And so on the one hand, the Government spends all its time saying it’s going to get tough on the supermarkets, “We’re going to get the Commerce Commission in. We’re going to go hard on the duopoly.”, and, on the other, they’re bringing in legislation which makes it easier for the big players. Who do you think is going to be actually doing the negotiations for these fair pay agreements? Do you think is going to be the little players, the little mum and dad operations? No. Do you think they’re going to have any involvement in the negotiations? Not at all. It will be the big players who will negotiate; they’ll negotiate, naturally, because what will come out of the whole process will be things that suit the bigger players. It’s always the case with regulation; that’s going to be the case with this. So on the one hand, they’re going to be tough on the big players. On the other hand, we’re going to pass more regulation that the big players will be able to negotiate more easily than the small players. So surprise, surprise! It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

Secondly, the better name for this bill is the “Mandatory Union Deals that are Imposed on Workplaces Bill”. There’s no choice. There’s no choice about this. We’ve heard from Willie Jackson that democracy has changed in this country. Most people haven’t sort of been aware of that. They’re surprised that we didn’t have a referendum on our democracy changing. But, apparently, according to Willie, it has. And when it comes to this bill, we see the sorts of things that are involved in that.

So instead of having 50 percent of a workforce agreeing to go into a fair pay agreement, all you need is a handful. You’d need 10 percent maybe, but say you’ve got 200,000 workers in an industry, all you need is 1,000—well, that’s less than 1 percent of the industry and they say, “OK, we’re going to have a fair pay agreement.” If a tiny minority say we’re going to have a fair pay agreement, once it’s started, there’s no stopping it.

Hon Kiritapu Allan: Isn’t that wonderful—isn’t that wonderful!

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: That’s right—that’s right. So the 70 percent of the Labour caucus who are ex-union members are happy about this and we can understand that. So celebrate it, because after five years of achieving nothing on the issues that matter to New Zealand, you can come along here today and pass a bill. That’s great! This party is capable, because it has a majority, of passing bills and this is the latest one that they’ve passed.

It imposes fair pay agreements on workforces, even though they don’t vote for them, even though they don’t want them. So the employers get dragged into the process. They’ve got a gun to the head. They either agree with it or, if they don’t agree with it, it goes off to the Employment Relations Authority and they impose those conditions on those businesses, even though they won’t have had a chance to have their say and they have no choice about whether they’re going to be involved in it.

So the point—the simple point—I’m making is this. Every New Zealander wants to see higher wages for New Zealanders. And what we see is a Government that truly believes that the best way to get higher wages is for the Government to come along here to Parliament and pass a bill that lifts up wages through minimum wages and so forth—[Interruption] that’s great—regardless of whether a business can afford to pay that or not; it doesn’t matter. That’s an irrelevant issue, according to this Government. The productivity of it, the international competitiveness of the business doesn’t matter. That’s irrelevant. It’s only that this does this Government passes the legislation.

The second route is to starve off immigration and reduce the workforce. And then, of course, at the same time they’ve got make-work schemes trying to hire New Zealanders at a time when businesses can’t get access to workers. But that’s a separate issue.

So this Government’s view is that’s how you lift wages. Our view on this side of the House is if you want to sustainably improve wages over time, you need to have more productive businesses. And that is going to be based, sadly, not on legislation but on free markets and people being prepared to invest their own capital and to grow their businesses.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Acting Prime Minister): There is so much I could respond to in that contribution from Mr Goldsmith, but today is a good day. Mr Goldsmith is a historian by training, a noble profession I might add. So I want to start for him with a short history lesson.

The genesis of this bill, this great piece of legislation, comes 30 years ago. Now, 30 years ago, which might surprise some people, I was working regularly in the South City New World in Dunedin in the fruit and veggie department. Anyone who wants to know the secret for how to properly cut a pumpkin up, lessons will be given in the break. But those 30 years ago, I worked alongside some of the best people I have even known, some of the most hard-working people I have ever known who were on the checkouts, who worked day and night in the butchery, and who worked day and night in the delicatessen, who were up at four in the morning buying the vegetables that were sold there. And that year, 1992, was the year in which the impact of the employment contracts hit in my workplace. Now, I was a student, I was able to make ends meet, but I watched the value of the wages of those hard-working people, who worked every day to feed their families, erode. Because by design, a system was created by the then National Government to ensure that working people’s share of income declined.

It was not an accident. It was, as Helen Kelly told us, by design. Thirty years ago that experiment was foisted on New Zealand people, and ever since that day, working people have been going to work and not getting a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work because their rights were eroded, their conditions were eroded. What we’ve heard in the House today, and over the last few days—here’s the history lesson for Mr Goldsmith: Ruth Richardson is alive and well and kicking over there, because they say they’re going to repeal it. They want to, by design, lower the wages of working people. The message for New Zealand, for working people across Aotearoa: National hasn’t changed. Thirty years on, they still want to see the wages of working people decline, the share of our national income that working people take home. They deliberately designed the system to reduce that. Well, today we turn that around. Today we make sure that working people can finally get the opportunity for that fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.

During the period of COVID, we saw a lot of talk about essential workers. We celebrated essential workers. I can remember writing a small piece for the front page of the Dominion Post to celebrate the people under level 4 who were going out day in, day out, to make sure that we were all healthy and well. Our cleaners, our bus drivers, our supermarket workers—we celebrated them. And I can remember writing that day in the Dominion Post, “Maybe, just maybe, this will be the moment where in New Zealand we stop and we say, ‘If someone’s an essential worker, maybe we should show that we value them as an essential worker in the way that they are paid.’” Again, today we take serious steps forward in making sure that that happens. Our cleaners and our security guards, our bus drivers, the people who make sure that the economy ticks along have for too long been forced into a race to the bottom. Today we turn that around. Today we turn that around.

I want to say some thankyous at this point in my speech. I want to thank the Minister in charge of this bill, the Hon Michael Wood. Michael, your work on this has been phenomenal, not just sitting in that chair there for goodness knows how many hours, answering banal questions from the members opposite. But the work that you have done to shepherd this legislation to this point, it is a Herculean effort. You deserve every congratulation for what you have done.

I want to thank the wider labour movement in New Zealand, many representatives of whom are gathered together in the gallery today. The labour movement has taken this project on because it means fairness. It means giving working people a shot at getting their fair share. I want to congratulate every union member, every working person in New Zealand who has supported this bill. I want to thank the members of the E tū union who lobbied and lobbied and lobbied and told their stories to us time and time again. The people who clean this building, the people who work out there on the front line who are security guards dealing day in, day out with difficult issues. You came, you told your stories to us. They mean something. It means something to all of us today. And I say thank you to you for what you have done.

I want to thank some people who are no longer with us. In particular, I want to acknowledge Helen Kelly and Peter Conway, two giants of the union movement, the labour movement in New Zealand. Two people who talked about this very issue. And it was interesting to hear Mr Goldsmith mention a Four Square worker in the north of New Zealand, because that’s the example Helen Kelly used to give of why we need fair pay agreements. Think about the imbalance and bargaining power of a Four Square worker in Kaitaia when they’re up against their employer. They don’t necessarily have people around them who can help them bargain—that’s what this was about.

Here’s what Helen Kelly said a few years before her passing. She said, “There is a cultural problem in this country. People think workers are lucky to have a job. They shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds them and they should put up and shut up. The bottom line should include workers having a secure agreement about how their pay is determined. It’s not much to expect.” Helen drove a movement inside the labour movement to make sure that we reached out beyond those who we traditionally talked to, that we said there was an audience of people here who understood that the race to the bottom was wrong, that there was an opportunity, if we got the legislative settings right, to set the minimum—shoot for the moon, but set the minimum. I want to acknowledge Helen. It was six years ago, just a couple of weeks ago, that she passed away. Today we do something that she wanted. We do something that she wanted for the working people of New Zealand. And I say thank you to Helen and thank you to Peter for the work that they did to get us to this point—and indeed the entire union movement today and in the past.

There is nothing to worry about in this legislation. If you’re a good employer, this is good news. It means you’re not going to be dragged down by the people who want to undercut you. This is a chance for employers, good employers, to come to the table with hard-working people and nut out an agreement, and to make sure that the freeloaders in your industry don’t get away with it anymore. This is a day for employers to celebrate just as much as it’s a day for employees to celebrate. There’s nothing to worry about here. We get asked all the time by the Opposition, “What are you doing to make us more like Australia?” Hello, we’re doing it today—vote for it!

This is commonplace in the world. It’s about basic rights. It’s about understanding that when people go to work, they deserve a fair day’s pay. So I am so proud to stand here as the final speaker on this bill. This is the result of hard work over more than a decade of people in the union movement. But more than that, it is an example of rolling back those terrible ideas of 30 years ago. I stood here and did a Budget in 2021 where we restored main benefits to the levels that they were before the “mother of all Budgets”. Today, we take another important step in rolling back that agenda. But more important, even than that, is that we roll forward now to an era where people get a chance to bargain together, get a chance to get a fair day’s pay. This is a great day for the working people of New Zealand. I am so proud to be part of a Government that is passing the Fair Pay Agreements Bill.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Fair Pay Agreements Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 76

New Zealand Labour 64; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Noes 43

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Waiata

Hon JENNY SALESA: It is time for the dinner break. We shall see you here at 7 p.m.

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

Bills

Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): I present a legislative statement on the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment 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 KIRITAPU ALLAN: I move, That the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill, and at the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 13 March 2023.

As we are all aware, the nature of terrorism is evolving at a rapid pace. Threats are increasingly coming from radicalised individuals acting alone, often having been exposed to, and influenced by, extremist material online. We’ve seen the devastating results these evolving threats can have here on our own shores. In particular, I want to acknowledge the impact of the terror attacks on victims and the wider community, and, in particular, our Muslim community here in Aotearoa.

Our goal must always be to ensure we can effectively manage and respond to the specific risks we are seeing right here at home. Following the 15 March 2019 terror attack in Christchurch, the royal commission of inquiry recommended that the Government review our counter-terrorism legislation to ensure it is fit for purpose. This bill is the next step in our response to that recommendation. It clarifies and strengthens our counter-terrorism legislation in two ways. Firstly, the bill amends the scheme for designating terrorist entities in the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002. These amendments will clarify how the scheme applies to designated terrorists who are imprisoned in New Zealand. Secondly, the bill amends the regime for imposing control orders in the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Act 2019. These amendments will strengthen the control orders regime and include some lessons learnt from the one control order made, to date, in New Zealand.

I’ll start by setting out the key elements of the amendments to the scheme for designating terrorist entities. Under this scheme, the Prime Minister is empowered to designate a group or an individual as a terrorist entity if the entity has carried out or participated in a terrorist act. Once designated, restrictions are placed on that entity’s use of personal finances and property to prevent them from financing terrorism and to prevent others from providing funds or support to the entity. In this way, the scheme helps to prevent further terrorist acts and contributes to meeting our international obligations to prevent and suppress the financing of terrorism.

Currently, our designation scheme does not specifically address the situation of a designated person who is in prison. This creates ambiguity in how the scheme applies to people in that situation. In particular, it’s not clear how the Prime Minister’s powers to revoke and renew a designation apply. It is crucial that the Prime Minister’s powers, with respect to designated and imprisoned people, are clear. This is because being in prison does not, by itself, prevent a person from supporting terrorism—for example, it does not prevent a person from using their financial resources to support others to carry out terrorist attacks.

To ensure the Prime Minister’s powers are clear, the bill makes three amendments with respect to people who are both designated and imprisoned. First, while a designated person is in prison, the bill removes the ability for that person and other interested parties to apply for the designation to be revoked on one of the currently available grounds—that is, where the application is made on the ground that the person is no longer involved in acts that would make them eligible for designation. They will still be able to apply for the designation to be revoked on the ground that there was no proper basis for it to be made in the first place. Secondly, it pauses the expiry of the designation while the person is imprisoned. And, finally, the Prime Minister must review whether the designation of an imprisoned person is no longer justified, at least once every three years while the person is in prison. As part of this review, the Prime Minister must seek information from the designated person and, where relevant, take this information into account. These amendments are important to ensure the designated scheme can operate effectively to prevent further terrorist acts, while also ensuring the rights and the freedoms of designated people are protected.

I want to acknowledge that this bill includes amendments to the designation scheme that will have retrospective effect. It applies the new law to existing designations of imprisoned people and to any applications to revoke an imprisoned person’s designation that have been made but not determined before the amendments take effect. In addition, the bill validates previous decisions by the Prime Minister to refuse an application to revoke the designation of an imprisoned person. This Government is keenly aware that legislation with retrospective effect should only be introduced where there is a strong justification to do so. We’ve carefully considered the issues and feel strongly that retrospectivity is necessary to protect public safety. If the amendments did not have retrospective effect, the ambiguity in the current law could result in an imprisoned person’s designation expiring or being revoked despite them continuing to pose a risk of involvement in further terrorist attacks. As such, we consider the retrospective application of these provisions as justified.

I now turn to the second part of the bill, which proposes amendments to strengthen and improve New Zealand’s control order regime. Control orders are civil orders made in the High Court on application by the Commissioner of Police. They apply to individuals in the community who meet the definition of a “relevant person” and who present a real risk of engaging in terrorism-related activities. I want to be clear that a control order can only be imposed if the High Court is satisfied that the two-stage test set out in the legislation is met. Firstly, for people already in New Zealand, the individual concerned must have a history of relevant terrorism-related offending; and, second, they must continue to pose a real risk of engaging in terrorism-related activity.

A control order imposes restrictions that aim to prevent these individuals from engaging in further terrorism-related activities. In this way, they are similar to other post-sentence orders for serious sexual or violent offenders, such as extended supervision orders and public protection orders. The High Court can impose a wide range of restrictions as part of a control order; these can range from regular report-ins with police through to more stringent restrictions such as residential requirements, curfews, and electronic monitoring. However, every restriction must be directly related and proportionate to the specific terrorism risk of each individual.

As I have mentioned, the nature of terrorism is evolving. To respond to the specific threats we are seeing and to pick up on several lessons from making New Zealand’s first control order, we are proposing four targeted changes to strengthen the control order regime. First, the bill provides for a wider range of objectionable publication offences to qualify as relevant terrorism-related offences for the purposes of control order eligibility; secondly, the bill provides for sentences of home detention and community-based sentences for terrorism-related offences to satisfy part of the eligibility test for a control order; thirdly, the bill provides judges with greater discretion when setting control order restrictions; and, fourth, the bill changes the current automatic name suppression requirement so the court can more effectively strike a balance between preventing the glorification of terrorism and reassuring the public that a known terrorism risk is being appropriately managed. These changes will give police the option to apply for a control order in respect of a wider range of people who pose a real risk of engaging in terrorism-related activities.

Finally, I just want to stress that the changes the bill makes to the designations and control order regimes—these are necessary. They will strengthen the tools we have to ensure we can better protect our communities from known threats of terrorism, and, at the same time, the amendments carefully balance the rights and freedoms of those individuals they may apply to. To provide clarity as to the Prime Minister’s powers with respect to designated and imprisoned persons as soon as possible, I am proposing that Justice Committee report on the bill to the House after four months. The public will have the opportunity to share their views on the bill at select committee, and I look forward to the Justice Committee’s consideration of the bill. I commend this bill to the House.

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

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, it’s my pleasure to stand and take a call today on the first reading of the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill.

Can I, firstly, acknowledge the Minister, who, on this side of the House, we feel that, when it comes to matters of national security, the default setting should always be trying to work in a bipartisan way, certainly amongst the two major parties, because there is, fundamentally, nothing more important than the safety and protection of our country. So I want to thank and acknowledge the Minister because she did involve us, she did provide a briefing to myself, Paul Goldsmith, and Chris Penk, on the draft copy of the bill, and there was a good conversation had with the Minister and her advisers. We made one recommendation that we felt should be made to strengthen the bill, and, in a later meeting, that change was made. I want to acknowledge the Minister and thank her for doing that; it makes it much easier for us to support this bill. We want to support the bill because it’s important that we do work together on this.

I just want to come back to a time only five or six years ago when we saw the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria and Iraq, and the tragedy that that caused. I want to acknowledge our New Zealand Defence Force—we have the defence Minister in the House tonight—and the incredible work that they did in making sure that we did our bit and supported the defeat of that corrupted and extremist ideology.

I want to support the Minister’s comments that although we’re a small nation down the bottom of the world, sadly we lost our innocence when we had the horrific attacks at the mosques. I was in Christchurch today, our beautiful garden city, on a beautiful summer’s day, and a gorgeous place to be, but do you know what? There’s very deep scars that will run through there for a very long time because of what we had to face as a nation, with those attacks.

Then, of course, we saw the attack at the New Lynn mall. It reminded us that, actually, these terror attacks can come from anywhere. They’re obviously twisted ideologies and they can appear through very sophisticated attacks involving explosives and firearms, right through to very low-tech attacks where they may just pick up a knife or use a vehicle. We have to be vigilant.

I want to acknowledge our security and intelligence agencies that work very hard to make sure they try and keep us safe, but we all know, and it’s no secret, that we have people on the watch-list. So we have to continue to be vigilant and do what we can to be able to move and make the changes necessary.

So I acknowledge the Minister, as the incoming Minister, that she’s taking this seriously, she’s looking at the royal commission recommendations, and she’s prepared to take the action to start to work through those. So it’s very easy for us to come into the House tonight, acknowledge her, and acknowledge the importance of this legislation.

It does have to go to select committee, because I think that we do have to hear from submitters, we do have to hear from our agencies, and we are going to want to make sure that we return this bill in the best possible shape to make sure that we do maximise the protections and the changes and the amendments that are contained within it.

I just wanted to make a very brief acknowledgment of—I went back to a time when, as a country, we were having to focus and deal with the threat of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and ISIL, which, although it was long way away from our borders, Kiwis like to travel, and we felt that it was probably inevitable at some point that a Kiwi would get tied up in that. But one of the things that we had to respond to very quickly was returning foreign fighters. At the time, I was chairing the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, in which two very senior members of the Labour Party were on that committee: David Shearer and Phil Goff. I want to acknowledge them because, again, it was a bipartisan approach and the three of us worked very hard over the period of about two weeks to get legislation in place and through the House quickly so that we could respond to that threat of anyone wanting to return from overseas as a foreign fighter to our country.

The legislation amends the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002. The Minister spoke about the designation. We feel very strongly that these are a good, pragmatic, and practical response to the designation. I can’t think of a loophole that’s more important to close than one that would allow the designation to expire with someone convicted of a terrorist act whilst they’re in jail or in prison. So that’s one of the loopholes that is closed with this piece of legislation.

Very quickly, I do want to touch on these and go through them. I know the Minister’s already touched on them, but I did want to go through them myself, if I’ve got time. There are a couple, especially around the control orders, that I wanted to talk through.

But “while the entity is imprisoned, no application for revocation of the designation can be made (by the entity or by a third party with a special interest) on the ground that the entity is no longer involved in any way in acts of the kind that made, or that would make, the entity eligible for designation”. I think the Minister used a very good example that although someone may be in prison and incarcerated, there’s still a possibility that any funds offshore or any funds sitting in an account could be accessed, could be used to help facilitate, promote, or help acts of terrorism.

The “expiry of the designation is paused while the entity is imprisoned”. This is just good, pragmatic common sense—that that designation is actually paused while the person is in prison. I believe that the backstop is still there because the Prime Minister has to still review that periodically, or every three years, to actually reapply that designation.

If I come very quickly to the control orders, which amends the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Act 2019. Again, these are good, practical changes. “The Bill—expands the eligibility criteria to include a terrorism-related New Zealand offence involving a broader definition of specified objectionable material”. I think, in this modern age, we do have to move quickly and we do have to acknowledge that the world is changing rapidly. I think that this is a good change that recognises that.

The bill “expands the eligibility criteria to include people sentenced to home detention and community sentences (it is currently limited to people sentenced to imprisonment) and allow sentence conditions and control orders to exist concurrently for those offenders to ensure consistency of risk management”. This is a massive loophole that someone that has a community sentence or is on electronic bail can’t have a control order applied to them. So this is a good one. I’m amazed that we’ve had to go back and actually do this and that it wasn’t already dealt with in the original legislation.

The bill “allows for greater judicial discretion in the setting of control order requirements, to ensure that they can be more closely tailored to risk”. Again, being able to move quickly, have some flexibility, and be agile in terms of applying these control orders. That’s another very good recommendation.

The bill “provides for requirements of the following kinds in more detail: requirements that the relevant person reside at and remain at a specified address; and electronic monitoring requirements”. I think the electronic monitoring requirements one, at the moment, is very relevant because we’ve seen a big increase in sentencing that now involves electronic monitoring. So we’ve got a lot more people now in the community that have a bracelet on, that are being electronically monitored. The reality of it is that we also have got a large number that are absconding, that aren’t actually adhering to the sentencing rules around the electronic monitoring. So I think this is a really important loophole to close so that the police have actually got the ability to be able to track and monitor and respond far more quickly.

Hon Scott Simpson: They take the bracelets off.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Yeah, that’s right they take the bracelets off.

So I just finish by saying that we do support the bill. We are looking forward to it coming to select committee. I think there’s still some work that we can do to strengthen it. But, fundamentally, we acknowledge the Minister. We acknowledge the fact that she is responding to the royal commission and is taking some positive steps forward in starting to work through those recommendations. They are important—they are important for the safety of our country and they are important in terms of sending a very clear message that New Zealand is not a place to come and that you’ll easily get away with trying to perpetrate some type of terrorist attack. It’s important that we continue to support and make sure that our agencies that are there to protect and look after us have got the legislation that’s usable and that they can use. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. This bill, the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill, is the next step in the Government’s work to ensure that our counter-terrorism legislation is, in fact, fit for purpose. Right at the start, I’d like to acknowledge that it’s good to see comradery from across the House on issues of national importance such as counter-terrorism. So I’d like to acknowledge the member who has just spoken, Mark Mitchell, and it’s great to see that, at times when national security is paramount, this House is able to work together.

The Government is working to strengthen our counter-terrorism laws to make it harder for those people who are known threats to undertake terrorist acts. The changes that we are making in this bill will improve the effectiveness of the control orders Act. It will also expand the criteria for those high-risk individuals who can be covered by the restrictions, which limit their ability to undertake such an attack. The Government is always seeking to strengthen the terrorist designations, and, in this specific bill, it is making it explicit that it covers individuals who are in prison.

The proposed changes to the designation and control order schemes are in line with the Government’s overall commitment to implementing the recommendations of the royal commission’s inquiry into the Christchurch attack. It’s important that that work continues, but, alongside of that attack, we’ve also seen more recent developments, with the attack in New Lynn last year. Both of these attacks serve as a continuous reminder to New Zealanders of the devastating consequences to individuals and our communities from any terrorist attack. These are important amendments as we look to keep New Zealand as safe as we possibly can in a continuingly evolving global climate. Our goal must always be to ensure that we can effectively manage and respond to the specific risks we see in New Zealand, and also emerging risks.

Firstly, this bill amends the scheme for designating terrorist entities in the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002. These amendments will clarify how the scheme applies to a designated terrorist, particularly those who are imprisoned here in New Zealand. Secondly, this bill amends the regime for imposing control orders in the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Act. These amendments will strengthen the control orders regime in place currently, and also include some of the lessons we have learned from the only one control order that has presently been made in New Zealand to date.

What this bill does overall is, following the terror attack in LynnMall supermarket last year, where the individual responsible was a known threat to New Zealand security—and Cabinet sought a review on how the control order scheme could further be strengthened to prevent such instances from occurring in New Zealand’s future. This bill amends the regime for imposing control orders in the Terrorism Suppression Act, and these amendments will strengthen the control orders regime as it operates now, and also include those lessons that we have learnt from the one as made, to date, under the existing legislation.

This bill includes the following changes to the regime: it expands the eligibility criteria for those who can be covered by a control order, and includes if the person has received a conviction for objectionable material and publications that promote torture, extreme violence, or cruelty. This is in addition to the current criteria, which includes a conviction for objectionable publications that promote terrorism. In addition to this, the bill expands the eligibility criteria to include people sentenced to home detention and also community-based sentences. It also allows sentence conditions and control orders to exist concurrently for those offenders, to ensure that a consistent approach to risk management is always in place, to make sure we’re protecting the safety of New Zealanders. It also allows for greater judicial discretion when setting control order restrictions, to ensure they can be more closely tailored to the risk once it is scoped, in order to mitigate that risk.

It also provides, in more detail, requirements for the following kinds: a requirement that the relevant person reside and remain at a specified address, and that also electronic monitoring requirements are in place if required. It makes name suppression requirements more flexible than they currently are, so that an appropriate balance can be struck between preventing the glorification of terrorism activity, while also reassuring the public that known terrorism risk is being appropriately managed for the wellbeing of our community.

This bill amends the scheme for designating terrorist entities in the Terrorism Suppression Act. The designation scheme was initially brought in to stop New Zealanders from providing financial support to those overseas in terrorist groups, in the wake of the September 11th attacks. Now, as the terrorism landscape has evolved, our laws also need to change. For the first time since the scheme was introduced, we have a situation where a designated terrorist entity is, in fact, imprisoned, and imprisoned here in New Zealand.

Overseas, we have seen examples of how imprisoned terrorists continue to attempt to influence and incite others from behind bars. We are seeking to further reduce any ability for designated entities to be glorified or to support others in carrying out such acts of terrorism. This bill amends the Act so that, in the case of a designated person who is in prison, no application for revocation of the designation can be made on the grounds that the entity is no longer involved, or in any way, carrying out the terrorist acts. It also requires the Prime Minister to review the designation every three years, to determine whether it remains justified. In making this assessment, the Prime Minister must consider relevant information provided by the designated individual.

Following the March 15th terror attacks on Christchurch, the royal commission of inquiry recommended that the Government review our counter-terrorism legislation to ensure it’s fit for purpose. This bill is the next step in our response to that recommendation. As chair of the Justice Committee, I look forward to the submissions that we receive and to working alongside all members of that committee to do our best job possible to bring this back to the House for the second reading. I commend it to the House.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is actually a pleasure to be able to stand up and support a piece of legislation. It’s been a reasonably confronting and hostile day as we’ve dealt with other issues—

Hon Scott Simpson: Contentious—other contentious matters.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —contentious issues—whereas here on this matter, the House—I’m not sure about the Greens, but the House is more or less aligned in their thinking around counter-terrorism acts, because, I mean, there is no more fundamental duty for any Government than to defend and protect its citizens as best as it can. You know, we do have a lot of argument and disagreement around justice policy more broadly—not so much on the outcome, of course, which is to keep New Zealanders safe, but lots of disputes about how best to go about that. If I could characterise things, this Government does tend to be more focused on the rehabilitative needs of the perpetrators of crime; we tend to focus a little bit more—we acknowledge that’s very important, but we also need to acknowledge the needs of the victims of crime, for justice, to denounce the act that has been carried out, and, thirdly, to show that serious crimes have serious consequences. That is highly, sort of, debated, particularly in the context of youth crime and ram raids at the moment.

But when it comes to counter-terrorism, I think there is much more of a meeting of minds in that nobody defends the acts involved, of course, but we are determined to do everything we can to keep our citizens, our New Zealanders, safe, as best we can. Now, we all acknowledge that the threat of terrorist acts is very difficult to predict, and we all in New Zealand, of course, think very often of what happened in Christchurch. Nobody expected something of that scale and barbarism to occur in our country, but it did. The threat is real, and no Government can promise to avert every such incident, but we can and we should make sure that we are best prepared, that we have both the legislative settings correct, to give ourselves the best chance to keep New Zealanders safe, and also that we have the physical assets in place, in terms of police and security agents, in that sense.

Now, this piece of legislation, the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill, we are supporting, and we want to hear at the select committee any concerns raised. The two elements of it, as has been widely canvassed already: amendments to the Terrorism Suppression Act in order to deal with the situation where, under the designation scheme, somebody in prison—it only lasts for three years, but, if you’re in prison at the moment, it can’t be extended, and it needs to be, for obvious reasons. That was just something that hadn’t been thought through originally.

The second area, though, is around amendments to the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Act. As my colleague Mark Mitchell mentioned, the Minister of Justice, who, quite rightly, was conscious of the desirability of bipartisan support for such legislation, did engage with us, and we’re grateful to her for meaningful engagement, because we did have some concerns with the original proposals that aligning certain clauses together could have led to an unintended impingement of, sort of, free speech, fundamentally. The Minister did listen and did amend what was brought to the House in order to ensure our support, and we’re grateful to her for that. We don’t think it diminishes the Act in any way, shape, or form, but it doesn’t muddy the waters, as it were, when it comes to the very important element of free speech in our society and not confusing opinions that we don’t like—some people don’t like—with terrorism itself.

So what this amendment does—these control orders impose restrictions on people in the community who pose a real risk of carrying out terrorism-related activities. It may limit an individual’s rights to freedom of movement and expression—can only be imposed, however, when the High Court is satisfied that the two-stage test has been carried out and, in this case, that the person has been convicted of a specified offence related to terrorism and that the person continues to pose a real risk.

The point of this bill is to extend the control orders regime to expand the list of specified offences related to terrorism to include the range of objectionable publication offences—again, it doesn’t take too much imagination to think of some of the objectionable publications that occurred in relation to the horrific Christchurch act—enable control orders to be an option where a person has been sentenced to home detention, that’s been mentioned; and also to allow greater judicial discretion in the setting of those control orders; and making name suppression requirements more flexible and clarifying protocols for management of electronic monitoring of the conditions. So things that more or less make sense and will enable that regime to work effectively.

Of course, we hope—we hope—that there will be very few people indeed who are captured by these control orders and by this legislation. We hope that New Zealanders are safe from terrorism in the years ahead. But, of course, we have to hope for the best but prepare for the worst, and that’s why this legislation is important in putting in place a framework so that those people who have been convicted of terrorism-related offences can be monitored effectively in the community if required over time, in order to keep our New Zealanders as safe as we can.

So, without further ado, I just would like to again thank the Minister for the genuine engagement on this issue. I think it’s an approach that they might like to consider in a couple of other areas, particularly electoral law, and that may be an opportunity for them to think about that. But on this area, we stand with the Government and we support the passage of this bill at its first reading.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): I first want to acknowledge our Minister, the Hon Kiritapu Allan. Congratulating a Minister on the task of bringing such a sensitive and difficult bill to the House is probably not to recognise the seriousness with which we take this particular piece of legislation. And I want to acknowledge the Opposition; it has been a contentious day, today—we think a wonderful day—it is good to know that we will have your constructive support as we go through the issues that will arise as we discuss this bill in the Justice Committee, of which I am a member.

This bill, as previous speakers have said, is a response to the evolving nature of terrorism. I remember, as I’m sure all other members of the House do, finding out about the bombing of the two towers; I was sitting with my 8-month-old on my knee. I remember where I was when the Christchurch mosque attacks were broadcast over the radio; I was driving that same child—now a late-teenager—home from school. Terrorism has changed; our response also must change.

So whereas when we passed the Terrorism Suppression Act, we envisaged organised groups as the threat and so our response was to control the flow of money and material support to them. Now, what we have is these isolated, individual offenders, and the tools we need to keep our people safe from such isolated offenders are different.

So this bill does two things—well, two broad things. First, it amends the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 and it clarifies that where that designated terrorist entity is, in fact, a person who is in prison, that person will not be able to try to raise the designation from themselves whilst they are in prison. In effect, the impact of the bill will be to suspend the ability to revoke the designation until that person leaves prison. And that is really important because the designation enables us to keep the control orders on, which prevent them getting the publicity that, unfortunately, these people often crave.

The other part of the Act is to amend the regime for imposing control orders—again, Terrorism Suppression Act—but this time it will extend the ability to put control orders where you have people, as we have, unfortunately, had, who have committed offences in the past but not sufficiently serious ones to tip us over into the ability to put control orders on them. So we would now be able to put a control order on a person who was convicted of a range of other offences, including offences promoting extreme violence, and we would also be able to keep control orders on someone who had only a sentence of home detention or community detention.

I look forward to discussing these matters with the Justice Committee. I look forward to hearing from the many thoughtful submissions I am sure we will have. And I commend this bill, in its first reading, to the House.

Golriz Ghahraman: Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): You’ve made me lose your name now, which is a terrible thing.

Hon Members: Golriz Ghahraman.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Oh, Golriz, I’m sorry. I apologise, Golriz, I know you perfectly well.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): I apologise for the abrupt entry into the debate, Madam Speaker. Counter-terrorism obviously is a matter that’s close to all of our hearts, in particular in this Parliament and across our nation after the deadly tragic events in the Christchurch mosques that happened on March 15th in 2019.

I know that we all—and we always have—aim to protect our people against violence, and terrorism is the worst of violence; it is a hate crime, and it aims to terrorise a community, with far-reaching implications. It hasn’t always been the case that Parliaments and Governments have brought laws under the umbrella of counter-terrorism that have actually done that; that have actually kept those particular marginalised communities safe or addressed the truth kind of actors in the realm of counter-terrorism. We have had a royal commission inquiry into those events and we’ve learnt a lot. A review of the actions that resulted from the royal commission is due out just next week, and so we’ll hear again from those communities, from the experts, from the agencies, and—hopefully—act as a result of that.

I’ve been asked about this bill a few times by media in the lead up to it, and sometimes the question has been, “Is it weird that the Government is bringing back this tweak?” And, obviously, the Green Party has not always been quick to support things that come under the umbrella of counter-terrorism, because we do have serious concerns about due process and we do have serious concerns about rights issues that are often suppressed there. But I certainly don’t have an issue with Governments bringing counter-terrorism legislation back to this House to tweak things that have gone wrong or to fill voids in the law that we’ve learnt are necessary to be filled. So, in that spirit, I do welcome a Minister reacting and responding to things that we’ve found out were missing in our laws that may have made our laws a little bit less safe or affected the efficacy of our counter-terrorism regime.

We are supporting this bill to select committee today, and that’s because it does identify some valid and concerning gaps in our law—one of them being that the Christchurch terror perpetrator may fall short of being able to be designated a terrorist under current law. That’s concerning. Having said that, the reason the select committee process will be essential in this is that we need to hear from experts and from the communities that are most impacted by both terrorism and counter-terrorism legislation—because often there’s a crossover. We know that the Muslim community in particular, for example, experienced oppression as a result of past counter-terrorism laws that came in through the so-called war of terror, and also they were increasingly the targets and the victims of white nationalist terror, most devastatingly on March 15th, when the Christchurch terror attack happened. So we need to hear from those communities and we need to hear from the experts so that we are not engaged in overreach that impacts people’s rights and we’re not leaving anything out. In particular, I know that one of the gaps in practice that was identified by the royal commission was that we weren’t designating the right people and we weren’t watching the right organisations in terms of what modern terrorism looks like today. So those are the types of things we need to hear from communities on.

The types of concerns that we have as the Green Party are things like whether or not the orders regime is going to be extended to apply to people who are not duly shown to be engaged in terrorism, for example. The proposed change is, for example, to look at material that’s distributed or posted that’s not just terrorist material but also dangerous in other ways—for example, encouraging torture. But we want to know that that is right. We want to know that we’re not capturing material that falls outside of being actually dangerous, for example, because it is important to protect both freedom of speech and freedom of expression and freedom of publication and communication—especially in communities that are often seen as being “potential terrorists” that are sometimes actually the most marginalised communities—but also to uphold the spirit of what counter-terrorism law is about, which is to keep our communities safe from violence. The balance is really, really important.

So that select committee process is going to be really, really important. It is valid to bring back counter-terrorism law, it is valid to look at the orders, it is valid to look at the designations and the definition that we provide in law that allow those designations; we need to know that we are reacting responsibly to the current climate when it comes to terrorism. But it is also important that we don’t let go of our due process standards, that we don’t let go of the rule of law and the human rights regime that we hold so dear, that will protect us and keep us aligned with the values that New Zealanders expect us to be aligned with.

So for those reasons, the Green Party will support this bill to select committee. We will engage meaningfully with that process, and we hope that the bill is improved in that process so that we can continue to support it and make New Zealand and the world a little bit safer from modern terrorism.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I stand to speak on behalf of the ACT Party to the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill. I’d like to start off by thanking the Minister of Justice, Kiritapu Allan, for calling us in for a briefing and a discussion about this bill before it was presented to the House. That is very much appreciated. Just as my colleagues across the way here—National—have made recommendations in regard to the bill before it was presented, we agree with those, and we do thank her for that opportunity so that we could come to the House and support the hearing of this bill, initially, in the first reading.

The bill is an omnibus bill that will change two pieces of legislation: the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 and the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Act 2019. The changes are going to introduce a single, broad policy around terrorist designations and control orders. The change to the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 will allow the Prime Minister to designate individuals as a terrorist entity. Currently, the legislation refers to organisations such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban; rather than individuals, the amendment will allow the Prime Minister to designate either as a terrorist entity.

Lone actors with terrorist intent have shown themselves here in New Zealand. We have one currently incarcerated for the heinous crime that he committed on 15 March 2019. He does not claim to associate with any particular group or terrorist entity. His actions on that day were an individual’s terrorist attack against the people of New Zealand. This amendment will allow a Prime Minister to, therefore, designate any person who attacks our communities as a lone actor—like the Christchurch terrorist did—to be a terrorist entity, because there are reasonable grounds for the Prime Minister to act upon. In this case, he meets all of the criteria of a terrorist entity. He’s been convicted of murder, attempted murder, and terrorism. He’s carried out and participated in a terrorist attack. This designation also means that third parties cannot deal with an entity’s property, nor can they make property or material support available to that entity.

Because we are dealing with an individual as an entity, the current law did not allow for instances where that entity may be incarcerated here in a New Zealand prison. Currently, clause 35 of the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 states that the terrorist entity designation expires after three years unless the Prime Minister makes a further order based on their belief that the entity still poses a risk to society. This bill seeks to amend clause 35 so that there is no expiry of the designation, nor can there be an application to revoke the designation if the entity is serving a sentence in a New Zealand jail. The designation itself will be paused for the time the individual is incarcerated here. In fact, almost everything goes on hold except for the Prime Minister needing to review the settings once every three years. If the Prime Minister decides that the restrictions are no longer necessary, then they can revoke the designation themselves. But this would be done in the future by review with assessment, rather than reapplication on potential revocation.

So, in summary, the changes to the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 will, effectively, mean an individual can be named as a designated entity. The expiry of a designation is paused if the entity is in jail. The three-yearly review is retained, but the grounds are amended. The designated entity will still have the ability to challenge the designation and its ongoing status, but this will be done through a review process rather than a revocation one.

The second piece of legislation that is to be amended is the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Act 2019. We’ve only had one person issued with a control order, and he went on to injure six people, three of them critically, in a supermarket stabbing in New Lynn, Auckland, last year. His motivations were Islamic State of Iraq and Syria inspired, and we understand that the legislation prevented him from being retained in prison, and so he was under heavy surveillance at the time of the attack. This enabled a response from police within 60 seconds of the attack in the supermarket. Within that time, though, six people were stabbed. And the realities are that we cannot have our police watching some individual for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for extended periods of time.

I pause here to reflect on our gratefulness to the New Zealand Police that they were watching this man on this day back in September 2021. We thank police for their quick actions, which, no doubt, saved many lives.

So the changes to the control orders will add some new definitions which include and allow control orders on community-based sentences and electronic monitoring, as well as post-detention conditions and residential requirements.

Additions to section 6 will expand who is eligible for a control order so that those that have been convicted of a terrorism offence in New Zealand, and have received a home detention sentence or a community-based sentence, will be captured in this Act. Further additions to section 6 will ensure that the conditions I just mentioned will continue, even if there is an application for appeal against conviction, or a sentence is suspended because of the filing of a notice of appeal, or applications for leave to do so. However, it doesn’t all run one way. New clause 28 will allow for the discharge of a control order if an appeal by the offender is successful. It also allows for a new control order to be applied for.

This bill is also seeking to expand what we determine as a specified, objectionable publication held by the offender to include publications that promotes or supports acts of torture or the infliction of extreme violence or extreme cruelty, infliction of serious physical harm, and where it encourages acts of terrorism. The bill, when it amends the Act, will allow a judge to make orders specific to the individual the order is placed upon, tailoring the order to that individual—for example, when making an order, a judge must consider how an order’s requirements will affect the person’s personal circumstances. An amendment here allows the court to consider the person’s ability to actually comply with those orders made against them.

The bill will also allow the court to make orders as to where a person may reside, how long they must remain at that address, allowing the use of electronic monitoring, consequences for tampering with an ankle bracelet, allow post-detention conditions, and place upon them residential requirements. Effectively, this part of the bill is seeking to ensure that where a person is of concern to our society as a terrorist risk, our courts can establish control orders that can be unique to that individual in its conditions and can be used as ongoing controls once an incarceration sentence has been served.

Another change this bill will achieve is in regard to the automatic name suppression of the identity of the offender. Amendments will allow the courts to make an order that does permit the publication on an offender’s identity if the court so wishes.

We lost our innocence as a nation back in March 2019. The horrors that New Lynn faced just last September 2021 has shown us all that the New Zealand as we knew it has changed. And while we don’t agree that laws should be made off the back of one terrible person or event, we do recognise that changes are needed to upgrade us as a country to deal with common threats that we are increasingly facing. We must remember the two violent terrorist acts we are amending our laws for were not carried out by us, but by foreign national terrorists. Our laws and amendments must reflect how we react and prevent such acts from occurring.

ACT supports this bill at its first reading. We want to ensure the safety of all New Zealanders as we move from these dreadful events. However, we are mindful that making laws off singular incidents has not benefitted Kiwis in the way promoted by this Government in our recent past. So we look forward to the select committee process so that we can hear from our communities as to their thoughts on their proposed changes. The ACT Party does support this bill to its first reading.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour—Northland): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a brief call on the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill. I just want to start by acknowledging the Minister of Justice, who introduced the bill to the House this evening, and her contribution. But I also want to acknowledge all parties. We’ve now heard a contribution from all of the parties in the House and it would appear that there is unanimous support for this bill to pass its first reading and go to select committee.

I’m sitting here amongst colleagues who are on the Justice Committee and I think that that is a great start for us in terms of this piece of legislation. The Hon Mark Mitchell sitting across there, Nicole McKee as well—we will be sitting on the Justice Committee welcoming submissions. And I acknowledge the contribution from the Green Party, in particular, hoping that those experts in this area will, hopefully, present—possibly, also those who have had direct experiences; we may also have the privilege of hearing them submit too, and I think that that will really strengthen the process in the proposed legislation that we’ve got here. So I look forward to working constructively and I hope that we are able to work through that together and report back in the short time frame that we’ve got—just four months, as I understand it.

I also want to acknowledge as well that we have MPs in the room who were in those electorates where those terrorist attacks occurred. We have Deborah Russell, the member for New Lynn. That attack happened at LynnMall. But in the House, we also have those MPs from Christchurch who, I think, more than others in the House, have had that direct experience, contact with victims, and so will be welcoming this proposed legislation.

It comes as a result of the recommendation from the royal commission that we review our legislation, that we identify whether it is fit for purpose or not. And tonight we have two proposed amendments to two pieces of legislation, which, I think, as a result of the two most recent events that we’ve had—we’ve identified our legislation isn’t, in fact, fit for purpose, that there are gaps in it, and that there is more that we could do to strengthen that legislation to protect New Zealanders, to protect our communities, and to protect the public.

I won’t go into the detail of what has been proposed, because I think I’m speaker number six or seven. It has been well traversed by those who have spoken before me. But I do just want to acknowledge those members that are in the House tonight who have been supporting and working through these issues in their communities. I hope that this legislation does go some way to ensuring that it is more fit for purpose and that it will provide better protection for our communities. I look forward to the submission process and working on it as a select committee. I commend the bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Simon O’Connor—five minutes.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Look, there is no higher duty for the Crown to protect the subjects or citizens of the Realm. So it’s really important to find that bipartisan—if you will—support across the House. And can I echo Willow-Jean Prime, who’s just sat down, that it is actually really good to hear that all the parties, as far as we’ve heard, are going to be supporting this bill, which enhances our national security and, importantly, our ability to respond to terrorism and also to try and prevent terrorism.

Look, terrorism is nothing new, unfortunately. How we learn and adapt to it is something which is always evolving and changing, which, amongst other reasons, is why we support this bill. We do see this as an improvement. But to echo others as well, it’s positive that this will go to select committee so that some experts can look towards it.

New Zealand’s, unfortunately, suffered terrorism: particular communities—and we think particularly of our Muslim brothers and sisters who suffered so tragically in Canterbury, then, in more recent times, the attack in New Lynn.

Sadly, terrorism across the globe continues to be a major, major problem. Islamist terrorism remains the biggest—particularly in Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa—but we are, unfortunately, seeing in the West a growth of what could be put as far-right or white nationalist terrorism. While not anywhere near the same numbers, its invidiousness in society is a significant, significant problem. And, as I say, we’ve experienced it here, so New Zealand finally has understood that we’re not exempt from it.

Look, this law does two positive things through two pieces of legislation. One is through the Terrorism Suppression Act, and long and short, it, basically, says you no longer have to be part of an organisation. So, often, we think of terrorists, we think of the likes of—I put the Taliban, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, for example. You don’t have to be a member of an organisation anymore; an individual who does terroristic acts. I think it’s going to be important to tease out in select committee. I think there should be, rightly, always a nervousness in this House where, in effect, a law—an aspect of the law—looks towards just a singular person. And the nature of terrorism is also quite specific, although very difficult to define, but it’s an action that drives a political means. So it’ll be really important to understand, and I want to really stress: it’s good that we capture individuals. We think of the person responsible for what happened in Canterbury; we want to capture that, but we want to make sure it doesn’t go too much broader.

The terrorism suppression control orders are also being updated—or proposed to be updated—here, really importantly, to make sure the person is not simply in prison. We understand a number of people who could require control orders could be on a community sentence or otherwise, and I think it’s important to capture that. I think the heroism of all those involved in New Lynn shows that there are still learnings and gaps that this intends to fill. So this is a positive step forward.

I will just make a plea, though, in the broader sense, to the Minister and to the Government, seeing we are talking about counter-terrorism, terrorism, and designations. It’s well past time that New Zealand put the political wing of Hamas on the designation list, along with the military wing.

And in light of recent events in Iran—the oppression of the Iranian people, particularly of women—and also the Iranian sponsoring of drones which are terrorising Ukraine, I want to make the call very loud and clear that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps should be placed on the terrorist designation lists in New Zealand. While this potentially is outside the scope of the bill, I think it’s important at this first reading to renew that call from myself, my constituents, those in the community that I represent across New Zealand who do want to see New Zealand step up like other countries and place, as I say, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps onto the designated list and also Hamas—as I said, not just the military wing but the political wing. These are terrorist organisations and they should be called out as such in New Zealand legislation.

And with that, I am very pleased to commend this bill to the House.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill, the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill. I am surprised the Māori Party doesn’t choose to take this call, which is usually theirs, on this important legislation.

I do want just to recognise the work that the Minister, the Hon Kiritapu Allan, has done, and the select committee will do, in respect of this bill, and just recognise the very delicate balance between the rights of freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom of religion, and a whole lot of other freedoms that are deeply embedded in this society, and held dear, and the fact that this legislation constrains and restricts those freedoms. It does so, and Mr Goldsmith talked about the philosophical differences around punishment in our respective parties, but I do want to focus on the fact that this legislation has nothing to do with punishment at all. It’s entirely protective. It may be triggered in some instances by individuals’ wrongdoing, and we’ve heard about control orders being triggered by non-custodial sentences, but the fact of the matter is that these steps, these constraints on the freedoms of people, are because they are a real risk to the community.

It behoves the select committee to look very carefully at this, but we absolutely need to be constantly maintaining this legislation, because the world does change, and is changing, and the kind of reach that people can have has changed over time. So things like designation and the ability to, essentially, suppress the communications of people, their freedom of speech, is really important, because what we have seen is that terrorism and extremist views go hand in hand. For that reason, these orders are very important, and we absolutely don’t want to create a situation where someone who might be in prison can still become the focal point of extremist views.

This is good legislation. It’s very heartening to see that it’s got widespread support, and I’m really looking forward to the work that the select committee will do to build on this fantastic work of the Minister. Kia ora, Madam Speaker.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Mālō ni. I’ve taken the opportunity tonight to listen to the contributions of my colleagues around the House on what I am pleased to say is a relatively bipartisan issue. It’s one that I’m pleased is coming to the Justice Committee, on which I sit, and I have faith that that committee will consider this bill and these issues very carefully, having done so with a number of other counter-terrorism initiatives that the Government has brought into effect in the time that I have sat on the committee. I know that people around the Justice Committee will also join with me in thanking Minister Kiri Allan for introducing a bill which at its first reading we agree strikes a good balance between what my colleague Duncan Webb referred to as a delicate balance between the importance of protecting and giving safety to our communities and upholding the rights of the individuals we’re talking about tonight.

I agree with Simon O’Connor’s point on the importance of finding bipartisan agreement and the committees being a good place to do that on these issues, and it will be good to have discussions both with submitters and with our advisers, particularly on the control orders part of this bill. I think it’s been useful for the committee to have considered regimes that are similar to this, and one issue that I will be carefully thinking about—and I would encourage submitters to help us to understand—is the effect of these control orders, and international examples where control orders have been upheld and challenged in the courts. That will be an important thing for the committee to consider and to get right in this legislation. While we see other jurisdictions around the world having had control order regimes which, essentially, the courts have found to go too far, we need to take heed of those examples and make sure that these are lasting, enduring pieces of legislation which work for our people and have the intended effect.

The second point that I think will be important for the committee to consider—and it is one that I will be thinking about—is one that the Minister alluded to in her speech around how terrorism is being influenced increasingly by online extremism, and how we are taking action here to make sure that someone who is imprisoned is not able to be the focal point of online extremism but also, more generally, how we can build bipartisan and cross-partisan support for more action on online extremism and the pipeline to real-life extremism.

This is just a short call from me, but I want to say thank you to the members who have given contributions tonight. It has been very good listening to all of your thoughts, and I look forward to debating this with you in committee.

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Like others who have spoken in the debate so far, I have enjoyed the contributions across the House. Others have noted the importance of a nonpartisan approach—I join those who, on this side of the House, starting with the Hon Mark Mitchell and flowing through all of our contributions, and those from the other side of the House, starting with the Minister of Justice herself, and others from other parties too, noted the importance of that. So I just add my acknowledgment and thanks to the Minister for engaging with us at an early stage of the process. I think it’s a sensible thing to do, actually—frankly, it’s the practical thing—but it’s also the right thing to have done.

So our support extends not only to the bill itself, in terms of the substance of what it is looking to achieve, but also in terms of process. So the Minister has flagged that a relatively short process will be undertaken—or that she’ll be proposing to the House that the select committee examine the bill for four months. It’s not indecently short, and there will be plenty of opportunity for the Justice Committee to do its work, examining the particular provisions of the bill, hearing from members of the public, expert and non-expert alike, and that’s appropriate. Too long a time frame would cause difficulties in relation to a particular designation that has already been made.

Not to put too fine a point on it, others have referred to not only the events of March 15 2019—tragic as they were, obviously—but also the particular implications in terms of a person who is currently incarcerated as a result of that day’s actions.

Others have spoken about the two different main aspects of the counter-terrorism legislation: the designation of terrorist entities, and the control orders. If time allows, I might offer a couple of thoughts in that regard, as well, but I won’t repeat that material for the sake of it.

I’d actually rather go ahead to considering the question of how this bill might be considered to be consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (BORA). Others have, of course, spoken in that space already, either explicitly so or in more general terms, and it’s right that others across the House, again, from all parties, have acknowledged the need for balance, and, of course, that’s often a useful way of looking at laws that are in the realm of what we might think of as human rights, and certainly those protected in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act were obliged by that Act itself to conduct some sort of a balance, which is to say, considering whether the ultimate policy aim is such that the limits on the rights within the bill could be considered a justified limitation.

Interestingly, on the subject of the Attorney-General’s report, I have been refreshing my phone for the last couple of weeks, in the hope of being able to read that once the bill had been introduced. I refreshed it as recently as question time, I think; I sneakily did that today, and still didn’t find a copy. I recklessly did so again at 8.03 p.m., some 10 minutes ago now, and found that it had been uploaded. So I have had a very cursory speed-read of that and made some even more cursory notes on the documents in front of me—this is the legislative statement, but, of course, the discussion of the NZ BORA rights are so much more interesting even than that. So I’ll offer some thoughts in the space and look forward to that ongoing discussion that the Justice Committee will have. I’m not a member of that regularly, but if I speak nicely to the senior whip, I might find myself subbed on to that committee for the consideration of this bill—maybe as a slight indulgence after I’ve done my penance as court spokesperson for the various courts-related bills that are going through that at the moment.

So just thinking about the rights and freedoms. It probably almost goes without saying, but I will say it nevertheless: we have no patience, of course, for a particular individual who conducted such atrocities in mid-March of three years ago. But nevertheless, it’s right to turn our minds to the question of rights and how those are impacted, not least of all because they can apply to others, as well as that particular individual himself.

So with that obvious disclaimer, we are interested—certainly I’m interested—in sort of understanding how this can fit with our existing regime of human rights. Others have raised—I think, from the Minister onwards—the prospect of retrospective aspects of the legislation—or “retroactive” as it’s categorised in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The Minister described, in her contribution—and echoing the same points made in the legislative statement—there are three ways that there is retrospective effects in relation to the TSA—that’s the Terrorism Suppression Act—amendments, so this is the designation regime. So I won’t go through those; the Minister’s done a good job of explaining how that is the case. But, in summary, it’s the fact that we’re going to have a regime apply to the designation in relation to someone who’s already been incarcerated—so, to that extent, it’s retrospective.

But what we’re not doing, I’m pleased to say, is creating an offence on the statute book that makes an act criminal today that wouldn’t be criminal tomorrow. So we often talk about retrospectivity in a reasonably general way, and the short version of our way of looking at it is that it’s not a good thing, but there are ways of considering whether it could be reasonable, and, of course, there’s different aspects. In this case, what we’re doing, nearly, in this bill, is saying that someone—in this case, one particular individual—has already committed a crime that was a crime—to say the least of it—at the time, has suffered certain consequences, namely incarceration, and to have a different regime applying to the designation of that entity, that person, as a terrorist, is, I think, ultimately, consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

I’ve sort of surprised myself a little bit in coming to that conclusion, but I thought about it quite deeply over the last couple of weeks. I think I’ve reached the conclusion, perhaps, for a slightly different reason than the advice from Crown Law to the Attorney-General had. I’ll do my best to characterise that accurately—and, again, with that disclaimer that I’ve just literally read it for the first time, and quite quickly at that. The advice of Crown Law—which was given by Crown Law by the Ministry of Justice because it’s a justice bill—is that the Terrorism Suppression Act amendments are civil in nature and that judicial review proceedings are still available, so there’s sort of some ability for a person who might object to the way that their matter is being handled to sort of have that interrogated.

Then, in relation to the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Act, the argument there is that the courts still have the ability to modify or revoke an order. But, more importantly, that overarching point is that public safety is such a high policy aim that if we’re going to limit some individual rights along the way, in the name of that greater good, then that’s a justified limitation.

I think these are good arguments, but I also wonder if we might consider that—well, first of all, that obvious point in relation to section 26(1) of NZ BORA, “Retroactive penalties”, we’re not making an offence now that which was not an offence at the time that the action or an action took place.

If anything, the prohibition on double jeopardy might be said to be engaged—that’s section 26(2), so that says, if you’ve finally been acquitted or convicted or pardoned, then you shouldn’t be tried or punished again. I think this is such a relatively small punishment relative to the incarceration of a person who’s undertaken such a horrific attack as was the case on March 15 that it might almost be viewed in the manner of a concurrent sentence or an aspect, even, of the original sentence. I know it’s not exactly that, but I’m just sort of trying to grapple with the fact that instinctively it feels as though this is a justified limitation. But that’s something that I’d certainly be open to further arguments and thoughts. There will be others across the other side of the House who might have different views, again, even than those of Crown Law and my own views on the matter.

Nevertheless, I think it’s fair to say that even if this bill were—and I think this is an important point for us as a Parliament—inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, it is sufficiently important that Parliament should pass it anyway. So, for that reason—sort of as an additional layer on top of all the other key reasons that others have articulated really well already—I join others on the National Party and other Opposition parties, indeed the Government parties, in saying that we support the Government in bringing forward this legislation. That’s not to say that there can’t be really interesting and helpful discussion at select committee; we look forward to that. But for me, trying to avoid any doubt, we do commend this bill to the House. We support its passage.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a call on this bill, the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill. I won’t say it’s a pleasure to take a call on it, because these are serious matters and I think we’d all wish to live in a world where these types of laws were not necessary, but, as we know and as other speakers have traversed, that is not the reality of the situation in the world at the moment, or indeed in New Zealand.

I want to acknowledge the Minister of Justice for bringing this bill to the House and for recognising the need for the changes to our laws. These, as I said, are serious matters but they have been addressed seriously and responsibly, I think, in the legislation that has just been drafted. I also want to acknowledge members around the House for their constructive comments and praise of the Minister’s approach in this bill. I think it shows New Zealand that we take the responsibility of their safety—which is paramount—extremely seriously, as we should in this House. So I want to commend members of the House for that. I also want to just acknowledge the fact that this is dealing with quite unusual and serious matters, but I do think the Justice Committee, with their four-month—I think—period of time which they’re considering it will do justice to considering the various elements of the bill, and, no doubt, discuss all the different elements to ensure that when the bill comes back to the House it’s in the best possible shape it can be.

I also want to take a moment to acknowledge those who have been affected personally by the attacks in New Zealand on 15 March, especially our Muslim community, and also those survivors of the LynnMall attack. I’m sure the thoughts of the whole House are with those victims, the survivors, and their families as well.

In relation to some of the comments that my colleague Chris Penk on the other side of the House was mentioning, in relation to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act compliance, I think this is a particular area that I’m sure the select committee will look into. I also had a brief look at that report prior to speaking today and saw the conclusion that it wasn’t inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, but also share the view that, obviously, there is a trespasser on rights at a prima facie level probably in this in this bill. But probably working through that logic, it’s likely that that would be justified within the scheme of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, which, as we know, does allow justified limitations on various freedoms at times. And I think that that is illustrated perfectly in this bill.

These are tough issues, but I think that they’ve been addressed very well by the piece of this legislation. I won’t go through all the changes that have been made to the designated terrorist entities or the strengthening control orders as these have been traversed at length. But I do thank those who have worked on this bill, and I commend it to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 117

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 33; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; ACT New Zealand 10.

Noes 2

Te Paati Māori 2.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is, That the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill be considered by the Justice Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Justice Committee.

Instruction to Justice Committee

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): I move, That the Counter-Terrorism Acts (Designations and Control Orders) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 13 March 2023.

Motion agreed to.

COVid-19 orders

Approval

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister for COVID-19 Response): I move, That this House approve the following orders made under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020: COVID-19 Public Health Response (Revocations) Order 2022 (SL 2022/254), COVID-19 Public Health Response (Masks) Order 2022 (SL 2022/255), and COVID-19 Public Health Response (Self-isolation Requirements) Amendment Order 2022 (SL (SL 2022/257).

I’m asking the House to approve COVID-19 orders to ensure that they are not revoked within a certain time frame. Today’s motion approves four orders. I’d like to again reiterate that I am grateful to the members of the Regulations Review Committee for their comments and observations, which continue to influence and improve how orders are drafted. I want to thank them for their continued work examining these orders. I’ll now outline what those orders contain.

One of the orders today makes amendments to the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Masks) Order 2022. It revokes the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Protection Framework) Order 2021 and removes all requirements in the order except the requirement for certain people to wear a mask in healthcare settings.

The COVID-19 Public Health Response (Revocations) Order 2022 revokes various orders, removing certain restrictions, including isolation and quarantine restrictions for people in managed isolation and quarantine facilities; requirements for people arriving in New Zealand by sea; specific testing requirements for arrivals at the border; and requirements that certain types of work be carried out only by workers who are vaccinated.

We have also amended the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Order 2021 and removed most of the restrictions that applied to people arriving in New Zealand by air. Incoming travellers are no longer required to wear a face mask while on board their flight or be vaccinated before arriving in New Zealand.

Lastly, the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Self-isolation Requirements) Amendment Order removes the requirement for household contacts of COVID-19 cases to self-isolate.

We have been clear that the measures used to contain the spread of COVID-19 need to be proportionate to the risk of the virus. Some of the tools that were justified now need to be removed. Our response continues to evolve, and we will be significantly narrowing the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020, removing the most restrictive powers from the Act that are no longer required for the response while ensuring we can practically manage the ongoing impact of COVID- 19.

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

Dr SHANE RETI (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak to these orders, and I thank the Minister, the Hon Ayesha Verrall, for bringing them to the House. National will be substantively supporting these orders. If we look at some of the key ones, the self-isolation requirement—that talks about removing the requirement for household contacts to self-isolate. We agree with that. And the power of the director-general to require close contacts to self-isolate—we agree with that as well. The public health order around masks, removing it from the protection framework order—we substantively agree with this as well.

I would raise the question of an issue raised by pharmacists: they appear to be the only retail agency substantively still, potentially, requiring clients or customers to wear masks. They say this is really cumbersome because people go into shops and they’re not expecting to wear a mask anymore. They move into a pharmacy and suddenly they are. Consequently, they’re not. And so I wonder if, for consistency, you could consider whether that’s practical or not—take some advice from the guild, whomever. But certainly the feedback I’m getting is that people just aren’t—they’re just used to retail having no masks, and I don’t know if the utility is there in trying to maintain that anymore. So if you could have a look at that, it would be useful.

The third order, which we’ll substantially support—the revocations order—removes the quarantine restrictions for people in managed isolation, people arriving in New Zealand by sea, testing requirements for arrivals at the border, and requirements that certain types of work be carried out only by workers who are vaccinated. Now, we understand that this is the policy position from central government, but, of course, the challenge has been that people out in the hospitals have presumed “Oh, it’s been removed.”, but, in fact, Health New Zealand are making their own decisions. So it would be useful to know if that’s with advice, guidance, and recommendation from the Minister and her analysts and her team—that the advice to Health New Zealand is that unvaccinated workers should continue to have restrictions; and, again, whether that utility is there.

We voted against the COVID public health order in my own hands about two months ago—maybe three, I would guess—and before that my colleague Chris Bishop did, and we would make the case that, for unvaccinated workers in a health setting, if they were to come to each shift and rapid antigen test negative and were asymptomatic, then certainly, while we’re amongst a crisis, there may well be a place to review the current mandate restriction that they have. So I wonder if that could be taken into account as well. That won’t prohibit us from substantively supporting these orders here tonight, but just a few points.

If we could consider pharmacy—it’s turning out to be logistically just not practical; people just aren’t doing it—and, secondly, whether the Health New Zealand - styled choice to restrict unvaccinated workers is still manageable and wise in the context of the health workforce crisis that we have. But National will be supporting this motion further. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Dr ELIZABETH KEREKERE (Green): Kia ora, tēnā koe e te Mangai o te Whare, tāloha ni. I rise on behalf of my colleague Teanau Tuiono for the Green Party to oppose these COVID-19 public health response orders. They’re about winding back most of the protection framework, including mask use, household isolation requirements, and restrictions for air travel across the border. We note that these orders were presented to the House in September and are, of course, in effect.

Our concerns are about how winding down the protections is not being done alongside stronger public health measures that are needed to protect our immunocompromised and disabled whānau—measures that put the needs of Māori, Pasifika, and disabled communities at the heart of the ongoing pandemic response. COVID cases are on the rise again, proving that this virus is here to stay and that we’ll be living with new waves of infection for a long time to come.

So we just want the focus to return to slowing the spread through long-term protective measures, such as sensible masking—not masking all the time, I’m really glad we’re over that—and, for example, we’ve long advocated for measures around ventilation, air filtration, and mask use in schools to help decrease in the incidence of COVID and other contagious illnesses for tamariki and taiohi.

It’s a matter I raised, actually, with the former Minister for COVID-19 Response Hon Chris Hipkins to the Health Committee at one point. At the time, he responded that opening a window or a door was actually better than having an air filter. As someone who grew up with windows open and doors unlocked, I fully support the “fresh air is best” approach, however that is not always possible; that is not always practical. Where immunocompromised people often have limited options of how they can keep themselves safe, such as on a plane, these measures mean that when you’re on a plane, you don’t have to use any masks. The scientific advice that we have received is that once you’re on the plane, they actually have really good ventilation, they have great air filtration, but it’s the getting to and from the airport and sitting on the tarmac that is the problem.

In terms of the air border, to justify opening up more, I recall when the Minister provided us with statistics that showed how low the incidence of transmission was that was coming through the border—as opposed to the community transmission, which was rife at the time—so we totally agreed that we should open our borders. We wanted our people to be able to come without the cost that was so prohibitive to so many people. I will always be thankful that I wasn’t one of those whānau that had to suffer through a funeral online. So many people that couldn’t be together—families split up for years because of that.

We just want to have something that’s a little bit sensible so that—because at the moment, with these measures being changed, when you come in, not only do you not need to be vaccinated but you don’t even need to be asymptomatic. So you can come in coughing and spluttering with whatever, and that’s not a worry—but for some of us it’s a little bit of a worry.

Those travelling by air—it affects their whole country whenever they come in here. They go out to wherever. But when people are coming in by sea, it affects particular communities. I live in, I come from, a seaside town, and so people have come to me and said, “What about cruise ships? They’re coming in and then a whole pile of people are coming off the ship and then they’re going right through town and then they leave again.” They’re just worried that there’s nothing they can do to keep themselves safe, so it just becomes them individually. They’ve just got to look after themselves and all those beautiful things—the team of 5 million, our communities working together—just starts to really break down.

We know that opening our borders would bring illness through. That’s fine, we accepted that; that was the risk for all the good things that came from opening our country back up to the world. That was always going to be fine so long as our health system was managing. What we know, of course, and some of my other colleagues have identified, is that our health system is not managing. It’s not managing well at all, with massive queues at emergency departments, increased waiting lists, and chronic understaffing. We’re concerned that variant-specific boosters are not available yet in this country—we hope the Government will soon indicate when those can be rolled out.

We do note that one of the orders removes the traffic light protection framework, and we’re really happy about that. We were not fans. We’re pleased it’s gone. But that is the same order that removed all of the mask requirements except for certain people who work in certain health environments.

So public health measures work best when they become part of our everyday lives, when it’s not a burden, when it doesn’t restrict us from the things we need to do in our life. As a minimum, we think the Government should be able to guarantee clean air inside buildings, through air quality monitoring, strong ventilation standards, and air purification.

There’s no doubt that COVID hit some communities far worse than others. We just want those communities to be a part of the decisions that are made around that response. For immunocompromised people in many parts of our community, we just know that this has not happened, so we do not support this bill. Kia ora.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Oh, thank you so much. Look, it is time for New Zealand to stop being afraid. We have to unmask and not be afraid. And I take account of the comments from Dr Kerekere, because if someone is immunocompromised, there is nothing to stop them, or anyone else, from wearing a mask.

But I didn’t realise until I was in Europe, in late May, just how far behind and out of kilter New Zealand was, compared to other developed countries—when we went into Europe and people were not masked. And why were they not masked? Because they said only people who are sick or concerned about their immune system were masked. In fact, in Poland they said that they cancelled COVID on February 24. And when I asked, “What do you mean, you cancelled COVID?”, they said that was the date that Putin invaded Ukraine. So they felt they had a greater threat and they were going to get on with their lives. And, actually, it’s time for us, having all made enormous sacrifices—and some a lot more sacrifice than others—to be able to celebrate that it’s time for these orders to be able to be revoked. And the National Party stands in support of removing these. The time has well and truly come, if not late.

I take up the point that Dr Shane Reti so eloquently made around the situation with the workforce in the health sector. We know that there are nurses and doctors and other health staff who have not been allowed to return to work because Health New Zealand—this great Government agency that was going to get rid of postcode lottery, which it doesn’t seem to have done—has decided they are going to prevent unvaccinated staff coming into work. This has to stop. We have staff who want to work, people whose lives have been destroyed by their concern about the vaccination—even though I didn’t share that concern, and I think most of this Parliament did not, but we are concerned for them that they have been left out on a limb. There are rapid antigen tests (RATs) available, these RATs that we use now; there are now anti-viral medicines available to people, should they get COVID. We know that COVID itself, like other viruses, has mutated many times and will continue to do so, just like the Spanish flu and other diseases like that which then mutate and become far more easily transmittable and less harmful.

The fact is, people need to be able to live, and we need to be able to allow people to live their lives. We in the National Party understand why health professionals were mandated around vaccination. We understand that—at the time. But it’s time for that to stop. We understand that the Government has said that that mandate has been removed. But when the Government’s big, super health board, Health New Zealand, decides that it’s going to stop staff coming in to work at a time when we are losing nurses and doctors and other health professionals to Australia and other countries, it is madness. It is absolute madness. And they need to stop being so pathetic about this and let these people back. I don’t see anybody requiring staff to be vaccinated for the winter flu, which, as we know, was a particularly nasty flu this year. We don’t see that happening. We don’t see all sorts of other restrictions. And yet this particular one has continued under Health New Zealand and we need to have that corrected.

I also take up the call from Dr Shane Reti that our pharmacists should not have to go through this whole masking nonsense. I popped in to the pharmacy the other day to get something and realised I wasn’t masked. I had to race and get one. You know, this is nuts, people. It’s nuts. Let’s just stop this. Let people come back.

I was on one of the first flights, I think, from Wellington to Auckland, just after the masks mandate on public transport and airlines was lifted. It could have been a party flight. People were so happy. The staff on Air New Zealand were so happy. I went on board—and I am something of a frequent flyer, I have to tell you, over the years—and they said, “Oh, hi, Judith, it’s going to be a great night tonight.” I thought I must have walked into the wrong plane—apparently not. They were just happy to be able to see people’s faces. People were happy to be able to see other people’s smiles.

It’s time we moved on and it’s time we gave people back the right to make their own decisions. And if people want to put a mask on, if people have something that they are concerned about, fine. Let’s celebrate them having that right. Let’s stop doing this to other people and making them feel bad because they might have forgotten their mask or something else. I think it’s time we brought the country together, and this would be one of the smartest things that Health New Zealand could do right now, because they are so woefully behind in all of their elective surgeries, they are so woefully behind in the public confidence that they can actually deliver anything that they’ve been set up for. And it’s time we gave New Zealanders back their freedom and their self-respect and let them get on with it and make adult decisions.

TONI SEVERIN (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, we’ve been saying since November that we should’ve got rid of all these rules, and we are still going to oppose these motions even though we’re happy to see them here. Freedom day should’ve been on 1 December in 2001. The rest of the world—[Interruption] 2001, yes—have moved on; we are still haunted by the spectre of Michael Baker.

Now, I sit on the Regulations Review Committee, and I can tell you that having only four COVID orders to go through is a lot better than what it was when I was first on there. And we are happy to finally see that we can see everybody’s smiles. It is fantastic to be able to walk around and see strangers smiling and having a good time. But it’s just been so long in the coming. The rest of the world realised that it was here to stay; we had COVID. Yes, it’s a new virus, yes we’re still learning about it, but we’ve had to learn about other viruses all the way through. We’ve had so many viruses. Even when I worked as a laboratory assistant back in the late 1990s, we had viruses that we had to overprotect because they were new—

Hon Member: You were creating them, in the lab!

TONI SEVERIN: —and we weren’t sure if they were going to be as infectious as this.

Simon Court: Christchurch, not Wuhan.

TONI SEVERIN: Ha, ha! But the thing is that we have been saying right from November that we need to get rid of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act and move on. It’s been a long time coming, and now just these four lovely little orders that came through on 12 September for us—no more mask wearing unless you’re in the medical profession, which is also quite sad because most of them are very, very cautious of handling patients and things. Also, to see our health professionals actually smiling at patients can help them a lot as well. And, also, most of us, when we worked in the health profession, if we felt ill we wouldn’t go to work; we would ring up and not go there. So having no masks, it just makes a world of difference to all of us.

Then, also, the other one of the orders is the health response on the air border, allowing people to come back into the country. It doesn’t matter where you’re coming from, doesn’t matter about your vaccination status, it doesn’t matter about isolation. However, in the Regulations Review Committee, we did have a couple of concerns that we did write to the Minister for COVID-19 Response, and, as we know, this report here is still an interim report because we’re still waiting for that response from the Minister on a few questions that needed to be asked.

But, I mean, overall, yes, we are happy about most of this, but these should’ve been gone long ago. I mean, we still say freedom of choice. If you need to wear a mask, please do so, because most of us have someone that we know and we care about that may be immunocompromised or have other issues, and they need to wear their mask if they have to. But, also, over the years, with immunocompromised people, you know, they’ve had to survive through other winter flus and other things that are floating round. We’ve had measles outbreaks. We’ve had quite a few things. So by now we hope that they have themselves places organised to be able to handle any of these restrictions that are taken off. I’m pretty certain most of them would be very concerned, and I’m concerned for them too, because I have loved ones that are in that state, but they also want to move on with their lives and not live in fear, and that’s the good thing: most of them have actually said, “I’m not wearing my mask anymore, but I am still cautious.”

So, overall, we’re happy they’re here, but we say they should’ve been out the door months ago. So ACT is still going to oppose this motion until all of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act is totally removed from New Zealand. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

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

Ayes 97

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 33.

Noes 22

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

Motion agreed to.

Orders approved.

Bills

United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement Legislation Bill

Second Reading

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Minister for Trade and Export Growth): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I present a legislative statement on the United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement Legislation Bill.

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

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: I move, That the United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement Legislation Bill be now read a second time.

It is a pleasure to move in support of this bill. Following the bill’s first reading in July, the bill was referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, where it was extensively examined. The committee considered the bill between 26 July and 20 October, and it recommended that the bill proceed with a limited number of amendments related to Part 5 of the bill: the apple transitional export quota. Further technical amendments were also made for further clarity and consistency.

I want to express my thanks to all those involved in this important examination process, from members of the committee to civil society and business representatives. The New Zealand - United Kingdom free-trade agreement (FTA) is a high-quality, inclusive, and precedent-setting free-trade agreement that will provide real benefits for New Zealand.

The global economy is confronting the realities of the largest war in Europe since World War II, whose impacts are reverberating around the world. This, of course, comes on the back of a COVID-19 pandemic that triggered a major global shock over the past two years which continues to affect economies around the world. Nations are grappling with the interlinked challenges of high inflation, tightening financial conditions, and continuing pressure on supply chains.

New Zealand’s Trade Recovery Strategy recognises that trade is a key driver of our recovery from the economic impacts of COVID-19. Trade is also important for building a high-wage, low-emissions economy that supports economic security. New Zealand has worked to provide strategic trade debt through concluding a series of free-trade agreements with key partners, providing New Zealanders with as many trading options as possible.

The UK FTA and our recently concluded free-trade agreement with the European Union are key components of the Trade Recovery Strategy. Both agreements provide new and meaningful access into large, high-value consumer markets where exporters have previously faced high barriers. These free-trade agreements will support New Zealand’s businesses to reconnect with partners, customers, and markets overseas. They will improve our exporters’ competitiveness through reduced tariffs and increased market access, and will create opportunities for exporters to diversify products and markets.

New Zealand’s most recently concluded free-trade agreement with the European Union has been a long-sought objective by successive Governments. Once implemented, this agreement will create a level playing field for most New Zealand exporters and significantly improved access to the large and high-value EU market of 450 million consumers. New Zealand is working with the European Commission to secure speedy signature and ratification of the New Zealand - EU FTA, and signature could occur by mid-2023 and ratification of the free-trade agreement in 2024.

In the UK free-trade agreement, New Zealand was able to capitalise on being in the first tranche of the UK’s new FTAs after it left the EU, as well as on the UK’s intention to demonstrate the success of its independent trade policy and its credentials to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. The UK FTA is one of the best deals New Zealand has signed. Our two countries have a uniquely close bond, including the significant connection between Māori and the UK, given the role of the British Crown as one of the original signatories of the Treaty of Waitangi.

This FTA will assist the development of stronger trade, economic, cultural and people-to-people links between our two countries. Importantly, it will restore a level playing field for New Zealand exporters for the first time since the UK entered the European Union 30 years ago. New Zealand and the UK share deep interests in the Indo-Pacific as an open and inclusive region of sovereign, resilient, and prosperous States underpinned by the utmost respect for international rules and norms. As a piece of architecture, this free-trade agreement creates an enduring link that draws the UK towards our region and makes a contribution to an open, rules-based system that goes beyond bilateral trade.

The market access package we have agreed is among the very best New Zealand has secured in an FTA. At full implementation, the UK will eliminate all tariffs on New Zealand exports. The FTA is expected to boost New Zealand’s economy by between $700 million and $1 billion at full implementation, with New Zealand annual exports to the UK estimated to grow by over 50 percent, or up to $2.2 billion. The FTA provides New Zealand exporters with immediate, comprehensive, and commercially meaningful access into the UK market, including for our primary sector, and 99.5 percent of New Zealand’s current exports will enter the UK duty-free on entry into force of the FTA.

Tariff elimination has been prioritised for a range of key products, including those of interest to Māori, such as honey, horticultural goods, and seafood. For products where tariffs will be phased out over a number of years, such as dairy, beef, and sheep meat, we have secured sizable duty-free quotas that offer commercially meaningful access into the market.

The FTA contains significant outcomes for matters of interest to Māori, including a dedicated trade and economic cooperation chapter and far-reaching commitments on trade and environment. Importantly, the preamble to the FTA recognises the unique relationship between Māori and the British Crown as an original signatory to Te Tiriti o Waitangi—the Treaty of Waitangi. As with all FTAs since 2001, this agreement includes New Zealand’s Treaty of Waitangi exception that ensures that nothing in the free-trade agreement will prevent the New Zealand Government from meeting its obligations to Māori.

Beyond new market access, the deal offers more certainty for our services exporters, for investors, and for Kiwi businesses wanting to access the UK’s Government procurement market. We’ve also agreed to cooperate with the UK in a range of areas, including in digital trade, to assist our growing tech sector.

As the first FTA launched and concluded under New Zealand’s Trade for All agenda, this FTA sets high-ambition commitments in inclusive and sustainable trade. It is New Zealand’s first bilateral FTA to include dedicated chapters on trade and gender, and consumer protection. We have secured quality outcomes on trade and development, small and medium sized enterprises, trade and labour, and anti-corruption. The FTA also includes far-reaching commitments on trade and the environment, including concrete steps to eliminate subsidies on fossil fuels, provisions to combat overfishing, and specific articles on climate change. The environment chapter will also prioritise the elimination of tariffs on over 290 environmentally beneficial products. This is the largest environmental goods list agreed in any FTA to date.

Once ratified, the UK and EU FTAs will mean that the percentage of our exports to markets covered by an FTA will rise to nearly 75 percent, up from 52 percent in 2017. This significant expansion of New Zealand’s FTA network will contribute to New Zealand’s diversified trade portfolio and assist New Zealand’s recovery from the economic impacts of COVID-19.

With the UK FTA signed in February this year, both New Zealand and the UK are working to bring the agreement into force as soon as possible. There are a limited number of legislative and regulatory amendments that are required to align New Zealand’s domestic law with certain obligations in the UK FTA. The United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement Legislation Bill will enable New Zealand to implement its obligations under the FTA and the legislation necessary to bring the FTA into force. New Zealand is aiming to complete domestic ratification processes this year. The United Kingdom is completing its own domestic process, including the passing of legislation. Once both countries have concluded the necessary steps, we will be ready to bring the FTA into force.

As noted by the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand has secured this deal with the UK at a crucial time in our recovery from the economic impacts of COVID-19. The New Zealand - UK FTA serves our economy and exporters well as we reconnect, rebuild, recover, and look into the future. I commend the bill to the House. Kia ora.

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

Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Madam Speaker, thank you very much. I’ve left my notes behind, so I won’t read my speech.

Largely, I want to start by thanking the officials for their dedication and extreme hard work over a long period of time. You know, Governments come and go in this place. Different Governments claim responsibility for start, middle, or end of trade negotiations. Largely, though, it’s the officials that do the hard work, the graft, and they are there through successive Governments.

In the case of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, I think we have some of the best trade negotiators in the world. In fact, I know that’s the case, because when we were in Government and the UK left the European Union, we arranged—or “helped” or “allowed” or whatever the term may be—for one of New Zealand’s most successful trade negotiators to be linked to them; in fact, to go and work for them as they created a trade department, the ability to negotiate.

Much of what the UK now does was based on the early steps that the National Government came to support them, to share information with them, to open our trade negotiation trade book so that they could get ready to negotiate with the world and the European Union and with others.

One of the most important things that happened during that period of time, you know, was the UK trade Minister, Liam Fox, made a commitment that New Zealand would be one of the first cabs off the rank—along with Australia—to do a free-trade agreement (FTA). I remember having discussions in the media there, both with their farming groups and their politicians, about how they needed to look further afield than the European Union. Surely the farmers of the United Kingdom didn’t vote to leave the European Union just to be protectionist when it came to the rest of the world. And they had an opportunity to join New Zealand and any other like-minded country that believes a rules-based system with few restrictions actually grows economies, allows countries to join together, work more closely together, creates jobs and income, and lifts countries up, economies up, and people up. Then, actually, that was what they should do.

I’m very pleased to say that the efforts of our officials and those officials we lent them—or that they hired away from us—have done their job very well. Because as far as this agreement is concerned and from what the UK has done, they are much more like New Zealand than they are like the European Union when they were part of the European Union. I think our exporters in the future will benefit quite greatly and quite significantly from that.

The Minister made comparisons between the UK FTA and the EU FTA, and he talked about the percentage of goods that would be covered by free-trade agreements as a result of that going from about 50 percent to 75 percent. Sadly, there is not great comparison between the quality of the UK FTA that our officials delivered and the EU FTA. The reason for that is two of our largest exports—in meat and dairy—have largely, and as far as free trade is concerned, been excluded from the EU deal. And that’s a great shame, because it means we have missed an opportunity to help the European Union understand the benefits of free trade, to pull down protection, and to join the UK and New Zealand and others in realising that fewer barriers, when it comes to trade, delivers for economies.

In that respect, I think the Government hasn’t done the job that they might have with a Minister who also has a primary industry portfolio, because our sheep farmers and our beef farmers and our dairy farmers largely have been left out in the cold with the EU deal compared to what has happened with the UK deal.

We’ll have an opportunity to discuss that in the House and in the committee and submissions will come in. But I think it’s very important to draw attention to what the Minister tried to say—75 percent of tradeable goods may be covered by FTAs, but when you come to the value of our exports, in as far as the EU is concerned, it won’t be at that level, because in the most substantial exports that we have to the EU, they are largely excluded or they are restricted based on quota or still have tariffs upon them.

There was one bright light there, though. For some reason, we can export onions to the European Union without tariff. The three onion farmers I’ve spoken to will be delighted, but it won’t do much for the dairy farmers up and down the country.

And as far as trade with the UK is concerned, the committee did its job judiciously. We wanted to get through our part of this as quickly as we could under your direction and chairmanship, Madam Speaker. The reason for this is: the sooner we get to do our job here, which is get this through the House, the sooner we can get on and sign it, and if there is an opportunity to do that this year, we should do it. We shouldn’t take our time and say, “Well, I guess we’ll have to do it next year”—conveniently at an election year. Actually, it doesn’t matter; what we should do is get this under way as quickly as we can. And with the new Prime Minister in the United Kingdom—who, by all intents and purposes, believes strongly in free trade—we should be talking to them about speeding the process up.

Forget the politics of this; the moment it enters into force, our exporters get to export more. When we export more, and where we have an advantage—because with the UK, our exporters do have an advantage over others who will want to trade there and haven’t got their FTAs yet; we will be on a level playing field with the European Union in that market—then, actually, what that does is it means New Zealand exporters earn more for the same amount of work, it grows the economy, and they get to employ more. It is a very, very good thing.

The final thing I wanted to say is that if we now have a level playing field in the UK market with the European Union, New Zealand exporters do not have a level playing field in the European Union with UK exporters, and that’s the problem with the EU deal that’s been done. Too much was left on the table, and it’s a shame that the Government didn’t say, “We’re going to put politics aside because the Prime Minister is overseas.” We need an announcement. If they had continued to discuss and talk, then I think we would have got more. Time will tell—the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The Australians are holding back and are still negotiating. If Australia gets more than we got, it’s not, in the end, that their negotiators are better than ours—they’re not—I think their Ministers and their politicians are better. We will see. The final thing I want to say—the Minister talked about diversifying and not being reliant upon any market. Well, actually, we were reliant upon the UK many years ago. They joined the European communities, our access all but disappeared, and we had to fight for it, to get it back. We now have restored that with the UK—that’s a good thing.

But I’ve got to say it’s with great disappointment that we see that this Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs have announced publicly that they are giving up and walking away on a free-trade agreement with India because it’s just too hard. And here’s the problem with that: if we are saying it’s too hard to do a free-trade agreement with countries that are not used to opening their borders, then who is going to make that case in the world? It won’t be the European Union. It could well be the UK. It has been Australia, who have done a deal—not a perfect one, but they’ve got a free-trade agreement. I just don’t understand why the Minister would come to the House, saying that the UK FTA is one of the best that we’ve seen; the EU is, he says, as good. “It helps us diversify so we’re not reliant on any one market—China or anywhere else in the world.”

But in the very same breath, just a week or so ago, the Government said they are giving up on the FTA negotiation with India. That doesn’t mean we diversify more; it actually means that we are more reliant upon a few markets in the world, and it sends a signal to those who choose to protect their borders through restriction, through tariff, and through subsidy that New Zealanders are no longer the people who are out there talking about the benefits of free trade. If it’s too hard, we’ll give up. Well, very clearly to our exporters throughout New Zealand: a National Government wouldn’t give up. We would continue to argue the case for a high-quality deal with India and many other countries.

And I say to the Minister, it is good that our officials have been able to work hard and deliver on this. The EU deal is a step in the direction—it just wasn’t good enough—but he now needs to get out on the world stage and start filling that pipeline up again. The deals that have been done over the last few years were started many years ago, before this Government got here, and the success of New Zealand is having that pipeline of potential deals full so we can continue to work through them. It’s not very full at the moment; in fact, there are very few new deals that have been announced or spoken of, and that will mean at some stage our Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials won’t have as much to do. I guess, since they are the world’s best and they’ve delivered this high-quality agreement, they could well look to go and work for other countries, as some of them did with the UK. That wouldn’t be good for New Zealand or the New Zealand economy. The Minister needs to go out and start filling that pipeline. Thank you.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Unlike the previous member, the Hon Todd McClay, I’m going to speak about the New Zealand - United Kingdom free-trade agreement (FTA), not the EU one. And I know he wanted to speak about the EU one because he knew that the UK one is actually of a gold standard and there’s not much to criticise about it. The EU one, it’s a little bit like comparing apples and pears, and I have to say everybody in this House knows that the EU is particularly stringent in its negotiations around climate change and I would like to see the Opposition try to get a better EU deal over the line than what we are achieving currently.

I would also remind the previous speaker that National concluded only four FTAs in their nine years in office, and when it comes to economic management, FTAs are about what we can export. We are an exporting nation and they’re critical. Labour gets FTAs over the line. We’ve got the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the upgraded China and Singapore FTAs, and we’ve got them over the line because for us these are about relationships. We understand relationships because they are about people, they’re about trade, and they’re about defence; it is not just transactional stuff. And what was able to be achieved with this was a gold-standard FTA with the UK for all the reasons stated by the Minister. The UK is the fifth-biggest exporter. We have exports to them worth $1.7 billion per year and we have achieved incredibly good market access, and that is thanks to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), the iwi team within MFAT, iwis outside of MFAT who I spoke to, the former High Commissioner Laura Clarke—who did an excellent job in addressing the issue of colonisation and being able to mend some bridges there—and her team. And it was a real win-win-win result.

Friendships these days are important. When countries do trade with each other, they get to understand the value base, the supply chains, the way of doing business, and that’s incredibly important during these tricky times. I’m reminded of that today on the national day of celebration of Hungary’s 1956 freedom fight, which went on for 13 days. And in that time, Hungary was crushed by Russia. We’re seeing similar things happen with the Ukraine and so our friends are more important than ever. So a shout-out to our Hungarian New Zealanders who came over as refugees after that time, and also to our Ukraine population. And just appreciating that we have got very good friends in the UK and in the EU, and I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I call on Simon O’Connor.

Chris Penk: Oh, this’ll be better!

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Well, I’m not sure, but, hey. Look, thank you very much. I don’t know whether I should confess to the House, with recent events in the United Kingdom, but one of my most excellent meetings when I was the chair of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee was with Liz Truss, actually. She and I had a wonderful private lunch together, talking, primarily, trade. I do want to make it very clear I gave no advice beyond trade! But, actually, we had a really excellent discussion at that time—actually, echoing a lot of what speakers prior have just brought out, which is the deep relationship and respect between our two countries. And with all due respect to Ms Truss and everything that she’s been through, I would have to say that when she was the trade Minister, at that time she saw the real value of that New Zealand agreement. I think that’s been passed on to subsequent trade Ministers, obviously both in the Governments here—to use the plural—in New Zealand and then certainly through the UK itself.

Look, as I say, it’s been a deep respect and I suppose it’s our intertwined histories which have helped to a degree, but I think as well, and, obviously, I can’t speak for the UK, that they can see the strategic advantage in getting these good deals over the line with the likes of New Zealand and Australia. So it’s a good deal and no one on this side of the House disputes that. The fact that so many tariffs will fall away relatively quickly is quite positive. And in order to make sure I am not erroneous—that’s probably not very plain, is it? So that I don’t get things wrong—

Chris Penk: Oh, careful!

SIMON O’CONNOR: Careful, sorry. Pulling back—pull back. It’s obviously going to go right across our sectors, as they’ve got here. Apples, their tariffs are going to fall away—will be tariff-free within three years—milk is going to be over four years; cheese and butter over five years, which if one reflects on the time it takes to sort of cure these things it sort of makes sense; and beef and lamb is going to be over 15 years. Obviously—

Hon Member: Ha, ha!

SIMON O’CONNOR: I know that was just a terrible, terrible joke. It’s late at night. But long and short, this is a good deal. This is a very, very positive deal.

So, as others have done, I think it’s rightful even at a second reading speech to acknowledge, within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), and Trade and Enterprise, all those involved with these negotiations, they’ve done an excellent job and they should be thanked. It doesn’t take away from the work of the Minister, the Government of the day, and Governments, actually, who have contributed to this, but I think the team at MFAT can take a bow.

I’ll echo also what Todd McClay was saying. When I was last in the UK, I went to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and was quite stunned as well at the number of New Zealanders there and particularly in the trade section. I don’t think it should be understated the contribution that New Zealanders have made to the United Kingdom in its ability to engage with us. I have absolutely no doubt—in fact, I sort of feel weird to even have to say it—that the New Zealand negotiators in New Zealand have argued the best deal and the New Zealanders working in the UK have absolutely pursued the best for the UK. But perhaps what we can see is that the understanding, the cooperation, the language, the jargon, and the use of plain and useful English has been beneficial and we have this deal here and now.

Look, it is good that there is cooperation or agreement, I think, largely across the House. I do have to point out to members on the other side in Government that they were, at one point, protesting the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and simply putting the word “comprehensive” in front of it doesn’t change things. So I don’t think we need to—for want of a better term and, again, a bad pun—cry over spilt milk, which will soon be tariff-free. It’s just a sign, actually, that bipartisanship on trade needs to continue. We’ve had a blip on the road when it came to the TPP and I just hope all in this House have learnt from that. We must, I believe, keep that bipartisan approach to trade in our foreign affairs space as much as we can, and certainly as we’ve seen earlier in the House around our national security.

Well, actually, that’s a thought. Now that I’ve mentioned TPP, we’ve got this trade deal with the UK. So firstly, on that, we do need to get this ratified as soon as possible. There’s no need to delay and I think I do need to echo what others are saying. We shouldn’t allow the politics particularly of New Zealand to get in the way. Strike now and strike quickly. Get the UK across the line.

Again, in a recent trip—granted, to America, but I was talking to MPs from the Commons and Lords. Strangely enough, from the Lords—they’re keen; they’re supportive. Let’s run with that. Yep, there can certainly be, I expect, an advantage for a Prime Minister to be in the UK next year signing the deal, but, actually, our farmers, growers, and others need this relief now. So the quicker we can get this done, the better. And kudos for the select committee moving this through swiftly. Having gone through the report, it absolutely makes sense—again, for viewers at home to really understand that the select committee and this Parliament does not change the negotiated treaty. That’s a power for the executive. That’s what the Government does. The treaty is negotiated. What we’re discussing tonight is the domestic legislation which brings this deal into reality. I think the sharp eyes of your committee, Madam Chair, are well and truly present, including not wanting to give the Governor-General, with no disrespect to her, too much power; it’s always good that a Governor-General acts on the advice of Ministers.

So our last couple of thoughts—one within the arts realm and one within sort of some suggestions of how we might move further. There’s an artist resale scheme. So I’m putting on my arts, culture, and heritage hat. I think this House is going to have to have a lot of discussion around that. I’m very aware that the legislation tonight does not—repeat: does not—include legislation around that scheme, but it has to be implemented within two years. I will signal to the House with my somewhat, and so far, limited discussions with the sector, there’s a variety of views around that resale scheme. Again, for those tuned in at home—probably all two of them: my father and mother; hi, mum and dad, I’ll call you at some point—the artist resale scheme is something that the UK has asked that New Zealand bring about. It’s not something that New Zealand is asking for; this is, if you will, an imposition through the deal. I think that has to be approached really, really carefully. So I’m looking forward to that legislation coming into the House.

We also have to, via this trade deal, extend our copyright terms from, I think, 50 to 70 years. I think it brings New Zealand in line with pretty much everyone else. That’s going to have a un-comfortability, Madam Chair—Madam Speaker; I apologise as I’m switching between your dual roles—but I think that’s going to take a little bit of conversation, as well. But I think, from my personal view, aligning New Zealand’s copyright laws and various rights terms with the rest of the world makes sense and will actually make us a better and easier approach when we deal with the EU.

Look, a quick comment on that, I think it’s really important that New Zealand maintains its negotiation strong stance with the EU. I know that they’ll be listening to these speeches tonight from across the House. We want a good deal with the EU. They’re an important trading partner. We want that to happen, but I think it’s also important for this House to understand—and those across the Realm, across New Zealand, to understand—that, actually, there is a difference in the deals, and the UK deal at this point is better—much, much better—than it is with the EU. So there’s, in my opinion, room for improvement there.

I think, too, we absolutely must—and this is an encouragement to the Government—look to engage further trade deals, and, yes, India is one of them. They are a massive superpower. They are a massive economic power. We are gifted, I think, in this country, with a wonderful Indian - New Zealand community, who themselves have said to us really clearly that they want to help engage that. It’s so, and so, important. It won’t surprise people who know my views around the likes of China, we cannot have all of our trade in one basket. Our trade with China is important. That’s a respectful trading relationship. I want to see that continue, but we cannot solely depend on that. New Zealand must diversify, and we are doing that tonight by this free-trade agreement with the United Kingdom. We are doing it as we seek a deal with the EU. But we must, must go much wider.

My last thoughts, if I might, are actually just an encouragement for us to go further. I’m a great supporter of something called “CANZUK”—this is a suggested agreement between the likes of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom; five Realms, all who share a similar head of State and Government. Actually, there can be a lot more cooperation, particularly in the movement of people. I know it’s not formally within this agreement, but, boy, what a day that will be when New Zealanders, Aussies, Canadians, and those from the United Kingdom can actually travel to one another’s countries without visas—we can travel freely, work freely. I think that will be an excellent day. It’s my hope that this trade deal is just one step in that direction.

But as I started, and to bookend this speech, thank you to all of those involved and I acknowledge you and your committee for the hard work taken.

Hon Member: Whoo!

JO LUXTON (Labour—Rangitata): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. That was a surprise.

New Zealand is a nation of trade and export, and this free-trade agreement with the UK is huge for our country. It’s huge for our exporters, and predominately a lot of those are our primary producing exporters. What we’re going to see with this free-trade agreement is most tariffs are going to be eliminated off our exports into the UK. I did note that, with one of those in particular—and Ms Grigg might be interested in this one, given her comment around wine today—there’ll be $14 million worth of tariffs removed immediately for our wine exporters. So I think that’s just one example of the benefits that we will see from this UK free-trade agreement.

What this piece of legislation does is it implements—it’s necessary for us to be able to implement and to ratify our free-trade agreement with the UK. One of the things that I noted around this, with reducing the tariffs, is that it’s going to boost our GDP by between $700 million and $1 billion for New Zealand, and I think that’s fantastic. As I said, a lot of that is around for our primary producers. And I think this is a really big thing for our primary producers here in New Zealand because, after all, it is our primary producers and our exporters that pretty much kept us going throughout the COVID pandemic. So anything that helps reduce barriers to trading for them with the UK is a good thing, in my view.

I do note that the products such as dairy, beef, and sheep—where the tariffs are going to be phased in over time—whilst they may not have quite what they wanted, those tariffs are going to be phased in over time, and I think that that’s a good thing; whilst they might not get it straight away, that it will come into play.

This is an important bill in order to ensure that we can implement and ratify the UK free-trade agreement. I think we should get on with it, and I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I call on Golriz Ghahraman.

Hon Member: Oh, here we go!

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I appreciate the enthusiasm of my colleagues across the House. I also would like to acknowledge you, Madam Speaker, as the chair of our Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee in working with us so diligently on trade issues that often happen under some great secrecy. It’s often hard to get information, and we try our best to act as a parliamentary oversight mechanism together across the House. Of course, we also have to deal with all the submitters, with all the love and care that they bring to these issues, and often it’s with great frustration that those members of our community come to our committee.

I know that others across the House tonight have raised that great big umbrella trade agreement that we all talk about now as either an incredible win or an incredible win that already existed, or whatever it is, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). I want to start there too, because the previous Labour-led Government last term agreed and signed on to the “comprehensive progressive” TPP, as I will always call it, minutes into becoming Government. It was a shock. It was a shock because many of us had stood shoulder to shoulder to protest that agreement, and because the Government did pass it—and there is a connection with this bill I am getting to—we ended up having the Government agree to the Trade for All agenda. That was forming an expert, community-led, Māori-led, environmentalist, union-led body that would tell our Government and future Governments what fair, sustainable trade should look like. The Government agreed that all future trade agreements would abide by the recommendations of the Trade for All agenda.

That came about because of the CPTPP, because that agreement did not meet those baseline standards. It represented a trade agreement that came from an archaic global financial system that had already failed. It had failed workers, it had failed the environment, it had failed indigenous people, and it had actually failed the global economy. It had collapsed. So that model was recognised as being not particularly ambitious, if not harmful and detrimental to our communities. So we had the Trade for All agenda. We had endless inquiry, and we had these experts, in good faith, engage with us, and they told us what we needed.

Now we have this UK free-trade agreement. Since then, we’ve also had the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, we’ve had the EU trade agreement, and all of these agreements have come with the enlightened recommendations of the Trade for All agenda. So it is with great disappointment and sorrow that I note that this agreement does not meet the requirements of the Trade for All agenda. It was not brought to us as a committee in a democratic way with the ability to change, to engage, or to recommend anything to do with the outcome of this agreement, as was recommended. The submitters had no opportunity to engage with the mandate of trade negotiators or the content of what was on the table before we were able to hear their submissions.

Most importantly, when we look at what has been celebrated by the Minister as the “Treaty of Waitangi clause”, Māori leaders in trade sat outside of that negotiation, didn’t know the content of either the mandate or the draft agreement, and they told us that at select committee. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that day that the late great Moana Jackson was due to tell us all about that, and we have the damning submission in writing but we never got to see him because he passed away in the night.

So we have a responsibility to say that what a sustainable, fair, inclusive trade agreement looks like is not this. Why else would the Government have responded to the criticism that came after the agreement to the CPTPP, to have the Trade for All agenda drawn up, if we weren’t going to abide by it, if we weren’t going to include workers’ rights—and we heard that from the unions who came and submitted—if we weren’t going to include Māori interests in the actual negotiation of this trade agreement? Why would we do that?

But there are good things about this trade agreement. It does have more on the environment than we’ve ever had before, though it remains to be seen whether the environmental chapter is, in fact, enforceable because we’ve never had an environmental chapter that was enforceable. We keep talking about having environmental clauses in trade agreements, but we don’t actually make them enforceable. As a lawyer, I have to say that that’s all that really matters. The investor chapters are expressed in great detail. The rights and privileges of investors, foreign investors, are enunciated in legally enforceable terms here. The environmental chapter remains to be litigated. We don’t know. It does have more detail than we’ve ever seen before, but it’s still pretty broad.

Workers’ rights—again, the unions are the experts on that, and they don’t find those adequate. The Waitangi Tribunal has found the standard-form inclusion of the Waitangi clause in here that’s being celebrated by the Minister to fall short of what’s needed. Again, we didn’t have Māori engagement in the negotiation itself.

We do have a women’s trade chapter here. That’s great. Recognition that there are marginalised communities that may be excluded from international trade and that the benefits of international trade may not always “trickle down”—so to speak—to all communities is great. It’s a starting point. Again, to recognise the need for women’s inclusion in trade is not to say that those chapters are enforceable, that they include detail that is legally binding, but it is included and it is an aspirational statement that, you know, we do need.

With the breaches that I’ve just noted in indigenous rights and in Te Tiriti o Waitangi issues, and, in particular, in workers’ rights and in terms of knowing whether or not the environmental chapter can be enforced against international traders, it is a disappointing agreement. In particular, in light of the fact that we have the recommendations of the Trade for All agenda in front of us, that we waited for them, that we engaged with them, that we had our communities put their hearts and souls into ensuring that those recommendations were fit for purpose for a future in trade that actually does benefit our nation and not just an elite few global multinationals. So that is disappointing, and for that reason, the Green Party will not be commending this bill to the House.

MARK CAMERON (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on the United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement Legislation Bill. I know, as the hours get a bit longer in the evening, and I’m being collegial, what a bleak, rather dark speech from the Green member Golriz Ghahraman—rather disappointing, actually. It’s seldom that we hear something, at this time of the night, that is pretty much universally agreed to. The United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement Legislation Bill, as the ACT Party has it, is a good piece of legislation. This bill seeks to amend New Zealand law in order to enable New Zealand to implement its obligations under the free-trade agreement (FTA) between both New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

The bill amends the Copyright Act 1994—I’ve got the legislation in front of me. It amends the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act 2001—well, there you go. It speaks to amending the Overseas Investment Act 2005. Suffice it to say, there is a lot in that detail. And several other pieces of legislation, speaking to Part 4 and Part 5—several amendments, including the apple transitional export quota. All good stuff. ACT fully supports the ability to strengthen our trade ties and address these issues directly. As was canvassed previously by other members in the House, the ACT Party, and parties generally, don’t see any notable negative impacts from this agreement. Whether it’s imports or exports, whether it’s concerns around health or immigration or our small and medium sized businesses and enterprise, the overall economy stands to benefit from this free-trade agreement.

As has already been well articulated, the United Kingdom and New Zealand—the economies in both countries—share a common bond. The United Kingdom economy is the fifth-largest in the world. It speaks to billions and billions of dollars in terms of GDP. This FTA could further improve the economic relationship between both New Zealand and the United Kingdom, and this has been previously canvassed in the House this evening. Ultimately, we believe this FTA could deliver and boost real GDP numbers by more than $700 million. And I think there were other members in the House that articulated up to a billion dollars in GDP revenue. ACT has always been a party that supports free markets. We articulate that routinely. Enterprise and opportunities to expand our tradable footprint around the world can only be seen as a good thing.

An amendment to enable the application of the preferential tariff rates and agree to the New Zealand and the UK trade agreement moving forward. An amendment to provide for the Transitional New Zealand UK Free Trade Agreement Safeguard Mechanism—I’m not quite sure I understand fully what that means, but I’m sure it’s a good thing procedurally—moving forward. An amendment to give effect to the extension of the copyright term and, as some previous members in the House have articulated, the importance of that moving from a 50- to a 70-year period, I believe. This free-trade agreement provides New Zealand 50 years to implement that reality. As was clearly articulated by my colleague Brooke van Velden, the ACT Party believes that our foreign party speaks to our values on the world stage, and signing such deals are a reflection of the interests of New Zealand and the reflections of the United Kingdom. Ultimately, it’s good for the New Zealand economy, and the economies of both countries, in fact.

We all accept a long history has been shared with the United Kingdom. It is a liberal, democratic country, one that New Zealand’s values of democracy are shared hand in glove. ACT has a happy relationship and seeks to have this piece of legislation ratified into law. Ultimately, free-trade agreements help New Zealand grow business opportunities, create jobs and higher-paying wages, and, by virtue of what we’ve canvassed tonight, that could only be a good thing. Such FTAs that push down tariff barriers create an unlimited access to market goods under the right circumstances and, ultimately, lead to better economic outcomes for all those involved. Industrial sectors like the beef and sheep trade will see their duty-free quotas for New Zealand beef be incentivised in annual instalments from, I believe, 12,000 metric tonnes to 60,000 tonnes in a 15-year roll-out period. Then, to speak of free-trade tariffs for the sheep meat transitional quota which would reach 50,000 metric tonnes for a year, from a five-year through a 15-year period.

Sadly, if one makes the comparison between the success of the FTA with the United Kingdom and the economic lethargy of the FTA between New Zealand and the European Union, it becomes abundantly clear, to those that have listened in this House beforehand, that the real economic stimulus in this piece of legislation was nothing more than an economic trickle in the EU - New Zealand agreement.

In the end, the ACT Party recognises that as our geopolitical landscapes are constantly shifting around the world, and economics around the world constantly jostle with one another, as they transition out of the economic woes of COVID-19, trade agreements like this one are going to be tantamount to good economic outcomes and, ultimately, create this economic low-hanging fruit that we all so desperately need. The ACT Party fully supports this piece of legislation.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour—Banks Peninsula): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s been a good day: first, fair pay, and now free trade. I’d like to start by very sincerely commending and acknowledging the Minister, the Hon Damien O’Connor, and all of the officials, as has been mentioned tonight, many of whom have worked hard and comprehensively and applied their incredible skills over a period of time to bring this home. Also, I’d like to acknowledge the diligent work of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, who no doubt very diligently examined this bill and, as a result, the committee made only a limited number of recommendations—mainly relating to Part 5 of the bill, with respect to the apple transitional export quota.

There were several submissions, and I think two that stood out in particular were from the Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand, and Fonterra. Just to very briefly summarise: the former said that the free-trade agreement (FTA) “demonstrates [the highest] level of ambition in agricultural trade liberalisation for a developed OECD economy since the implementation of the New Zealand Australia Closer Economic partnership”, which is high praise. And Fonterra noted that this FTA “provides a critical and welcome level of certainty for a two-way dairy trade between New Zealand and the UK.”

But, amongst the many admirable chapters that are included in this agreement—in a first for New Zealand, alongside the climate change chapter—there is one on animal welfare, and the FTA includes the chapter that recognises what is a high priority, that we afford animal welfare in our farming practice, and that’s something that we, obviously, share with the UK. The chapter also sets out how both countries now will work together, as they have done, but to do so more comprehensively and cooperatively, including in those international standard-setting bodies that we both belong to, to continue to promote animal welfare practices.

This is a gold-standard FTA; it’s one of the best FTAs that New Zealand has ever had negotiated. The reduction of tariffs and the increase in market access is estimated to grow our exports to the UK by over 50 percent; so that’s certainly nothing to sniff at. We’re very pleased, on this side of the House, that this Government has brought it home and got it over the line successfully, and, with no further ado, I’m happy to commend it to the House and get on with it. Thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The next call is a split call. I call on Nicola Grigg for five minutes.

NICOLA GRIGG (National—Selwyn): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Like my other colleagues, I rise in support of this United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement Legislation Bill, as we near the final point in what has been a very long journey, very ably begun by the National Government. When Labour was still on the picket lines, decrying the supposed evils of free and equal trade, National was pushing this thing through.

It has been, and is, as has been observed by other speakers in this Chamber this evening, one of the best free-trade agreements (FTAs) that has been struck in our history, and, I would say, particularly pleasing for the agricultural sector, which I am so very proud to represent.

Simon O’Connor: What about onion growers?

NICOLA GRIGG: Simon O’Connor, my colleague, is also wanting to call out the onion growers, of which I have a brother-in-law who is one, so I do hope he is pleased by this too.

But the work on this agreement started under the John Key Government in 2017, where we put the work in to commit to a framework for a fully comprehensive, ambitious free-trade agreement, obviously in preparation for Britain’s exit from the EU. It is good to see this evening that Labour have finally come back from the picket lines and put down their picket signs of opposition, and they’ve come around to realising that free trade is a good thing. My colleagues and I were just discussing before how much this party, the National Party, loves trade. We love capitalism, and we couldn’t help but remember the comments made by Jacinda Ardern when she first became Prime Minister of New Zealand that capitalism has failed this country. Well, to that I would say, “Look where we are now.”

So we are very pleased that this thing is getting near to getting over the line and getting near to getting ratified. It does stand as a shining example, I think, in the global international community, and, you know, as an example of what good can occur in a country when we put economy first.

It is, of course, an entrée for the United Kingdom’s accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership—again, another deal that the Labour Party members stood on the picket lines, as did their friends in the Greens. But we’re friends with them too, so we won’t be too mean to them this evening. But, of course, the UK is our seventh-largest trading partner, and that must not be ignored in a world where everybody is trying to emerge from this post-COVID malaise and, indeed, looming recession for many like economies as ours. We must look to every opportunity to build the wealth of this nation, because it is by building the wealth of this nation that we look after people who need to be looked after. It is, as the Minister has mentioned, a deal worth well over a billion dollars when it does come into full ratification.

But, of course, the main goal of any FTA is that slow but sure and gradual elimination of tariffs, because that does, of course, allow our exporters an even playing field and better market access. Much has been made of the quite slow progression of the tariff elimination, particularly for dairy and meat, but we do celebrate those sectors that have got almost immediate accession. It does, of course, mean that 99.5 percent of products will become tariff-free upon entry into force, and we do celebrate that and we do look forward to that day. Of course, we will stand alongside the Government and celebrate that, and particularly, as has been mentioned, all the hard work that has gone in by our officials over at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. They are among the world’s best. They are highly regarded, and that is why we’re here discussing this deal as gold standard, as many have mentioned.

Of particular note—not much has been said, but I think it does need to be observed—is the lifting of the investment screening threshold from $100 million to $200 million for those non-Government investors from the UK. I know I’ve quoted him many times in this House, and I will do it again; as John Key said, “We do not get rich by selling to ourselves.” This country has to go out and be really aggressive in its pursuit of foreign direct investment, of foreign capital. We are a very small island nation. Trade is in our lifeblood, so as well as chasing good, strong, ambitious, aggressive trade agreements like this, we do need to roll out the red carpet to foreign investors and welcome them to our shores. So we very much look forward to the third and final reading of this bill. We, of course, will be supporting it all the way through. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Kia ora, te Māngai o te Whare. I rise very briefly to say what a superb bill and what a wonderful deal we on this side of the House have concluded. I almost feel sorry for the poor old Opposition who are standing there saying, “We had a hand, we had a hand.” when they look at our record of bringing home these big, important deals that are going to protect us. It must feel a little bit sad to them but I’m glad to hear that they found that there’s some part of the puzzle that they had a stake in, too. But the wonderful winners in this, and the real stake in it are New Zealand and New Zealand businesses. I’m delighted. I commend it to the House.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I was going to get up and defend my colleague across the House Nicola Grigg about our shared love of New Zealand wine. And having just travelled around the globe with Ms Grigg, what I can say—and I’m not going to say this about the UK, but New Zealand wine is definitely the best. This trade agreement delivers very well for our viticulture industry.

I just want to make a couple of quick points about a couple of matters in the bill that I think are worth noting in particular. The first is that there has been a specific section in the bill around the importance of indigenous Māori rights in terms of trade. That is a first, and I just want to note that significant work was done by officials in order to get that into the agreement. It was noted quite heavily in the first reading of this bill, but I wanted to make sure that was put on record tonight.

The second is for my electorate of Nelson, there are some big wins for fish and seafood. I just want to note that over the next seven years, we will eventually get to a complete removal of tariffs on fish and seafood for that industry in Nelson, and that is very, very good for our region. You know, I just note that our seafood industry is critical to our particular region.

This is an excellent agreement; it’s an excellent bill. I want to acknowledge the Minister, officials who worked on it, and yourself and your select committee, Madam Chair. And I commend it to the House.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Oh, thank you, Madam Speaker, what a good choice. Now, we in the National Party are unashamedly pro - free trade and capitalism and the benefits of people working hard and getting benefit from it and being able to make profit, because profit pays taxes—and that is an excellent thing.

Anna Lorck: And fair pay to the workers—fair pay to the workers!

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: The left are very upset about this.

So we’ve heard from Emily Henderson, MP for Whangārei, who is very keen—very keen—to bring this home. We’re very keen to bring home Whangārei, Ms Henderson, and we will be, because we’re quite good at doing that.

We have a brilliant opportunity in this House to come together and to celebrate the hard work that has gone on for many years by our officials and with the support of both the National Government, starting in 2017, and now this Government that has finally decided that free trade is a good thing.

I think it’s good to note that apparently the Hon Damien O’Connor, the Minister for Trade and Export Growth, and the Rt Hon Liz Truss struck up a very good relationship, I’m told. I thought she did really well as the trade Minister for the UK; gave an opportunity for the UK to get out of that sort of negativity and restrictive-type attitude they’d taken to free trade with New Zealand since about the 1970s, and embraced countries like ours that actually survive on trade.

I know that the Green Party can’t bring themselves to vote for this. That’s a shame, because they’re not actually evil people; they’re just a bit deluded. They’re not awful. They’re very pleasant one on one; just not in a group. I find that their attitude to free trade makes me know that we are so on the right side, because they don’t seem to understand that without trade, without free trade, we end up having 40 million people’s worth of food that we have to have ourselves or dump. So I don’t think that that is where we want to be.

We should also note that this party on the other side, the Government at the moment—for only a short period of time, thankfully—they were protesting against free trade, they were protesting against a free-trade deal that included the United States. They were out there—Jacinda Ardern was out there—saying that this would bring down New Zealand working standards. New Zealand’s standards of employment have all increased every time New Zealand gets richer. New Zealand gets richer on free trade. That’s how we do it. Whether it’s free trade in dairying, whether it’s free trade in anything else, whether it’s free trade in technology, that’s how we make our money. New Zealand workers get better—better—results because of that trade. We cut that trade, we end up with people unemployed, unable to work, or actually having to take whatever job there is available, rather than having the choice that they as free human beings should be able to make.

That’s why trade is so important to us. It is the lifeblood not only of our economy but the lifeblood of the economy that pays for health, that pays for education, that pays for the police, that pays for our justice system, that pays for everything that’s provided by taxpayer funding. That’s where it comes from; there is nothing else. That’s it. So, yes, we are unashamedly pro - free trade.

It is nice that the Labour Party has finally come back from that very far-left position that they took under the Cunliffe and the Little eras, and the Ardern, and they’ve come back into the light on this issue.

This particular free-trade agreement is a very comprehensive free-trade agreement. That’s because in 2017, that was the way it was set up. And we’re really pleased with that—in stark contrast to the EU free-trade agreement, which I think really helps if one is an onion grower, a kiwifruit grower, and my colleague Nicola Grigg so passionately mentioned the fact that there is a family interest in onion growing, and I’m very pleased that she brought that issue up so it didn’t become a story!

But we also should think that, actually, dairy and meat, which are our biggest exports, really have been pushed aside somewhat in the rush to the EU. And I don’t wish to criticise these countries in the EU, because they have had a lifetime of feeling that they are a closed shop, and they are only now starting to find their way through to looking more to free trade. And we should thank them for that and congratulate them on it. But when we get down to what someone can call “feta cheese”, I mean, I have to say, frankly, if your livelihood depends on whether or not you can call feta cheese “feta”, there is a serious problem in the economy. And that’s, you know, obviously, a situation where Greece was very passionate about that. And, you know, good for them for finally getting along and being part of that deal. But, really, come on, let’s think a bit bigger than that; let’s think a bit more—

Karen Chhour: Let’s be ambitious.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: —out in the world. A little bit more ambitious, as has been said tonight. A little bit more thinking about what we could do, not what we can’t do.

And when I look at the foreign investment, direct foreign investment; how utterly important that is to this economy—how utterly important. It shouldn’t just be about planting pine trees. It shouldn’t be about buying farms. What it should be about is putting it into technology. It should be about putting it into science. It should be about growing our economy in a way that hasn’t been done for a long time. What it should be about is saying, you know, “No longer.”

Remember that whole campaign in 2017 about Chinese-sounding names? Remember when the Labour Party ran that campaign? The ACT Party certainly remembers. We certainly remember—we certainly remember that. Going through, having one of their chief advisers—a Mr Salmond—going through looking for people on the property register who had Chinese-sounding names. Oh, thanks very much. What does that say? What does that say to the ethnic diversity quotient that they’re so fascinated about?

By the way, talking about the UK and this free-trade agreement, isn’t it great to see that the Conservative Party in the UK, a party that is not—

Anna Lorck: Oh ho, here we go! Talk about the leaders.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: —fussed on people’s—and here’s Anna Lorck. My word, she certainly can squawk. And let’s have a look at the Conservative Party of the UK. Isn’t it wonderful that for a party that is not fascinated by everyone’s identity, they’re the first party in Britain to have three Prime Ministers who are women, and now the very first Prime Minister of Asian descent? Well, fancy that. And all the time, the Labour Party—they can’t get past the fact that they want to treat people of ethnicities other than the white Anglo-Saxon one as being in need of special help, and of women as having to be helped through on some sort of quota. I think that says volumes.

And, of course, we know that Liz Truss did not have a great time as the Prime Minister, but, unlike Ms Anna Lorck, at least she was the Prime Minister. And I think that she also should be congratulated for working so closely, I’m told by those in the know, with Damien O’Connor to help bring this deal through. And Ms Lorck might think she should laugh at someone who has done that, but, actually, I don’t. And Ms Lorck might find that there’s another seat about to be brought home, too, called Tukituki, which will also come home, because we like bringing things home. And it is so time for a National-led Government, working with our friends in the ACT Party, to make sure that this country does not squander the next three years, six years, nine years, like it squandered under five years of failure under this Government.

ANNA LORCK (Labour—Tukituki): On behalf of the Labour Government, I have the pleasure of commending this bill, the United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement Legislation Bill, to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement Legislation Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 107

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10.

Noes 12

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

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow. Pō mārie.

The House adjourned at 10.01 p.m.