Tuesday, 8 November 2022

TUESDAY, 8 NOVEMBER 2022

TUESDAY, 8 NOVEMBER 2022

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

KARAKIA/PRAYERS

KARAKIA/PRAYERS

SPEAKER: E te Māngai o ngā Anahera Pono e te Tokotoru Tapu, ka tuku whakamoemiti atu mātou mō ngā manaakitanga kua waihotia mai ki runga i a mātou. Ka waiho i ō mātou pānga whaiaro katoa ki te taha, ka mihi mātou ki te Kīngi, me te inoi atu mō te ārahitanga i roto i ō mātou whakaaroarohanga, kia mōhio ai, kia whakaiti ai tā mātou whakahaere i ngā take o te Whare nei, mō te oranga, te maungārongo, me te aroha o Aotearoa. Āmene.

[To the Mouthpiece of the Faithful Angels and to the Holy Trinity, we give thanks for the blessings which have been bestowed on us. Laying aside all personal interests, we acknowledge the King and pray for guidance in our deliberations that we may conduct the affairs of this House with wisdom and humility for the welfare, peace, and compassion of New Zealand. Amen.]

Speaker’s Rulings

Reply to Written Question—Unparliamentary Remark

SPEAKER: Members, it has come to my attention that the reply to written question No. 38016 from the Minister of Health contained an unparliamentary remark directed at Dr Shane Reti. Replies to questions must not contain discreditable references to members or offensive or unparliamentary expressions—Standing Order 396(3). This is not the first reply from the Minister to contain such a remark. As a result, I intend to award Dr Reti five additional supplementary questions to ask of the Minister of Health this week.

If any other further such replies to written questions come to my attention, I will award a larger number of supplementary questions to the National Party to ask of any Minister. A written answer is primarily a matter between the Minister and the member. Where a member considers an answer inadequate or when overdue, I expect the member to follow up with the Minister in the first instance. However, I intend to continue my predecessor’s practice where an answer contains unparliamentary language. In that case, I will intervene as soon as it comes to my attention, because it is not fair to expect a member to try and obtain a reasonable answer in such circumstances.

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

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

SPEAKER: Petitions have been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

CLERK:

Petition of Fiona Green requesting that the House pass legislation requiring government employees to be trained about expressive communication disabilities

petition of Haumoana White requesting that the House urge the NZTA to immediately cease works on the Mt Messenger Bypass and cableway and instead upgrade the existing road.

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

CLERK:

Guardians of the New Zealand Superannuation

annual report 2022

statement of intent 1 July 2022 - 30 June 2027

statement of performance expectations for 2022-23

Kāinga Ora annual report 2021-22

Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment Long-term Insights Briefing, The future of business for Aotearoa New Zealand

Predator Free 2050

annual report 2022

statement of intent 2022-26

statement of performance expectations 2022-23

Reserve Bank of New Zealand

statement of intent 2022-26

statement of performance expectations 2022-23

Te Aka Whai Ora

statement of intent 2022-26

statement of performance expectations 2022-23

Te Whatu Ora

statement of intent 2022-24

Te Pae Tata Interim New Zealand Health Plan

Waka Kotahi and the National Land Transport Fund annual report 2021-22

Te Puna Aonui Executive Board for the Elimination of Family Violence and Sexual Violence strategic intentions 2022-26

Government response to the report of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee on the inquiry into the review of Radio New Zealand Charter

Government response to the report of the Petitions Committee on the petition of Charlotte Abrial

report on non-select departmental appropriations for the year ended 30 June 2022 for the housing portfolio within Vote Housing and Urban Development.

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

CLERK:

Report of the Education and Workforce Committee on the Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Bill

report of the Environment Committee on the emissions budgets published in 2022, and the first emissions reduction plan

report of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee on the petition of Edwina Hughes

reports of the Justice Committee on the

Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill

petition of Sandra Dufty

reports of the Petitions Committee on the

petition of Eathan Stevenson

petition of Neil McDermott

petitions of Carl Smith and Jamie Crook

report of the Primary Production Committee on the briefing on the development of the proposed Circular Energy Farm

report of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee on the Ministry of Transport Long-term Insights Briefing 2022.

SPEAKER: The bills are set down for a second reading. The reports of the Primary Production Committee, the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, and the Environment Committee are all set down for consideration. The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of bills.

CLERK:

Arms (Licence Holders’ Applications for New Licences) Amendment Bill, introduction

Thomas Cawthron Trust Amendment Bill, introduction.

SPEAKER: Those bills are set down for first reading.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Finance

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

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): The strength of the jobs market is continuing to support the New Zealand economy. Last week, Stats New Zealand reported that the unemployment rate remained at a near record low of 3.3 percent in the September quarter. The average hourly wage rose 7.4 percent to $37.86, outpacing the current rate of inflation. We know that many Kiwi families are doing it tough in the face of cost of living pressures, but they do so while in paid work and with wages growing faster than inflation. That helps ease some of the pressure they are under.

Barbara Edmonds: What did the report say about employment growth?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, an extra 35,000 people were employed in the quarter, with more young people and women in jobs. There is now a record high 2.85 million people in work. The participation rate rose to 71.7 percent and the employment rate to 69.3 percent—record highs for both since the series began in 1986.

Barbara Edmonds: What did the Crown accounts released today indicate about the economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, for the three months to the end of September, the operating balance before gains and losses, OBEGAL, recorded a deficit of $2.6 billion. This was a little higher than forecast at Budget 2022 in May. Tax revenue was slightly below expectations, with expenses slightly above forecast. Net debt stood at 19.8 percent of GDP, which was above forecasts due to the impact of market conditions affecting the financial portfolio held by the New Zealand Super Fund in ACC derivatives. If we use the old net core Crown debt measure, it was below forecast. Overall, the Crown accounts show that we are standing up well to what is a highly volatile and uncertain global situation.

Barbara Edmonds: What reports has he seen on the international context and its impact on the economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, New Zealand’s labour market compares very favourably with the countries we usually compare ourselves with. We have the sixth-equal lowest rate of unemployment in the OECD, compared with Australia and the UK in ninth-equal, the US in 13th place, and Canada in 21st-equal place. In terms of employment rates, we rank third in the OECD. New Zealand is in a strong position to deal with the difficult time that the global economy is experiencing. Our economy is nearly 5 percent larger than before COVID, our exports continue to grow, we are seeing an increasing number of tourists returning, and the immigration reset is making a difference to attracting the workers that we need. This is a tough time for many households, but the Government is stepping up to support them.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Does he think that the highly profitable Australian-owned banks, some of which are making $2 billion a year in profit, should be contributing more to the public good, especially given the challenging times with cost of living?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I share the member’s concern about the fact that at a time when many New Zealand households are finding conditions particularly tough, we see very high levels of bank profits. As I have said consistently over recent times, I think that they should look to their social licence to support New Zealanders through this tough time, particularly given those profits.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Has he received any advice on the potential use of an excess profits tax to help the Government support New Zealanders who are struggling to make ends meet?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes, indeed. I have seen the member’s press release in that regard. We know that one of the reasons that the tax take in New Zealand has, until recently, been up is that corporate tax has been up. We do have a slightly higher rate of corporate tax in New Zealand than many other countries do, and banks pay a considerable part of that.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Does he acknowledge that it is the Government’s responsibility to make sure the tax system is fair and ensure that excess profit can be put to supporting the public good, not simply for private gain?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: With respect to the first part of the member’s question, yes, I do accept that. Our job is to make sure that we have a fair and progressive tax system.

Question No. 2—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes, particularly our work to support New Zealand families manage cost of living pressures by improving access to childcare. This policy reverses National’s freeze on the income threshold for childcare eligibility; it means 10,000 more children will be supported, increasing coverage to more than half of New Zealand families. A family with two parents both working 40 hours a week on $26 per hour, with two children under five, will now be eligible for $252 per week from 1 April 2023. This is 10 times the amount those parents would receive under National’s $11 billion tax cut plan. At a time when families are feeling the cost of living spike, we’ve provided targeted support to New Zealanders through these uncertain economic times.

Christopher Luxon: Can she explain to the New Zealand public why, in the middle of a cost of living crisis, her Government is merging TVNZ and Radio New Zealand (RNZ)?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Of course, our cost of living focus is on easing the pressure for New Zealand families, and I reference just one example in the childcare assistance; that is where our focus is. If the member wishes to talk about public service broadcasting, more than happy to do so, but I see that as quite separate from the issue of the cost of living for most families.

Christopher Luxon: Does she agree with Willie Jackson that this merger is “not just about the dollars, dollars, dollars”; it’s about “a change of culture”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I would hope that, across this House, we could agree that New Zealand benefits from having a strong public service broadcasting presence. I’d hope that we could all agree the likes of the ABC and the BBC have demonstrated their value in their respective countries. We’ve had our own model. The unfortunate situation we’re in, and those media sitting in this gallery will know—traditional forms of revenue for TVNZ are in decline. We have recognised that there is an issue, we need to provide greater flexibility for those entities, and that is the solution we’re seeking. It is not in any way deterring us from what is top of mind for New Zealanders at the moment, which is not public service broadcasting; it is the cost of living. I’m fascinated that the member has chosen not to focus on that presently.

Christopher Luxon: Does she think spending $370 million to merge TVNZ and Radio New Zealand, when that is greater than the combined value of both of those entities, is a responsible use of taxpayers’ money?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Two points: one, we already also additionally fund content through New Zealand on Air, and the funding the member has just mentioned consolidates some of that funding. Two, as the revenue declines for TVNZ, unless we find ways to better support them, they will come to the Crown for support. We are trying to get ahead of these issues, ensure strong public broadcasting in New Zealand, and allow them to be as nimble as possible in the changing environment. But, again, over the weekend when we had the opportunity to talk about the thing that was top of mind for us as a party, it was the cost of living. Going into the next election, it will be the cost of living; it will be the economy. The member doesn’t seem to want to talk about his policies in that regard; I am more than happy to talk about ours.

Christopher Luxon: Why, during a cost of living crisis, is she pushing through a media merger that will destroy TVNZ’s commercial model and cost taxpayers $200 million a year, each and every year, for the next 30 years?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Over the last 10 years, TVNZ’s commercial returns have declined by millions of dollars. The member seems to not have noticed that people’s access to what was traditional forms of media such as television has substantially declined.

Christopher Luxon: What’s that got to do with it?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: You question what that’s got to do with it. When people stop watching, it declines their advertising revenue. That means that their commercial viability declines, which means our ability to have public broadcasting declines. Again, the member may not see the problem; that’s because we are the ones facing it. We’ve formulated a solution, but, if you’re asking me what my number one priority in this House is today, it isn’t on this; it is on the cost of living. The member may wish to join me in that regard.

Christopher Luxon: How many extra hospitals beds, extra hip operations, or extra cancer drugs could the Government purchase for $200 million each and every year for the next 30 years?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Half a million mental health sessions for New Zealanders; a 43 percent increase in Pharmac spending—we have moved on health reforms so that there is not a postcode lottery. We fixed the botched roll-out of bowel cancer screening that we were left by that Government. We have improved young people’s access to mental health support. I stand firm on our record. That is the kind of investment we have made, including $7 billion in capital spending for health. That member has no credibility on health spending.

Christopher Luxon: Does she think Kiwis struggling with massive increases in the basics, like food and rent, might question her priorities when she’s willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of their money each and every year on a pointless media merger during a cost of living crisis?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: What those families may wish to know is that that member is promoting an $11 billion tax cut, which predominantly supports those on the top, top incomes. If anyone wants to know National’s record in this regard, we have recently reinstated childcare assistance because the number of children that were supported by it halved after that party got rid of it. If you want to know whether or not you can trust whether the National Party will put in place tax cuts for the wealthiest whilst maintaining health and education, just listen to this statement in 2008. In 2008, National’s goal was to deliver cheaper childcare to parents: “We will keep all existing subsidies.” Two years later, they cut them so they could give a tax break to the wealthiest New Zealanders. You cannot trust National.

Christopher Luxon: Is the TVNZ-RNZ merger, which will cost taxpayers over $6 billion, another good example of the wasteful spending that New Zealanders have come to expect from this Government, which simply doesn’t deliver for them?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member’s numbers are simply incorrect.

David Seymour: What is the purpose of merging RNZ and TVNZ, and what objective measures will New Zealanders be able to look at to know that that purpose has been achieved enough to justify spending hundreds of millions of dollars of their taxpayer money on the merger?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Taxpayer money already goes to our public service broadcasting—number one. Secondly, we need to futureproof these models in a dramatically changed environment. Every New Zealander knows because they are already doing it; they’re accessing their information in different ways. We need to allow our entities to provide that content in those different places.

David Seymour: Point of order. My question was very clear: how will people know that the objectives have been achieved—what measures? And she didn’t come close to addressing that.

SPEAKER: I’m pretty sure there was something else in your question as well.

David Seymour: In fairness, I’m not sure she addressed that either, but, anyway, did the Prime Minister talk to anyone on a long waiting list for early childhood education (ECE) before she decided to increase subsidies for just 3 percent of under-fives?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Over 50 percent of New Zealanders will be eligible to access childcare subsidies. At the same time, we know one of the issues for education generally is that we need to improve ongoing access to those with the skills for the sector. We have done a number of things in that area, including being able to access ECE teachers offshore. And we’ve put over half a billion dollars, over the past few Budgets, on the issue of pay parity to help resolve some of those issues, also.

David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister stand by her finance Minister’s action of reappointing Adrian Orr as Reserve Bank Governor, and, if so, can she tell us to the nearest year when she expects Adrian Orr to return inflation to the 1 to 3 percent target band?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: In answer to the first part of the question: yes, because the Minister has listened to the advice recommended by the Reserve Bank board to reappoint the Reserve Bank Governor.

David Seymour: Is the Prime Minister aware that taxes went up 10.7 percent year on year last year, compared with household costs on average that went up only 7.7 percent, and, if so, when is the Prime Minister going to let Kiwis keep more of their hard-earned money, which is the biggest cost they’re paying right now: her taxes?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Obviously, I refute the last assertion in the member’s question. You can see, from the multitude of policies that we have produced over the past 12 months, our eye is directly on issues around the cost of living—childcare assistance, family tax credit increases, half-price public transport, fuel excise reductions. It is all about making sure that we support New Zealanders through this highly inflationary period that we can see many of those that we compare ourselves to experiencing as well. What we will not do is promote policies that, firstly, do very little in the way of support for those who can least afford this period of time—our low and middle income earners—and that will make inflation worse. And that is all I’ve heard as a policy solution from that side of the House.

Question No. 3—Social Development and Employment

3. STEPH LEWIS (Labour—Whanganui) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: What announcements has she made about making childcare more affordable?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): On Sunday, I joined the Prime Minister in announcing increases to the income thresholds for the childcare assistance subsidy and Out of School Care and Recreation subsidy as well as increases to the Working for Families tax credits. These changes will see childcare made more affordable for over 50 percent of New Zealand families with children, nearly every sole parent in New Zealand becoming eligible for childcare assistance, and 10,000 additional children being afforded the opportunity to learn and thrive in early childhood education and out-of-school care.

Hon Michael Wood: That’s awesome.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: This is a smart policy—thank you—that underlines our Government’s commitment to helping families manage the cost of living.

Steph Lewis: What do these changes respond to?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: The last National Government cut and froze income thresholds—

SPEAKER: Order! The member shouldn’t use supplementaries to attack the Opposition, OK? So just answer the question.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: The changes made by the previous Government saw the number of children supported by these subsidies plummet by half from over 52,000 in 2010 to fewer than 24,000 this year. This created a barrier to work for many parents—usually women—exacerbating workforce shortages and, in some instances, keeping more New Zealanders reliant on a benefit. These changes reverse the previous Government’s freeze, provide more financial support for childcare, and make it easier for parents to take up work. Supporting childcare is good for parents, good for our tamariki, and good for the workforce and economy.

Steph Lewis: What will these changes mean for families?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: There are numerous scenarios, but I’d like to reiterate the one that the Prime Minister used. The policy means a family with two parents, both working 40 hours per week on $26 per hour, with two children under five, who will not have been eligible for childcare assistance now will be eligible for $252 per week from 1 April 2023. We make no apologies for putting families first in ensuring our kids get the opportunity to have the best possible start in education and in life.

Steph Lewis: What are the long-term trends in Government support for childcare?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Last year, we also indexed childcare assistance income thresholds to increases in average wage. Additionally, we’ve also delivered on our manifesto commitments to lift core benefits to historic levels, reinstate the training incentive allowance, allow child support to be passed on to sole parents on top of investments made through the Families Package. This compares to the previous National Government’s $57 million cut from childcare subsidies. I back our track record over National’s any day.

Steph Lewis: What feedback has she seen on the announcement?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I was pleased to read that Whānau Manaaki Kindergarten Association chief executive, Amanda Coulston, has welcomed our announcement. She said—quote—“Back in 2010 there was a freeze on the income threshold, and since then it’s been incredibly hard to actually access the subsidy. … The announcement would alleviate the stress many families faced in terms of prohibitive costs for childcare.”—end quote.

Question No. 4—Finance

4. NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National) to the Minister of Finance: Has the Reserve Bank failed its mandate to keep inflation between 1 percent and 3 percent on average over the medium term, and by what date does he expect inflation to come back within that range?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): As I said when the member asked a very similar question on 18 October, it has been the case since 1989 that it is the Reserve Bank’s independent responsibility to manage price stability. The monetary policy committee of the Reserve Bank has stated that in most instances, it would aim to return inflation to the target mid-point within a one-to-three - year horizon, so therefore it is too early to make a judgment. The monetary policy committee notes that the exact return horizon will vary with each policy position, based on a range of economic considerations. In answer to the second part of the member’s question, making such predictions is extremely difficult in the face of continuing global uncertainty. Bearing this out, there is a range of predictions among retail banks here in New Zealand for when annual Consumers Price Index inflation will return below 3 percent. Those range from late 2023 to the 2024-25 fiscal year. The IMF is forecasting inflation to fall to 3 percent in New Zealand within 2023, and this compares to 2024 for Australia, the UK, the euro area, and across advanced economies.

Nicola Willis: Why won’t he initiate an independent inquiry to establish whether Reserve Bank decisions have worsened the cost of living crisis and inflated bank profits?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, I don’t believe there is sufficient evidence to justify such an inquiry, and one of the reasons I would say that is New Zealand currently has the 10th-lowest rate of inflation among 38 OECD countries.

Nicola Willis: Does he agree with Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr that “for us to have maintained inflation between the 1 to 3 percent target range, we would have had to predict the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine back in early 2020”, and is it acceptable for the governor to wash his hands of any responsibility for domestic inflation?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: With respect to the second part of the member’s question, I think the Reserve Bank as a whole know that their job is—one of their two jobs is price stability. As I noted in my answer to the member’s primary question, the Reserve Bank’s monetary policy committee normally look to a one-to-three - year horizon for the return to the midpoint.

Nicola Willis: Has he seen survey data from the Reserve Bank showing fewer than half of respondents had confidence in the Reserve Bank’s ability to return inflation to the target range by 2024, and does he share their pessimism?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: In answer to the second part of that question, no. What I share is the view, I think, that most members would have, which is that this has been an extraordinary time for central banks all around the world, and—as I noted, again, in my primary answer—the IMF is forecasting inflation to return to 3 percent in 2023, but it would be 2024 for many other countries.

Nicola Willis: Does he think the Reserve Bank’s funding for lending programme has contributed to record bank profitability, and, if not, why not?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: There are many causes of bank profitability. The funding for lending programme, if, indeed, it did have any influence, would be a very, very small part of that equation.

Nicola Willis: When will he respond to the call of every party in Parliament except his own to hold an independent inquiry into the economic response to COVID-19?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As has been stated on a number of occasions by the Prime Minister and the Minister for COVID-19 Response, there will be a full review of the overall Government’s response to COVID, and I am confident and I would expect that that would include the monetary policy response.

Nicola Willis: When?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: A single word question. That will be announced when those terms of reference have been completed, but I do want to say to the member that since 1989, this House has upheld the independence of the Reserve Bank, and I strongly, strongly caution the member about some of the statements that she has been making.

David Seymour: Is it credible for the Reserve Bank Governor to blame the Ukraine war for inflation being over 3 percent when inflation rose over 3 percent in June 2021—eight months before the war broke out?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I don’t believe that the member is characterising the view of the Reserve Bank accurately. If the member chooses to look at the recent Monetary Policy Statements and Financial Stability Reports of the Reserve Bank, he will see a wide range of issues raised for the reason why inflation is where it is.

Question No. 5—Economic and Regional Development

5. TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour) to the Minister for Economic and Regional Development: What announcements has he made about supporting regional economies?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister for Economic and Regional Development): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Last week, the Prime Minister and I opened the Port of Tauranga Rescue Centre. This will futureproof surf lifesaving facilities for what is one of New Zealand’s most popular stretches of coastline. This is one of many community-led projects we’ve invested in up and down the country to ensure our regions have the infrastructure they need to thrive and grow and to boost local economies.

Tāmati Coffey: What benefits will this project have for the people of Tauranga?

Hon STUART NASH: Well, around 150 local people were employed over the course of building this valuable infrastructure, and the benefits will be ongoing not just to the people of Tauranga but to everyone that enjoys the eastern region. This is actually a really innovative community partnership between the local bridge club and the surf club; so they have everyone covered, from grommets to great-grandmothers.

Jamie Strange: What announcements has he made on the Regional Strategic Partnership Fund supporting the aquaculture industry in regional communities?

Hon STUART NASH: Last month I also announced $700,000 loan-funding through the Regional Strategic Partnership Fund towards the Deep Dive Division project to expand its marine servicing operations in Hamilton. Deep Dive uniquely marries commercial diving with scientific solutions that enhance environmental outcomes and investment. This announcement demonstrates the Government’s commitment to New Zealand’s aquaculture industry.

Jamie Strange: What benefits will this investment have?

Hon STUART NASH: Many benefits. This is a strategic partnership with a specialist high-value sector that will create six new full-time jobs across a range of roles. It will allow Deep Dive—the only Māori and Pasifika-owned commercial and scientific dive company—to continue to drive innovation and create opportunities in our regions. That’s this Government’s vision for the regions: to create opportunities, drive innovation, and set up our communities for the future, and that’s what we’re delivering on.

Question No. 6—Corrections

6. TONI SEVERIN (ACT) to the Minister of Corrections: How many of the 7,964 prisoners managed by Corrections in September 2022 were assessed as not meeting English literacy competency standards according to the Literacy and Numeracy for Adults Assessment Tool, and how many prisoners were assessed as not meeting numeracy competency standards using the same tool?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister of Corrections): I am advised that on 30 September 2022, there were 2,175 prisoners who were assessed as being at levels 1 to 3 for English literacy competency standards; 2,415 prisoners were assessed as being at levels 1 to 4 for numeracy competency standards.

Toni Severin: Is the Minster concerned that as of 10 October 2022, just 87 male and 12 female prisoners could be confirmed as enrolled in an intensive literacy programmes?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Corrections, like many others, has faced challenges with COVID-19 and, more recently, staffing shortages. These have limited Corrections’ ability to deliver formal learning programmes in a face-to-face setting.

Simeon Brown: Not the Kelvin we used to know.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Corrections has taken clear action—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Sorry to interrupt. Simeon Brown—a number of out of order interjections; that was one of them, for which you will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Simeon Brown: I withdraw and apologise.

SPEAKER: Sorry for interrupting your answer.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Corrections has taken clear action to mitigate the reduction in formal face-to-face learning by offering other ways people in prison can learn. People in prison can access learning materials and numeracy and literacy materials provided by Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, secure online learning tools, other forms of independent and informal learning, as well as employment- and skills-based opportunities. So while the formal face-to-face stuff was difficult to arrange, there were other ways that Corrections mitigated this.

Toni Severin: Is the Minister concerned that as of 10 October 2022, just 53 male and eight female prisoners could be confirmed as being enrolled in the intensive numeracy programme?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: If the member thinks back to the answer I just gave—that was difficult during COVID, and Corrections mitigated it by providing other ways to learn. For example, people in prison can access learning materials provided by Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, secure online learning tools, other forms of independent informal learning, and employment- and skills-based training. I am advised that Corrections is in the process of increasing delivery of its contracted programmes, including the intensive learning. These programmes are now offered face to face at 11 sites.

Toni Severin: Is it acceptable that on 10 October 2022, Corrections was unaware of the literacy competency of 2,111 prisoners and the numeracy competency of 2,129 prisoners?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Can I just clarify that: is she saying, “was Corrections aware” or “not aware”? Just—

Toni Severin: Unaware.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Was Corrections unaware? Look, the member wrote a written parliamentary question and Corrections answered it.

David Seymour: Point of order. The question was very clear. It was, “Is it acceptable Corrections is unaware?” It is certainly true that the Minister has given that answer in a written parliamentary question—not Corrections, as he just claimed. The question to the Minister today is, “Does he think it’s acceptable?” And I think we have a right to know if the Minister thinks that information is acceptable.

SPEAKER: Yeah, the actual question hasn’t been addressed. Simply saying that Corrections has answered a written question—I think the written question is probably what the supplementary has been based on, so it’s—

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Well, if the member is saying that Corrections was unaware and yet an answer was provided, I’m not sure how she can assert that Corrections was unaware.

SPEAKER: It’s been addressed now.

Question No. 7—Justice

7. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Justice: Is she confident the justice system is delivering justice and offering appropriate support to the victims of crime?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): To the first part of the question, while we are always looking to ensure that we get the overall settings right for the justice system, the member will be aware that the responsibility for convictions and sentencing—that sits with the court. Secondly, to the second part of the question, and as I’ve said time and time again, improving outcomes for victims is one of our main priorities. Again, while there’s always more work to do in this area, I note that the annual funding for the Victims Assistance Scheme has doubled under our Government since 2017.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Why has the $20 million initiative announced by the Government in 2020 to support strangulation victims helped more alleged perpetrators than it has helped victims?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: First, context here: it was this Government that legislated to make non-fatal strangulation a criminal offence to recognise the seriousness of this behaviour in December 2018. We did that; that Government, when they received a Law Commission report in 2016, did not do it. Secondly, when we realised that victims felt comfortable to come forward and they started to file more and more of these types of complaints, we realised that we needed to uplift the system, as well, which resulted in the Budget 2020 Budget bid of $20 million. I think it’s fair to say that while COVID has impacted part of the roll-out, what we continued to do during that period of time is that we invested over $1 million in front-line staff so that they could support victims coming through the system that have suffered from this offence. We expect to see more and more improvements over the course of next year.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I’m just not sure she addressed the actual question that I asked, which was why has the fund supported more perpetrators—or alleged perpetrators—than victims. She said a whole lot of other stuff, but I don’t think she actually addressed that.

SPEAKER: Members can’t expect the exact answer that they’re looking for. In my mind, the Minister has provided enough information to address it, but I will give the member an extra question so he can examine that further.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Thank you very much. What is her response to a Women’s Refuge spokesperson who said, regarding the Government’s strangulation initiative, that “We know that strangulation victims have a seven times greater likelihood of being killed by the same partner, so it’s deeply disturbing to hear that defendants are accessing the fund more commonly than prosecutors are.”?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: To that advocate on behalf of all victims of this type of violence, I would say we absolutely acknowledge that and agree, which is why we, first of all, ensured that the offence was made an offence. Secondly, we uplifted the funding to make sure that those victims of that crime that had not had access to any form of justice prior to them have got the support that is required. Third, I would say that of those three pots of funding, yes, there has been some spent out of the Ministry of Justice, but the primary part of the funding has been fed through Vote Health and Vote Police, which has ensured that there has been an uplift in capacity for those that need the support to bring forward and have the right type of evidence explored and examined in the health sector.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Why have fewer than 50 victims accessed support from the Government’s strangulation initiative when it was supposed to be helping 869 a year since 2020?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: A big part of the portion of the funding was to, first of all, ensure that the front-line people dealing with those complaints, who have not had to deal with them before—medical practitioners, people in the court—understood what the offences were. We have worked on that training—uplifted that skill base. But I will make the point that in 2018, of those that were prosecuted, there was only a 33 percent conviction rate. This year, there has been almost a 50 percent conviction rate as a consequence of the quality of the evidence that is coming before the courts.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Why is she prioritising changing hate speech laws when just in the last nine months, 391 ram raids have created new victims aplenty and victims of serious crime are waiting longer than two years for their cases to be heard under this Government, and shouldn’t those be her priorities?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: Well, with all due respect to the member, on this side of the House, we can have multiple foci. One of the most important ones is ensuring that we acknowledge and accept and learn from those recommendations in the royal commission of inquiry’s recommendations that highlighted that there were real opportunities of harm here in Aotearoa.

Question No. 8—Education (School Operations)

8. MARJA LUBECK (Labour) to the Associate Minister of Education (School Operations): What supports has the Government put in place to assist secondary school students in the lead up to NCEA exams?

Hon JAN TINETTI (Associate Minister of Education (School Operations)): Yesterday marked the beginning of the NCEA exam season, and I’m sure this House will join me in wishing our students the best as they head into their final academic pursuits of the year. The year 2022 has been a tough year faced in education, due to the high numbers of COVID-19 and other winter illnesses placing significant strain on teachers and students. The Government has taken significant steps to help offset this disruption, with provisional Learning Recognition Credits; catch-up learning, tutoring sessions; and tweaks to university entrance and certificate endorsements to reflect the year students have had.

Marja Lubeck: How has the lost learning package supported students whose learning had been disrupted by COVID-19?

Hon JAN TINETTI: Over the last two months, many students in years 7 to 13 across the country have had access to the additional teaching and tutoring to help prepare for these exams. This has included exam preparation, workshops, tutorials, and homework and one-on-one mentoring. So far, over 1,000 schools and kura are delivering tutoring programmes on the ground now, with many more on track to start shortly or early in the new year.

Marja Lubeck: How will students who need additional learning be supported over the summer?

Hon JAN TINETTI: Registrations for the expanded Te Kura—previously known as the Correspondence School—dual tuition summer school opened yesterday, which will enable students to continue to learn and earn credits over summer. We have lifted the cap on Te Kura dual tuition summer school enrolments by 500 places for this summer period. This will allow students in years 11 and 12 who need to achieve NCEA credits to do so.

Marja Lubeck: What support has the Government put in place to support the teaching workforce?

Hon JAN TINETTI: Teaching supply projections have indicated future workforce pressures. The Government is getting ahead of this with targeted recruitment packages for 1,000 additional teachers to ease workload pressures and deliver the lost learning package. We’ve also invested heavily in upskilling the current workforce in maths and literacy teaching where additional support was needed. On behalf of the Government, I’d like to extend our gratitude to our teaching profession for their tireless work to prepare students for their exams in one of the hardest years of the pandemic.

Question No. 9—Immigration

9. ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays) to the Minister of Immigration: Why is the green list not scheduled to be reviewed until mid-2023 when there is significant pressure across the health system due to staff shortages, and does he agree with the chair of Health NZ that an immigration fast-track for overseas nurses would be helpful?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Immigration): In response to the first part of the question, green list applications opened in September of this year only, and, as I’ve previously stated, the Government will continue to monitor progress on implementing the rebalance and the green list settings and we will be prepared to make changes if there is a good case to do so. In response to the second part of the question, I note the full context of the chair of Health New Zealand’s comments, and he said, “The arrangements that we currently have are proving to generate hundreds of new nurse opportunities for us.”, and “We’re making good progress in attracting international nurses.”, and, finally, “We’re making good progress on it.” You know, these workforce problems that we have, and they’re huge, not just nurses but across the board, were caused by years of neglect. So we are getting on with the job, across domestic workforce training and across our immigration settings, to deal with that challenge through practical policies. No level of grand statements about global workforce shortages, which every country around the world is experiencing, will change the situation, but our policies such as the resident visa 2021 (RV21), which have given residence to over 3,600 healthcare workers, will make a difference. The accredited employer work visa scheme, through which we’ve approved 1,067 healthcare workers for visas, including 468 nurses, will make a difference. So we recognise these challenges but we’re working with the sector to deal with them in a meaningful way.

Erica Stanford: In light of that answer, does he consider it a good case to make changes to the green list when last week 97 elderly and vulnerable residents of the Mercy Parklands aged-care home were told they would have to leave the facility as it was closing due to a lack of nurses, bringing the number of closed aged-care residential hospital beds this year to 1,140 because of the lack of nurses?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I acknowledge those particular challenges in the aged-care sector, and that’s why we’re working on both domestic workforce issues, including ensuring that those people have decent pay and conditions to remain in the sector, and through our immigration settings. But, as we have canvassed in this House previously, the simplistic solutions that the member puts up will potentially be counter-productive in this area. One of the key bits of information that we are told by the aged-care sector is in fact that residency pathways can be particularly challenging for that sector while there remains a wage differential between the aged-care sector and other forms of nursing and care.

Erica Stanford: Can he explain why a civil engineering technician with a level 6 diploma, no work experience, and no salary requirements above minimum wage can apply for residence immediately when a fully qualified nurse, who saves lives, has to wait two years?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: What I can comment on is the fact that the green list process that we have set up provides all 13 occupational categories of nurses with a simplified two-year pathway to gaining residency, which is a simpler and faster pathway than was ever the case under the previous Government. In September alone, 407 nurses based offshore were approved for registration in New Zealand. We acknowledge that there are challenges to work on in this sector, but our policies are resulting in hundreds of nurses every month being added to this workforce.

Erica Stanford: Can the Minister name just one health organisation who agrees with the Government’s position of not placing nurses on the immediate pathway to residence?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: That will be for those organisations themselves to express their view on it, but I do know that health organisations right across the country support our Government’s focus on investing in the health sector. I know they support our Government’s focus on giving huge numbers of health workers residency through RV21 and they support our Government’s ongoing focus on lifting the pay and conditions of workers in that sector, something that that Government didn’t do over nine years, which is part of the reason why we have a mess to clean up now.

Question No. 10—Justice

10. ANAHILA KANONGATA‘A-SUISUIKI (Labour) to the Minister of Justice: What changes will the Government progress to the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): On 30 October, I announced that local communities will be given greater powers to reduce alcohol harm. When the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act was introduced by the National Government, it aimed to ensure the safe and reasonable sale and consumption of alcohol. But the Act hadn’t worked as intended, creating a system that leaves communities struggling in silence in their fight against the powerful alcohol industry. We want to tilt the balance back to communities, and I intend on introducing a bill proposing procedural changes to the alcohol licensing process this year, with the aim of passing it into law by mid - next year.

Anahila Kanongata‘a-Suisuiki: What amendments are being made to the local alcohol policy process?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: We will amend the Act to remove the appeal process for local alcohol policies whilst retaining the avenues for judicial review. The current system is costing councils and ratepayers millions of dollars in legal fees, as alcohol companies and supermarkets have thwarted efforts by local councils to limit the sale of alcohol in their communities. As at May 2022, 86 percent of provisional local alcohol policies have been appealed by supermarkets, and 73 percent by bottle stores. Five councils, including the four largest authorities—accounting for half of the total population—have halted or completely abandoned their efforts to implement local alcohol policies due to this imbalance.

Anahila Kanongata‘a-Suisuiki: What other changes to alcohol licensing procedures are being considered?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: The Government is also looking to amend rules around the public’s ability to object to a new or renewed alcohol licence application and how objectors can make their case at a licensing hearing. I’ve heard loud and clear that this part of the Act isn’t working. The current process is too formal, with some community groups saying they’ve felt intimidated and harassed while under cross examination by highly experienced lawyers representing the interests of those in the alcohol industry. It was always envisaged that people would have the opportunity to be heard when it comes to how alcohol is sold locally, and we intend to make changes to ensure that that is indeed the case.

Anahila Kanongata‘a-Suisuiki: What reactions has she seen to the announcement?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I’ve heard a range of positive reactions to the announcement, including from Alcohol Healthwatch executive director Dr Nicki Jackson, who said: “Councils have told us that this is one thing that is really preventing them from putting good policies in place. The appeals process has been totally broken and it needs to be fixed.” Māngere-Ōtāhuhu local board member Nick Bakulich said: “It’s hard not to get a bit emotional about this. This particular move will empower people to stand up to the alcohol industry.” And my good mate Chlöe Swarbrick said she was “stoked” by the Government’s decision and that “It’s restoring local democracy by removing the special appeals processes abused by corporations.”

Question No. 11—Education

11. CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central) to the Minister of Education: Will the Government lead tripartite conversations between this country’s universities, the Ministry of Education, and the Tertiary Education Union to break the impasse on wages and resultant strike action; if not, why not?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m certainly aware of the level of stress that so many New Zealanders are operating under—including our valued tertiary education workforce—given the ongoing impacts of global inflation and the COVID-19 pandemic. The universities themselves are not supportive of a tripartite meeting. As I have said to the Tertiary Education Union, I don’t consider it would be either effective or constructive for me to try and convene a tripartite meeting where the employer party was an unwilling participant.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Can the Minister identify the most precarious academic workers in our universities, and what their typical pay and conditions are?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I am not the employer of those staff; that is a matter for the institutions themselves.

Chlöe Swarbrick: I seek leave to table the precarious academic work report by New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations, Tertiary Education Action Group Aotearoa, and Tertiary Education Union.

SPEAKER: Is that available publicly?

Chlöe Swarbrick: It’s very hard to find; I just attempted to google it.

SPEAKER: I think the fact that something’s hard to find doesn’t make it not public.

Chlöe Swarbrick: May I seek leave to table it, for the sake of—

SPEAKER: Well, if you know it’s public, then no.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Supplementary, then. Has the Minister sought any advice on changes to the funding model for our tertiary education sector?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The main complaint that I’ve heard from most tertiary education organisations isn’t about the funding mechanism but about the quantity of funding that they would like to have. That, of course, is a matter for Budget processes. We have changed the funding mechanism for vocational education and we are certainly open to having conversations with other parts of the tertiary sector—including the universities—about what a different funding model in the future might look like.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Will the Minister, then, step in to help resolve issues at Auckland University of Technology, or is he comfortable with the proposed 250 job losses and the closure of its early childhood centre?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: In answer to the second part of the question: that’s not a matter for me to have a view on. Tertiary education organisations—universities in particular—are guaranteed by law their institutional autonomy.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Does the Minister agree with the statement of 2001 Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association president, Chris Hipkins, who said, “We’ve had enough of broken promises by politicians. It’s time for the Labour Government to put their money where their mouth was before the election. Ministers, the buck stops here, and 400,000 students are standing by.”

SPEAKER: In so far as the Minister is responsible.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Well, what an insightful contribution that was! Time has moved on.

Question No. 12—Police

12. Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa) to the Minister of Police: Does he stand by his statement, “the majority of the people undertaking this type of offending are not people who are affiliated with gangs”; if so, has he seen reports that young people involved in ram raids are stealing for gangsters?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): In answer to the first part of the question, yes. In answer to the second part of the question, I have seen recent media reports suggesting that, including some from the member himself. While acknowledging that there will undoubtedly be some anecdotal occasions where gangs come into possession of stolen goods that have been obtained through ram raids, police continue to advise me that there is little evidence that this type of offending is being orchestrated by the gangs.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Is he aware that 60 percent of ram raiders identified by police in the Waikato were under 15, many of whom are now working with gangs, and does this demonstrate the Government’s failure to deal with the grip that gangs have on young New Zealanders?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: In answer to the first part of the question, I’m absolutely aware of the age profile of young offenders. Some of the young offenders involved are actually even younger than that—are tragically young, in fact. Some haven’t even made it into double digits, and that is something that we should all be very concerned about. In terms of whether there are formal links with gangs, there will be some debate about what comes first: the offending or the link to gangs. There is some anecdotal evidence, for example, that the young offenders may have been selling the wares that they obtain through ram raids to gangs. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the gangs themselves are the ones orchestrating the offending.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Is he confident that the clear link between ram raiders and gangsters won’t lead to a further explosion in gang numbers when there has already been a 50 percent increase in gang members under this soft-on-crime Government’s watch?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: We have been looking very closely at the evidence around what could lead young offenders to going into gangs. One of them is more custodial sentences. There is a very clear chain of evidence that the tough-on-crime type of rhetoric the member espouses actually leads more young people into gangs rather than back on to the straight and narrow.

Hon Mark Mitchell: What is his response to a young ram raider who said they are stealing to order for more established criminals like outlaw motorcycle gangs, and does he accept now that organised criminal activity is heavily influencing the tsunami of youth offending?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As I indicated before, I don’t make Government policy decisions based on anecdote.

Urgency

Urgency

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I move, That urgency be accorded the first reading and referral to select committee of the Arms (Licence Holders’ Applications for New Licences) Amendment Bill.

This is a technical urgency. The bill was introduced last Thursday, 3 November, and it was also circulated to other parties last week. Had last Thursday been a House sitting day, the bill would be available for first reading today. Unfortunately, the House was not sitting last week and hence urgency is required in order to provide for a first reading today. We want to do the first reading today in order to allow for a very short select committee and for this bill to be passed before the end of the year, to give certainty to firearms licence holders.

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

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Arms (Licence Holders’ Applications for New Licences) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): I present a legislative statement on the Arms (Licence Holders’ Applications for New Licences) Amendment Bill.

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

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I move, That the Arms (Licence Holders’ Applications for New Licences) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 17 November 2022 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

This is a classic case of where, sometimes, laws passed by this Parliament can have a very, very long tail in terms of the effects that they have. Back in 1992, the House made the decision to move from lifetime firearms licences to 10-year firearms licences. The result of that is that every 10 years we have seen a surge or a peak in the number of firearms licence holders applying to have their gun licences renewed. That’s always been a challenge. It’s always resulted in police having to significantly increase the resources to process those applications.

That challenge, though, has been compounded by changes to the licence process in response to the findings of the royal commission of inquiry, and that’s included transferring responsibility for recording information to the applicant and referees. That’s led to further delays through more incomplete applications, sometimes due to the applicant or the referees not fulfilling their obligations.

There is also, of course, the issue that many licence holders don’t apply for their licence to be renewed until relatively close to when it expires. And we did see evidence back in 1992 that whilst there was a reasonable period of time allowed for people to apply for their licences to be renewed, many didn’t do so until relatively late in that period of time, and that does create a significant peak in applications every 10 years. So, one way or the other, we have to accept that we are going to see quite a significant peak in licence applications and that is going to create uncertainty for licence holders because, at the moment, even if someone applies for their licence to be renewed before it’s expired, unless that licence is processed very, very quickly, they will find themselves in a position where they are unlawfully still in possession of firearms.

Now, that’s an unacceptable situation because it will generally be through no fault of their own—they’ve done the right thing, they have been legal, they have held their firearms, they’ve held a firearms licence, and they have applied for the licence to be renewed. This law change is relatively simple. It means that if someone has applied for their licence to be renewed—even once their licence has expired—as long as there is an application in the process, then their expired licence will continue to be valid. That will mean that they don’t have to transfer their firearms into the possession of someone else because their licence has expired and they are in no position to do anything about that.

There are a couple of other very minor changes that this bill makes. It ensures that the new licence will be valid from the point in which it is issued, not from the point in which the last licence expired. That will help us to smooth out the curve and it will mean that, hopefully, over this next licence renewal period, we will be able to smooth that out so we won’t continue to have these peaks every 10 years in the way that we have previously. I think that that will be a welcome thing.

Similarly, we’ve made a change to the renewal of licences for dealers so that they will also come into effect from the date in which they are issued, rather than the date that the previous licence expired. And there is a further minor change to allow for more of this process around notices to be transacted electronically, basically bringing this law into the 21st century. I note that the Arms Act itself in total will be reviewed in 2026-27. So that is an opportunity for people to raise any further issues around these matters as they choose to do so, by which point we should be through the peak of licence application renewals.

I want to, at this point, thank the firearms licence or gun-owning community for their perseverance and their patience with this. I accept that many have been operating in good faith. In fact, the vast majority have been operating in good faith to ensure that they comply with the legal requirements that are placed on them. Where their licences have expired, it has been through no fault of their own. This law change will give them certainty.

I want to thank the members across the House who have advocated for this change. I think there’s probably some lessons for the House—dating right the way back to 1992 when the law change was first made—about how these sorts of changes could be made in a smoother way to avoid these kind of peaks in the future. I’m very pleased that we’ve found a solution that will be an enduring solution and that should avoid these sorts of peaks emerging again in the future, and, therefore, should mean that we can get firearms licence renewal applications on to a much more timely footing.

Finally, I want to provide reassurance for those who have been waiting some time for their licences to be renewed: the police have put significant extra resource into clearing the backlog of firearms licence renewal applications. They are making good progress there. I continue to get regular reports from them on that. I’ll continue to monitor that closely to see if we can get that backlog cleared as quickly as we can. This law change will actually help in clearing the backlog because it will mean that police can make sensible decisions about triaging licence renewal applications, and, therefore, try to get people a more timely response.

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

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you, Mr Speaker. We stand in support of the Arms (Licence Holders’ Applications for New Licences) Amendment Bill because it’s a pragmatic and common-sense step towards fixing a problem that should have been dealt with, actually, a fair time ago. In fact, back in March 2021, we wrote to the Minister at the time, Poto Williams, asking for these types of changes to be made, because what had happened was that the Government, in their rush to move through legislation and reform, hadn’t anticipated or thought about the impact that it was actually going to have on the system.

The one thing that I would say to the Minister is that the police are having to scramble and they’re having to dedicate additional resource for firearms-vetting officers, and the massive resource that it takes to try to correct a backlog of, I think, about 9,000 applications, 2,000 of which are genuine firearms licence holders who actually started breaking the law, in terms of the Arms Act, through no fault of their own—

Nicole McKee: It’s 4,000 now, Mark.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: It’s 4,000, is it? Nicole McKee was saying 4,000, through no fault of their own. Quite simply, they had engaged in the process in a legal way, taking their responsibilities seriously, and the system had let them down. Their licence had expired. They were then faced with the stress of realising that they were in breach of the Arms Act. So the Government themselves, with their own changes, have put them in this awful position, where they’re now in breach of the Arms Act. And what were they going to do with their firearms? They had to try and find, and come up with, solutions to deal with that problem, which is stressful in itself. So they’ve created a real mess here.

I want to acknowledge our firearms community. I want to acknowledge our hunting community. I was at the Sika Show at Mystery Creek, a couple of weeks ago, for the weekend. It was an outstanding show. It was well attended. It was well and truly a family event. There were fantastic exhibitors there. There were some amazing examples of conservation going on, with the protection of kiwi, with the trapping and shooting and removal of pests like stoats, rabbits, and possums. It was nice to get in amongst our firearms community. The one thing they highlighted was that when the Green Party held the conservation portfolio, one thing it did that was very effective was that it brought them together; they actually started working together on a plan, and they’ve become a very effective and a very strong group now in terms of working on conservation and making sure that the interests of our firearms community are actually advanced. And that’s a good thing.

In this House, for too long, we’ve seen MPs stand up and attack them. For me, in the police portfolio, let’s not focus on our law-abiding firearms community. Yep, we all acknowledge that you get the odd rotten apple in a barrel and that you need to have a process so that you can identify those—there’s no problem with that—but, if you actually want to have a look at where all the rotten apples are, go over and have a look at organised crime and gangs. That’s where the real issue lies. All the firearms violence that we see in this country has got nothing to do with our hunting community or our firearms community or our gun clubs. It has everything to do with gang members and gangsters that procure illegal weapons, carry them, and are prepared to use them. So the focus needs to return there and away from our firearms community. I want to apologise to them because—actually, I know that Nicole McKee has been a very strong advocate for this as well—we wanted to see this change made a long time ago. Simeon Brown, my predecessor, wrote to the Minister back in March 2021, asking for this to change, because we could see that there was a backlog and a pipeline being formed because of the changes that were made.

Coming back to the police, it’s actually unfair on our police service and those in charge of trying to operationalise the changes that were made in this House, when they have to look around their service, which is stretched to breaking point at the moment because they are having to deal with a tsunami in the rise of serious criminal offending and youth and juvenile offending—a 50 percent increase in gang numbers—and yet they’re told they’re going to have to find more resource to put into this to start processing licences. So it’s actually unfair on them too, in terms of what is going on currently. So, although we do support this, and we want to—and, by the way, the Government wants to expedite this bill and take it under urgency. Of course we support that. We want to get this bill through as quickly as possible so that our legal firearms licence holders are not put in the invidious position where they engage in a system in good faith, to try to have their licence renewed, it goes past the expiry date, and all of a sudden they are in breach of the Arms Act. So we want to see this bill passed as quickly as we can.

Just very quickly—the Minister outlined what the bill does, and it’s fairly simple—if a licensed firearms licence holder is coming up to the expiry date, they’ve applied for a renewal, they’ve engaged in the process, and it goes past the expiry date of their licence, their licence will, quite simply, remain current, up until the point that that renewal is made. And then, from the point of the renewal, that will be the starting date that the licence becomes valid. The bill also covers licensed arms dealers as well, in terms of making sure that they get the same fair treatment that firearms licence holders get. So it is a good bill; we do support it. It’s in the House way too late. There should have been action taken on this back in 2021, when my friend and colleague Simeon Brown wrote to the Minister asking for changes to be made and highlighting the issue. Way too late; way too slow. I’m pretty sure that Nicole McKee has done the same thing.

The other thing that I found very interesting at the Sika expo was that there was no Labour stand or Green stand. There were no members there at all. There was no one there. I was there for the entire weekend. I was lucky enough to host our leader, Chris Luxon, on the Saturday, with very, very positive engagement. I expected the Government party to actually have at least some presence there, to listen to a massive sector in New Zealand that have got a strong voice and have got solutions. And, by the way, like I said—I’m going to say it again—the conservation side of it: I walked away completely, totally blown away. The amount of kids that are engaged in it, and the amount of kids that are taking ownership of it—they’re running their own Predator Free programmes all around the country. It was hugely encouraging in terms of seeing that engagement and seeing them wanting to drive us towards being predator free, which is something that we all want.

So I am very happy to stand in support of this bill. I sit on the Justice Committee. I’m sure that we will all work together to get this through the committee process as quickly as possible and back into this House and passed. Thank you.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Arms Act, back in 1983, set out the regulatory requirements for the treatment of firearms and those in possession of those firearms. But what has occurred is demand for new firearm licences is currently outstripping the police’s ability to process those applications and issue subsequent licences before the previous licence expires. This problem is expected to get worse given the high number of licenses that are due to expire shortly. This bill is an important step to make sure that the Act is amended to allow those firearm licence holders to continue to be in force where there is an application in train for a subsequent licence that has been made but cannot be processed in time for that expiry of the previous licence.

I think it’s important to note that the licensing cycle is a legacy of the 1992 change to the Act which terminated the lifelong holding of a licence. Instead of it being a lifetime licence and required for firearm owners to regularly reapply, it was put into a 10-year period. No provision was made to stagger this approach, which has resulted in the 10-year cycle of a sudden wave of renewals being required to be done. So this means the current demand for new firearms licence applications is currently outstripping police’s capacity to process. Approximately, at the moment, there are 9,000 applications in the pipeline at the low point of the demand cycle, with approximately 2,000 applicants holding an expired licence while waiting to be processed. Police anticipate that the demand for new licences is going to increase rapidly as they ramp up, and that’s why it’s important to get this legislation passed in order to provide for those in the transitional space. It’s unfortunate that no provision was made to stagger this approach, which has resulted in peaks and troughs through the demand cycle.

It’s important to note that, on top of the cyclical issue that I’ve already identified, there are also additional pressures on police in order to process licences in a timely and well-considered manner. Firstly, it’s the finding of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Attack on Christchurch Mosques on March 15th—so those changes to licences in response to the royal commission, including increased checks, transferring responsibility of reporting information, has also led to delays. Secondly, constraints within the Act—the requirement for firearms licence holders to apply for replacement licences before their licence expires. Thirdly, flow on from COVID-19 and the inability to process applications—and at this point, it’s important to note that this bill also makes minor technical amendments that enable for email or electronic communication to take place, when previously they weren’t, in order to streamline that process. Also what’s happened in that space, the last point I’ll mention, is reduced vetting capability has had an impact which has resulted in a bottleneck.

I’d like to conclude by acknowledging the firearms community and the concerns that they have about the impact of delays upon them. The firearms community has been understandably concerned about the impact on their lawful status in shooting activities if their licence expires prior to police deciding on their application for a new licence. These delays have had a direct impact on those who need licences for their work, for their business, and it has also placed those with collections of pistols, prohibited firearms, and restricted weapons in a position where they must continue to hold their collections unlawfully, as an alternative storage arrangement may not always be readily available for them.

It’s also important to note in this space that the Act itself will be subject to a statutory review in 2026, 2027.

In conclusion, I look forward to receiving submissions at the Justice Committee. I look forward to progressing this legislation as quickly as possible in order to make the transition to a new model that runs not on a cyclical basis more effective, not only for firearms licence holders but for all New Zealanders who want to live in a community which is safe and protected and working under a safe space and also to enable those in the police service to be able to do their job as they’re required to do. I commend it to the House.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you for the opportunity to take a call on the Arms (Licence Holders’ Applications for New Licences) Amendment Bill. What we’ve heard from the members on the other side of the House is: “Not our fault, not our fault; don’t look at us, don’t look at us.” I’m sick and tired of hearing people on the other side of the House blame other people for problems that we’re facing today. These guys have been in power for five long years—five years of failure—and they keep blaming other people for their problems.

Today, I think, is one of the worst. I mean, we’ve heard about the potholes—it’s National’s fault that there’s potholes on the road! The health system—well, it’s National’s fault we don’t have enough nurses! Well, now it’s because of something which happened in 1992—the year after I was born—that we’re not processing licences fast enough today and we have to bring this legislation to the House. That is just absolutely appalling, and the tens of thousands of firearms licence holders up and down this country, who I know are listening and watching this very, very closely, because this is important to them, they will be laughing at their TVs, laughing at their radios, laughing at their online streaming—however they’re listening today—and saying what a joke this Government is. The only thing they’re saying, as well, is “Thank goodness they’ve finally listened!”, because it’s taken them years—years and years—to actually come to the realisation that. Because of their failure to actually make sure that the police are able to process licences quickly enough, they’ve had to come with a fix to actually get this sorted.

Back in 1992, the good legislators of this Parliament would never have thought that a situation would arise where there would be such an incompetent Government who couldn’t actually process licences that quickly, or that slowly. They never would have anticipated such an incompetent Government back in 1992 but, lo and behold, we have one. We have the most incompetent Government that New Zealanders have ever had. They can’t even process firearms licences for licensed firearms holders. That’s embarrassing; it’s frankly embarrassing. As the police spokesperson last year, I had these people getting in touch with me on the phone, messaging me on Facebook, emailing me and saying, “I don’t know what to do; I’ve got these guns, I’ve got my licence, I’ve got my application in, I now have to find somewhere else to store these guns. I don’t have somewhere else I can store these guns. Do I break the law? Do I try and find some other solution?” And they’ve been put in these precarious situations. And the reason why they find that so difficult is because these people are law-abiding firearms licence holders. They want to follow the law. They pride themselves in following the law. These are upstanding members—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: All right, Mr Brown, you can start talking about that law now. You’ve had four minutes.

SIMEON BROWN: —and this law, which they have been forced to break by this Government’s incompetence—this bill is seeking to finally fix their problem and this significant, serious issue that these people have been put in, and I just want to tell the House how hard it has been for these people—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, you can tell them about the bill now, please.

SIMEON BROWN: Well, the bill is addressing the issue that these people have been facing because of the incompetence of this Government—the rank incompetence of this Government—but, thankfully, this bill is here to address this issue.

And so this bill does make some small amendments to ensure that, if someone gets their licence application in prior to their licence expiring, they will no longer have to go through that terribly, terribly stressful and difficult position where they had to find where they would place their guns in the meantime—at incredible cost or incredible stress or, in some cases, without the actual ability to do that. So thank goodness this Government has finally listened!

But what we haven’t heard from the members on the other side is—they haven’t actually addressed the real issue. This is a fix, and, yes, we support this because it actually addresses and makes sure that there is a fix. But it doesn’t address the real issue, which is that the police are taking so long to actually process these licences in the first place. And this is what this Government does: it talks a big game. But, actually, right across public services in New Zealand, public services are going backwards; processes are taking longer. You can’t get on the phone and have a conversation with someone in a decent period of time. These are the real issues, which this piece of legislation doesn’t actually address. I looked through the piece of legislation. It doesn’t seek to actually address the time frames it’s taking for New Zealanders—law-abiding firearms licence holders—to actually have those issues addressed.

I tell you what, I know submitters will be coming to the select committee and they will be telling the select committee exactly about those problems—the amount of months and months and months that they’ve been waiting—and they will tell the select committee. They will say, “Yes, this fixes”—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes, Mr Brown. You can anticipate what the submitters will tell us, but what you’re going to tell us about is the bill, because if I have to ask you again, you’ll be finishing this presentation.

SIMEON BROWN: Well, the issue here is that this bill doesn’t address the issue, which is the actual delay in the processing, and that is going to be a serious issue, which, actually, I think needs to be looked into in select committee. And I’m more than happy to wait to look at those submissions, and I’m sure they’ll be very interesting.

But the other issue that this bill doesn’t actually address is that this Government has failed to actually go after the real target when it comes to firearms in New Zealand. They’ve spent a lot of time focused on law-abiding firearms licence holders in New Zealand—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you—I’ve invited you now several times to actually address the bill. You’ve now again spoken about what’s not here, so—

SIMEON BROWN: Point of order.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m now going to, Mr Brown—

SIMEON BROWN: Point of order.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Brown, I’ve warned you several times. You’ve now not addressed what’s in the bill, despite being asked. Your speech is now over. I’m now going to call the next speaker.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Point of order. This is a first reading speech, and it’s an ability to talk about the bill and talk about what we, as the National Party, want in the bill and what we see as problems in the bill. It’s a broad-ranging debate about the piece of legislation. I’ve been raising issues very relevant to what this bill is seeking to address.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Right, and you have done that. You did that for six minutes, and then I asked you several times. Having done that, you’ve now gone back to discussing all issues other than what’s in the bill. So your speech is over, Mr Brown. The next speaker is Vanushi Walters.

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Point of order. Sir, I do ask you to reflect on the fact that you allowed members opposite to go back as far as 1992 in relation to background issues, vaguely connected, at best, in relation to the bill, and that, of course, is perfectly appropriate, because, as has been noted, it is the first reading speech environment. I think it’s reasonable to anticipate what kind of submissions might be made, albeit that obviously they can’t speak to those exactly as to the content, being in the future. But I’d just ask you to reflect on the move you’ve made, particularly from a point of view of consistency across the House, again, noting the nature of a first reading speech in responding to some of those historical issues.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m pleased, Mr Penk, that you did mention the relevance of building on the 1992 provisions. So the reality of it—and I’m pretty generous about it— was the four minutes the member had where he hadn’t actually addressed the bill at that stage. I think that’s pretty generous, particularly when he was actually referring to what the people at home might have liked to see. So the decision will stand.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will speak to the reasons for this bill today. Other speakers have spoken to those 1992 changes, which are part of the reasons why we have this bill in place. But, actually, as Mr Brown pointed to, there are other reasons as well, including the flow-on from the COVID-19 impacts and the inability to process applications—in particular, the face-to-face interviews, which were required as part of the vetting process. And what we’ve seen recently is the flow-on effects from that, coupled with what we saw from the 1992 changes, which were, of course, those 10-year periods for renewal. In addition, there has, in sequence, been the reduction in vetting capability, and that’s partially due to the employment conditions for the vetting staff—which have changed—as well as a constrained labour market, in particular in this space. So it is the conflation of those multiple issues that has led to the Minister bringing this bill to the House now.

Because this is a Government that is responsive to that conflation of the set of issues; this is a Government that is responding to the calls from our sectors who use guns very lawfully in our community. My colleague Mark Mitchell spoke very well about that and I absolutely agree wholeheartedly that this is a tool, in many ways, for conservation protection, and there are a lot of groups out there using them in very responsible ways. Again, this is an area where we need some action; we are responding.

My colleagues in the Justice Committee will know me as a person who does, at times, raise the question about whether we ought to be putting sunset clauses in relation to certain clauses such as this bill puts forward, given it appears to be an interim measure while we clear the backlog. However, as colleagues have noted, there will be a statutory review in 2026-27. And even if we were to put in a sunset clause, it will possibly go outside the period of that review.

So I believe it’s entirely appropriate that we’ve landed where we have, but I am a member of the Justice Committee and I do look forward to hearing from community members with all views on this bill. I commend it to the House.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a technical bill. It is one, though, as others have mentioned, that does raise some certain concerns for us as the Green Party. It is one that addresses existing issues that are real, which is the backlog in applications for gun licence renewals. That has come about, in part, over the past 2½ years, due to COVID issues, and we do want to hold that. A face-to-face aspect to this licensing system is important, and has been the cause of delays, in a lot of cases; that’s understandable. But it is one where we do wonder, as my friend who has just resumed her seat, Vanushi Walters, has raised, whether there is a need for a sunset clause. We do wonder if renewing or allowing extension of licence holder applications without that process needs to be something that happens only now. We want to continue to uphold the rule of law while people are holding a licence and have been validly waiting for their renewal process to happen, but one that we don’t want to allow going forward, because things like the face-to-face review process are important.

It is reassuring that there is a review coming up. It’s also reassuring to know that the work programme for the Government on gun control is continuing. We have had some good progress on Green Party kaupapa when it comes to things like banning semi-automatic gun ownership in response to the Christchurch terror attack. We’ve had progress when it comes to making gun licence applications and that process but also the threshold for that process more stringent. That is the direction that the Green Party would continue to encourage the Government to go in, rather than to allow this bill to form a foundation where we make it more lax. There is a valid need for renewals to go through a proper process, and so the delay and the backlog remains concerning for us. But to allow those licences to lapse without a legislative safeguard of the rules-based process would also be wrong, and probably more detrimental, which is where the balance lies for us in supporting this bill, to allow those licence holders to remain within the law, and for the Government to continue to process them with some of those high-level aspects to the process, like the face-to-face interviews. But the review, really, is where this lies for us. It will need to be something that’s reviewed; it can’t be that we just allow lapsed licences to continue.

Having said all of that, it is a technical thing. It is for people who are already in the system, who have already made their application for a renewal, and we know that those applications will, in fact, be processed. We continue to support the Government and encourage the Government to look harder at the process of obtaining gun licences to make the community more safe and to make it harder and harder for gun licences to be issued where they should not be issued, and to keep us all safe from gun violence. Thank you.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand on behalf of the ACT Party to talk to the Arms (Licence Holders’ Applications for New Licences) Amendment Bill. I support this bill, along with the ACT Party and, I suspect, a large number of licensed firearms holders who have been caught up in the delays, including dealers.

This has been a long time coming, and my colleague from across the way—Mark Mitchell—has already spoken of a letter that was written back in March 2021. When I was with the Council of Licensed Firearms Owners, we wrote a letter in February of 2021. I actually wrote a letter to the Minister for COVID-19 Response back in September 2021, asking for an extension under COVID rules. I wrote again, to the former Minister of Police, on 6 October 2021, and, again, to the new Minister of Police, on 11 August 2022—this year. It’s nice to finally see an acknowledgment of what the licensed firearms owners, the legal firearm-owning community, have been going through and to see a piece of legislation—I never thought I’d say it, but, actually, I’m going to support an arms amendment bill that’s going through this House. I never thought I’d say that, but this is a good one, and it’s something that we do need to support.

I just want to touch on some things that were said by other members in this House, and I will go to a Green Party member who spoke about the sunset clause and a need for it. The whole reason why there’s no sunset clause within this bill is because the peak of firearms licensing—the numbers that are going to come through—will actually be in 2026. It’s not happening right now. It’s starting to increase now and it will peak in 2026, with an estimated 40,000 people seeking to renew their licences in that year alone. The way that this bell curve works is that from this year, 2022, onwards to 2026, it will gradually increase each year, and then by 2026, it’s reached its peak and it will start to come down again in 2027 and 2028.

The whole idea of this bill is to be able to flatten that curve over a period of time, and it will not happen in just a few years. It will take decades to be able to flatten that curve, and the 2026-27 review that is going to happen was something that this House had all agreed to when they put through their urgent laws back in 2020. They said then that we would have a review to see how it’s going, so that was the standard. That was always going to happen, and this has nothing to do with it.

I’ve heard people talk about the delays that have happened since the 1992 regulations, and I’d just like to put some of this into some proper context for everybody. We used to have lifetime licences. In 1992, we then moved to a 10-year licensing system, and the way it operated back then was that people were automatically moved in alphabetical order on to a 10-year licence. But it was happening so slowly that it was decided to just move everybody en masse, and that’s why we’ll have such a massive big peak in 2026. Of course, it happened again in 2006 and 2016, and we’re expecting it in 2026. It’s been exacerbated by the fact that with the arms law amendment changes made in 2020, we’ve now introduced five-year licensing for new licence applicants. That started in 2021, meaning that they are also going to come up for their first renewal in 2026, adding to the 40,000 that are already going to be implicated at that time.

I thought that this was quite an interesting concept that we needed to show everyone, because I’ve heard from across the House that the reason why we have delays is because of the 1992 regulations. With respect, the reason why we have delays is because this House rushed through legislation without thinking about the consequences of it.

I heard the Minister of Police say that part of the reason for the delays is because licensed firearms owners were not fulfilling their obligations and nor were the referees, and that’s absolute nonsense. I have so many emails and communications from people who have said, “First of all, we cannot email the police, because they will not give us an email address for the person that we’re dealing with. We cannot phone anybody. They will not give us the name. There is no contact phone number. They will not reply to emails to the generated list. They will no longer turn up at the times when previous vetters were available.”, which was after hours for those people that worked. Now, they only work from 9 till 4, Monday to Friday, and everyone is expected to take time off work to be able to go and have their interview at the time allocated by the vetter; not at the time when the applicant or the referee is free and available for that interview. Not only that but the number of people who have told me that they have been waiting six months, eight months, 12 months, two years for the police to get hold of them for this interview. This is not the fault of licensed firearms owners; this is the fault of rushed legislation. It’s the consequence of what happens when we don’t think out the full consequences of rushing through laws.

The licensing delays are not at the number of 2,000, which I have heard constantly repeated today. It actually sits at 4,413 people being impacted. There are 3,172 new licence applications on top of that, and not only that but there are renewals for endorsements that are also behind, including 128 pistol endorsements. This is quite relevant, because in order to maintain a pistol endorsement, you must shoot at your pistol club 12 times a year. That’s pretty hard to do if your pistol endorsement has expired and you’re waiting six to eight months for it to be renewed. That ability to be able to complete your 12 becomes strained and, in some cases, people are unable to do that.

This bill goes towards trying to re-establish the trust and confidence again between the licensed firearms community and the New Zealand Police. It is essential that we get that back, because in our old regime, while it may not have been absolutely perfect, it was nearly there, and a lot of it had to do with the ability for the licensed community to integrate and speak with their local police arms officer and let them know of things that were of concern to them. Now they don’t even know the name of their local police arms officer, let alone be able to go and approach them.

Further to this, we must remember that among licensed firearms owners, as my colleague has said, there are a few bad apples. There were 29 gang members that were given firearm licences back in 2017, and 12 of them still had licences in 2021. After massive work from the ACT Party, we have got it down to one, and I believe that that’s because we kept forcing police to address that issue.

Another one: 5,887 firearms have been confiscated through our customs officers being able to use their X-ray machines to X-ray containers coming into the ports. That’s a huge amount—5,887—but it could be bigger, because only 2 to 5 percent of those containers have been X-rayed.

So it’s not licensed firearms owners here that are providing gangs with guns. We are not the issue; the issue is poor legislation.

We have a few questions that we will be asking through the select committee process, such as whether or not the service of documents through email will need to have a receipt, whether or not there are practicalities around how a person with an expired licence can still produce that licence to buy and sell ammunition or even partake in sport, and also whether or not this is retrospective to the 4,413 people who are currently sitting in limbo. I expect that the dealers will also have a few questions on this—for example, how they go about arranging their imports with an expired licence, and so whether or not a temporary licence will be there for them.

This is a time-sensitive issue. It’s a clear and urgent safety issue that must be addressed, and this is one of the reasons why we support this bill going through under urgency. We support it not because it’s of political convenience to the Government, but because it has immediate relief to the safety concerns of the firearms owners and the general public. We look forward to this bill going through by Christmas so that some of our hunters can make sure there is food on the table for Christmas Day.

IBRAHIM OMER (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m grateful to speak on the Arms (Licence Holders’ Applications for New Licences) Amendment Bill. This is a very technical bill that specifically remedies some of the issues in the gun licensing regime.

Today, though, I want to start with, as we debate this bill here today: the Christchurch mosques terrorist is appealing his conviction today. This must be a very hard day for the whānau and families of the victims and survivors, so my heart goes out to them. This man is always going to be a convicted terrorist no matter what he does.

Back to the bill: one of the things the terror attacks taught us is that we must have a robust gun licence regime at all times, and allowing the law-abiding people to renew their licence on time is a part of this process. We all know that, after the royal commission report, the police have been following a more stringent approach to firearm licences. We just need to allow them to keep doing that.

In 1992, this regime changed from the lifetime licensing to 10 years, and now this has created an issue. Every 10 years, there will be a peak and a line of people who want to renew their licence, and that creates pressure on the system and the police; it also frustrates people as well. So if a new licence is granted after the expiry date, the renewal will take effect from the date of the issue; it’s not going to be an old expiry date. So this is going to have less impact on the people who line up to renew their licence. Also, it will allow the police to issue a recommendation electronically, which saves a lot of time and energy and the resources of the police.

Why we support this is because this will allow licence holders, who are struggling due to the peak, to renew their licence on time. It will allow the police to implement a priority-based triaging system. So it is a good deal, as a lot of speakers alluded to. Hopefully, it’s going to lift pressure off the police and also going to be good news for the people who are already frustrated. So it’s good news, it’s a good bill, and I commend it to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Joseph Mooney, and this is a split call—five minutes.

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I rise this afternoon to speak in support of the Arms (Licence Holders’ Applications for New Licences) Amendment Bill on behalf of the National Party.

This is a rare moment when the Government actually does something sensible. They’re amending the Arms Act to account for the fact that they’ve made a number of changes around the laws for firearms licence holders, but, unfortunately, the resourcing isn’t there for the police to actually process these licence applications. In fact, existing licences that have come up for renewal, which—from those changes back in 1992—they do every 10 years, and now 2,000 firearms licences have expired while police struggle to get through 9,000 licence applications. This means that otherwise lawful holders of firearms licences, and lawful holders of firearms, have been unable to renew their licences due to no fault of their own, simply because the resourcing isn’t there to process these applications.

So this is a sensible little bill that addresses that problem. It means that the holder of the current firearms licence “may apply for a new licence before the expiry of their current licence”, and, if the application has not been processed—i.e., determined—before the licence holders current licence expires, “their licence continues in force (unless it is sooner surrendered or revoked) until the licence holder is notified of the outcome of the application and any new licence issued takes effect from the date of its issue.”

So this is a very sensible little bill, as I’ve said, because it does solve this particular issue. I do note that police are totally overwhelmed with the demand at the moment for processing applications. As other speakers in the House have made mention of this afternoon, I have personally heard from people who have been waiting for up to two years for a firearms licence to be processed, which is a very, very long period of time. I know that there are certainly big challenges for the police in processing these applications; they are considerably more complex nowadays than they used to be, and, because of the number of licences coming up for renewal, it’s exacerbated an existing problem which again, in turn, was exacerbated by COVID-19.

It is an important issue. Our responsible firearms licence holders around New Zealand—and I would mention that the vast majority of them are incredibly responsible, and the very small ones who aren’t are quickly noticed by police, and their firearms licences are taken off them, which is quite a rare occurrence. So we have a lot of very responsible licence holders around New Zealand and they provide a very important contribution to their communities and their families, both through taking care of the wild animals in New Zealand—game animals, for example, are an important part of our country environments, our conservation environments, and they provide food for people who hunt them—as well as the recreational values of people who get outdoors and spend quality time outdoors. But it’s also that if they aren’t controlled—and the Department of Conservation have their own funding issues and can’t address all of these issues—it’s actually the game animal hunters who provide a really important contribution to our conservation estate and our back country in New Zealand by controlling these animal numbers which otherwise there isn’t provision to do so. For example, there’s the Game Animal Council who do a lot of great work in this space. There’s the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation, in my electorate, which does an incredible job managing the wapiti population and actually looking after kea as well. They provide a really valuable contribution in monitoring the kea population in Fiordland and also providing food to various social agencies.

So there’s some amazing stuff happening, and probably something that’s not particularly well known publicly, generally, is that our hunting community in New Zealand actually provide a really important contribution to our conservation management and the preservation of our wild spaces through the activities that they do, and, importantly, also hunting provides an opportunity for people to literally put food on the table for their families. I’ve spoken to people for whom that’s actually been a critical part of putting meat in the freezer to ensure there’s food on the table for the family.

So a good little bill here to support these law-abiding, good, contributing members of our community.

SARAH PALLETT (Labour—Ilam): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to take a very short call in favour of the Arms (Licence Holders’ Applications for New Licences) Amendment Bill.

My electorate, Ilam, actually has a border which is approximately one block from Al Noor Mosque, and I have constituents who were victims of that appalling terror attack. And so I, like many in this House, am really aware of the need for diligent and robust processes with regards to firearms licences. But it is clear that demand is outstripping the police’s ability to process these applications—which does need to be a diligent process. There are many reasons for that, and some of those do sit with the findings of the royal commission of inquiry, and that has led to delays. So what we are seeing here is creating an ability for us to ensure that consistency of legality runs past the expiry of these licences. I do commend it to the House.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Thirty years ago, this House passed a piece of legislation that unfortunately created a situation where every licensed firearm owner, essentially, had to renew their licence at the same time. This has created a peak which is difficult to manage for the police. That peak hits in a few years’ time. Meanwhile, the rolling problem of COVID and the pressure that it put on our Public Service and the new and more stringent provisions for checking licence holders—the reasons for which have been so eloquently set out by my friends and colleagues Mr Omer and Ms Pallett—have created a situation where we needed to do something to break that wave, that coming wave, into manageable swells.

This piece of legislation will, effectively, bridge the gap, and that is something we need to do. I’m always amused to discover that my colleagues across the ditch, otherwise known as Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition, the National Party, have only come to the realisation that this 30-year-old piece of legislation creates this problem since they themselves became the Opposition. And in the nine years previously, of course, it was no problem at all, apparently, and certainly not one that they were going to be bothered to fix. We, however, are going to fix it. It’s a simple administrative fix that is going to allow a bridge. It is worthwhile and I commend it to this House.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I’ve been deeply offended by the last speech, actually. It’s “His” Majesty’s loyal Opposition. I’m just going to process that briefly, for a moment—but I’m OK now, Dr Henderson—

Dr Emily Henderson: Mea culpa to His Majesty!

SIMON O’CONNOR: Very good, yes.

Look, I’m very pleased to support this Arms (Licence Holders’ Applications for New Licences) Amendment Bill, and, as I’ve heard from other speakers across the House, there is widespread support—including that this is done under urgency. This has been an issue building for quite some time. In fact, the last speaker has rightly identified that a law change in 1992, I think, when we moved from lifetime licences to a 10-year renewal, by switching everyone at the same time we’ve created—well, I think they’re using the terms “peaks” and “swells”, but it’s probably a broader piece of work that’s going to be needed and I think we’ve heard some indicate that this will happen, to how we may begin to break up this 10-year dynamic.

But I think what’s really important from this side, and certainly in my own mind, is that we’re in this current situation which requires this amendment bill not simply because of a piece of legislation from 1992—we’ve seen an array of other factors kick in which have exacerbated or, if you will, tipped a process system that was already under pressure well over the mark.

One of those is certainly COVID. You can’t shut a country down for 18 months and, effectively, lock everyone at home and expect there’s not going to be process consequences. And, look, to be fair, the Civil Service and others and the Government’s trying—I mean, we would critique how they’re doing this, but we are seeing the Government trying to get through a massive backlog. But, again, I would say to this House, that is a consequence of the way that the Government chose to manage the lockdowns and primarily kept us locked down for so long compared to many other countries.

The second is around police resourcing, and I want to make a quick distinction here. The firearms officers that I know, including in my own electorate, do an incredible, incredible job and—talking with locals who deal with them—are very thorough. So I think we should have great confidence in our police in the work that they undertake, and to do so, so diligently. But at least two factors are also leading to this massive number of applications, which require this amendment bill. One is—and I’ll qualify why I say this, but somewhat understandably—after the terrible mosque shootings terrorist act in 2019, we saw a much more broad, shall we say, application process. I can’t exactly remember the numbers, but let’s say you sort of went from eight to 32 pages. So an enormous amount of extra work has been required, obviously, for that person applying. But the flipside, of course, is that the police officer—or, rather, arms officer in charge—has a lot more to go through.

The second part is—and Nicole McKee from the ACT Party was intimating this—the ability of an arms officer to sit down with not only the applicant but also their referee, and/or—actually, not and/or; I apologise. An arms officer has to not only meet with the applicant, they need to meet with the spouse or partner of the applicant and a referee. And trying to coordinate that, particularly around current structures, is exceptionally, exceptionally difficult. So the main context we’re trying to give here is that, yes, moving to 10-year licences 30 years ago, or whenever it was, has had an impact, but it was ticking away relatively well until these other factors have kicked in.

I might make the comment as well, that most, if not almost all, licensed firearms holders are law abiding. When we see, particularly with current and more recent criminal activity, the people discharging these firearms don’t hold a licence, have not gone through any of these processes—and it’s probably the challenge to the House, regardless of political colour, in many ways, no matter what laws we pass, the law abiding will proceed correctly; the gangs, the criminals, and others will not. So it’s always going to be a balance for this House of just how onerous we make processes, which I would say we have to admit don’t fully capture those who are just going to outright ignore it.

So while this is a good step and we do have to still be prudent in this amendment bill, the likes of the gangs are just going to ignore it outright. Now, that’s not a reason for inaction. As I say, we should support this bill. There’s over 9,000, I think, new applications—I haven’t been able to do the math mainly because I’m not exactly sure of some of the factors such as how long does it take an arms officer to read through, you know, 30-plus pages of application. But that’s an enormous amount of time required.

And, of course, on top of that, I was operating under the thought that we had about 2,000 licensed firearms holders needing renewal. But, again, we just heard from our friends in the ACT Party that that’s over 4,000 people. And, again, that’s the key factor of what this amendment bill is addressing. It’s saying to those current licence holders, if—if—they can get their application in before their licence expires, then they’ll be able to continue legally to have their firearms until eventually—a year, 18 months, two years later—the new licence is issued. And that’s incredibly important for a variety of reasons. I mean, one is just very pragmatic. There are, basically, licensed gun holders at the moment—well, hopefully, not literally running—moving about the country with their firearms, because if you’re about to lose your licence, you can’t hold a weapon any more. You can’t hold a firearm. You’ve got to go and find a mate who still holds a licence and take your firearms over to her or him, which, you know, to slightly illustrate the fact, you’ve got a whole lot of firearms in the back of boots moving around the country for people trying to maintain their legal right—well, sorry, that’s not quite true; wanting to maintain their legal right.

We, here on this side of the House, have almost been pleading with the Government to make these changes at least two years ago. Again, I think it’s quite pragmatic. Coming back to that earlier point, most, if not just almost all, licensed firearm holders do so responsibly. New Zealand actually has a pretty good vetting process, I would argue. But we also have these people who are providing a great contribution into society—and my colleague Joseph Mooney, and I’m sure others as well, but listening to his speech, I was noting that, you know, a lot of these people, and of the 4,000-plus waiting for renewals are hunters; this is part of their recreational—if you will—activity. It’s something they enjoy doing, getting out into nature. That’s got wonderful benefits for them over everything, of course, from mental health to just collegiality. They’re helping maintain species management: obviously, some in a recreational form; others professionally—we don’t want to downplay just the enormous contribution they make there—and then, obviously, those who are using their firearms to put food on the table.

These are all very, very positive things. And we’ve certainly seen over the last few years that good licensed firearms holders have not been able to participate in all those activities or duck shooting or the roar or whatever. And so it’s timely that we are looking at this piece of legislation now because we’re heading into the summer break—well, a break for most people, not all, of course—a lot of people will want to go out hunting. And so the opportunity to pass this law, if we do indeed—obviously, we should go to select committee; tease out a few things. But, actually, these licensed firearms holders, knowing they can continue to legally hold and use their firearms responsibly is a very positive thing because they’ve struggled for many, many years already.

Again, I just want to stress, we on this side of the House have asked for this for quite some time. In fact, this sits within a wider range of legal changes we want to see around firearms. I can’t quite explain why—the Labour MPs are welcome to do so—but I feel things have dithered and I don’t exactly know why, because this is pretty straightforward and it’s clear that it’s a new Minister in the seat who’s picked this opportunity up and is putting it through the House. But I think it’s going to be important that we do have a select committee process. I must admit, I’m not exactly sure how long that’s going to be. I’m conscious we’re under urgency at the moment, so I assume we’re going to have a relatively short select committee process.

Chris Penk: A week.

SIMON O’CONNOR: A week, I’m told. If you ever want information, go to Chris Penk. He pretty much knows everything; in fact, he probably knows the next sentence I’m about to give!

But, no, if it’s only a week—a week is an exceptionally short period of time. And, look, I’m slightly torn on that. At one level, we do need to get this done for the very reasons I’ve just outlined. But one of the things I’ve found in my time in the House is that when we rush laws through, and particularly with very shortened report-backs, we make errors—or rather the Government of the day makes errors.

Obviously we’re dealing with something quite serious here, which is the arms amendment bill. And so we’ll have to listen very, very carefully to make sure that we’re hearing—within this one week—of what’s been told. And it would be my hope that if this passes first reading, the select committee will take all the time it can and will listen to as many people around this as possible.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take the final call before this bill, the Arms (Licence Holders’ Applications for New Licences) Amendment Bill, goes to the Justice Committee, which is a hard-working committee of this House. I absolutely have faith in our ability to have robust and detailed discussion about this bill in the time that has been given to us.

The first quick point that I want to make is how a regulatory system that works and is robust for arms in New Zealand is really important, but a part of that is the faith and confidence in the regulatory system of the people who use it. This bill is about giving the people who use it faith in a system and giving them time to renew their licences in the appropriate way. It’s a small and practical step which does that and increases people’s confidence in it.

The second point that I would make is that when it goes to select committee—I agree with Mark Mitchell that we need to get it back to the House swiftly. He said that the time allotted was appropriate, and I think it is. Where I think we can agree around this House is that we would welcome submitters on this bill, particularly around some of the very technical points. It’s a very short bill, and it only makes two real changes. But one change that I would encourage submitters to give us their views on is the technical amendments around the enabling of police to issue notices and documents to an electronic address, effectively being email addresses. The committee would do well to consider how that would work in the regime. For that reason, I commend it to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Arms (Licence Holders’ Applications for New Licences) 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 Arms (Licence Holders’ Applications for New Licences) Amendment Bill be considered by the Justice Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Justice Committee.

Instruction to Justice Committee

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Immigration) on behalf of the Minister of Police: I move, That the Arms (Licence Holders’ Applications for New Licences) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 17 November 2022 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

The reasons for asking the House to agree to a shortened select committee process are the same as the reasons why the bill is needed at all—this is to address the problem of licence holders having expired licences and being unable to comply with the Arms Act 1983 through no fault of their own. It is, in the Government’s view, essential that the bill is enacted as soon as possible, but it remains desirable for it to undergo select committee scrutiny albeit briefly. To enable the Justice Committee to meet the deadline that we are setting, the motion also includes the usual arranged permissions to meet at times outside of the parameters normally allowed by the Standing Orders. I wish the Justice Committee well in its work and hope that these proposals enable the bill to be advanced expeditiously to the advantage of the public.

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

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you, Madam Speaker. As those who have spoken at the first reading of the bill have noted in among their substantive comments on the bill, the National Party supports the relatively short period of time that the select committee will be accorded for this work.

I do want to state for the record, however, on our behalf, that we are agreeing for the reason, essentially, that the Minister has said; namely, that it is necessary in order for the bill to be reported back to the House and then passed through its remaining stages in order to be meaningful, given the particular time constraints inherent in the licensing regime.

Of course, if the bill had been introduced at an earlier stage, then the same effect could have been gained with something closer to a standard period of time in front of the select committee. So I make those points, for the record, not in the spirit of churlishness I hope, but nevertheless acknowledging that having less time in front of a select committee is generally not regarded as a good thing. Albeit that in the circumstances, taking the situation as a whole, we do support it being reported back on 17 November—I think I’m right in saying, just over a week from now—for the reasons, as I say, that have been outlined already.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Arms (Licence Holders’ Applications for New Licences) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 17 November 2022 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

Ayes 107

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

Noes 10

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement Legislation Bill

In Committee

Parts 1 to 5, Schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 and 2

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Members, the House is in committee on the United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement Legislation Bill. I remind members that it would be helpful for members to ask multiple questions, if they have them, of the member in charge during their call. Members, we come to Part 1.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Junior Whip—Labour): Point of order. I seek leave for all questions to be taken as one debate.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Is there any objection? There is no objection. That shall be the case. The question is that Parts 1 to 5, Schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 and 2 stand part.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Minister for Trade and Export Growth): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’ll just take the opportunity, I guess—we’re bringing the legislation back into the House—to just outline how we have got here.

I’d just like, firstly, to thank all of those who have been engaged in progressing this United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement Legislation Bill so far, from the members of the select committee, members of Parliament, members of civil society, and business representatives. Your engagement is a critical part of the implementation process. I’d like to thank the Opposition, too, for their support.

The UK was New Zealand’s seventh-largest trading partner, pre-COVID-19, and our two countries have a uniquely close bond, including a deep connection between Māori and the UK given the role of the British Crown as one of the original signatories of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the Treaty of Waitangi.

Concluding the free-trade agreement (FTA) has been one of the key priorities for the Government’s trade recovery strategy. In February this year, after 18 months of intensive negotiations—much of it online, I have to say—we secured one of the best deals New Zealand has ever negotiated. Our agreement will assist the development of stronger trade, economic, cultural, people-to-people links between our two countries. The expansion of New Zealand’s free-trade agreement network will contribute to New Zealand’s diversified trade portfolio and assist New Zealand’s recovery from the economic impacts of COVID-19.

Most of the obligations in the free-trade agreement are already met by New Zealand’s existing domestic legal and policy regime. A limited number of legislative and regulatory amendments are required to align New Zealand’s domestic law with certain obligations in the free-trade agreement.

The bill was introduced into the House on 26 July 2022 as an omnibus bill. The bill amends the Copyright Act 1994, the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act 2001, the Overseas Investment Act 2005, the Overseas Investment Regulations 2005, the Tariff Act 1988, and the Customs and Excise Regulations 1996. Part 5 of the bill also creates a new regime required to administer the transitional apple export quota.

I will be introducing a Supplementary Order Paper to split out Part 5 from the rest of the bill, creating two bills: the United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement Legislation Bill, and the second one will be the Apple Transitional Export Quota Bill. This split accords with Standing Order 317 given Part 5 creates a completely new legislative framework in whole, whereas other parts amend existing legislation. Part 5 will also be repealed earlier than other parts of the bill, as the apples quota will only be in force until the end of the third year that the free-trade agreement is in force.

The free-trade agreement—FTA—will also be implemented by subsequent secondary legislation. Commencement date of both pieces of legislation will be set by the Governor-General by Order in Council once the date of the entry into force of the free-trade agreement has been agreed with the UK. This, of course, is subject to the UK’s own ratification processes and we look forward to those progressing as quickly as possible.

The free-trade agreement has two obligations that New Zealand has a transitional period to implement. New Zealand has agreed to, firstly, introduce a new artist resale right scheme within two years of the free-trade agreement entering into force; and secondly, to extend copyright and related rights terms within 15 years of the free-trade agreement entering into force. This will require a further amendment to the Copyright Act 1994. Legislation for these two commitments will be required by a later date.

The Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee extensively examined the bill and received submissions from the public, civil society, and business representatives. The select committee considered the bill between 26 July and 20 October. The committee made a limited number of recommendations related to Part 5 of the bill—as I say, the apple transition export quota. Further technical amendments were also made for further clarity and consistency, and I want to thank them once again for their consideration of this.

The New Zealand - United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement sets high-quality precedents in international trade rules. It is a comprehensive free-trade agreement that has real benefits for all New Zealanders. The bill will enable New Zealand to ratify the free-trade agreement and allow our exporters to take advantage of the significant opportunities it creates.

New Zealand is aiming to complete domestic ratification processes by the end of this year. The United Kingdom is also completing its domestic ratification processes, and once both countries have done so, the FTA can enter into force.

Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the Minister for his introduction, and we’re happy to join with the Government to deal with this as one question rather than prolonging it over five or six questions, not because this is not important—in fact, this is a very important agreement for New Zealand. It’s one of the reasons that the previous National Government, when the UK voted for the European Union, fronted up to the UK first, before any other nation. Ministers often talked to them about the relationship and the need for a free-trade agreement. We agreed to do this quickly so that we can do our part and it can take a step closer to entering into force.

The thing about trade agreements is New Zealanders only benefit from them when they can rely upon them and use them, and the faster this gets into place the better it is for New Zealand exporters. The Minister said that the UK was our seventh-largest market. Well, actually, we need only cast our minds back a short way to when it used to be our number one market. Indeed, after the war when it was possible for fresh produce, lamb particularly, to be exported as refrigerated around the world, our trade with the UK grew quite significantly, and indeed for New Zealand exports farmers depended on the UK market. Indeed, some call it the “home country” or the “old country.”

You jump forward a little way and the UK joined the then Common Market with a small number of other European countries, and overnight our access to the United Kingdom all but disappeared, and it started to create hardship in New Zealand and that great, great uncertainty. At the time we had exceptional trade from negotiators and diplomats that worked extremely hard to open the door for New Zealand produce to the European community market. I remember, many years ago when I was fortunate enough to be working in Brussels in the European Parliament, bumping into somebody—in fact, it was Lord Henry Plumb, who was president of the National Farmers Union in the UK, the equivalent of our Federated Farmers, and he brought the UK farmers into that common market. He said to me that, “You hardly saw an Australian at all around the EEC institutions but you couldn’t get in through the door without tripping over a bloody Kiwi who was there to talk about butter and sheep access.” I think that just goes to the point that New Zealand has always been good at putting its head down and working very, very hard and trying to open the doors for New Zealand exporters, because our farmers actually put their heads down and work very, very hard and are just as good.

This is important, because we lost that preferential access and the important market of the United Kingdom when they joined the European community. Some of it was restored with special quotas but it never got back to where it should have been, and now our negotiators, in the same way their predecessors have, have done an important job for New Zealand when it comes to this agreement with the UK.

I want to thank those officials. When I had the privilege of being trade Minister for a period of time in our last Government, I was one of the Ministers who went to the UK often to talk to them about why they should do a deal with New Zealand before all others, and the need for it to be extremely high quality. I remember saying—I think when it was on TV; the BBC or something like that—that it’s hard to imagine that the sheep farmers of Wales voted to leave the European Union just to be as protectionist as the EU is; surely they can stand on top of the mountains looking out from Wales and see that there’s plenty of room in the rest of the world for countries and farmers who produce high-quality goods and that when barriers are brought down everybody is better off. In this respect I know it was a difficult ask of the farmers of the United Kingdom, but with this agreement today in this House, UK farmers join New Zealand farmers in saying that protectionism hurts economies, that it takes away choice, and that they want to front along with New Zealand farmers around the world to put their best foot forward and live on their reputation of high-quality, safe food. I say to them that they have done a good thing, because there is plenty of room in the world for the things they produce and the things we produce, and together we should go out into international markets and spread that word so that others might join us.

The Minister mentioned a number of things that are in the agreement. I won’t go into them in detail, with the exception of copyright, because it is often misunderstood. I remember with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), when we were looking at copyright rules, there was great pushback from many in New Zealand who had concerns about exactly what that might mean. I think the current Minister for Trade and Export Growth, who was the Opposition spokesperson on agriculture at the time, was not one of them, but some of his colleagues went out and protested that agreement and raised, in some cases, unnecessary concerns. What is in this agreement is largely the same or extremely similar to what was in the TPP in as far as levelling the playing field for rights holders in New Zealand and giving them greater protection. The bit that I think is most important to recognise is that performers’ rights will now be in line, as far as copyright is concerned, with producers. That is an important thing because actually, often the performer doesn’t do as well as they should, nor do their family members subsequently when those rights pass on to them. I think that’s an important thing and I think we shouldn’t be afraid through our trade agreements of making sure that New Zealanders are treated well on the world stage, and equally others, in the case of UK producers, are treated well here. You can think about it in as far as song is concerned, but for movies and television, this becomes increasingly more important as New Zealand attracts investment—or hopes to—around the world for things to be produced here, and we now, as far as that production is concerned, have an advantage over others because we provide fair and reasonable protection through copyright.

This is good legislation. It does move us forward, and I would ask the Minister to pull out all stops in talking to his colleague in the United Kingdom to have them do what they need to do quickly. Wouldn’t it be good if we got to sign this actually this year before Christmas so that it entered into force rather than waiting until next year or dragging it out because it’s election year. When it comes to trade we should make a commitment to put the politics of the New Zealand Parliament and elections aside and do what’s best for New Zealand, which is to get these deals negotiated, get them done, and get them signed up and entered into force so that every single New Zealander benefits as a result of this trade agreement and the work that was started by the last National Government and finished by this Minister.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Minister for Trade and Export Growth): Look, thank you very much. I’ll take the opportunity to just acknowledge the Opposition’s support for this and point to two things. I would like to thank officials who worked tirelessly on this, and Brad Burgess, in particular, who was located in Ireland; he was able to get firsthand to the UK and help them sometimes. But there were a lot of officials, some of whom are behind me here, who worked tirelessly on Zoom to get this progressed. So thanks to them, once more.

On the copyright issue, it’s an interesting evolution as a nation. We’re always concerned about copyright and the fact that getting access to material from overseas—so the sooner the copyright finished, then I guess the cheaper it was to access that. We’ve now turned what is a defensive position to an offensive one, where, actually, the production of cultural material from New Zealand going out to the wider world—this will enable our artists, our authors, and those people to get longer protection and returns for that, and I think that’s a really positive thing.

Can I just finally acknowledge the UK Ministers involved, and Liz Truss, who’s been through, I guess, political turmoil—I acknowledge her enthusiasm to get this free-trade agreement done. Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who was also Minister of trade, was an enthusiastic advocate, supporter, and mover to get this through the House, and I just hope that they can support it. If the Opposition would like to see this signed this year, the Government certainly would as well, but we are dependent on the UK process.

Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Madam Chair, thank you, and thanks to the Minister. A question, probably: I note in the legislation, it’s not in here because it doesn’t need to be, but actually in the agreement that was reached, when it comes to the issue of geographical indicators, the GIs, there was agreement that we might do it one day in the future but that actually, in as far as the agreement is concerned, it wasn’t delivered on and it wasn’t important.

The Minister has said previously that GIs offer opportunities to New Zealand producers to gain extra value for what they produce overseas because of reputation and name; it gives them some protection. In fact, GIs are an important part, I suppose, of the EU free-trade agreement, and a lot was made of that.

I’d like to ask the Minister if he still stands by his views that geographical indicators are important for New Zealand producers, give protection, and can drive greater value for New Zealand producers of wine and beef and many things, and if that’s the case, why that isn’t in this agreement and yet it is in the EU agreement?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Minister for Trade and Export Growth): Look, thank you very much. They are really important, and obviously more important in the EU than in the UK, but none the less, we still had issues like scotch and we’ve got other acknowledgments that we’ve got to work through on geographical indicators (GIs) with reference to the conclusion of the EU trade agreement.

It will be more important and more valuable for New Zealand as we move forward to establish provenance, such as we have with Marlborough sauvignon blanc and Central Otago Pinot noir. So we’re starting to develop those GIs, and we will continue to work through the process of, I guess, marketing those to greater value and, hopefully, over time, over the next century, they’ll be as valuable as the EU claim for their own ones.

Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): On that, to the Minister—and noting his suggested difference between this agreement and the EU one, whereas it’s more important to the EU than us, and I suppose therefore less important to the UK—are there any industries or sectors or products that he thinks geographical indications (GIs) wouldn’t be helpful for? And will they be excluded for any decision under this agreement or in GIs for the future, or does he think GIs across the board in agricultural products and food production add value to New Zealand producers?

SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m also providing an opportunity for the Minister just to seek some guidance in regards to the last question. The question I have is in regards to Part 5, clause 34, and particularly around the obligations relating to fresh apples. And you may think, “Well, that’s an interesting area to get into”, but I grew up on an apple orchard, actually; so there’s the context for the question a little bit. But the point really is in regards to clause 34(2)(a)(i), which is in regards to the three-year period. I’m looking for a little bit of context from the Minister, just in terms of their landing on that period of time, and any consideration in regards to alternative periods of time that may have been appropriate, and the impacts on that industry.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Minister for Trade and Export Growth): Thank you very much. In terms of apples, what we decided here is that the industry would manage its own transition. The arrangement and the negotiation that we have is very, very good. There is a three-year transition arrangement. So we’re bringing in a separate piece of legislation here to ensure that that can happen and be managed by the industry. That’s why we’re doing that.

In terms of the geographical indicators (GIs), as I say, I referenced a couple that we have had to acknowledge in scotch. And, in terms of reference to the EU, they’re no more important other than the EU has been very protective of them—and from a position of 2,000 down to about two or three, which we now have to honour. The situation is not quite the same in the UK. They don’t have as many GIs. They have some—we have to acknowledge those—and this trade agreement will allow us, both sides of the agreement, to pick up value from them.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Parts 1 to 5, Schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 and 2 be agreed to.

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.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments recommended by the Justice Committee by majority be agreed to.

Ayes 109

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 33; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Noes 10

ACT New Zealand 10.

Amendments agreed to.

Parts 1 to 5, Schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Minister for Trade and Export Growth): I move Supplementary Order Paper 277 dividing the bill.

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

Motion agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment and divided into the United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement Legislation Bill and the Apple Transitional Export Quota.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement Legislation Bill and reports it without amendment, and divided into the following bills: United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement Legislation Bill and Apple Transitional Export Quota Bill. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

Bills

Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill

Second Reading

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Minister of Customs) on behalf of the Minister of Justice: I present a legislative statement on the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) 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 MEKA WHAITIRI: I move, That the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill be now read a second time.

This bill responds to concerns raised in recent years by the Electoral Commission and Māori about constraints on the right of Māori voters to choose between the general roll and the Māori roll. This bill is an omnibus bill. It makes amendments to the Electoral Act 1993 and the Local Electoral Act 2001 to reflect the changes made to the Electoral Act and, subsequently, changes to the Bay of Plenty Regional Council (Māori Constituency Empowering) Act 2001, which are necessary to retain consistency with the Local Electoral Act.

The bill supports Māori electoral participation by replacing the current four-month period every four to six years, where Māori voters can choose to move between the general and Māori electoral rolls, with a continuous option. The continuous option as currently drafted will allow Māori voters to change rolls at any time except when residing in an electorate where there is a parliamentary by-election and the by-election does not coincide with the local body election.

The bill makes a consequential change to how the Māori electoral population, and by extension the number of Māori seats, is calculated. The Māori electoral population will be calculated based on numbers as at census day, or, where the census and general election are in the same year, 1 April in the following year. This is defined as “counting day” in the bill. This change requires some minor amendments to reserve provisions of the Electoral Act; in particular, section 35 relating to boundary reviews. The continuous option cannot be introduced without such a change. While the intention of these provisions is retained, the fact that section 35 is a reserved provision means that it can only be amended with the support of 75 percent of the House.

I first want to thank the Justice Committee for its consideration of the bill and those members of the public who made submissions. The committee received 121 submissions. Submitters overwhelmingly responded that the current Māori electoral option creates barriers to Māori participation in the electoral process. This is because Māori are unable to change the electoral roll they are on to reflect their electoral preferences outside of a very narrow and seemingly arbitrary four-month period every five or six years. The committee heard repeatedly that the current arrangements are unjustified, unfair, and often difficult to understand. Many submitters also thought the bill supports the Crown to better meet its obligations to Māori under Te Tiriti, including at local government level where I was encouraged that there was strong support for the bill from local government organisations.

The committee has recommended several minor and technical changes to the bill that help clarify its intended effect. Firstly, the committee has recommended that clause 15 of the bill is deleted. This clause duplicates existing provisions that allow voters who qualify as electors but are not entered on the roll to vote via special vote.

A second recommendation relates to ensuring that the integrity of the rolls is maintained in the event that a by-election coincides with a triennial local election. The committee has recommended that new section 78A, inserted by clause 6 of the bill, is amended to ensure that it is consistent with the requirement that the Electoral Commission does not amend the roll at any time between the day after polling day and the day the writ is returned.

The committee has also recommended amending the definition of “election period” in proposed new section 78A and inserting a definition for “local election period”. Under the proposed amendments, the election period would end on polling day for by-elections. For local triennial elections, it would begin when a notice of the triennial election is published under the Local Electoral Act and would end on polling day. The committee considered that these amendments would help the Electoral Commission to implement the new section.

The final proposal for amendment relates to the definition of “Māori electoral population”. The committee has recommended clauses 4 and 14 are amended to clarify that the definition of “Māori electoral population” for both the Electoral Act and the Local Electoral Act refers to voters registered for either Māori or general electoral districts and persons named on the dormant roll.

We know that approximately 6,000 Māori ask to change rolls in a non-election year and over 22,000 people tried to change rolls in 2020. Ngā Rangahautira, the Māori Law Students’ Association of Victoria University, stated in their submission to the committee, echoing the concerns of many other submitters, that they have “heard from numerous tauira who turned 18 just after the last electoral option in 2018 and enrolled on the general roll ( … without realising the difference), they are unable to switch rolls until 2024, and therefore unable to vote on that roll until 2026.” Let us not make Māori wait until the 2026 election to exercise their vote on their preferred roll.

I wish to thank the committee again for their work. I look forward to our deliberations at the committee of the whole House. Wherever possible, changes to voting systems should be taken forward with as much cross-party support as possible, and in that spirit, I look forward to continuing to work with the members of the Opposition during the remaining parliamentary stages for this bill. I commend this bill to the House.

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

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. The National Party at the first reading did not support this legislation. We weren’t opposed to the idea of having greater flexibility around switching between rolls but we were concerned about the way that it had been put together—that the bill as introduced included an exclusion around by-election periods to stop what the Minister of Justice referred to as “tactical roll switching”, switching between the general roll and the Māori roll, or vice versa, in order to vote in a by-election. And the point that we made during the select committee process was that that same logic applied when it comes to general elections, and you’d have a situation where one group of New Zealanders would have an opportunity at each given election to choose which roll was the most likely to have the most effect and switch during the election period to do that, which we didn’t think was appropriate. So we argued for a three-month exclusion around that.

We’ve been in conversations with the Minister around this, and the Minister herself in the speech referred to the fact that this bill will require 75 percent of Parliament to support it, and so I think the Government has been more willing than usual to listen to our concerns. It’s our understanding that at the next stage of the committee of the whole House, the Government intends to bring in a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) allowing for that exclusion around the general election time and around local body election time. So we’re signalling here at the second meeting that if indeed that is the case, then we will, on this side, support the bill. So that would be a rare occasion where there has been a willingness on the side of the Government to listen to our concerns. And so we’re looking forward to that stage and we will, in the spirit of bipartisanship and good faith, support it at this stage as well, in anticipation of the amendments outlined by the Minister. Because we all want to ensure that New Zealanders engage in the electoral process, but we also want to ensure that people support the process and are treated in the same way.

So if you have that exclusion around the hurly burly of the election period and you think of the example if you’re in a particular general ward which is looking very close, it might make sense to switch between rolls to vote in the last month in that electorate, or vice versa. And the Māori electorate, if that is looking very close—you know, we didn’t think it’s appropriate to be able to switch between those rolls in that three-month period leading up to an election. So with that excluded then it does provide the opportunity for people to be able to move between the rolls a bit more freely than once every five years, or four to six years, as is currently implied.

Now, the Minister in her speech did refer to the desirability of broad support for electoral law changes, and I suppose the only point I’d make in that regard is that, unfortunately, the Minister and the Government have been inconsistent on that matter because there are other electoral bills before the House which the National Party opposes stridently, particularly around electoral financing and reducing thresholds that we feel is skewing the system in favour of some parties and against other parties. We’ve made that very clear and the Government hasn’t listened in that case and are prepared to push things through in advance of an independent, broader reconsideration of electoral laws that is supposed to be carrying on. So that’s supposed to be considering New Zealand’s electoral laws and reporting after the election. But in the meantime, the Government is pushing ahead with some rapid changes that will change the electoral financing bills. And the issue there, of course, is, fundamentally, when you strip it all away, do you want people to voluntarily fund political parties, or do you want the taxpayer to fund political parties? We believe firmly in people voluntarily funding political parties rather than the taxpayer being forced to do it, and I think most New Zealanders agree with that proposition.

So on that issue, unfortunately, there hasn’t been an attempt to bring bipartisanship across the House, and we lament that. We do suggest that the Government looks into itself and reflects on what they’ve done here today and what we’ve agreed to here today in terms of agreeing to legislation that we had concerns about. We raised our significant concerns with the Government—the Government has responded to them to a degree, and we’ve been prepared on that basis to make the change. So we hope that this will give many people across the country the opportunity to choose between the rolls.

I suppose the only point I’d make in finishing is the great importance of maintaining trust and confidence in our electoral system. We look around the world and electoral processes are being challenged in many places. One of the great strengths of this country is the high degree of confidence that New Zealanders have in the way that the electoral system works. But we should never take that for granted and we should be eternally vigilant in defending that, defending the robustness of our processes. The best way to do that is to have a degree of broad support across the House for changes that are made. We’ve observed that in the breach, sadly, when it comes to some elements of that, and I lament that. So I encourage the Minister, Kiritapu Allan, when she considers any further changes in this area, that she adopts that broad approach when considering significant change. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

On the basis of the undertakings given to us to bring in SOPs amending the bill that we have before us right now, National will be supporting this legislation further on.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Well, there’s a nice surprise. That was quite lovely. Thank you to Mr Goldsmith. The timing of the Māori electoral option creates a real barrier to voters. So it’s great to have general consensus on the passageway forward for this piece of legislation.

I believe, wherever possible, changes to the voting system should be done in a bipartisan manner, and the Government continues to work in that way, so the fact that there have been good-faith discussions across this House and we’re able to make amendments to the bill in order for it to be agreed upon is a good thing—not only for the members in this House but also for democracy in wider New Zealand. This, I believe, is necessary for this bill because it’s important that we promote the ability to vote and make that as easy as possible. We know that this bill will remove a barrier, which allows Māori voters to change rolls more regularly. We know it does happen every election and we know many people try to do so and are prevented from being able to do it. So the fewer the barriers the more we can participate and the stronger our democracy.

As we’ve heard from Mr Goldsmith, there is potentially a requirement, depending on the Speaker’s ruling, that a 75 percent majority may be required to progress this bill through the committee of the whole House, and with that change to put in that three-month buffer—already, we discussed that for a by-election—but to include that for a general election as well; it’s good to see there’s support across the House.

So, as this bill is currently drafted, it will let Māori voters change rolls up to any time, but now, with the Supplementary Order Paper that will be introduced, excluding a buffer of that three-month period. Māori voters will not be able to change between the Māori and the general rolls; already it’s specified during a by-election if that change replaced the vote in the electorate where a by-election is occurring. It also makes changes around how the Māori electoral population is calculated under the Act for electoral boundary review purposes, and it also makes changes that may result from cross-party discussions prior to the committee, which we’ve discussed just now.

So, overall, I think it’s important to note that this bill fits with our larger plan. It’s part of our commitment to continue to protect the integrity of New Zealand’s elections and voters’ access to the polls. And that’s a wider review of legislation. That’s including the financial rules, and it’s also part of the two-track process—that we’ve got a whole range of areas being looked at as part of that independent review panel that has been established. The fact that we’ve got some changes happening before the election and also some longer-term ones shows that we’re a Government committed to always looking at how our electoral rules are operating, trying to make sure we are doing those with consensus as much as we possibly can, and making voting and access to voting easy for every New Zealander.

It was really good to hear the submissions that we heard at select committee. There were some interesting discussions had at that committee process, and I believe that the changes that we have made have strengthened the bill. I’m looking forward to this bill passing, and I’d like to acknowledge the members opposite for supporting this bill, to be supported right across the House. I commend it to the House, Madam Speaker.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Obviously, second reading of this Electoral (Māori by-election Electoral Option) Legislation Bill, and, look, pleased as we’ve now heard—which of course is no surprise to me, but perhaps to the House—that National is supporting this, and I think it’s important to tease out a little bit of the why at this stage and then extrapolate some wider lessons.

The fundamental reason that National’s now comfortable with supporting this bill is that there’s a time out, or a window, if you will, of three months before general elections and by-elections to move between rolls. And why I want to stress that, from the outset, is National from day one has been happy with the idea, the concept—particularly with Māori—to be able to move between rolls. We can see—even I can see—that the current system is too tight. Where we ran into issues very early on, and why initial support was not forthcoming, was not the concept of changing rolls but, we felt, the law at that stage—and arguably, too, at this stage, still—seemed to be first and foremost arbitrary, that one could change rolls up to three months for a by-election. But this current draft legislation bill would have allowed, and actually still allows, for people to change between the general and the Māori roll, or the Māori to the general roll, right up to election day. We thought that was very inconsistent.

Why I stress that this is still the current legislation is that we are awaiting, I believe, the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) to be tabled from the Minister, and I have absolute faith, 99.999-recurring faith, that that SOP will be forthcoming. But I think it’s important to put the proviso out there, in words, that that SOP—written to our satisfaction—is what’s going to require our support. Because as has also been rightly noted, this is an electoral amendment bill; it requires 75 percent support of the House, and in this case it requires the support of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition. As I say, we are happy to give that support, contingent on an SOP touching on that issue of three months.

So just stepping back for a moment, we completely understand, as I say, the reason why we should be able to have some movement—some movement—across the rolls. The current law in New Zealand, as it stands, is that every five years we have a census. On that basis, we work out electorate size, including with our Māori seats, and then there is a four-month window from that moment for people to decide whether they wish to be on the Māori roll or not. As one example of that, there are some in my family who have chosen—sorry, on my wife’s side, not myself. I’m stuck on the general roll. We Irish are stuck when it comes to New Zealand’s roll system. But for my wife’s family and my step-kids, they can make their choice, and some are on the general roll and some are on the Māori roll, which makes life a little bit interesting at election time because some of my step-kids vote for me and some don’t. But I want to make it very clear for people on Hansard and others it’s because—

Todd Muller: How do you know they vote for you?

SIMON O’CONNOR: Well, look, there’s a whole range of issues that are now being—I might have to almost make a personal statement.

Todd Muller: I don’t know if they do vote for you.

SIMON O’CONNOR: We have dissension developing here around whether my family’s telling me the truth or not. But I have absolute confidence. But look, there was only a four-month window for people to make their mind up, and, actually, humans being what we are, we make decisions at different times and at different stages of life. So if someone is wanting to move between the rolls we are very happy, or content, or “accepting” is maybe the better word. We are accepting of that, but it really must come with that proviso that one cannot move between rolls three months before a by-election and three months before a general election. And again, that was probably the primary sticking point for this side of the House; that for some reason that I don’t completely understand, it seems logically inconsistent, that according to this legislation you were not allowed to move rolls three months before a by-election but you could still with a general election. That just doesn’t make sense because as has been noted by at least one previous speaker and I’m sure it will be echoed by others, we don’t want to see any gaming of the political system.

Put simply, we do not want to see people jumping between the general roll and the Māori roll, or the Māori roll to the general roll, to try and develop some sort of electoral advantage. And look, that would have to be relatively orchestrated but we do know when it comes to elections there’s always bellwether seats, there’s always very tight races where the influx of 100, 200, 1,000 people, whatever number you wish to use, could actually sway the vote. We don’t want to see that because, first and foremost, that would skew, I would argue, the election result. But secondly, it would also undermine some of our most basics around democracy and, certainly, people’s faith in it. If New Zealanders were to see large numbers of people moving rolls simply to maximise a party’s political advantage, I think that’s damaging to all of us.

The bill, at the moment, is still not amended, or, rather, the select committee has made some changes, and, actually, can I acknowledge Ginny Andersen, the chair, and all the members who have worked through this. It’s been an important piece of work.

So we wait for that SOP that’s going to be quite critical. One thing I would like to see—and I don’t think it’s within the bill, but even without the bill having it in there we will need to monitor how this operates. I think it will be very interesting to see over the coming three, six, nine years how many people choose to move rolls and also how frequently. I think that will be something important that the Electoral Commission—but also this Parliament—looks at, to make sure that we have confidence that the moving about is being done because of someone’s identification, if you will, rather than any other motives.

The other part that we do need to signal is that this is sitting within a wider array of electoral changes that this Government is doing. We on this side of the House have serious reservations around the push towards State funding. We have concerns about limiting democratic participatory activity, be that from donation through to actually being able to speak one’s mind. We just need to be clear to the Government of the day that electoral law needs to be done in such a way that has the Opposition and the Government in lock step together, not simply for the sake of this Parliament but that the New Zealand public can have faith in what’s happening.

So, as I say, pleased to support this at second reading on the proviso that an SOP lands on that table making it abundantly clear that the three-month closed window for changing the roll applies to by-elections and to general elections.

TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. This bill here fits into the 2020 manifesto of the New Zealand Labour Party: to continue to protect the integrity of our election system, to make sure that our voters continually have access to the polls, and to do a review of the electoral financing rules, as well. The previous speaker spoke about a couple of those changes. The one before us right now, which is most important, is making sure that we have a legislation which is fit for purpose in time for next year’s general election.

I want to thank the Minister Kiritapu Allan for bringing this to the House and also to the Justice Committee and also the chair of the Justice Committee, Ginny Andersen, for traversing through the many submissions that came in from around the country. Lots of people have lots of opinions on this, and it’s really important that they were able to listen to that diverse range of opinions—both the people that were for it and the people that were against it, as well.

In 2020—again, a previous speaker mentioned it—24,000 Māori tried to change rolls, and they couldn’t because they were prevented by the rules. What rule is that? The rule that only four months every five years do Māori get to decide which electoral roll they’d like to be on. Some that are switched on, they manage to make that. Some that are busy out there feeding the kids and going to work, they don’t catch that. So I’ve borne the brunt of many a Māori voter in my time here in this House who have been frustrated by the process—frustrated at the fact that they haven’t been able to change rolls as often as they would like to.

Why do people change rolls? For many different reasons: sometimes it’s got to do with the candidates, sometimes it’s got to do with the political feel of the day. More importantly, it was the submission from Local Government New Zealand that pointed out that, actually, with the changes that we made last year to Māori wards to enable local councils to be able to establish Māori wards in a meaningful way, it now means that those Māori ward councillors or candidates can only be voted on by people that are on the Māori roll.

So it’s given it a new meaning, and we heard that through the submissions process, too; that, actually, the Māori roll had just been the domain of us here in central government, but, actually, local government now sees the importance of being able to assist voters that want to determine which roll they would like to be on. I know for many of my family, they choose to be on the Māori roll because it’s where they feel that they can have that guaranteed representation and they’re elated at the fact that they can have that now at a local government level, too.

Because of that, we now have 35 councils, territorial and local, all around the country and 66 Māori ward councillors spread out all across Aotearoa from Te Rerenga Wairua all the way down to the Bluff. It’s really important to note that the only reason, the only way, that we can get that representation around those tables is to make sure that we’ve got Māori who are on the Māori roll that can elect Māori ward councillors.

This is a really important piece of legislation. I’m glad it’s come before the House like this. I look forward to progressing it through to its final destination so that we can actually head back out there into our communities and tell our Māori communities that, actually, whichever roll they choose to be on, that’s their right—remembering that it was actually this House that imposed the whole system on the country back in the day. Actually, they decided that it was going to be a way for Māori to be able to have that guaranteed representation.

So Māori, beforehand, were shepherded into these Māori seats, but now, actually, many see it as the way to be able to ensure that they have guaranteed representation for kaupapa Māori, for whakaaro Māori, for those issues which dominate the kōrero around marae kitchen tables all around Aotearoa. So I look forward to this reaching its final destination, I’m in complete support of it, and I commend it to the House.

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): The Greens of course support this, the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill, given that this bill gives Māori the ability to change roll types at any time—except, of course, when a by-election is held. This particular goal has long been a Green Party policy, it is part of my colleague Golriz Ghahraman’s Electoral (Strengthening Democracy) Amendment Bill, and so we’re really pleased to see this come before us, and acknowledging my colleague Rawiri Waititi’s bill that has also recently been drawn.

I mean, we’ve heard some stories in here about how important it is for Māori to have always had that choice. And I did just want to put on the Hansard, from the Greens’ perspective, that it was the Electoral Commission’s report on the 2017 general election that recommended “that voters of Māori descent be able to change roll type at any time as this would better meet the needs of Māori voters.” And my colleague Mr Coffey just gave us one example of many, many, many stories that highlighted the flaw of not enabling that mana motuhake for Māori voters to be able to choose and switch those rolls, not just bound to particular time frames in the electoral cycle.

So this bill clarifies that changing that roll type—you know, with the checks there—may also be exercised by special vote under the Electoral Act, and that means that Māori can change rolls on the day that they vote if they get to the voting place and realise they are on the wrong roll. And this is exactly what we heard—my colleague here, Rawiri Waititi, is shaking his head in agreement. We were receiving stories of exactly that situation happening all around the motu.

So I’m really pleased to see us improve our access to democratic processes, including in cleaning this part of the legislation up. This is just common sense and something that is long overdue. I’m proud to stand and give a short speech from the Green Party supporting this bill today. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I stand on behalf of ACT to speak to the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill. We said in our first reading speech that we were not in support of this bill, even though we recognise the need to be more flexible around the way that Māori can change electoral rolls. While we do recognise this and we want to be able to support it, we do not believe that being able to change whenever you want through cycle is adequate, and, therefore, we will continue to oppose this bill.

Now, listening to earlier speeches, I hear from across the House that there is a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that’s coming that may actually address this issue. But, in actual fact, the conversation was not had with all of the parties across this House, so because we are not in knowledge of what is proposed to be on the SOP, we are not in a position to change our position on this bill, and even so, we would like to see what that SOP actually states before we decide whether or not to support it. Hearing about it today is unfortunate. You would think, once there is discussion being held about such an important piece of legislation, that, in fact, everybody would be involved in that discussion.

I thought that it was actually really quite confusing for some to find out what is the problem here that’s trying to be addressed, and I thought I would try and make it as plain English as possible—plain language as possible—because it is quite difficult for some to understand how the process works and why it is impractical and inflexible the way that it is. Of course, what usually happens is that every five years we have a census, and after the census there is a four-month period where Māori can either go on to the Māori electoral roll or go on to the general roll. It’s only a very small area of time—four months—and it must only occur, at this present stage, straight after the census. The commission then sends the rolls to the Government Statistician after that period and the Government Statistician then sends data from this on to the electorates, and the commission, then having received this data back, makes up the electorates.

This is why it is so fundamental to make sure that there is 75 percent agreement across the House when we start to look at making changes such as this, because it’s entrenchment, really, that we have within our electoral system to ensure that there is no playing of it by one political party of the day. It stops a majority Government, for example, from trying to rig anything in their own advantage.

So we believe that there is the ability to change and be able to support this bill, and that is based upon the lines of being able to ensure that when Māori make a change, they make that change for a three-year period. That then encompasses the local body elections, and it encompasses the by-elections and the move into the general election. Effectively, what it says is that if we can make that decision for that general election period, then we should do so for the three years—put both feet in the water and stick to it. But we do recognise that five years is just impractical, and it’s not good for anybody to be stuck into a system that they cannot get out of.

So if we were able to change once every three years, heading into the electoral cycle, then we could look to support this. However, we have not seen the SOP and we have not been part of any discussions across the House as to potential changes to enable parties like ACT to support it. So at this stage, on the second reading and until we see that SOP, as I said, we cannot support it.

I just want to make mention about some of the submissions that came in, including one from the Wairoa District Council. They had concerns about administration work that would be incumbent upon them, should they get multiple people trying to change multiple times throughout their electorate. The commission had said that they did not believe that that would be a problem. However, the council identified that their grassroots would be the ones having to deal with it, and this is part of the reason why we support the change, but only once every three years.

So on that note, I will just say that we look forward to seeing the SOP. We hope that it will reflect what we would like to see, as well, so that we too would be able to support, going into the third reading. But until then, our minds are quite firm: we do not support this bill at this stage in its current format. Thank you.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. It’s a real privilege to speak on the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill. This is something which has been, for a very long time, important for Māori and our country, and it has restricted the ability to participate in elections in the way that people from my community would want to. So I want to thank Minister Allan for landing what I consider to be a very carefully balanced approach to solving this problem. But, look, I also want to thank Nicole McKee, who spoke before me, for her engagement in this process and the select committee. I really do value that member’s contributions around the table in what has been a very cross-partisan discussion. I also want to thank the member Rawiri Waititi for his continued advocacy around what has been an important issue for him and the people he represents, and I thank him for the member’s bill which he presented on this issue, which we have also spoken about.

This bill was, as I said, a finely balanced and carefully thought through way of approaching this problem. It also touches on a number of different pieces of legislation. As a committee member of the Justice Committee that considered this, it’s been very useful for us to have the full suite of advice on this that you get with a Government bill, because it is an omnibus bill which seeks to amend both the Electoral Act 1993 and the Local Electoral Act 2001, and the Bay of Plenty Regional Council (Maori Constituency Empowering) Act. It also may or may not engage the provisions for a 75 percent vote in the House, which has caused much discussion around the committee table, and so it has been very useful for the Ministers who have been guiding that process and discussions around this House outside of the committee.

Without taking a very long call, I just want to address, you know, this worry that has been echoed around the House about how switching rolls might skew the system—it’s just not the reality that I have seen. I am very privileged to represent the electorate of Manurewa, and, in turn, my colleague Peeni Henare represents the electorate of Tāmaki Makaurau—those two are overlapping. I live right in the heart of Manurewa, but I am a constituent of Peeni Henare. In the time that I’ve been organising for the Labour Party in Tāmaki Makaurau since I was a 15-year-old, I’ve been out door knocking with people and the main issue that’s really hard to get over the line with people is that they are in fact enrolled at all. It takes a great deal of effort to talk to people about their enrolments and to motivate them to exercise their democratic right to participate in our process. And the suggestion that there will be sort of mass skewing of the vote by organising around switching of rolls is simply far from the reality that I’ve experienced in that time that I have been organising in this space and encouraging people to sign up and have their say.

It’s also not borne out by the data collected by the Electoral Commission. They found that in the lead up to the 2020 general election, 24,000 voters wanted to switch and couldn’t. That was not an election that was characterised by any sort of tactics required to switch between rolls. It was simply people who got their voting papers and realised that they weren’t on the roll that they thought they were and sought to make that change. So being able to empower those 24,000 people in the next election to be able to make that important choice for themselves is something I’m really proud of doing.

I could talk much more about how this fits into our larger plan. And I want to work with the Opposition members around this House on improving our electoral system as we go forward. I thank the Justice Committee for its part in doing that, and I commend this bill to the House.

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

SAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be able to rise and speak on this bill. I note that we are supporting this, so it’s great to have bipartisan support on what is a significant electoral change. Before I even joined Parliament, it is something that I had heard concerns about, and they were raised by my brother-in-law. He has Māori ancestry and is on the Māori roll and he wanted to move on to the general roll but he didn’t have that flexibility. He was asking me because he knew I was a member of the National Party and was interested in politics, as I was at the time—helping out my colleague behind me in the Bay of Plenty. He said, “How do I move from the Māori roll over to the general roll?” I think he wanted to have a chance to vote in the East Coast and take down the current justice Minister but it didn’t quite work out that way. Anyway, he didn’t get that opportunity because the opportunity wasn’t available. To have this option available is fantastic. This flexibility is really good, because I know Matthew, who’s probably not at home buckling into Parliament TV at the moment—

Hon Member: You never know.

SAM UFFINDELL: —you never know—will have that opportunity, and he will be no doubt moving to the East Coast electorate to vote in the upcoming general election next year.

But moving away from my anecdotal story—I know it’s interesting; other people are probably drying up a bit now.

Matt Doocey: No. Keep going.

SAM UFFINDELL: No, we still have some support in the back rows. Fantastic. Very good. I do want to talk about how this bill is good, because what we do want to do is increase participation. That’s a fundamental part of a democracy—making it easy for people to be involved and participate. As the National Party would know, if anyone was here for the Fair Pay Agreements Bill, we do support flexibility and choice, and this is a bill that will further that.

I would also probably take a little bit of exception to what my colleague across the way mentioned before around not giving rise to potential—well, you call it tactical changes so as to influence an outcome. I would say that you probably could do that, because if I was a voter and I was voting in a safe seat but I had the option of switching into a marginal seat, then I would probably be politically active enough to do that. And I would say that there are probably quite a few other people in this House who would do that. I see my colleague Erica Stanford nodding away there. So I think the point the member across the House raised is probably not an accurate one. It’s one that she may perceive, and people probably wouldn’t think that way or they wouldn’t be so suspicious as to be as tactical as that. She may have been tactical in her time in her electorate—I don’t know. But I do think that this does close that down.

Also, the five-year provision after a census—I mean, who even engaged? Did many people even engage in the census last time? I’m not sure everyone even got their forms. But I think—

Anna Lorck: Everyone should. We should be encouraging people.

SAM UFFINDELL: We should be encouraging people, and I have met with my local census officer, so you will be happy to know that. But I am happy that there is bipartisan agreement on this bill, because it is something that we need have on major pieces of legislation like this. So I do want to commend the Government for listening to our comments. [Interruption] I never knew I’d get heckled by my own side of the House.

If I am going to be critical I’d say the Government probably should have listened to us before the bill went to the select committee, but that didn’t happen. But we did finally get there, and we do have bipartisan agreement, and we do have the 75 percent that we need. So on that note—

Matt Doocey: Keep going.

SAM UFFINDELL: I’m looking at my colleagues in the background. They’re egging me on. They don’t want to talk before dinner. I see that Rawiri also wants to have a crack. I’m sure Rawiri won’t be switching. He’ll probably be going again in his seat, and good on him. I may actually get my wife and my extended family on her side to switch and vote against Rawiri. I don’t know where Tāmati is at the moment, but, anyway, we will consider that.

Well done to everyone for getting on board with this. We got the 75 percent and I commend this bill to the House.

RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): Wow, we finally got to the end of that one! Anyway, nice to take a call on this. As we said at the first reading—is that because this has a lot in common with the bill that I put in, we will support this bill, and my plea to the Labour Government and also to Kiritapu Allan, who I mihi to for this, is that will they do the same when mine comes up tomorrow? Because it goes both ways, that support for this particular kaupapa. If we’re driven by the kaupapa, I think we’re able to support both, or all of the bills, because I also know that the Greens also have a bill that’s similar, although mine is a little bit more tight-packed in regards to giving our Māori a fairer shot at the elections.

I’m hearing a lot around the ability to change at any time and that there should be a time frame on that. You know, these elections were built on those who actually owned homes. So those who own homes—and by “own homes”, I mean plural—in different areas already get the opportunity to skewer the system. So that already happens in a by-election. If we’re really, really serious about ensuring that we tighten up on our electoral system, we would ensure that those people who own a home in Auckland and also own a home in Tauranga are not able to jump into Tauranga to skewer a by-election there. So these are some of the things that we need to consider, I think, when we’re tightening this election, because it’s already happening. Those opportunities for people to be able to change addresses to allow them to vote in different elections and in different electorates—for local government and for central government—are already happening.

So I’m just going to take a short call. Mine is, we’re going to support this bill because we want what we all want: for the ability for Māori to be able to participate fairly in our electoral system. The other one is that the other wero is to the other parties, and I’m going to take National off the list because what I’ve heard is that there’s an opportunity here for National to support this bill with that Supplementary Order Paper saying within a six-month period, you can’t jump on and off before any election—which I find quite reasonable. I think that’s a reasonable thing to ask for, to stop that. But we must also look at tightening the electoral law so people who have addresses across the country can’t skew elections, because that’s already happening; we know that—we know that.

My other wero is to ACT, who have so far refused to support these bills. You know, if you’re going to stand people in those Māori electorates, like National are committing in the next one, these types of electoral changes will not just benefit Māori the voter but also Māori the candidate, Māori who are standing in those particular elections—but I don’t know to what extent coming to the national elections in 2023.

Anyway, koinā noa iho [that’s all]. That was a very, very short call. We’re going to support this bill. I’m hoping that Labour, National, Greens, and ACT will also support ours to ensure that we tighten up the other parts of the electoral law. That bill will be coming up tomorrow; hopefully, it’s not squeezed out by a whole lot of other member’s bills—you fellas are going to prioritise it, eh Goldie? So we look forward to that debate as well, because we’ve waited far too long. Over the last two members’ days, we’ve been squeezed out right until 10 o’clock and missed. Anyway, that’s me. We will support this bill; I look forward to you all supporting ours. Ngā mihi nui ki a tātou, kia ora tātou.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Thank you and kia ora, Madam Speaker. It’s always wonderful to see cross-party support of important issues like electoral matters. I just wanted to acknowledge my colleague across the floor Rawiri Waititi for his work on his member’s bill which is coming up tomorrow, but actually also for his insightful comments just now. It is important that we’re always—cross-party—looking to identify measures within our electoral system that need discussion and, potentially, maturing and evolution. So looking forward to having those conversations and for this bill going into committee stage as it goes through the next phase.

I was a member of the Justice Committee who considered this bill, and before it went into select committee I read the 2017 Electoral Commission report which highlighted this very issue and spoke of, as a number of people have referred to, the fact that 6,000 voters each year attempt to change electoral rolls. But in an election year, that number increases significantly to 19,000 people, and many of those people aren’t then able to change electoral rolls.

We did have over 120 submissions in relation to this bill. One of those was the Council for Civil Liberties, who made the case that when people aren’t permitted to change which roll they are on, it significantly decreases the likelihood that they will vote at all. There were a number of really insightful submissions that we received in that regard. We also received submissions from Local Government New Zealand, who said that: “Accurate and up to date electoral rolls are vital to achieving our vision for Aotearoa to be the most active and inclusive local democracy in the world.”

The last submission that I’d like to share—there were many that were fascinating—was one from Graeme Edgeler, who spoke about the reasons why people shift and want to change rolls. He said that he wasn’t always a supporter of allowing people to change rolls, but he changed his mind. And he said sometimes there are ideological changes in terms of why people decide they want to shift, and sometimes they’re just practical. He gave this example, he said: “someone of Ngāpuhi ancestry might have chosen to go on the Māori roll because being on that roll enables them to have a say in who represents the Ngāpuhi rohe in Parliament, through their vote in Te Tai Tokerau. But if they moved to Hamilton to live and work, they may consider it wrong that they would be voting to determine who would represent Māori who whakapapa to Waikato-Tainui and Ngāti Raukawa and the other iwi who have rohe within the boundaries of the Hauraki-Waikato electorate. Forcing this person, who chose to go on the Māori roll as an exercise honouring their whakapapa, to later vote in a way which may undermine their mana is wrong, and the law should not require it.”

There are very valid reasons why we’ve proposed these changes; there’s utility in them for a fair democracy for Aotearoa. I commend this bill to the House.

HARETE HIPANGO (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise as the last speaker for the National Party, and have listened to the debates and contributions this afternoon from my parliamentary colleagues but also my National Party colleagues. Our lead, our spokesperson, for this, Paul Goldsmith, has signalled and indicated that the National Party, at the second reading, is supportive of this bill, and we await at the committee of the whole House the Supplementary Order Paper. Members of the public who are listening in: a Supplementary Order Paper is a further amendment to the bill after it has gone to the select committee, which was the Justice Committee, with this bill having been referred there on 30 June 2022, and after it’s been subjected to scrutiny from the public, listening to submissions, where there were some 121 submissions received from interested parties, individuals, and groups, with oral evidence heard from 13 submitters at hearings in Wellington and by video conference. The Justice Committee has filed a report back to this House with proposed amendments, as had been considered at select committee after submissions were heard from members of the public.

So a Supplementary Order Paper is indicative that at the committee of the whole House, which is the next phase after the second reading, which we’re at at this stage, before going to the third reading and consideration for determination of the bill being passed into law—the Supplementary Order Paper that my colleague Paul Goldsmith had referred to, after engagement with Minister Kiritapu Allan, Minister of Justice, is the concern that the National Party had about the continuous model for the changing of the roll from either Māori roll to general roll—that is, for Māori voters, those who are enrolled—or from the general roll to the Māori roll. What had been proposed and has been reported back to the House in the select committee report is an endorsement of the continuous model for the ability to change from one roll to the other for Māori voters, where those who are enrolled as Māori voters have a choice in the ability to choose and move between—that that continuous model would be right up to the point and the day of polling day, voting. So the National Party had expressed concerns about that. Other members in the House have spoken about and addressed that.

We recognise the importance of flexibility, and it seems that as a result of discussion appropriately held between the National Party with the justice spokesperson, Minister Kiritapu Allan, there is a recognition, and that recognition has been very much driven by the fact that there’s a 75 percent majority that must be secured from Parliament for any changes to this electoral law. So as a result of those considerations, negotiations, discussion, the Minister has indicated to the National Party being amenable to that, shifting from the continuous model up to at any time prior to an election except for three months before polling day, the ability to change rolls.

Now, I speak from experience here as a member of Parliament but also as an enrolled voter in 2017, and I don’t know if any of my other Māori parliamentary colleagues were in the situation that I was on polling day, and even before polling day, in 2017. I stood and was selected as the candidate for the Whanganui electorate and gained the confidence of the people to be voted in as Whanganui’s member of Parliament for Whanganui electorate on a general roll. The problem that I was personally confronted with was that I was on the Māori roll and I was unable to vote for myself. So I may have been one of the few members of this House who was captured in the position where I was not able to change from the Māori roll, which I was on, on to the general roll to be able to cast a vote in favour of myself.

Simon O’Connor: That’s humility right there.

HARETE HIPANGO: Picking up the compliment from my colleague in terms of humility, it was a fact of the situation that I was caught in, and many—well, I don’t know if any of my other parliamentary colleagues have had that personal experience, but, certainly, I have three adult children, and the most favourite child was my youngest daughter, who at the time was a first-time voter and was able to enrol on to the general roll, knowing that Mum was standing as a candidate in a general election. She was the only one of my three adult children who was able to be on the general roll to vote in support of her mother.

My point is that there was a limitation, and there is a limitation, for those of us who are of Māori ancestry. The electoral law does provide us with a choice as to whether we are on a general roll or on the Māori roll, but that choice has limitations. So I speak where I can, in standing and addressing the House, from personal experience, and that personally impacted me in terms of a professional capacity that I had to be able to carry through and vote for myself. But I was fortunate that I did gain the confidence in 2017 of sufficient general voters, those enrolled on the general roll in the Whanganui electorate, to vote in support of me. So the National Party has expressed the consternation and the concerns associated with the potential that some may see as being able to ply or play or game the system, in terms of—if it were to be continuous right up to the polling day itself, to be able to shift or switch whichever roll one was on, to strategically cast the vote.

I won’t take a long call, but having listened to the—I won’t utilise the full time, but just to say, having listened to the speeches in the House, I was interested to hear my colleague Nicole McKee from the ACT Party indicating that there hadn’t been engagement between the Government with ACT. All I say is that it does require proactivity. The National Party was proactively engaged. Paul Goldsmith had the necessary conversations with the Minister of Justice, and we will wait and see at the committee of the whole House the Supplementary Order Paper being tabled so that the National Party, on receipt of that, are able to turn our mind to either giving this the fullest support that it would deserve if it were up to that three-month window and bracket prior to the election, enabling Māori voters the choice and the ability to change from either general to Māori or Māori to general.

So, on that note, as the last speaker for the National Party at the second reading, we have indicated support through to receipt of the Supplementary Order Paper through to the third reading.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker, and thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill this afternoon.

Nāku te rourou, nāu te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi.

[With my food basket and your food basket, our people will live well.]

Most people know that whakataukī, but the importance in today’s context is coming together: my food basket, your food basket; together our people will live well. And when it comes to this particular bill, it’s an opportunity for us to collaborate for the benefit of all of our people—in this instance, for the benefit of Māori.

Can I acknowledge my Justice Committee colleagues for the work that you’ve done on this particular piece of legislation—it is important. One of the goals, one of my goals—and I think people will share this sentiment—is that we want people to vote however and whenever they wish to exercise their right to vote. They should have the opportunity. What’s good today is that we haven’t talked about just one vote. We shouldn’t be afraid of some of the opportunity that this piece of legislation presents to us, because that good old argument, that “one person, one vote”, which is pulled out at times, you know, effectively means that people do have the opportunity to contribute their vote and have a say in the democracy of New Zealand.

This bill is about fairness. It’s enabling all people—and all Māori, in this sense—to have a choice about which roll that they want to be represented on at which particular time. And I want to acknowledge my Ngāti Whitikaupeka whanaunga Harete Hipango for your contribution in the House this afternoon and the acknowledgment of sometimes the complexities of being a Māori in politics and those challenges and choices that you have between both the Māori roll and the general roll. I, in fact, have been on both rolls—that I have both started on the general roll, went on to the Māori roll because I wanted to support my friend Kelvin Davis and then, in turn, wanted to come back to the general roll and stand for the seat of Northcote. Indeed, with that, you have a support base that I think follows you and that mobilises particularly Māori to stand up and make their contribution.

So this particular choice is important, and I commend this bill to the House

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

Ayes 109

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 33; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Noes 10

ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Minister of Customs): I present a legislative statement on the Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill.

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

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: I move, That the Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 27 April 2023. This is a truncated select committee process to allow the bill to pass House stages in May and come into force on 21 June 2023. This allows for operational readiness before it comes into force.

This bill amends the Customs and Excise Act 2018 to provide for clearer arrival information obligations to help with customs-related border management matters. This includes things such as collection of revenue and detection of restricted or prohibited goods. The bill also aims to improve the collection of arrival information by introducing new offences to enforce the system.

The work Customs does at our borders is a critical part of managing Aotearoa New Zealand’s border system. Customs’ core functions are broad: they work to prevent and stop drugs, illegal weapons, and other prohibited goods from crossing our border. They also have an important role in collecting Crown revenue through the duty system. At the same time, it’s important that they provide a streamlined experience for travellers coming to Aotearoa. To provide the streamlined experience, Customs needs to use innovative and advanced technology to make travel more efficient. Customs makes a data-driven approach to focus on the people and goods that pose the greatest risk. This approach protects Aotearoa while enabling the smooth passage of legitimate travellers and trade.

This bill helps improve border management by providing for the digitising of the paper arrival card. A digital arrival card is part of work towards a safer and smarter border, using technology. We already have a smart and safe border by international comparisons, but it’s important we continue work to improve this. Other countries have moved to requiring digital arrival cards, such as Canada and Singapore.

The New Zealand Traveller Declaration system will be used to implement the digital arrival card. The New Zealand Traveller Declaration has been a vital tool in supporting the safe reopening of our borders. The benefits of digitising the paper arrival card include improved risk assessment from quicker assessment of information against risk factors. This will help cut down unnecessary referrals to border officers. In the future, where there is a digital arrival card in place, only some people will be referred to a customs officer if their digital arrival card identifies a potential risk or issue. This frees up the customs officers to concentrate on those where potential risk is identified, and to look out for persons who might display suspicious behaviour.

The accuracy of information will also improve. A digital arrival card removes handwritten answers. Customs officers will not have to decipher what people write down or ask additional questions because they can’t read the handwriting. The digital arrival card system has the ability to provide greater guidance around questions, such as additional prompts to help travellers answer questions accurately. Those travellers who voluntarily complete the digital arrival card prior to arrival will be able to experience a more streamlined process on arrival in Aotearoa. As Aotearoa returns to pre-COVID-19 volumes of visitors, it’s important our border processes are as efficient as possible. A digital arrival card could be implemented using existing Customs legislation. However, changes are being sought to improve the transparency of the law around arrival information collection. Changes will also improve the way the system works, and the enforcement of the system.

Specifically, this bill provides an implicit obligation on arriving passengers to provide the prescribed arrival information, which will be set out in chief executive rules. This will improve the transparency of the system because the public will be able to clearly see, in law, the requirements they need to follow when they travel to Aotearoa. Currently, multiple provisions must be read together for the arrival information requirements. The bill also improves the enforcement of the arrival information required by introducing two new offences. In practice, most people want to comply with customs requirements and complete the arrival information. It is expected the offence of failing to provide arrival information will apply to a small number of individuals. I plan to make these offences into infringement offences, to provide a low-cost way to encourage compliance.

Other changes include a regulation-making power to set the timing for when arrival information can be required. This futureproofs Customs’ use of arrival information to respond to emerging risks and future border processing changes. In future, Customs may require specific information to be provided offshore, and enforce on arrival in Aotearoa. A regulation-making power is also proposed in the bill to exempt categories of travellers from providing arrival information. Exemptions could be used where it is not practical or necessary to collect arrival information from a particular class of persons. For example, it is not practical to get arrival information from a person rescued at sea.

The approach in this bill aligns with the existing Customs and Excise Act—that is, the Act provides for high-level obligations. Secondary legislation, which are regulations and chief executive rules, provides for matters of detail. I appreciate that the digital system can be difficult for some people. We have some experience to draw from in the earlier use of the New Zealand Traveller Declaration for health purposes. During the development of the system, there will be user testing to ensure the system works for a range of people. When it is implemented, there will be a call centre to help people complete the arrival information requirements. Before the system goes live, it will need to meet Government web accessibility standards. If a person cannot complete arrival information in the digital arrival card, they can complete a paper arrival form.

This bill also proposes a power to collect information for the purpose of verifying compliance with traveller data entry requirements set out in other statutes. This allows for the Chief Executive of Customs to verify information on behalf of other agencies and use information collected for this purpose. Verification could be needed to manage emergency situations at the border—for example, if Customs need to enforce a vaccination requirement in another pandemic. The bill does not implement any COVID-19 requirements. Were these to be necessary, they will be set out in health legislation.

The verification provisions provide authority for the Chief Executive of Customs to use information held by another agency for verification purposes. The Minister of Customs would need to be consulted where it is proposed Customs verifies compliance with arrival information. The bill provides for any verification provisions in other statutes to be specified in the Customs and Excise Act.

I ask Parliament to support this bill. While this bill is small in terms of its size, it is important to help Customs successfully fulfil its important border management role. It will provide clearer arrival information obligations and improve the enforcement of the arrival information requirements. I am pleased to commend this bill to the House.

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

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Madam Speaker, how exciting is it to have a customs bill in this House? I have waited a very long time for this—as the shadow Minister of Customs I am absolutely delighted. But the nature of parliamentary time means that my speech will either be cut off at 6 past 5 or earlier, so we’ll have to make the most of it.

But can I commend the Minister for bringing this bill here. National will support it to select committee. Obviously, the collection of information is vital to the security of the Realm. And first and foremost, what customs—and the Minister knows it herself—what the customs team do already is fantastic, and I would suggest one of the top operating Government departments and ministries. So thanks to what they are doing there.

Because of the issue of time, I’ll truncate some of my thoughts. Look, first and foremost, collecting information is a good thing. We will want to see in select committee—and it’s picking up some of the Privacy Commissioner’s concerns in that at the moment, basically, the legislation says the chief executive, the comptroller can decide what information is or is not collected. On this side we’re probably interested in whether or not we have to define that clearly. As the Privacy Commissioner’s noted, we don’t want oversharing of information. As the Minister will know, there’s already an enormous amount of information collected. The advance passenger name record, the advanced passenger processing info—long and short, before you get on a plane, there’s an enormous amount of information about who you are which Customs can use. And I suppose where we’re a little bit concerned, Minister, is not so much about the bill, but it is around the New Zealand Traveller Declaration system and how that operated.

And again, in the interests of time—the fundamental concern is that it was a whole lot of information being asked of Kiwis, it seems to us. Well, we do know that very little of it was actually used. So it was in a massive processing—wait, sorry, actually I’m going to back up the horse and cart. There was a lot of work for people to submit information, but it basically went nowhere and it wasn’t used. And that’s something we just don’t want—on this side of the House—to see. If information is going to be collected, it has to be used in some way.

The Minister touched on usability. She’ll know that the traveller declaration—and I understand that the New Zealand Traveller Declaration is not what exactly is being proposed from June next year—was hard for people to use; particularly our older New Zealanders. So we will be very interested in the select committee process to understand what the Government has in mind to design a system that is quick, easy, intuitive to use, and obviously provides your department the information it requires, and then to understand how that’s going to be used—particularly if the chief executive or the comptroller is going to have that power.

We do understand why this is a truncated process. We know that the Government is wanting this to be active by the middle of next year. There is a question; it’s probably more just a statement of why it’s therefore taken this long to get this piece of legislation to the House. A little bit—I’m not sure if it’s Minister disappointment. It would be good to have had it earlier so we didn’t have to rush this through. But, fundamentally, it’s a good bill. Again, for those at home to understand, it’s helping us move—

Shanan Halbert: He’s being so kind today.

SIMON O’CONNOR: —actually clearer. Yeah, I know, I’m in a really good mood today, so—take it, take it, while we can!

It is a good bill. It’s providing just that little bit more flexibility. The Minister rightly pointed out that the existing customs Act would allow us to make these changes anyway, but this does make things just a little bit clearer and, importantly, brings about that infringement system. Again, it will only be a small matter of debate, I think. Was it still $400 if you bring in a piece of fruit—which I don’t encourage people to do, but this is suggesting $1,000. So whether or not there’s an equity between those—is bringing fruit in a higher risk, and I would argue, yes, on a biosecurity level, than someone not quite filling a form out? Although I am aware it’s a maximum of $1,000.

But again, look, fundamentally, collecting information is a positive thing. But on this side of the House, we want to be absolutely clear on what that information is going to be used for. And, again, I turn back to that traveller declaration. Having used it a few times myself, it did feel just like a massive data collection. It didn’t always make a lot of sense. And once we found out through written questions and otherwise—and thanks to the people in Customs, who have to answer all my questions; it is gratefully received. We know that a lot of that just didn’t get used.

I know I’m somewhat repeating myself here, but fundamentally we want to have absolute assurances through the select committee process that all information being collected is for an absolute purpose, and that it’s going to tie in with the passenger name record, the advance passenger processing info, how that’s all going to interact, and, ultimately, that it will bring about the goal which the Minister has indicated, which is a much more efficient system at the border, because, actually, we still need to get that border fully open. We want people to be coming back in; we want them to have a very simple, near seamless experience. And the final point—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order!

SIMON O’CONNOR: Oh, I was just about to compliment the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee chair—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The member is welcome to complete his speech after, because it’s obvious he’s passionate about Customs. However, this debate is interrupted. I’ll resume the Chair after dinner, at 7 p.m.

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

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The House is resumed. Members, when the Speaker left for the dinner break, the House was considering the Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill. Yep, Ibrahim Omer.

IBRAHIM OMER (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I would like to take a call on the Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill.

At the time of digitisation, at the time of globalisation, when the flow of people and goods through airports and the ports is quite common, we need to make sure that our system is updated and up to date. This bill amends the Customs and Excise Act 2018 to provide for clearer arrival information obligations to help with customs-related and border management matters.

The changes in this bill support the digitising of the paper arrival card. While the digital arrival card can be implemented using existing legislation, changes are necessary to improve the enforcement and the functionality of the system. In particular, the bill does the following: it provides an explicit obligation on arriving passengers to provide prescribed arrival information; it creates two new offences: one for failing to provide prescribed information, and one for providing arrival information that is erroneous material in particular. It also creates a new regulation power to set the time when the customs information must be provided and exempts people from needing to give information—that’s people rescued at sea, for example. It also provides a power for customs to collect certain information administered by other agencies to verify compliance.

Now, this is not to say that things will be perfect—of course, there will be people who will be worried about these changes, especially digitising the paper arrival card. To switch to a digital card may cause concern but the public clearly see the requirement of the bill.

I just got back from overseas a few weeks ago and on our arrival, everyone fills the paper in manually. But there are even countries who are poorer than us—Third World countries, where sometimes you see all their paperwork is digitised and up to date. So we need to be doing everything we can to make sure that our system is functional and up to date. Thank you.

Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Madam Speaker, thank you. National will be supporting this bill, but only so far as first reading, and we reserve the right to consider further our support once the select committee has looked at it. And there are a number of reasons for this. We’re in favour of making things easier, streamlining procedures, and digitisation. However, I wonder whether this is not a missed opportunity with this legislation, because, largely, what it does is give power to an official to make a lot of decisions that, actually, a Government should be making, and doesn’t really give the Government the oversight or control that I think it should have in as far as exactly what we’re asking arriving passengers or returning citizens to do. It creates offences but, in effect, doesn’t balance that out with the requirement for any request to arriving visitors to be reasonable or sensible.

Many countries of the world have gone much further than digitising the processes for when people arrive in their countries. They’ve got rid of the requirement to provide information, and I want to give the example of one in a moment. But, in essence, what this legislation is doing is saying we are still going to collect a lot of information from people when they arrive. There will be no assessment by the Government or anybody else as to the usefulness, reasonableness, or whether it should be and needs to be collected, but it gives us the ability in New Zealand to go and digitise that. And in some cases that may well make sense, but I did hear the Minister of Customs in her introductory comments saying she does recognise some people won’t be able to and might not want to, and they’ll still be able to fill out the paper system, and so it just doesn’t make any sense at all.

The missed opportunity here is to decide how much information needs to be collected and whether any needs to be collected at all. And I’m of the understanding that when the arrival form is filled out by a visitor to New Zealand or by a citizen returning to New Zealand, the vast majority of the information collected on that arrival form is not analysed—is not used at all. And so the Government has no use for that information, or if it does have a use, it just doesn’t get around to considering it, and therefore we’re asking people to fill out forms and provide information when there is no reason to.

You know, many years ago, anybody that visited the US knew just how arduous, how difficult it was. The forms were long, they were in triplicate, there were so many of them. In fact, the hoops to jump through to get into America were extremely excessive and challenging, and most people who visited there often would say, “Had a nice visit, but I had to fill out a lot of forms and I just don’t understand why.” Well, maybe our Government could take from the US not what they used to be like in asking people to fill out forms, online or otherwise, and try to provide information that’s not useful and is not used. But the US, earlier this year, made a decision—and I’m reading, from their website, the arrival/departure form in the US: “Foreign visitors to the U.S. arriving via air or sea no longer need to complete paper Customs and Border Protection [forms].” They don’t need to do it online either; the US is not collecting information.

So one of the things we will be asking in the committee is exactly what information is needed and why it is needed—why do we need to collect this information?—and if there isn’t a good reason, perhaps we should not be. I do note that one of the things the Minister said in the introduction to the bill is that it gives Customs the ability to find people who are bringing in prohibited goods or who are not paying the revenue that they should. That, I guess, is by way of somebody saying, “I’m bringing in a prohibited good.” But, generally, if somebody is smuggling something into the country or bringing something in wilfully or deciding to evade the payment of customs duties or taxation, they are not fooled by the form that says, “Please tell us that you’re doing this.” And so, actually, Customs do their job through enforcement, through knowing about risk before it arrives in the country. They exchange information with other countries, the world, with the US Customs Service, with the Chinese customs service, with most customs services in the US. They know enough about people before they arrive to decide whether or not they are likely to be a risk or not, without them, you know, filling out a form and, hopefully, they make a mistake and they catch them.

And so I wonder whether, in the Government’s desire to make this easier and to simplify it by going online, they are missing the opportunity to decide whether or not they are creating burden, bureaucracy, and, I suppose, more paperwork. And is this really helping Customs at all? I think we would be much better putting effort into customs services that identify risk without somebody telling on themselves and keeping our borders safe and citizens safe for those that visit here and those who return, and these are some of the things we will want to explore at the committee.

The other thing we have is a concern around the Privacy Commissioner saying a similar thing—that, actually, there is likely to be creep here and that people’s privacy may be impinged upon as a result of information being required to be presented that we might otherwise not have a right to or don’t need. And if somebody says, “I decide you don’t need this, you shouldn’t know it about me”, or the Government has no real need for the information and the person doesn’t provide it, they can be fined up to $1,000. That feels quite excessive, I think, and so we’ll want to work through all of that. But first and foremost, I would hope the committee will have an opportunity to exhaustively look at whether or not there still remains a requirement to collect information when people come to New Zealand, or whether we can be more like the US, who protect their border arduously, more than most countries of the world, and no longer say there is a requirement to provide information. They have found other ways to do it and at a much lower cost—less cost to them, the Government, and to those who visit.

So we are supporting this bill in its first reading and to select committee. We hope that we can work through some of these issues and land in a place where we can continue to support it. Digitisation is a good thing. It helps, it is efficient, it is streamlined. But the requirement to have to go online on your phone or your computer or whatever it is on the other side of the world and tick a few boxes to fill out a form before you climb on a plane in itself doesn’t relieve a burden from the visitor; it just makes it a bit easier for the Government or Customs, and we should be looking to make it easier for the visitor, much more welcoming for them to come to New Zealand, and get rid of as much bureaucracy as we can.

I think there is one final point to this. It is legislation to give Customs the ability to require information. They have that ability already, so I think all it’s doing is saying they have the ability to require it digitally. But then it says there will be a suite of rules or regulations put in place decided upon by the head of Customs as to what is required and when and how. And I think the Minister actually should be in front of this Parliament saying “This is the type of information we will collect”, not leaving it to an official. Look, officials will do their job judiciously. They will go to great, great lengths to make sure that they do their job and they collect all the information that they need. But it’s this Parliament that is accountable—the members of Parliament here who are accountable—to the public and the Government, not the officials. And so to merely say, “We want to pass a law with some urgency”—quickly, for next year, the Minister said—“so that we can require people to provide information to us that we may not use and may not need, and if they decide not to do so, they will be fined up to $1,000. But we’re not going to tell you what information it is we require, what we might want. In fact, we, the Government, say that’s not going to be our responsibility. We’re going to leave it to a civil servant.” I don’t think that is responsible or right.

And so the committee will have an opportunity to question Customs at length about how they believe this will work and why they just want regulation-setting powers, rather than codifying much of this as law in a bill or giving us the opportunity to have some guarantees that the poor old visitors in New Zealand or the returning citizen is not going to be encumbered with providing a lot of information that on the surface may seem reasonable but the Government is not currently using, may not use in the future, and that they may find harder to provide to Customs than we would otherwise like. Thank you.

STEPH LEWIS (Labour—Whanganui): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I am very pleased to rise and take a call on the Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill. I’m very excited I am doing this, as, in a former life, I was Customs’ senior privacy adviser. So I’d like to begin my call by reassuring my colleague across the House—Todd McClay—that the information that is currently collected on the arrival card is in fact used and is needed by the Government. The interesting thing about the arrival card is that, while it’s collected by Customs, as the initial point of contact, the information contained on the arrival card, and requested, is actually done on behalf of Customs, the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), Immigration New Zealand, and is used by Stats NZ in the calculation of GDP. It’s actually counted as tier one statistic information; so it is vital information. I just really want to get that on record and reassure you there.

In fact, the other reason I’m really excited to take a call on this bill is because while I worked at Customs, one of the projects I was lucky enough to be involved in was the collection of GST on small goods being bought overseas and brought into New Zealand. That helped to level the playing field for our local retailers. I can tell you again that Customs and the other border agencies really take their collection of information very, very seriously, and they make sure that they consult rigorously with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner to ensure that they are compliant with principle 1 of the Privacy Act—that is, that they’re only collecting information that is connected to a lawful function of their agency.

The other project I was lucky enough to work on at the New Zealand Customs Service was, in fact, the digital arrival card trial. In fact, I wrote the privacy impact assessment for the digital arrival card trial. So I’m incredibly excited to see it coming full circle and we’re now making moves to implement that permanently at the border. That will actually make the experience for travellers, be they returning New Zealanders or visitors to New Zealand, much simpler. It means that with the digital arrival card and the utilisation of the e-gates, or the smart gates, at the border, a traveller can disembark, go through the egates, and not have to talk to a customs officer and, potentially, even get right through MPI without having to have contact or stop and talk to border officers. So it will, in fact, make a traveller’s process through the border and into New Zealand much more seamless and much more efficient, and will result in a lot less queuing at the border. So I absolutely applaud the Minister for bringing this bill to the House.

The other interesting thing to note is that currently, with the paper-based arrival cards, airlines are having to set aside huge amounts of space on aeroplanes, and it’s costing them a lot in emissions to carry around the paper-based arrival cards. So not only will this improve traveller experience but it is also going to result in space savings and emissions savings for our airlines. So I wholeheartedly support the Minister’s desire to move us to a digital border, and I commend this bill to the House.

TEANAU TUIONO (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Greens, and we will be supporting this Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill. Just a brief description of the bill, for families that have just tuned in: this bill is intended to make changes alongside the move to digitalise arrival cards that are not currently provided for in the legislation. This follows on from the changes made during the COVID-19 border measures, and so as families and whānau were coming home there needed to be different types of information, even more detailed information that needed to be given that couldn’t be done by paper. So what I see this doing is picking up from the lessons learnt in terms of the way that things were processed at the border during COVID. But I did note what the Minister said in her opening statement, that, of course, this is separate from COVID legislation and that will be dealt with appropriately within health legislation. But it’s important for us to pick up and learn from the last two years, because who knows what tomorrow is going to bring.

I think once we get this to select committee, we will start to look at different regimes around the world, and I would say about the US one—and I remember going through there during September 11th, and the Americans unilaterally got rid of transit, and they haven’t got it back yet. So they have a completely different system. They’ve got a lot more people moving through their borders. They’ve got a different profile in terms of, you know, agriculture and biosecurity and all that kind of stuff as well. So what I would say to the select committee is to not necessarily go straight to the US but if you’re going to do comparatives, look for countries which have a similar profile to us.

This legislation involves establishing an explicit obligation on arriving passengers to provide prescribed arrival information in arrival cards, which are currently done in hard-copy form. It’s creating two new offences: “one for failing to provide prescribed arrival information and one for providing arrival information that is erroneous in a material particular”—i.e., significantly erroneous information. The fine incurred would be a maximum of $1,000. I was digging into the RIS, into the regulatory impact statement, and it said that the agency’s preferred option was for $400. So there’s $600 that just got pulled out of the air somewhere. So I would encourage the select committee to dig into where that $600 came from. Would it actually do what we want it to do? You know, would pinging someone harder—$600 harder—do what we want it to do? Why not $500? Why not $700? Why that particular number? I think that’s really important work for the select committee to get into, and also trying to get a bit more around the rationale about why you would do that and whether it would actually deter the sorts of behaviour that we’re trying to stop as well.

The legislation also makes the power to make regulations: to set the time by which arrival information must be provided to the New Zealand Customs Service, and also to exempt persons from the requirement to complete arrival information where it is not practical or necessary—for example, people rescued at sea.

The proposed legislation also will give “a power for Customs to collect certain information about persons arriving in New Zealand to verify compliance with traveller requirements set out in [regulation] administered by other agencies.”—but only where this is provided for or authorised in other legislation. There are currently no examples for this, but the regulatory impact statement speaks to the potential need for this in a possible future pandemic, for example.

As the previous speaker, Steph Lewis, got up and spoke, I was just reflecting on her member’s bill that we managed to get through the House a couple of weeks ago—a couple of months ago? One of the concerns that we had was around language and accessibility. When people come into the country, not everybody has devious and mischievous means and we’re out there to catch them. Some people just need to understand that these are the conditions you must adhere to when you come into the country. One of the things that we talked about was language accessibility of people coming in from different countries, making sure that that is available for them in their language, and to make sure that it’s also accessible as well for people that are visually impaired or hearing impaired as well—to make sure that that gets picked up as well.

Finally, probably something that I’ve heard from both sides and that I think is really important is around making sure that we don’t overshare information. I would expect the select committee to really get into the detail about that around privacy protections and making sure that you’re getting the right information but then also having a really important rationale about why you’re getting that information, and taking on board the comments made by the Privacy Commissioner. I’ve got faith that the select committee will be very, very vigorous in that regard, in terms of acknowledging that a lot of information is collected anyway when you come into the country, so the stuff that is being gathered—to make sure that it’s in line with the concerns that the Privacy Commissioner has brought up. But, also, I’m sure members from around the House will also raise some concerns about that as well, and that is good and important. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Dr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of ACT to give this bill support in the first reading, to select committee. We commit to as much as that. Certainly, we’ve got some questions around unintended consequences and things for the select committee to look at.

So this is a small bill but with, potentially, a big punch, and it does give a lot of power to the secondary legislation, particularly the chief executive’s rules, so a little bit of clarity there is to just how far and wide this is going to go. Privacy is obviously a widely valued good, and the collection of data, when enforced, has to be treated seriously. In particular, some might say there’s something objectionable about a New Zealander who’s trying to return home being faced with quite a considerable fine if they simply forget to fill out a form, and I do have question about that.

But first, we all understand the need for modernisation, the digitisation of services, hence we’re going to support this at first reading. But is there actually a problem to be solved here specifically? The Minister herself stated in her first speech that our border is already smart and safe, and this bill does seem very hypothetical at this stage.

The New Zealand traveller declaration has been discussed as being possibly a bit of a template, something that we can work off or look to. That travel declaration, rest in peace, was a bit of a nuisance for travellers. I did it myself, crashed every printer I tried to print it out with. Then when I came back from Samoa with the recent delegation the Inland Revenue thought I was still in Samoa until recently. So I was getting threatening letters about my student loan. So something’s going wrong with the digitisation. For any others who were on that trip with me, they might want to check that as well with the IRD.

So, I do wonder about the built-in redundancy. How does that work? The Minister stated that there will still be a paper version that’s available, which is fine, which is good. But that begs a question about enforceability of this regime, so that if someone hasn’t done the digital form and they’re technically liable for a fine, but then they can just opt to do the paper version instead, so how does that, kind of, interact with each other? I just have to ask, will travellers be able to amend, if they’ve done it digitally, their declaration at the last minute for whatever reason? This can happen. Perhaps someone has a change of heart or a change of realisation about something that they may have ticked “no” but actually it really should be a “yes”. So can they amend that or does it just have to be what it was two or three days—who knows how long? I mean, the bill doesn’t actually say the timing, but how many days in advance is it that they just have to maintain that? If your grandmother sneaks some vegetables into your luggage before you travel to New Zealand, what do you do in that situation?

So, certainly we have some questions and concerns, but we’re happy to support it. We would also like the select committee to just have a think about the cybersecurity risks associated with this. This is a lot of data, official data, that’s being plugged into the system and with all the travellers coming to New Zealand, what happens if there is some sort of geopolitical issue, if a foreign Government hacks the system and sits there mining data from our citizens and people visiting New Zealand? What happens in that situation? How do we respond?

So I think, broadly, we’re reasonably happy with this. There’ll certainly be some concerns around data and the collection of data, as there should be. But we’ll leave that for the select committee for the time being. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Kia ora koutou, Madam Speaker, and it’s a pleasure to take a brief call on the Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill, which supports the implementation of a digital arrival card. I don’t have a happy history with paper-based arrival and departure cards. There’s a simple reason, and if you know anything about Sri Lankan surnames, you may be able to guess it. My full name is actually Vanushi Sitanjali Rajanayagam Walters, and I spent many years in my 20s attempting to work out how to fit that on the limited characters by resorting to two characters per box and other fun techniques.

All jokes aside, this is a change that will have a significant impact in terms of streamlining our arrivals process in New Zealand, but, to be fair, the existing legislation actually already permits a digital arrival card to be developed. What this legislation will do will smooth-line that to allow changes to the time when information can be provided. It also provides for offences to enforce the system, although those offences are very much qualified, and no doubt the select committee will do some work looking at the scope around those provisions.

But there is, of course, another concern that I hope the select committee will look to, which is the issue of accessibility. My colleague Todd McClay from across the way—there you go, I’ve got a “Hairy Maclary” in there for you, as well—spoke about why there was need for paper-based systems to exist at the same time as online systems. The simple reason is reasonable accommodation. So we’re just ensuring that anyone who’s not able to access the online space can still have that option of a paper-based system.

Lastly, I understand that the Privacy Commissioner has made some comments about what should be in primary versus secondary legislation in this regard. I have a special interest in this point as a member of the well-known Regulations Review Committee, and I would just say that there are arguments that the detail that the Privacy Commissioner was speaking to shouldn’t be in primary legislation but it should be in secondary. I also note that the Minister of Customs is required to present a copy of the chief executive’s rules to the House, and the House can disallow the rules, and, of course, under Standing Order 327 of the Standing Orders—which I’m sure everyone is very familiar with—individuals in the public space can always raise a complaint about any secondary legislation with the wonderful and diligent folk around the Regulations Review Committee table.

I am looking forward—although I’m not a member of the select committee that this is going to—to reviewing some of those submissions in this regard, and perhaps just a final invitation for those who have been excited to hear about the Regulations Review Committee for the first time this evening: perhaps they might like to find us on Facebook and keep in touch with our fascinating work. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Penny Simmonds—five minutes.

PENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you, Madam Speaker. As my colleagues before me have said, National supports this bill to select committee, the Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill, which amends the Customs and Excise Act 2018 to provide for clearer arrival information obligations to help with customs-related border management matters.

So we know that technologies are changing and advancing. And, of course, we want to be in a position to take up the opportunities that that technology brings, to make things more streamlined, to make the experience better for people coming in, and to make our borders more secure.

I would like to acknowledge, just as we are speaking about this bill, the tremendous work that New Zealand’s customs staff do. Coming from the agricultural sector, I know just how incredibly important their work is.

Often when I’m coming through customs, they’ll be apologetic for stopping us and asking us to take off our shoes and wash them and things. I’m always at pains to say, “Don’t apologise for it. We want you to do this. We want you to be particular. We want you to have a really robust service at our borders.” So can I just acknowledge all those New Zealand customs staff, who I know get a bit of abuse from time to time but they are doing wonderful work for our country.

The uptake of technology—as I’ve spoken about—is really important, but it’s also important to make sure that we get that balance between being at the forefront of the use of technology but also making sure that what happens is seamless, that we’re still providing a friendly experience for those coming through, that our security is being maintained. So we have got a number of things that we’re flagging that we will want to see satisfied at the select committee stage.

Now, Customs is looking to replace a paper arrival card. This is just a sign of the times with technology, but it’s already been touched on by a couple of speakers, that there will be people who are uncomfortable or don’t feel capable using an online service for this. In fact, we don’t know yet how that will be presented to them. Will it be days in advance? Will it be using phones? Will it be using kiosks on entry? So we have to be sure that the elderly grandparents coming into the country—having not travelled a lot, and not familiar with systems and processes, and are not particularly comfortable with online services—still feel that they get a good service when they enter our country.

We also need to be very aware of those with disabilities that may find it more difficult using an online service. So I think we need to be very careful.

I heard the Minister say in her opening words that there will still be the option of being able to do the paper form, but just how difficult is that going to be in practice? Are you going to have to ring and wait for someone to come down to give you the paper form? So I guess working through the actual operational implementation of this is going to be really important.

That matter of amending your form—I was thinking often of when you fill out the form and you suddenly remember the chocolates that you packed for aunty or something that you didn’t initially declare. So that ability to be able to amend what you’ve done, if you input it at the other airport before you left, can you still make changes so that you’re not misleading or putting false information in?

So there are a number of things that we do want to see just how they would be worked through—how they would be implemented—because it may not be a particularly easy system for a number of people.

It’s an absolute priority that we get that balance right of keeping our borders secure, particularly in the agricultural sector, because we absolutely rely on that and we must have those borders kept secure, but it’s also that balance of being welcoming and friendly to people coming into our country and being an efficient service and making it more reliable for our staff dealing with it.

So thank you, Madam Speaker. We support the bill to select committee stage.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. I stand to take this call, which would usually by taken by Te Paati Māori, but, once again, they’ve chosen not to speak on an important piece of legislation in this House for whatever reason.

I must say, that’s a pretty good speech by Penny Simmonds. It covered a lot of the issues, I must say, and that we do need to have a secure system, but we also need to move into the 21st century in respect of how we deal with this information. We do, in fact, know that electronic information can be dealt with more effectively and, actually, more securely. Obviously, we need to have a good examination of this, and I’m sure the select committee will do that.

Other than that, to be perfectly honest, I think Ms Simmonds, for once, said it all. So I will commend this bill to the House.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a short call on the Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill. I wanted to just pick up on some comments that my colleague Teanau Tuiono, from the Green Party, made earlier around the importance of people being able to understand what was being asked of them when they arrived at the airport, and that if we are going to be introducing two new offences, which this bill does—one for if a person provides some false information or if they omit some information—it needs to be provided to people in a way they can understand.

I just wanted to note how useful my Plain Language Act will be in ensuring that Customs are followed—the principles of having plain language within the documentation and the information that they’re providing to people arriving in New Zealand. So I want to reassure him that the House has recently passed legislation that will require the Government to ensure the information is presented in a way such that those who are arriving in New Zealand understand their obligations in terms of the declarations that they complete.

This is an excellent bill. I look forward to observing the select committee in terms of the submissions that come through. It’s great to have the support from across the House for this bill. It will make a real difference and I commend it to the House.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, I would like to concur with Dr Duncan Webb and say that Penny Simmonds did do an excellent speech just now on what is a very simple bill. So it’s surprising what happens in Parliament on a Tuesday night

So what I would say from the perspective of National and, you know, a lot of it’s been said before, but, really, we support this to first reading. It sounds simple. It sounds like a really commendable thing to do: digitising paper arrival cards—notwithstanding the comments that people have made about those who are perhaps not as digitised as others.

But I think sometimes we’ve just got to watch when we get a bill that sounds simple that we are looking for any particular fish-hooks. I think one of the fish-hooks in this is that sometimes when you digitise something, it doesn’t quite settle down as easily as it could. Without wanting to dive into the absolute detail, at select committee, I imagine people would want to have a bit of an understanding that it’s fit for purpose, it’s ready to go.

I do remember debating in select committee, the bill by Steph Lewis, the Biosecurity (Information for Incoming Passengers) Amendment Bill. A lot of submitters came in, and they talked about moving away from paper and, actually, you know, not having too much paper because in this day and age, we’re always trying to preserve the amount of carbon miles and the weight we put on aircraft and those sorts of things. So I do commend the general direction of the bill.

I think one of the things that we’re most concerned about on this side of the House is what information will need to be collected? And if it is collected, what is it collected for? Will it be recorded? Will it be monitored? Will it be used? Because we don’t want this to turn into something that’s highly bureaucratic. It only should capture what it needs to capture.

I want to endorse what Penny Simmonds said about agriculture, because one of the things at the moment—and we talk about fast tracking through the borders, but, right now, we’ve got to be very careful at the borders in New Zealand because we know that we had a scare of foot-and-mouth in Australia recently and some of the stuff that comes through customs, if it isn’t declared properly—whether it be electronically or on paper—will cause mass destruction to this country in terms of what foot-and-mouth would do to us. It would be a renegotiation of all the trade deals, it would be absolutely devastating, and it would be way worse than the Mycoplasma bovis outbreaks that we’ve had and the one that we’re currently still having.

So we note and we’re a little bit worried about the fact that the chief executive of Customs can decide what information is collected because it’s not clearly laid out. We’re great believers that we do need to make sure we have the right information, but let’s not go overboard. I would also make a comment—as James McDowall did before—about some of the aspects of travelling that we’ve had in the last few months.

I was able to go to Europe on the Speaker’s trip at the end of May and at the start of June. It was one of the first trips that went out of the country. I remember that traveller declaration system. It was absolutely awful. We had people at the airport pulling their hair out. One of the things that I would point to that seemed absolutely stupid was that we had a paper-based version of when our booster was. So it would ask you when your booster was, and then it would ask you when your first COVID vaccine was and your second COVID vaccine was. None of that was printed on the paper-based form. The only reason I remembered it is because we had our first COVID vaccination on my husband’s birthday—sadly for him—and we had the other one three weeks later. So I knew exactly which dates to put down. But there were people at the airport going, “If my booster is recorded on the paper-based document, and if I put my booster in there, the system should know, if it knows me, when I had my first and second COVID vaccine.” There are things like that that actually really make passengers get uptight at airports. We don’t want any more repeat occurrences of that.

The other thing is that the Privacy Commissioner does also, along with the National Party, have some concerns regarding the risk of over-collecting information.

So I’m not going to say a lot more on this bill because it’s a very short piece of legislation and much of it’s all been said. It seems sensible: digitising seems to be a good answer to what we’re trying to do at Customs, but making sure it’s efficient and effective and it captures those things and only those things that it needs to capture to keep us safe, to keep us disease-free—particularly in the agriculture sector. So we look forward to this bill going through select committee so our members can hear the submissions and then decide where we go to next. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m pleased to be speaking to the Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill this evening. Essentially, what this debate has discussed is a digital arrival card, coming through Customs.

Can I just acknowledge the work of the Hon Meka Whaitiri. I was here in the House prior to dinner, listening to her opening speech—and, equally, the energetic contribution from Simon O’Connor, who was pleased to have a speech for his shadow portfolio in customs come before the House, for him to have a good debate over. So it was a wonderful start to this particular debate.

Essentially, this bill does a few things. It provides an explicit obligation on arriving passengers to provide prescribed arrival information. It includes two new offences: one for failing to provide prescribed arrival information, and one for providing arrival information that is erroneous in a material particular. And it creates new regulation-making power to set the time by which arrival information must be provided to the New Zealand Customs Service.

I guess what we’re discussing tonight is the timely arrival of a digital platform for Customs. There are some challenges as we transition from paper, or manual, through to digitalisation. We now are in that generation. It’s important to start to make these types of moves, but support people along the way to make that transition. So, without further ado, thank you for accepting my contribution in the House tonight. I commend this bill to the House.

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

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is, That the Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill be considered by the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee.

Hon Stuart Nash: I present a legislative statement—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): No.

Instruction to Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee

Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister of Defence) on behalf of the Minister of Customs: Madam Chair—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): “Speaker”.

Hon PEENI HENARE: Madam Speaker—I apologise. I move, That the Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 27 April 2023.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): This is like comedy hour! The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Business Payment Practices Bill

First Reading

Hon STUART NASH (Minister for Small Business): I present a legislative statement on the Business Payment Practices 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 STUART NASH: I move, That the Business Payment Practices Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee to consider the bill and to report back by 27 April 2023.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): No. Can I just ask the Minister to—I hope he has got the appropriate words: “At the appropriate time I intend to move”.

Hon STUART NASH: At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported back by 27 April 2023.

The Government’s intention in introducing this bill is to support our efforts in creating a fairer business environment. While many of us will take this for granted, timely payment for goods and services delivered is crucial for the financial health of any business. The average time between a business issuing an invoice and receiving payment for that invoice has been gradually shortening over the last five years. This coincides with widespread adoption of technology solutions like cloud accounting and Government-led efforts to improve payment performance through initiatives like e-invoicing. But this movement, while positive, is marginal and slow. Poor payment practices persist and continue to affect many small New Zealand businesses. Small-business owners in New Zealand continue to report that delays receiving payment are hurting cash flow, increasing stress levels, and inhibiting their business growth. It is abundantly clear that this situation warrants intervention. As the New Zealand economy recovers from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is more important than ever to support small-business owners and operators who are the bedrock of our nation’s economy and communities.

Small businesses face challenges enforcing their payment terms, because they have limited bargaining power and limited resources. We know that larger firms can exploit the power imbalance by setting payment terms that advantage themselves at the expense of their smaller suppliers. When this happens, small suppliers often feel unable to ask for more reasonable terms, for fear of damaging relationships. Furthermore, when the bill payer doesn’t meet the terms that they’ve agreed to, the small business affected may not be able to do much about it—again, the perception of power imbalance is often too great for the small-business owner to risk upsetting their large customer. If a small business relies on a large payer for a lot of their revenue, they will be anxious not to rock the proverbial boat as their livelihood may be at stake—well, that may well be the perception they have.

This may be preventing a significant segment of our business ecosystem from realising its full potential and contribution to our economy and to our communities. The effects of poor payment behaviours can run throughout supply chains and have consequences for the broader economy—for example, through a high cost of capital or unnecessary insolvencies. The Government set up the Small Business Council in 2018, and I asked this council to develop a small-business strategy for New Zealand. The Small Business Council reported back the next year, and among all issues facing small businesses, it considered timely payment a top priority. The council said that problems with payment practices are difficult to deal with effectively through our current tools and that a new approach was needed. The bill being debated today will deliver that change.

The purpose of the Business Payment Practices Bill is to establish a disclosure regime that brings transparency to business-to-business payment terms and practices in New Zealand. This will lead to businesses having better information to inform their decision making when engaging new customers. It will also incentivise larger businesses who are increasingly conscious of their reputation to improve their business payment practices. A secondary benefit of the regime is that it will build an evidence base on business-to-business payment practices and enable the Government to assess, over time, whether any further regulatory intervention is needed.

Under the regime, entities with more than $33 million in revenue will be required to disclose information about their payment practices twice a year. The Government needs to lead by example, so the bill will also apply to Government entities that exceed the revenue threshold. Disclosed information will include, for example, late payments made by reporting entities, information related to payment times, and reporting entities’ payment terms and conditions and policies. This information will be submitted to, and stored on, a publicly available and searchable register administered by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. The register will be free for users to access. Disclosed information will also be published on reporting entities’ websites.

The bill will provide for the appointment of a registrar who will be responsible for establishing and maintaining the register and the associated compliance and enforcement functions. It will also provide for infringements, penalties, and criminal offences for contraventions of its obligations. The more severe penalties would only apply to the most wilful and problematic offending. Education and information is a key lever to achieve compliance, and compliance will be straightforward because the information firms need to disclose is readily available to them anyway.

Important details of the bill will be determined through secondary legislation. The bill’s regulations will, for example, specify the information to be disclosed by reporting entities, prescribe the form of infringement notices and reminder notices, and prescribe the quantum of infringement fees and maximum fines able to be imposed by the court for infringement offences. In addition, the Minister for Small Business may exempt the class of reporting entities from all or any of its obligations under the bill via notice. Lastly, the business payment practices registrar can set disclosure periods and deadlines for reporting entities via notice as well.

I’m conscious that much of the success of the bill will depend on balancing technical aspects, and many reporting entities and users of the business payment practices register will want a say on how the technical detail is determined and how this new regime will operate. I’m pleased, therefore, that they’ll be able to participate in the select committee process of the bill in the coming months, and I commend the bill to the House.

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

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a pleasure to be talking on the Business Payment Practices Bill first reading. I’ve got to congratulate the Minister: you read it with some passion, this speech. He didn’t quite make 10 minutes but he did a valiant effort tonight.

Now, I thought it was interesting, the Minister’s talked about how he formed the Small Business Council back in 2018. They came back with a recommendation in 2019. But in 2022—sorry, just let me check: 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022—three years later, he comes out with this bill. What has happened to you, Minister, in the intervening time? Have you not seen that small businesses have been suffering in New Zealand? And why has it taken you three years to come up with this little bill that is not that significant, that was recommended years ago, and that Australia and Britain have already put in place. I just have to ask the Minister why he has been so tardy, or whether he has shown sufficient interest in how small businesses are operating. Of course, small businesses account for 97 percent of all businesses in New Zealand. So I think it is a shame that we have had to wait all this time to go through this little bill. This should have been passed years ago, Minister.

Hon Stuart Nash: A lot of consultation.

ANDREW BAYLY: No consultation.

Hon Stuart Nash: A lot of consultation.

ANDREW BAYLY: I can hear my colleagues on this side scoffing at that one.

So if the Minister really had been worried about small businesses, why haven’t we heard more from him as this Government has steadily set about making it harder for small businesses to operate in New Zealand? Only in the weekend, I had someone say to me, “Look, you used to be able to set up and run a company in New Zealand so easily.” Now it is so difficult because that lot over there have, over the last five years, just kept imposing lots more compliance and costs and a whole lot of other stuff on small businesses.

What have they done? Well, I think the most damaging thing they’ve done, actually, is the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act. I think that’s probably done more to ruin the building and construction sector. Rising interest rates—because, gee, we’ve got a Government that loves spending and, of course, it’s just roared through the economy and, of course, business owners are now facing much higher interest rates because that Government doesn’t know how to contain itself.

But where was the Minister about public holidays? Didn’t hear a chirp out of him. Where was the Minister about doubling of sick pay? Didn’t hear a chirp out of him. Where did we hear the Minister about fair pay agreements? Didn’t hear a chirp about him, did we? Because we don’t worry about small businesses in New Zealand, because they only account for 97 percent of our business activity! And then what about the sharp rises in minimum wage? We didn’t hear a chirp about it from the Minister. And what about the immigration bottlenecks; did we hear a chirp about it from the Minister? Not a whisper—not a whisper—but, hey, we’re saved. We’re saved, because we got this bill. And when is it going to come into force? He has asked for a response to get it back into the House in April next year. Now, my reckoning is we’re going to have an election sort of later next year. We go into that period, three months at least, for the election period. Gee, you’ll be lucky to get it through before he goes and starts electioneering, Minister. Why wasn’t this done all those years ago? Anyway, that’s enough about that.

We will, obviously, engage in the process, and we will support it to first reading. But some of the areas that we will want to hear about and we will be asking the officials about is, first of all, the $33 million threshold. Now, I know that relates to the external reporting framework. Interestingly, Australia has a $100 million threshold. So the big question is: why $33 million?

The second one we are concerned about is whether there should be a much more tailored approach—for instance, if a customer has $33 million of revenue but only has one or two customers, do they have to go through all this compliance cost? I think we need to be cognisant of making sure that we get the right outcome out of this. Maybe this is going to be some of the carve-outs that the Minister might have the opportunity to do. But, of course, the Minister didn’t talk about that tonight, so we don’t know where the carve-out might apply in that situation. But we need to make sure that if we’re going to go down this regime that we take it in a practical manner and we do not just end up imposing costs. And I will say that the National Party actually had a proposal of establishing a small-business payment guarantee scheme. So we’re not against it, but we want to make sure that it is tailored to the situation and leads to a better outcome.

The other aspect of this is looking at the other options. And, of course, where the Government and the Minister have gone is for the big king-hit: let’s regulate it, let’s put it through a legislation, big tick, I can look like I’m doing something. Actually, the officials put up three options. The first option was a non-regulatory intervention only, and that meant making sure that Government procurement, in particular—there was a requirement for prompt payments. Those are all good things that should be done, and, unfortunately, this bill doesn’t seem to be talking about that. Just to ask people to report if they are over a certain revenue target does go some way, but it’s not the whole way. Procurement is the major issue, and, of course, that’s not only central government but it’s local government and major companies. So we want to make sure that procurement payment periods are captured as well. We want to make sure that Government supplier arrangements are captured. One of the things about this bill, and I heard the Minister talking about this, saying that the Government entities will be captured in this bill if their revenue exceeds $33 million, if I understood the Minister correctly—and he is nodding to me—my argument, and this is something we will be testing in select committee, is why don’t we make it apply to all Government sector entities? Why not? What’s so special about our Government sector? Government sectors should be leading the fray in terms of prompt payments—

Hon Stuart Nash: And they are.

ANDREW BAYLY: —and I’m not sure—the Minister says they are. And I know the Government wrote to some of the organisations, large organisations, encouraging them—with inverted commas. But why not to all Government sectors? Why not to everyone? I think that is something we’ll be wanting to make sure, because if there’s anyone who should be showing leadership, it should be all Government departments.

The third option was a legislative maximum payment times for businesses—i.e., a normal payment term to 30 days, and that was another option. But, of course, the Government and the Minister have gone down this route of requiring this disclosure, and this is where we do have a problem to some extent. For instance, the bill requires for an appointment of a registrar—holy Toledo!—we’re about to have a debate about the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) managing all the different registers, because they haven’t been able to account for them properly and have been misappropriating money and spending it on other registers, so we’re having to do a legislative fix which we are going to oppose, actually. But here’s another register run by MBIE, good on it.

And, of course, then the company is going to have to keep information for seven years. Why in the dickens do you have to keep information for seven years? This is officials gone mad. That’s when we should have had a Minister saying to officials, “That is a silly recommendation.” And then the fines: $500,000 up to some extreme case, or $50,000 for not filing some records or not doing it on time. Wow! I just think we need to make sure this is tailored and fit for purpose, because I suspect that this is an overreach in some regards. But we do support the principle of making sure that Government departments, and companies in general, pay small businesses promptly and on time. But wow! Let’s get the old sledgehammer out to whack a walnut.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): Let me restore some equanimity to the debating chamber. This is an excellent bill and it’s an issue that I have been concerned with for quite some time. Way back in 2018 as a new backbencher, I read a really interesting article on The Spinoff by David Cormack, who runs a small business, and he talked about the difficulties that small businesses face in getting paid. He talked about exactly some of the stuff that the Minister for Small Business and the previous speaker have spoken about, that we all back small businesses and that small businesses are regarded as the backbone of the economy, but he pointed out that we do not treat small businesses well; that we could do better. In particular, he was concerned with payment practices.

Around about that time was when Fonterra had decided it was going to pay its suppliers on a 60-day cycle. In fact, it was going to push up payment of some of its suppliers to a very long period of time. And at around about the same time, Xero had mined its data and had found that only about one in nine invoices were paid on time. So, you know, if you have to wait for 60 days to get paid, but then that gets paid late, it can be worse; even up to 90 or 120 days. What it means is that small businesses have ended up providing the working capital for large businesses, because those large businesses do not pay their bills on time.

That is incredibly rough on a small business. Cash is king. Getting those bills paid and getting the money in is critically important to a small business. But it is so hard for a small business to get paid when even major consulting firms like McKinsey are urged to provide, as one sort of gem of consulting advice, that one way to keep a business going is to push out payment of your small suppliers. So there is a real problem here.

David Cormack in his article gave an analogy. He was surprised, he said, by the number of people who just don’t pay on time and he’d never expected that he’d spend a large part of his time as a small business operator acting as a debt collector. I’m just going to quote him. He says: “Having to make awkward phone-calls to people, coughing between words as I asked for our money to be paid because we have mortgage payments about to go out or my cat needs its teeth pulled at the vet.” Then, this is the analogy; he says: “I don’t walk into a supermarket, fill up my trolley and just walk out the door yelling vague promises of paying at a later date. Being a supplier shouldn’t be any different. And yet it is.”

I contacted David Cormack after I read that article and said, “Hey, let’s talk about this.” So between us, David and I talked through the issues. And at that stage, I put together a member’s bill and even put it into the ballot on setting a disclosure regime for companies around payment times. But around about the same time, I was given word—I talked to the Minister at the time and I found out there was work starting to get under way on this issue already. On the grounds that a piece of work that goes through a ministry is likely much more developed than a member’s bill, I pulled my bill and worked on a different issue.

So it’s taken a while, because now we do have a bill around disclosure terms. And, of course, the reason that it has taken a while is not just the intervening global pandemic but because the Minister in charge of the bill now has undertaken serious consultation in order to get this bill right, has gone through several issues, several rounds of consultation, within the business community to make sure that this strikes the right balance between, say, requiring compulsory payment times versus not doing anything at all.

What we have here is a disclosure regime. It’s a disclosure regime that asks businesses to report how well they are paying their suppliers. Now, the previous speaker, Andrew Bayly, said that he was deeply worried about the compliance costs that this would impose on firms. That is an odd thing to say. It’s a very odd thing. This is data that firms are collecting anyway. It’s information that any firm has at its fingertips anyway.

I spent a summer job one year doing creditors’ reconciliations for a firm in New Plymouth. Just fascinating work, but at least I got paid for it! But that was part of that firm ensuring that it was paying its creditors on time. And so it actually knew how long it was taking to pay each creditor. So in terms of the information that is required to fulfil what this bill sets up, firms already have that information. It is just a matter of reporting it. And it is important information for small businesses.

The previous speaker also had a little bit of a query as to why $33 million was the particular threshold. There’s a simple answer. It’s sitting in the documentation. It aligns with section 45 of the Financial Reporting Act. So it’s just a threshold we commonly use anyway in financial reporting in New Zealand.

So carrying on from there, I want to talk about just one further advantage of this particular bill. Now, there is obviously the advantages that our Minister has already talked about in terms of how it will help small business to understand who they are dealing with and when they are likely to get paid. But this is also important information for investors in large businesses, for the banks, for the shareholders, for the debenture holders, and for the other entities who trade with them.

A common way to understand whether a firm is doing well is whether it is paying its bills on time. If a creditor’s ledger is stretching out and out and out and increasing, that can indicate that a large firm has cash-flow problems or has financing problems. If that large firm cannot pay its invoices on time, it quite rightly raises questions in the minds of shareholders, of lenders, of anyone who has a stake in that firm. So it’s really quite almost a by-product of this excellent bill, we are also going to have better information available to our stock exchange, better information available about the funding of New Zealand firms and businesses, better information available in general to business. And the great thing is that this is information that is already there. It is just not yet publicly available.

So as the previous speaker said, a small bill. Perhaps a small bill, but really all it is doing is requiring firms to provide some extra information so that the entities that deal with them have a better understanding of what’s going on. But a small bill with large and excellent implications for our small businesses. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Before he goes to have his late dinner, I’d like to congratulate the Minister Stuart Nash for bringing this legislation to the House. It is the best piece of legislation I’ve seen from that Minister in five years, and it’s one of the worst bills that’s ever been brought here, because it’s not going to do a single thing, actually, to help small businesses get paid on time.

We’ve heard from Government member after Government member after Government member that there isn’t a cost to this and all they want to do is measure because measurement is important and it will help them ensure that small businesses are paid quickly. But when we say to them, “Why aren’t you, the Government, measuring outcomes in health and whether people are getting their operations, or in education and whether or not kids are learning properly, or in any part of Government—why aren’t you measuring?” They say, “Because it’s not important.” But when it comes to the private sector, they want to impose a burden and a cost, albeit well-meaning, upon those businesses. And to the last speaker in this debate, Dr Deborah Russell: there is always a cost when you ask a business to do something other than run their business. There are many times when it is justified and it should happen, but this is the Government merely passing the buck and putting an onus upon businesses to do the job that this Government promised five years ago that they were going to do for small businesses in New Zealand.

When we put in questions—written questions—to Ministers, at the moment, more often than not, they say, “It is too much work for our departments, the information is not readily available. We are not going to ask them to do it, because the cost would be too high.” But if you are a business in the private sector, you don’t get to pay for things out of taxes, you don’t get to waste money, you have to be accountable—like this Government wastes money. Then, actually, this Government says it’s OK to burden businesses and make them do the job the Government should be doing themselves.

The Labour Party—in Opposition and then in Government—made a commitment to small businesses that they would fix this issue and speed up payments. And merely asking companies that have a greater than $33 million turnover, including revenue and including GST, to report, to collect information, to publish it themselves every six months, and to hold that information for seven years—and get any part of that wrong, including, I don’t know, only holding it for 6½ years, there would be a fine; in some cases, a substantial fine—tells me that this is a Government that does not understand how businesses work.

Now, Stuart Nash wants to make it easier for smaller businesses and to speed up payments to them. Bring legislation that says companies must do that. Don’t just say, “We’re going to do a little bit of measuring and we’re going to collect a bit of information and we’re going to get those companies to publish that information, and if we find that that they’re not doing this properly, then we will legislate—and we might.”, because that’s not what the commitment was that this Government made to New Zealand small businesses, it’s not the promise that they made, and it is certainly not what they are delivering in this House today.

I think that information and the collection of it and its analysis is important. Actually, good information and good analysis leads to good law and good rules and good regulation. But we don’t see that from this Government. In fact, what we see is excuses when it comes to what they should be doing, and they pass the buck and they burden others—in this case, businesses in New Zealand who have already done it tough. But what you hear in every speech, underlying every speech, from Government members on this legislation is that businesses can pay this, they can afford to, and, actually, they have a responsibility to, when it’s the Government and the members speaking in this debate from the Government that have the responsibility to meet the promise they made to New Zealand small businesses and actually make a change. This legislation, sadly, won’t do that.

When we look at larger companies, there are times when they don’t pay their bills as quickly as they should. They shouldn’t do that. They should pay efficiently and quickly, just as they demand that they should be paid quickly as well. But here’s the problem: this legislation focuses on any business or any enterprise in New Zealand with $33 million worth of revenue, including GST, and it doesn’t go anywhere near a single Government agency or department that may or may not pay on time. How about the Government collects information on that? They don’t need to pass legislation. They have the ability just to inform each of their heads of ministries or departments to report to them individually or collectively on the payment terms and how well they do as a Government. It’s another promise they made before the last election, but there’s no measurement there. And if we asked the Government to do it, if we put in a written question or an Official Information Act request, I give you a guarantee that the Government will say, “It’s too hard to do, it’s too costly, and we won’t instruct our officials to do it.”

So they’ll put cost upon businesses. But to make sure the Public Service is running well, to make sure that they are paying the bills on time, or, I don’t know, to make sure our hospitals are delivering operations or people are seeing their doctors or their specialists in a timely manner, this Government doesn’t believe in measurement. It doesn’t believe in collecting information. It certainly doesn’t believe in league tables. But if you are from a business, then, actually, this Government is coming after you.

What would be a much better use of this House’s time would be something that actually sped up the payment terms for small businesses where there is a problem. For many small businesses who have done everything this Government asked of them during lockdown—they took on debt, they closed their doors, they stayed at home, they paid their workers, they acted on behalf of the Government, doing the Government’s job half of the time—the thanks, here, is: “We’re going to do a little bit of measurement and publish it every six months, and if somebody doesn’t do what we say, we’re going to fine them.” Well, that’s actually not good enough.

I think Stuart Nash probably wanted to bring a much better piece of legislation into this House, and it was either stopped when he got to Cabinet or stopped by the officials, or he, like so many others in this Government—other Ministers—have just given up. And that’s not good enough because it’s not good enough for our business community. It’s not good enough for hard-working New Zealanders. It is certainly not good enough for the people that run small businesses that believed Stuart Nash and his colleagues before the last election, when they said they would fix a problem that they had identified before. And if they didn’t think it was a problem, then they shouldn’t have said so while asking people to vote for them; they should have said, “We’re just going to pass a law that’s going to measure this for five or six years and we might do something about it.”

What this country needs is a Government that can deliver and actually takes action. Press releases of fancy slogans and pieces of legislation that don’t fix the problem are not helping New Zealanders. Sadly, that is one of the many reasons that this Government is struggling in the eyes of New Zealanders. If they turn around and start doing their job properly, who knows what might happen. But, at the moment, there will be people all over the country who are disillusioned by what this Government is doing. And as I look across at some of the members over there, I hope they don’t end up running a small business after the next election, because I said deflation wouldn’t help them be paid any faster.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East): That was a rather strange speech from a member whose party is supporting this bill in the first reading. A series of ramblings from that side of the House.

I’m delighted to take a call on the Business Payment Practices Bill as a member of the party for small business, Labour. Labour has always been the party that supports small businesses across New Zealand. The National Party, traditionally from the big end of town; Labour, we support small businesses, hard-working Kiwis, and this is another example of that.

We have supported our small businesses through the wage subsidy recently, and the feedback on that was overwhelming. We’ve recently supported businesses through the retail payment surcharge. This is another example, the Business Payment Practices Bill. We have a pretty small market in New Zealand, and it is quite common for power imbalances to emerge within that market. When those power imbalances do emerge, it is incumbent on the Government to address those imbalances.

This is a clear example of a power imbalance between the large businesses and small businesses. The small businesses often contract to the large businesses, and it’s reasonable that those large businesses pay for those contracts, pay for that work in a reasonable period of time. We have heard from other speakers around that power imbalance and the fact that the small businesses, it’s very difficult for them to meet—you know, it’s impossible for them to force a large business to pay. It’s very difficult for them to even ask a large business to pay within a reasonable period of time, because there’s an inherent fear there that if they damage the relationship, then they won’t get further work. So it’s the power imbalance. There’s another aspect around the competition which links in to that.

It’s important that as a Government we continue to foster fair competition within our country, and that’s something we’re doing here. Transparency in aspects around cash flow for small businesses. Look, there’s a lot more I could say, but the Minister for Small Business covered it very well in his speech. I commend this bill to the House.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Holy Toledo! Quite a range of speeches this evening, including from Andrew Bayly, the National Party’s lead spokesperson on this issue. Jeanette Fitzsimons regularly said that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and from that we can take that it’s transparency and getting into that kind of power imbalance that exists where there’s an asymmetry of information. When we have that transparency and when we deal with that asymmetry of information, we start to see some of the problems that might emerge.

It’s interesting that, despite some of the speeches that we’ve heard that seem as though they are in opposition, all of us are generally in agreement that this is, baseline, a good principle; that it seems as though all of our Parliament agrees on progressing to the select committee stage, where, of course, it’s really important that we’ll pull apart some of the features of this legislation. Interestingly enough—although probably coming from a different perspective—the Greens are really interested in that $33 million threshold; a concern that was shared by the National Party but, again, probably for different reasons, and it is very much the case that, with this kind of data being made publicly available, good practice can be celebrated but, more so than that, bad practice can be identified. That really gets to the core of that issue around the asymmetry of information and that power imbalance, particularly amongst smaller players in the so-called free market, because you don’t have a free market when you have an asymmetry of information; when you’re not quite clear on the reputation or the way in which some of those actors in that market may operate.

As others before me have laid out, this is actually something that is really important to small businesses. It’s important to small businesses in my community of Auckland Central. It is actually something which I’ve experienced in my background before coming to this place—engaged in running a few different small businesses—and it’s the reality for many of my friends, as well, in speaking about their kinds of issues and concerns with getting their invoices paid from some of the bigger players in town. And as, of course, the Minister identified, it’s very much the case that the small-business working group that he’s pulled together again identified this as a key priority.

I found it really fascinating—and I’ll just leave it on this point because I spent some time googling, as, particularly, members of the Opposition were doing their speeches—to hear them say that this is a small bill and it will do nothing and it’s therefore a waste of Parliament’s time whilst they were using up all of the time that they possibly could in their speeches. And, through that wee google, I found that the Parliamentary Library did some estimations of the cost of running this place—of running Parliament—and it was estimated that, during the 2000 to 2014 term, for every minute that Parliament was in operation, it cost approximately $5,500. So, to the next National Party MP that decides to use their full 10 minutes, that’s $50k of taxpayer dollars. Kia ora.

CHRIS BAILLIE (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT to speak to the first reading of the Business Payment Practices Bill, and I hate to disappoint Chlöe Swarbrick, but we do think it’s a silly bill that shouldn’t go ahead.

We oppose this bill for a number of reasons, but the irony isn’t lost that for the last five years, business owners have been kicked in the teeth with a Minister who’s been missing in action in the support of small business, and this is obviously a virtue-signalling bill to try and show that they actually do care. But I think the Minister underestimates the intelligence of small-business owners, and this token gesture won’t fool them one little bit.

If we look at the policy, the purpose of the bill is to introduce a regime that brings transparency to business payment terms and practices, and to incentivise larger businesses to improve their payment practices, which all sounds great. In 2020, the Hon Stuart Nash said, “When small businesses are paid late, many owners have to resort to personal savings or take out bank overdrafts to cover their business expenses.” He just must have been asleep for the last couple of years, because in the last three years, businesses have had to borrow money, whether it’s off the Government’s small-business loan scheme—which they have to pay back—borrow off friends, downsize their business, not pay themselves, plead with landlords, grovel with the IRD, and be humiliated by banks and patronised by politicians in the Labour Party.

They’ve had to scrape funds together in order to pay for the increases in the minimum wage, the extra sick leave, the statutory holidays—all pushed on to them over the last 2½ years while we’re going through a COVID crisis. The Labour Government even wanted to get employers to pay for parents to go to their school interviews because they didn’t think parents should waste their annual leave on their kids—it seems crazy. To pretend to care after all of this is pretty disingenuous.

The legislation deals with those businesses with a revenue of over $33 million, and they are required to disclose their payment of invoice practices twice a year, including payment practices in relation to late and overdue payments, and practices in relation to the terms that are set for those payments. The bill also provides a Minister with the ability to issue exemptions from the payment practices, and knowing the bias of this Government, I think this is a really scary clause. It also provides for penalties against those businesses that infringe.

The bill provides for the appointment of a registrar to establish and maintain a register. Do we know how many more bureaucrats will be needed to be employed because of this? No doubt, they will just go alongside the plain language police, and they might share the same office.

The justification for this legislation is confusing and the benefits are hard to ascertain. The Australian officials reported that the costs are hard to assess and that the benefits are likely to be hard to quantify. The policy is being implemented as it was in the Government’s manifesto commitment and it wishes to implement an initiative that appears to support small businesses. But do we know what the initial costs involved with establishing a registrar are, and what are the ongoing costs in the form of time, resources dedicated to collating and then disclosing payment practices, etc.? Little wonder the productivity in this country is so poor.

The debate pack for the bill is a whole bunch of press releases—pretty repetitive—from the Minister that are designed to sound caring and are trying to convince business owners that he really does understand what they’ve gone through. He stated in September, “Small businesses account for more than 97 per cent of all businesses in New Zealand. Late and overdue payments have a negative impact, causing unnecessary stress and uncertainty,”—unnecessary stress and uncertainty. The Minister’s actions over the last couple of years have shown loud and clear that he really doesn’t care.

Most small businesses employ up to 20 people—the cafes, the shops, and the mechanics’ bars, just to name a few—and this bill won’t affect that majority. I own a business, and I understand creditors, debtors, cash flow, and all the other things that go with it. None of my debtors have a revenue of over $33 million, and it certainly counts me out.

The bill tries to look as if the Government is tough on business. The supermarkets must be shaking in their boots after being allowed to trade all through COVID. Costco, with a profit of billions, receives accolades from Government Ministers while the small players have struggled to survive, and many haven’t.

The rhetoric sounds good, but the actual substance and actual practical use is, predictably, lacking. In fact, the feedback I’ve had so far is that the Government departments are the main offenders that this legislation may affect. Maybe if they set the example for the large private sector companies, they would naturally follow.

ACT is the party for small businesses. This legislation is a solution looking for a problem. It’s a cynical attempt to pretend to care when you’re thinking up new ways to kick them when they’re down, and we oppose this bill. Thank you.

NAISI CHEN (Labour): I found that last speech very, very confusing, but I think I should probably continue with the content that I’ve prepared and then, hopefully, somewhere down the line—maybe one day—I can reconcile with some of the ramblings that we just heard.

This is a bill for small businesses. New Zealand is a nation of small businesses—small businesses that we have defined as those who employ less than 20 employees. They make up 97 percent of all of our firms, 29.3 percent of all employment, and one-quarter of our GDP. So this bill is extremely important.

Actually, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both me and my colleague Chlöe Swarbrick have once owned or operated a small business or have become a sole trader in our time prior to Government as being some of the youngest members of this House. That is because a lot of these small businesses actually start when the entrepreneur or the business owner themselves are quite young. So we often know that the power imbalance between small businesses and firms actually is disproportional in terms of those who we’re seeking payments from, and the bargaining that we can do is actually very limited—often it’s a take it or leave it situation.

It was really fitting that I was here talking to my colleague; I was trying to think of the phrase that I know the Minister often uses, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” As we were coming up with that phrase, I know Chlöe also mentioned that, and that is indeed true—when we bring about transparency into a lot of these regimes, then I think this is where people and businesses start to behave themselves.

It also really confuses me that throughout this debate, those who claim to be parties for small businesses seem to miss the concept of digital accounting or accounting software. Literally in the year 2022, many, many softwares—those that we use: Mind Your Own Business, Xero—they actually just with a press of a couple of buttons, there you go, voila. All of your accounting data can be displayed, can be made transparent. So there’s a lot of effective tools out there. I would encourage all the big firms—actually, I know all the big firms use all of that accounting software.

Finally, talking about big firms, often in our select committees we see a lot of big businesses coming to submit to us because they often have Government or corporate relations teams. But this bill is for small businesses, so can I encourage all the small businesses to come and submit. Come and make your voices heard in the select committee process as well. I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I call on Sam Ooffindell for five minutes.

SAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s good to take my second split call of the day—

Chris Penk: Go the “Ooof”!

SAM UFFINDELL: Uff-indell, thank you, Penky. Now, we’ve heard a lot of talk around this today, and I must say, I heard Jamie Strange get up a little bit earlier today and comment about how “National is the party for the big end of town” and “Labour is the party for small businesses”, and I internally and outwardly LOL’d, because I wonder how many times Jamie or anyone else on that side of the House has gone around to talk to small businesses. Because if they did, they may be in for a bit of a shock, because I don’t think small businesses think that Labour is their party. When I walk in there and I knock and they see me and they go “Oh, a National Party MP”, they tell me how hard I must work so that we win next year, because they are facing considerable strains at the moment. And a few of these have been eloquently put forth by my colleague who is not in his seat at the moment—that’s occupied by Mr Penk—but the Hon Todd McClay was here earlier and commented on all the cost that’s been put on small businesses.

And we could talk about the Credit Contacts and Consumer Finance Act failures, we could talk about rising interest rates, we could talk about the union bill. There’s the job tax coming up, there’s the additional public holidays, there’s the additional sick leave, there’s the immigration bottlenecks. This has put more than $2.8 billion of additional costs on to small businesses. And we know that small businesses are a significant part of our economy—97 percent of businesses here—and they don’t have the ability to soak up these additional costs such as a very large listed player or a Government may be able to.

So I would encourage the opposition to get out there and talk to small businesses. And they may actually then get a bit of a feel—or a bit of a flavour—for how much they are suffering. We know that they, obviously, had to sit on the sidelines throughout COVID and a lot of them took that on the chin and they did it; they did what the Government asked them to. And I think, in return, it would probably be a good courtesy just to be able to empathise a little bit more with the pain that they are going through.

Now, this bill looks to update the reporting requirements around payments and what is owed, and, look, the intentions of it are pretty good. We have noted that it probably could have come through a few years ago, but, you know, we are where we are today—is it the right way to approach the problem that we’re trying to solve? And I would argue that no, it’s probably not. I mean, if you are looking to help businesses get paid faster, requiring businesses with—they picked out $33 million arbitrarily, to report this information, is that necessarily going to facilitate faster payments? I’m not necessarily sure that it would, and I think there are probably better ways that you could do that. One of my colleagues noted that you could legislate that payments had to be made within X amount of time, and I think if something like that had been put forward, then that would give small businesses the certainty that there is actually something that’s going to come of it, as opposed to this mechanism.

And how much is actually going to be captured here? Are your small mum and dad businesses out there—are they dealing with other small businesses in the business-to-business space that have an annual revenue of over $33 million, which is those businesses that are subject to and caught by this bill? So I’m not sure that it’s necessarily the best means. And I think that there are better ways that we could look around speeding this up. And I thought some legislative—or something a little bit more thoughtful could have reached that goal.

As a party, we are supporting this bill. I’ve provided a fair bit of criticism around it, but we will support it to the next stage. And I hope, in the committee stage, there is the opportunity to help the Government understand the amount of pain and suffering that small businesses have taken on board over the past three years and how tough they’re doing it now. They are now facing rising interest costs, their productivity isn’t going up, they have additional regulations being placed on them, and a lot of them will be suffering a lot of stress with their business loans being linked to their mortgage. And I hope that through that stage—[Time expired]

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m happy to rise and take a brief call on the Business Payment Practices Bill, because it’s a bill that will make a difference.

The member who’s just resumed his seat, Sam Uffindell, cited that the threshold for larger businesses is that of a turnover of $33 million a year. This will mean that for 97, or thereabout, percent of businesses in New Zealand—small businesses—for them, it will give them an opportunity to think about the way in which they go about engaging with those larger businesses. This is about transparency. It is an important issue that I’m sure the select committee will hear from submitters—I hope that the select committee does hear from those in small business who understand the various issues that they may have faced and the corrective way in which this bill will address those particular needs. So, with that, I’m delighted to be able to commend this bill to the House.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. I rise to continue the conversation this evening, obviously, around this piece of legislation, as we keep hearing the numbers of 97 percent of New Zealand businesses are small businesses—of course, the rhetoric that comes that, yes, we are here to ensure that we support them and ensure that they are paid on time.

Now, a slight digression from me, but recently I had a dear friend pass away, and sorting out his affairs—I guess, an example of, often, the big businesses that, you know, get away with things: I remember ringing up to cancel the accounts, which, you know, instantly that service was stopped, within the end of the phone call; that was about six weeks ago, and I’m still waiting for the money to come back through from that large business, that large corporate, in terms of the refund and the money that is owed to his estate. Slightly different to this bill, but it demonstrates the challenge that, often, small players and small businesses play when they’re dealing with the big corporates and the big businesses that have the leverage, have the opportunity, because, you know, as we speak with business, often it is that fear to put your head above the parapet, because, if you do, you might be treated differently and you might not be in their favour.

This legislation very much is around the transparency, as we’ve heard, about shining that light and ensuring—for example, countries like Australia have the Payment Times Reporting Scheme, which, obviously, again, is ensuring that those larger entities are paying on time. In the United Kingdom, again, there’s another business model over there that they have to report at least twice every year.

So this is simple legislation, it is good legislation, and I am glad to be a member of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, a busy committee with significant and purposeful Ministers that are making changes for our businesses and our small businesses around Aotearoa.

SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s an absolute pleasure to rise on behalf of the National Party as a member of Parliament for North Shore to talk on the Business Payment Practices Bill first reading. As you’ve heard from fellow members of ours on this side of the House, we are supporting this bill through to select committee. The reason for that is quite simple: it is that we do absolutely support the small-business community and the significant number of individuals across this country who do very much hard work for our economy in regards to that sector. The importance, in terms of them being paid on time, becoming more essential because of the cost of living crisis that everyone is suffering at the moment. And that cash-flow aspect is so significant in terms of their overall working capital.

We know that Xero has published data around this indicating that 8 percent of businesses in New Zealand are not paid, or are paid more than a month later than when they are due to be paid, and that’s a significant implication on them—something in the region of around $456 million of late payments. From a working capital point of view, for those that have been part of small business or understand the issue, when you’re relying on that capital to pay your wages, relying on that cash flow to come in to pay your other expenses, it’s really, really important. So anything that we can do to ensure that those businesses are paid more regularly and are paid on time, I think, increases the efficiency in the flow and the productivity of our small-business community.

I think the legislation as it’s framed is targeted at large businesses—large businesses that earn over $33 million of revenue—and ensuring that they have the degree of compliance around making sure that those payments occur. I’m not sure whether the Minister has indicated or not whether the Government departments are captured by this legislation, but that would be a very basic first-principle starting point. Obviously they don’t earn revenue, but I would expect, as a default, automatically, that our Government departments should absolutely be setting an example in terms of leadership around ensuring that bills are paid on time—and, boy, do our Government departments pay a lot of businesses at the moment, a lot of invoices. Because this Government loves to spend; they are addicted to spending. So if they are spending, then at least we want to make sure that those bills are paid on time.

The issues that have been canvassed—and I think it is why National have been very clear that we are supporting this through to select committee: because our expectation of select committee is very much to test this legislation. And, I think, as other members have said, what is the overall problem that we’re trying to fix, or is being tried to be fixed, by this legislation, and is this the right mechanism in terms of a reporting framework that will achieve that outcome? As we’ve heard already, there are other mechanisms that can be utilised in order to achieve and ensure that that 8 percent of payments that aren’t paid on time do occur. I’m hopeful that the select committee process will ensure a robust consideration through feedback from submitters around: are there other alternative models? I’m sure, in this case, that the Minister responsible for this bill will be open to alternative models and alternative options that submitters make in regards to legislation to ensure that we get a sustainable position in regards to moving forward in this regard.

The concerns that I would have in regards to this legislation, and those that have been echoed on this side of the House, relate to the increasing compliance and regulatory burden that reporting frameworks can bring, and do bring, to businesses. And while we acknowledge that these are large businesses and will have, as one of the members mentioned, most probably, access to financial reporting and accounting software that will primarily automate most of this practice, the reality is that processes and systems do bring additional compliance on businesses. When we’re dealing with what we know is 8 percent applying a one-size-fits-all across all businesses across that community, it means that, you know, in effect, 92 percent of businesses in this country are doing the right thing. I think we need to acknowledge that, actually, we are talking about a small minority of businesses that are not. So therefore do we need the sledgehammer to crack the nut or is there another mechanism which is much more efficient and targeted in order to achieve the same outcome? I’m confident that the select committee will consider that as part of their review process and not simply push through regulation and legislation for the sake of it.

The other aspect that is important to note is in regards to the overall challenge and, I think, the way in which the bill potentially will deal with that speed of payment, because the reporting and monitoring processes, as is outlined in the legislation, goes so far but it doesn’t physically ensure that that payment is actually made. And that gets back to the crux of the issue, and I think it’s what infuriates businesses across this country, it’s just that late payment and that element of—probably for that small number of businesses that aren’t paying on time, it’s probably well-known who those businesses are. So, again, you know, is there a mechanism that can be deployed in order to target that small number of firms to ensure that they are making the payment, and, simply by reporting and doing that, you know, will that achieve the outcome? I think as a prior member also noted, and it is—I will reflect on this, is that while we’re standing here and the Government are putting through a piece of legislation which is around putting performance measures and reporting and monitoring in place, we are failing to do this in some of the most critical areas of our Public Service at the moment. The lack of performance measurement and outcomes measurement, I think, is having significant implications, both in terms of economic but also social implications on our communities. And so if we can take maybe some of them—maybe they’ve clicked on; maybe they’ve just thought, “Actually, we do need to do a little bit of this” and maybe this is a turning point for the Government to actually start looking at options in order to drive better performance. And, you know, we can only live in hope that that is the case.

But that’s pretty much all I want to say on the bill. National will be supporting it through to the select committee stage. Always look forward to the select committee providing appropriate due diligence and appropriate consideration to this bill. I’m sure they will, and I’m looking forward to seeing the outcome coming back at second reading. Thank you very much.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour—Banks Peninsula): Thank you, Madam Speaker, and thank you for the chance just to say a few words tonight on this Business Payment Practices Bill as we consider it at its first reading. To start with, I must agree with my colleague Jamie Strange—very wise man—when he correctly points out that this Government has a long history of supporting small business. We’re certainly very focused—absolutely focused—on it as a priority, as we have been, in particular, over the last couple of years. When we recall the last couple of years, certainly the wage subsidy, the resurgent support payment, the small business cash-flow loan scheme, and the digital boost, even, spring to mind as really obvious and demonstrable examples of how this Government prioritises sustaining small businesses and valuing small businesses and helping small businesses through hard times.

We see this particular bill as yet another example. This new reporting regime is part of that focus. It’s been described tonight as a simple bill, something that’s simple yet meaningful, and I agree with those sentiments.

I think there’s four particular things that are worth noting from the various contributions from this side of the House tonight, the first one being that the register will include information relating to late payments, information relating to the length of time between the receipt of invoices and the full payment. This is information that we’ve heard already exists. It’s information—it’s data—that’s commonly supported by modern software. It’s not a huge imposition on anybody to make this available. What this bill says and proposes is that the information will be disclosed and publicly searchable on a register managed by the Government, as a means by which to increase transparency and accountability.

The second thing is that we’re not making any judgment about when an invoice must be paid. It’s about the firm’s payment practices being transparent, as I said, and being available to anybody who simply wants to consider, therefore, whether that’s someone that they wish to do business with.

Thirdly, businesses certainly won’t be required to publish information that’s in any way sensitive or that, you know, compromises them in any way, shape, or form. In fact, you know, the whole payment regime will absolutely comply with New Zealand privacy laws.

And, lastly, other jurisdictions, as we’ve heard tonight, particularly people that we commonly compare ourselves with—Australia and the UK—have very similar disclosure regimes in place.

As I said, we’re focused on supporting businesses, and, because of that, I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Business Payment Practices Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 109

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 33; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Noes 10

ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is, That the Business Payment Practices Bill be considered by the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee.

Instruction to Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Revenue) on behalf of the Minister for Small Business: I move, That the Business Payment Practices Bill be reported to the House by 27 April 2023.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Inspector-General of Defence Bill

First Reading

Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister of Defence): I present a legislative statement on the Inspector-General of Defence 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 PEENI HENARE: I move, That the Inspector-General of Defence Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee to consider the bill.

This Government is committed to implementing the recommendations of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham. That is why I endorse the establishment of an Inspector-General of Defence (IGD) to provide independent oversight for the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF). In undertaking their inquiry into the August 2010 Operation Burnham in Afghanistan and related matters, Sir Terence Arnold and Sir Geoffrey Palmer identified that the actions of the New Zealand Special Air Service (NZSAS) on the ground were professional and lawful but there were shortcomings, and they identified those and that the NZDF needed these matters to be dealt with. Having an office which has the necessary powers and authority to look into such matters in future is essential. It is essential not only to ensure additional independent scrutiny is available but also to provide an independent avenue for the dedicated men and women who are asked to protect Aotearoa and our interests. The Operation Burnham inquiry found there was a failure to provide full, timely, and accurate information to Ministers.

The Inspector-General of Defence will have powers to examine any gaps in the NZDF systems so steps can be taken to make necessary improvements. As the Attorney-General, the Hon David Parker, has previously stated on the matter, the establishment of an Inspector-General of Defence goes to the heart of two of the fundamentals of democracy: civilian control of the military and ministerial accountability to Parliament. This bill clarifies the scope and the direction of the work of the Inspector-General of Defence, and the Inspector-General of Defence will be able to look at and define operational activities of the New Zealand Defence Force on its own initiative. The Minister of Defence, Chief of Defence, and Secretary of Defence will also be able to refer matters for their attention.

The Inspector-General of Defence will support myself and my successors in facilitating crucial democratic oversight of the NZDF, providing independent scrutiny. Essentially, anyone will be able to raise concerns of potential wrongdoing with them, and they will have full discretion over whether to act on those allegations. This will be an office which has the ability to investigate and assess, to scrutinise and respond, to look across systems and processes, and to ask the important questions.

This bill also provides clear guidance on how the inspector-general’s work will complement rather than duplicate existing oversight mechanisms. All parts of the system must be able to interact appropriately as part of the wider ecosystem of oversight to minimise duplication. That is why this bill allows the inspector-general to consult and share information with a small number of bodies who have existing oversight of the NZDF’s activities that may overlap or that have oversight of agencies that work closely with the NZDF on operational activities.

The Operation Burnham inquiry began in 2018 and concluded in 2020. It was a thorough investigation, and we accepted the recommendations in principle that same year. As members will recall, we then moved swiftly to develop an overarching intent for the Inspector-General of Defence. We asked for feedback on the scope, functions, power, and form of the inspector-general late last year. We then refined the details. We sought funding from Budget 2022 and began drafting the bill this year. We moved at pace to introduce this bill today, because trust in our military is important. The people we deploy at a moment’s notice need to be assured that those making those decisions are getting the right information at the right time and have the necessary oversight so that they can focus on the job at hand. The New Zealand Defence Force is nothing without those brave, selfless, and dedicated individuals. Our job is to protect them and their interests while they protect ours.

The establishment of the Inspector-General of Defence speaks to the heart of this Government’s priority of laying the foundations for a better future. Once appointed, this role will work to strengthen public confidence and support New Zealand’s international reputation by providing independent assurance that the NZDF’s activities in a rapidly changing geostrategic environment are subject to dedicated independent oversight. It also supports one of the three priorities I have set for Defence, and that is the priority of people. The increased transparency and accountability resulting from the establishment of the Inspector-General of Defence will ensure the reputation and credibility of the NZDF’s people is maintained. The bill is also compatible with the tikanga of pono and kaitiakitanga. Once appointed, I will be asking the Inspector-General of Defence to consider further how to incorporate tikanga values when determining how it acts and operates.

As an independent statutory officer associated with the defence portfolio, the Inspector-General of Defence will be appointed for a period of five years with a possible extension of another three years. They will be supported by a deputy who will be appointed for an initial three-year term. Both roles would be appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the House of Representatives. The IGD will be able to employ staff, appoint an advisory panel, and procure external specialists’ advice as it sees fit.

There is no doubt this small but vital office will need to be nimble as it sets out its future work programme. It will be an office with appropriate accountability, and New Zealand should expect that. It will produce a work programme which sets out its priorities and activities for the year ahead. It will also publish an annual report which will include details on the number of investigations, assessments, and inquiries undertaken, as well as a brief description and outcome of each.

The Inspector-General of Defence will also be subject to judicial review. As well as the Ombudsman and Privacy Commissioner oversight, it will be subject to the Public Records Act and monitored by Archives New Zealand. This level of public accountability is proportionate to the Inspector-General of Defence’s proposed scope and small size. It offers the lowest cost while providing the required independence. In keeping with the work the Inspector-General of Defence will be tasked to undertake, there are some exceptions. While it will be subject to the Official Information and Privacy Acts, there are provisions to ensure it can seek and receive information in confidence.

When I announced my priorities and principles for Defence last year, I made it clear that the principles of mana and pono were vital for Defence. That means that trust and integrity are the characteristics of our Defence Force and for their valuable assets, which are people. The increased transparency and accountability resulting from the establishment of the Inspector-General of Defence will support this by ensuring the reputation and credibility of our Defence personnel is supported and maintained. I believe this bill will put in place a robust, credible, independent oversight body that will ensure all New Zealanders can continue to place their trust in the integrity of our defence forces, a trust those who choose to serve so richly deserve. I commend this bill to the House.

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

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise and take a call on the first reading of the Inspector-General of Defence Bill.

Can I start by saying that on this side of the House, we absolutely value, support, and acknowledge the magnificent work undertaken by our defence personnel. And can I personally thank all of those currently serving for the amazing work they do, and indeed for those who have finished their service, thank them for what they did as well.

Now, the Minister’s outlined the details of what he’s proposing here in the Inspector-General of Defence Bill, and ultimately it comes back to an incident some 12-odd years ago that was the subject of a book five-odd years ago, which then led to this Government commencing an inquiry in 2018. I think, for me, the biggest thing to note here is that the inquiry found no illegal behaviour from our SAS. They are professional, disciplined, and widely respected, and I think it was quite clear to see that throughout their actions on Operation Burnham, they demonstrated their core values—3CI, as it’s called: courage, commitment, comradeship, and integrity—throughout the conduct of their operations. Indeed, the inspector-general, the Hon David Parker, said that New Zealanders should have confidence in the fact that the New Zealand SAS on the ground did the right thing, acted completely lawfully, did nothing that was a revenge attack, acted in accordance with international law, and did nothing wrong on the night. So I think that is an absolutely critical aspect to keep in mind as we consider the importance, or the need, for an Inspector-General of Defence Bill.

Now, part of the recommendations that came out of the inquiry noted that one of the issues was that, indeed, there had been some problems with the process of communicating the risk or the perception or the possibility of civilian casualties through the chain of command up to the Minister of the day. Indeed, that is a concern, but what we have seen since that inquiry came out is that, in my mind, NZDF have moved quite quickly to implement a new series of processes to look at ensuring that there can be no issues arising. Obviously, minimising the risk of any impropriety is incredibly important, but, of course, any time we’re on operations, our NZDF personnel are operating by the laws of armed conflict, and indeed the rules of engagement for the particular operation or theatre they may be in.

I think that’s one of the critical aspects here as well. We have safeguards already in place. Off the back of this inquiry that found no wrongdoing from our personnel on the ground but some issues within the senior leadership of NZDF—and I will acknowledge that—there have been subsequent changes made. I think the Defence Force Order put out by the Chief of Defence, DFO 35, the NZDF response to civilian harm outlining a very detailed and standardised procedure for responding to any reports of civilian casualties, which in the first instance requires notification to joint forces headquarters—basically irrespective of whether there’s any substance to the claims—to at least get that reported and acknowledged and noticed. Because of course this is a concern, and to the Minister’s comments, maintaining the integrity of our defence force is absolutely critical. Our personnel should—and in my mind do—have the trust of the New Zealand public. They are supported. They have consistently demonstrated their ability to operate professionally regardless of the challenges they may face, wherever they may be deployed.

On that basis, we have decided—in the National Party—not to support this bill, because, actually, we don’t see that there is a strong enough need for an Inspector-General of Defence at a time like we are facing right now. I touch on that particular aspect because in defence, we are currently seeing some massive challenges, particularly around the attrition rates. The Minister made the comment that they were able to work through and have been working on this and were able to secure a budget bid to secure that additional funding, of course, to implement this. Actually, personally, I would have much rather seen additional funding secured for any number of other priorities within Defence. Because at the moment, as I said, attrition is through the roof and you can look across a whole variety of trades and ranks and units, and they are really struggling with attrition rates—in some cases, at some ranks, hitting 100 percent.

Now, that speaks to some fundamental challenges within our defence force. For me, it is disappointing to see—at a time of such substantial challenges in defence—that the biggest priority is implementing more cost and bureaucracy via an Inspector-General of Defence. Indeed, what we’re seeing here is that it seems to be the default mechanism for this Government, where they fall back on the continual approach of adding more cost, adding more bureaucrats, and more oversight will presumably provide a better outcome. And that is not always the case; that does not necessarily logically flow. Our very clear view is that in this instance, this is an unnecessary piece of legislation that does not provide a meaningful improvement for the defence force, and, actually, that money—that $5.6 million-odd that’s been spent on this—could far better be allocated in any number of areas; perhaps around trying to recruit additional personnel or, better yet, retaining those we have so that the defence force is able to be effective when called upon by the Government of the day.

Indeed, we have seen them operate in a range of capacities. Most notably close to home here, most members of the public, I think, would appreciate Operation Protect—the managed isolation and quarantine role that the defence force carried out—which was not a core function for them but actually was an important role to play, particularly during the initial stage of COVID. In my mind, they should have been phased out of that quite promptly. Six-odd months in should have been sufficient time to have made a transition to a civilian response, because that is part of the reason why we have seen such high attrition rates. Those attrition rates are particularly, I think, important when we look at some of the signals that have been sent from the leadership within NZDF, but particularly at Government level when we are seeing this sort of legislation put forward as the biggest solution or the biggest priority for the Government of the day when, as I said, we are seeing those attrition rates so worryingly high.

I think it is particularly disappointing as we are only a couple of days away now from commemorating Armistice Day, an important day to acknowledge a significant sacrifice made by many New Zealanders through World War I—ending, of course, 104 years ago now; the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. And here we are with a Government that is prioritising cost and bureaucracy over actually enabling our defence force to prioritise its deliverable outcomes in terms of maintaining the security and defence of New Zealand, protecting its interests, and supporting our like-minded countries.

So on that basis, we do not support this bill. We do not think it is necessary at this time and certainly is not the biggest priority in defence when, alongside those attrition issues, that have also seen the cancellation more recently of a patrol vessel, some $300 million-odd commitment that was meant to have been made simply hasn’t been done. And we’re here instead with a situation where we’re putting forward a piece of legislation that’s, effectively, a solution looking for a problem, when we have seen significant change made by NZDF post that inquiry.

I think it’s important to note that inquiry was launched by the Government. The Government of the day can still do that at any point. So in the future, if there were concerns around the manner in which NZDF had conducted itself in operations, the Government of the day could again conduct an inquiry if it saw fit. Establishing an Inspector-General of Defence is not necessary to ensure the integrity of our defence force. As I say, we have a fantastic reputation internationally; it was clearly outlined through this inquiry that there was no wrongdoing by our personnel on the ground.

You can also look at Australia, for example. They have an Inspector-General of Defence over there, and members may be aware of some of the media issues they have had around some of the concerns raised in Afghanistan around how their defence force operated. Having had this inspector-general throughout that period of time, it clearly hasn’t resolved or stopped those issues from happening. This is not a preventative measure as such, and in my mind it’s clear that we need to ensure we have a strong focus on maintaining that integrity within the defence force, which can be managed in-house. We have clear processes for doing that.

So, as I said, we do not support this bill. It is unnecessary at this time and we should instead be focusing on just getting our defence force back up to an operational readiness state that it wants to be at—or was at pre-COVID—and actually supporting our personnel. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Attorney-General): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the bill to establish the office of the Inspector-General of Defence. The first reading is a significant milestone towards the implementation of one of the key recommendations of the inquiry into Operation Burnham, and the Government remains committed to that course.

At the heart of this bill lies probably one of the most important democratic tenets of civilian control of the military and ministerial accountability to Parliament. It’s Government’s view that independent oversight, as recommended by the Burnham Inquiry, will support the Minister’s ability to assert elected authority over the Defence Force and mean that they can stand in this House and account for that authority. That’s how the military is meant to operate in democracies—they’re meant to be under the democratic control of the elected representatives. What the inquiry into Operation Burnham found was, while the activities of Operation Burnham were lawful, as has been quoted by the prior speaker, there were some very significant shortcomings over a period of years—they weren’t just isolated—in the way in which the Defence Force subsequently dealt with allegations of civilian casualties.

While there was no institutional strategy to cover up civilian casualties, there was a series of incorrect and misleading statements, and they came to be known to be incorrect and misleading to the military and they didn’t correct them. As a consequence, the briefings—not only of Ministers but also in public statements—were incorrect. Those inaccuracies, which were deliberate, jeopardised the democratic control of the military, which, of course, is vital in a democracy. So establishing an independent Inspector-General of Defence, as set out in the bill, will contribute to restoring public trust and confidence following the allegations of wrongdoing during Operation Burnham, and the subsequent shortcomings that were clearly identified by the inquiry. The public, in my view, should feel reassured that this bill is a product of a robust development process that only occurs in transparent and responsible democracies willing to front up and objectively learn and improve when things go wrong.

This process started with allegations that were made by investigative journalists Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson, in their book Hit & Run. The Government decided it was in the public interest to have an inquiry, and it was the right thing to do. It was opposed at the time, the inquiry, by the military. The inquiry was undertaken by the Hon Sir Terence Arnold KC and the Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Palmer KC—two people of the highest repute. They found that the lack of openness with Ministers and the public once information had become known about the possibility of civilian casualties was wrong, and one of their four main recommendations was the establishment of an Inspector-General of Defence. The Government accepted the recommendation and undertook work to progress it. There’s been guidance from a group of senior officials from across the Public Service. Our officials have also consulted with the journalists concerned, and we should remind ourselves that this would never have come to light were it not for those journalists. The officials have consulted with Sir Terence Arnold and Sir Geoffrey Palmer, relevant academics around the country, stakeholders, Government agencies, and, of course, the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) themselves. So this legislation has been through a robust design and development process.

The independence of the inspector-general’s office is important, and it will assure the people of New Zealand that the NZDF’s activities are subject to a level of oversight that’s appropriate for our values and our governance arrangements. The bill establishes the Inspector-General of Defence as an independent statutory authority. They have to be associated with a ministerial portfolio—in this case it will be the Ministry of Justice—and this is similar to the model used for the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. That’s actually a similar institution, and, actually, that institution—reformed in recent years—has restored public confidence in those agencies. There was some very good work done on that by the prior Minister in the prior Government; the Hon Chris Finlayson led that work on behalf of the Prime Minister of the time, John Key. This independence means the office is not part of the Public Service and it isn’t subject to ministerial direction or Government policy. Importantly, it also means that it’s external to the Defence Force. The bill requires the office to act independently, impartially, and in the public interest. Public interests, of course, include security interests; it won’t act imprudently in that regard.

Another visible layer of the office’s independence is the appointment process for the inspector-general, which requires a recommendation of this House to the Governor-General, and this should assure the public that anyone in the role has the support of the majority of our elected members. In fact, these things are generally done unanimously in this House, in my experience. I think the public will be confident they will act impartially and have appropriate experience and qualifications. The office, once appointed, employs their own staff, appoints an advisory panel, and can procure specialist advice as needed. The Inspector-General established by the bill will determine when and in what circumstances it undertakes its investigative functions. The bill sets out that they can start an investigation or assessment on their own initiative. They can also decline to investigate, and refer something to a more suitable oversight body, or defer to a request from the Defence Force or the Minister or the Secretary of Defence. This level of self-determination is in line with the inquiry’s recommendation that the office has control over its work programme.

The scope of the inspector-general’s own-initiative function is focused on operational activities which have the most potential to cause harm, undermine public confidence in the Defence Force, and carry reputational risks for New Zealand. The public should have confidence that this is the kind of activity that the inspector-general is lawfully required to focus on. It doesn’t mean to say that they’re going to be getting involved in day to day operational stuff, from the proper provenance of the power structures or the command structures within the Defence Force. But the Defence Force, the Minister, or the Secretary of Defence may, by request, expand the scope of the inspector-general’s work to include other things if they think it is wise. This will, in some ways, enable the office to keep up to date with future roles in the New Zealand Defence Force, and it also provides a useful tool to acquire an independent view, which can be currently difficult to arrange, given the nature of the Defence Force’s work. Some of that stuff can of course be done privately by the inspector-general if appropriate.

To ensure the inspector-general is able to undertake its work effectively and independently, the bill provides significant information-gathering powers that can be exercised on the initiative of the inspector-general. These would be similar to what the inquiry into Operation Burnham had but go a bit further. For example, the office would have direct access to all Defence Force - held information and would be able to examine witnesses and compel the provision of information. One of the difficulties that Operation Burnham had was that there was a real reluctance to provide some information that was clearly within the purview of that inquiry, and it was only when they got into that inquiry and forced access to some of that information that new information came to light that should have previously been given to the inquiry anyway—found in safes that no one knows how it got into or how long it had been there, but it hadn’t been publicly reported on or provided to Ministers.

The Defence Force is also required to reasonably assist the inspector-general in carrying out its work. This could mean providing information, supporting a visit to a base, an operational theatre, or making a ship or an aircraft viewable. To facilitate the flow of information, there are safeguards for people who raise concerns and cooperate with the office. The bill extends these safeguards to New Zealand Defence Force personnel. It’s important that these people can engage with the inspector-general independent of their other responsibilities when they’re doing so in good faith. The bill has independent oversights built in. I believe it will support its purpose, which is to support civilian control of the military, which in turn supports ministerial accountability to this House, and I commend the bill to the House.

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. What to say about the Inspector-General of Defence Bill? Well, our defence forces face huge problems right now—my colleague and friend Tim van de Molen has enumerated these very well in his own contribution—personnel challenges in relation to employment conditions, huge attrition rates, and a quixotic attempt to force out and to keep forced out those personnel who have a different view about the requirement of the COVID-19 vaccination. A quixotic waste of time and resources, energy, and morale that is doing no good whatsoever to our defence forces. These are the problems of the defence force today, in addition to platform problems, hardware and software alike; training and deployment problems, including as a result of the Op Protect commitment, which, as my colleague and friend, again, Tim van de Molen, has noted very clearly in his own contribution went on for far too long. There’s a huge opportunity cost in passing this legislation and appropriating this funding and, indeed, to spending it on solving a problem that does not really exist.

So what isn’t a problem is that in the bases and defence force establishments of this country, no one is saying, “You know what would make things better? We just need another couple of extra lanyard-wearing bureaucrats to somehow contribute to making the boat go faster.”—literally, if we’re talking about the senior service, of course. Our international reputation is not harmed by the lack of someone performing this role—or roles, if we include the deputy, of course.

Our international reputation in defence terms is at serious risk at the moment, but it’s for the reasons that we’ve outlined already—again, Tim van de Molen—and to which I would add difficulties of interoperability; relationships in defence in terms of exercises, training with other defence forces, and so on; defence diplomacy—limited opportunities by a Government that does not have any vision for defence other than conducting endless reviews, making meaningless appointments, and, frankly, missing the entire point of everything that is needed and most important in the defence realm.

So this bill is a missed opportunity—an opportunity to spend those resources in a much more meaningful way. Even more importantly than that, while the principle of civilian control of the military is, of course, important and the Attorney-General was right to highlight that in his own contribution, what we have seen is a lack of trust, a divide and conquer mentality being displayed by the Government, whereas they should, of course, acknowledge that civilian control of the military exists through the Minister of Defence himself or herself, as the case may be—of course, the whole Ministry of Defence, the Secretary of Defence, and various other opportunities to exert civilian control of the military. It is not, of course, just the New Zealand Defence Force itself that is running the show.

It is right in a democracy, one that is subject to the rule of law, both internally—that is to say domestically—and also in our international relations, that we have checks and balances of a democratic nature. But to suggest that we don’t have those now and therefore we need to insert them by way of creating these particular positions just seems a fallacy and clearly a red herring in terms of the real issues faced by our defence force at the moment. I can only imagine that the average sailor, soldier, and aircraft personnel will be watching on with bemusement, not only at the fact that the current speaker doesn’t seem to have a voice to deliver his remarks but, actually, more importantly, that Parliament’s occupying its time with this piece of legislation in the first place.

Much has been made, of course, of the genesis of the idea, which was the review conducted into the activities of some decade and a bit ago. Others have rightly praised the professionalism of the report conducted by those gentlemen of great repute. We do not, of course, second guess that. We note, indeed, with gratitude, that in the activities conducted by our defence force—keeping separate from the question of the conduct of other nations’ defence forces—Operation Burnham, no New Zealand troops were found to have conducted themselves improperly in that according to international law. Indeed, the rules of engagement were internally determined by the New Zealand Defence Force so that the law of armed conflicts could be observed.

So it’s difficult to understand why the Government would think that this is the most urgent priority within the defence space unless simply to be seen to do something relatively readily. Of course the inquiry that was conducted into Operation Burnham could be replicated at any time in a number of different ways. And, again, my colleague and friend on this side of the House, our defence spokesperson, Tim van de Molen, has made that tolerably clear. Also significant, of course, is that one of the other recommendations of the review conducted by those worthy gentlemen talked about improving internal processes. And so the DFO 35—that is the Defence Force Order that indeed does lay out guidelines in better channels and processes—is already in place, as Mr van de Molen has noted, and it’s not clear at all from the legislation, or indeed the underlying concept of what’s being proposed by the Government, initially announced, and now being executed somewhat, that an Inspector-General of Defence would have made any difference at the time or subsequently in relation to that matter.

I do want to thank, before I finish my contribution—at which point we’ll all be very grateful, no doubt, and you can unmute your TV at that point. I’d do it in sign language but that would probably go badly wrong. But I do want to take the opportunity before I conclude—for all those who do take an active concern and interest in what is really needed for our Defence Force. I actually want to acknowledge the former Minister of Defence in the current Government the Hon Ron Mark. I do acknowledge the current Minister, Peeni Henare, as well. I’ve enjoyed having the opportunity to interact with defence matters through the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee in my time in this Parliament, and I watch the matters that are discussed in this place with interest. I acknowledge Mr Rosewarne across the House, as well as my colleagues Tim van de Molen and other speakers on this bill, Joseph Mooney, Penny Simmonds, and not that they’re speaking on this bill, Dr Shane Reti and Andrew Bayly, who have a background in defence also.

Most importantly, though, of course, I thank our current troops and also those who’ve served in the past. Thank you for the service you have provided. Thank you for your courage, comradeship, commitment, and, indeed, integrity. We do not question your integrity. We think that—within the existing parameters, of course—it is always possible and, indeed, necessary to embark on a process of continuous improvement. Things can and should always be done better where that is possible. But to impose upon the defence force one thing among the many things that they do desperately need right now—those tangible improvements in relation to personnel, equipment, and so on, but, most importantly, leadership, greater leadership than merely conducting a review into the parlous state of the defence force, as we saw announced recently. We actually need some action. There won’t be much of a defence force left to review, to inspect, or to otherwise scrutinise. The problems are urgent. This is not a solution. And so I join others on this side of the House, at least speaking for the National Party, in saying we do not support this bill or indeed the concept that underlies it.

IBRAHIM OMER (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the Inspector-General of Defence Bill. The sole aim of this bill is to establish the office of the inspector-general, as well as the deputy inspector-general, of the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF)—nothing more, nothing less. The rest is just details. Our Defence Force is a critical institution, so therefore its activities and operations must be subject to independent scrutiny. Therefore, establishing this office of an inspector-general outside of the NZDF organisational structure is important and also speaks to the reality of the Government’s ambitions to lay a foundation for a better institution.

This bill stems from the recommendation of the Operation Burnham inquiry, which identified serious shortcomings in the way that the Defence Force dealt with the accusations that came through and, subsequently, the way that it briefed Ministers as well. The expert panel made a number of recommendations, which were all accepted by the Minister of Defence as well.

Having an Inspector-General of Defence who has the necessary power and authority to provide oversight of NZDF activities is essential support dedicated to men and women who are sacrificing a lot to protect New Zealand and the interests of New Zealand overseas. As like-minded countries also have this, it’s not exclusive to New Zealand, and it’s very surprising to see that the Opposition is actually pushing back on this—and, pushing back, they’re not making any sense. They’re not making any critical points; it’s rather they’re just opposing. One thing that I hear them saying is that it’s additional bureaucrats, and that’s the only thing that I’ve heard. So it’s disappointing to see that. Yet the Defence Force has both sides as well; it should be off politics, off limits. But, yet again, there’s nothing surprising about this Opposition.

Just to repeat what both Ministers Henare and Parker said: our Defence Force must be democratic, accountable, and functional. This can only be ensured through an independent body, and this bill ensures that. I’ve been just talking to Dan Rosewarne, who’s got very extensive experience on this—and he has two overseas deployments in his pocket. He’s just been telling me how surprised he is with the Opposition pushing back on this and that it shows the lack of critical understanding of this institution.

This bill is a good bill. I thank Minister Henare for his hard work. It’s going to change a lot of things. I commend it to the House.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to begin by noticing, acknowledging, and remembering that there are victims that we’re talking about here and that this bill comes before this House of Representatives because there were victims of harm. They lived in Afghanistan and they experienced some grave, grave harm, to the extent of torture and death, at the hand of militaries that we were allies with, and perhaps our military. We never quite got to the bottom of that, but that’s the kind of harm that we hope—

Joseph Mooney: Come on.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: —to avoid. There are members of the Opposition yelling, “Oh, come on.” So to the people of Afghanistan I say to ignore them, because we do care. We do care that your babies and that your civilian men and women experienced harm. We do care, and we do want our military to be held to account.

To the people of Aotearoa New Zealand, I say that we care. We’re not here to hide things, because we know that you deserve trust and respect in your military, and, actually, our New Zealand defence forces deserve to be trusted and respected by our people. So to have our House of Representatives with members willing to hide that harm is doing harm to our people and our Defence Force (NZDF), and it is cutting deep within the international community, especially those communities with which our Defence Force interacts.

As a child who lived in war in the Middle East, I tell you that this bill matters. To have Western powers—and we have so much power—say that we will have independent oversight mechanisms and that we will have transparency and accountability because we have the privilege of democracy matters. It’s shameful to say that we will exercise that power and that we will use our freedom in a way that’s undemocratic and that’s not transparent, and that we will skirt accountability for our pride’s sake.

So this is a good bill. It’s good to see a Minister respond to a report like that that came out of the Operation Burnham inquiry with actual legislation with a systems shift by way of the creation of the role of the Inspector-General of Defence and also the deputy inspector-general. It’s inspiring to see that we will have oversight—including full access to information that’s held by the defence forces—and that we say that the defence forces, even in war, are accountable to the people of New Zealand and that they will be responsible and will not act with impunity if things do go wrong. In fact, this incentivises respect for the rule of law—the rule of law in the international arena by way of humanitarian law and the laws of war, and also our own domestic human rights obligations. Those are important.

Now, we do also know that in terms of Operation Burnham, there were systems in place already that were breached. We know that under three different heads of the New Zealand Defence Force, information was hidden from successive Ministers, so we know that there also needs to be a systems shift by way of the culture of our New Zealand defence forces. We know that more junior members of the NZDF were reporting things from on the ground and we know that sometimes intermediate-level members of the Defence Force were also recording these things but that they weren’t making it all the way up to the existing oversight mechanism that we have by way of our civilian Ministers of Defence as elected by the people of New Zealand, and that was the really scary thing that came out of the Operation Burnham report.

So that culture shift is something that the New Zealand Defence Force is responsible for and the hope is that the creation of an independent body like this will create that culture shift, but that’s not guaranteed. It’s sending a signal that we don’t want our military to act with impunity. It’s sending a signal that we will hold them to account. But that doesn’t always work and we learnt that with Operation Burnham. We needed investigative journalists to get in there and investigate and make these reports. That shouldn’t be the way that it works. That isn’t the kind of democracy in which our defence forces operate.

Now, that’s not to say that we have something to be suspicious of all the time. We do respect our defence forces. They’re actually responsible for monitoring a fifth of the world’s oceans. They mostly do environmental monitoring and disaster relief—incredibly important work for the gravest of security risks in the modern age, which is the climate crisis. But we do want them, sometimes, to also be deployed, with the full trust of the New Zealand public, into war zones where things go wrong, where things get mixed up, and where they interact with and are influenced by the culture of other defence forces. Whether that’s in this case the US defence force and the UK who were responsible for an illegal war in the Middle East and where impunity is rife—we know that, and we want them to lead with the kind for respect for the rule of law for international human rights law for the dignity of the people in whose nations they are deployed that New Zealanders should always be able to expect from our people when they’re deployed elsewhere in the world. We want them to act with mana and with integrity.

So this is the point of this bill and we do support it. I do say that this is a system shift, that this is a real change in the way that we treat the work of our defence forces and bring them into our democracy. But it’s also just one step and it’s that culture shift, that respect for democracy, that’s maybe a two-way street that we need to instil in our defence forces so that we do avoid what we saw come out of the Operation Burnham inquiry that might be scary for some people to read.

Before I finish, I do just want to bring us back to the people in those faraway lands who are already suffering in war, where our people are deployed, where there is fear and there is need and then there’s that harm. They are the people that we need to protect, because, actually, that is what international human rights, that is what the rule of law, and that’s what New Zealand’s values stand for.

So I commend this bill and I commend the Minister for bringing it in. I look forward to seeing the next steps of the Operation Burnham inquiry recommendations come into effect under this Government.

Dr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m afraid I’ll have to keep my remarks short this evening. From our perspective, with regards to the position of my friends and colleagues in the National Party, look, I don’t disagree with any of their sentiments and comments—certainly a lot of valid points—and quite clearly issues such as attrition and morale and recruitment are major problems for the Defence Force; things that we’ve been talking about. And I’d also say, yes, it would be nice to be here this evening talking about something bigger and bolder for the Defence Force, something that would actually contribute more than what we are doing. But, nevertheless, this bill does stand on its own, and I’m afraid I can’t quite go along with the red herring argument this evening, but nice try!

I would say this bill doesn’t negate those issues. It is a mechanism for accountability, as has been well canvassed. I think one good way to look at this bill is that it’s an eye to the future. It’s not about a witch hunt. It’s not about going back to the origins and finding blame and relitigating issues. It’s a view to the future, particularly in a very complex world which is unfolding in unpredictable ways. I would also make the comment that I put faith and trust in our Defence Force personnel—incredible people doing incredible work—and I think, particularly in respect to the previous speaker, Golriz Ghahraman, look, just compare our armed forces with that of the likes of Russia and what they’re getting up to in terms of human rights. So I think we’re doing pretty well.

Nevertheless, from our perspective this evening, we see this working both ways. Systems can be improved, conditions for personnel can be improved, issues can be highlighted, and we do commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

DAN ROSEWARNE (Labour): It’s my privilege to be talking to this particular bill. It does concern me—with the Opposition not supporting this bill, it just highlights a lack of understanding how democratic civil military operations actually work and a fundamental misunderstanding of what the bill is actually trying to achieve. It fills a critical gap in the New Zealand democratic civil relations construct. That is because it allows objective civilian control through allowing the military to carry out operations, either here at home or abroad as part of a coalition without undermining the system of Government. Having served in these areas of operations which gave birth to the Burnham inquiry, it’s very easy for things to wrong. It’s very essential that we have that civilian oversight of our operations when we are deployed overseas. I just also want to point out that the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) did actually ask for this, and they wanted that transparency.

This bill establishes the offices of the Inspector-General of Defence and the Deputy Inspector-General of Defence to assist the Minister of Defence to oversee the defence force and account accurately to the House of Representatives for its activities and to assure the public that activities of the defence force are subject to independent scrutiny. This bill is a result of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham. I won’t go into the details of Op Burnham other than to say that in chapter 12 of the inquiry, it recommended the establishment by legislation of an office of the independent Inspector-General of Defence to be located outside of that NZDF organisational structure. The purpose is to facilitate independent oversight of the NZDF and enhance its democratic accountability. The functions of the inspector-general would include investigating either his or her own motion by way of a reference and reporting of particular NZDF operational activities to ascertain whether they were conducted lawfully; investigating and reporting on such other matters requiring that independent scrutiny, as are referred to by the Minister of Defence, the Chief of Defence Force, or the Secretary of Defence or the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee; and also providing an annual report to the Minister of Defence and to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee.

So people have been asking about why we need an Inspector-General of Defence. Well, in short, it’s about social licence. It’s essential that there is social licence between the NZDF and those it serves. Social licence gives the NZDF permission to operate and is critical in establishing and maintaining the trust and confidence of Ministers, Parliament, and, by extension, the New Zealand public. Strengthening that ministerial and public trust and confidence in the NZDF is a key focus for this Government in the aftermath of Operation Burnham. So there is a strong link between social licence and democratic oversight of the military, which is exercised by the Government of the day, principally through the Minister of Defence. So while processes are in place for transferring operational knowledge of public and political interest through multiple layers of command to the Minister of Defence, knowledge flows ultimately depend on individuals making the right decisions based on the guidance and instructions provided to them and to mitigate risk that important information could be lost or misinterpreted, as we have seen. There needs to be a formal top-down accountability for the end-to-end fidelity and flow of this type of defence knowledge as it moves through the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of decision making.

The Inspector-General of Defence will allow for improvements to systems, processes, practices, and structures, as well as to attitudes and behaviours that will help provide the Minister of Defence with sufficient visibility and understanding of the NZDF’s activities to carry out democratic oversight of the military effectively and to fulfil their accountability obligations to Parliament and, most importantly, the New Zealand public.

So, just in closing, the armed forces occupy a unique position that confers on them both significant powers and significant responsibilities. Their actions can have serious consequences for individuals, including in some circumstances death, deprivation of liberty, and also huge consequences for international relations. Accordingly, they are bound to act consistently with the rule of law and the Government’s defence policy objectives and in a way that facilitates effective civilian control. It is also critical in a democratic society that they have confidence and support of the public.

This bill keeps civilians in control. That’s why I commend the bill to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

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

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak on the Inspector-General of Defence Bill. The National Party opposes this bill. I’ve heard the previous speaker just talking about how this is necessary to ensure civilian—the military is accountable to civilian control. Well, I stand here in the House of Representatives which does exercise civilian control over the military. The Minister of Defence has that role here in this House. The reason why we have a democracy is because of those who have come before us and served in the armed forces and sacrificed their lives for this country to ensure that we have a democracy. If I look to my right I see Gallipoli, where one of my great uncles was killed in the first hours of that campaign. If I look across from me I see Egypt, where my grandfather who fought in that campaign was severely injured. These people, among many, many others in our country, had great sacrifices to ensure that we are able to stand here in this House today and have civilian control over the military to exercise and protect our constitutional framework.

I myself have served in the army, in the army reserves, and I can certainly account for the very exemplary nature of that service. It was somewhat unfortunate to hear the comments from the Green Party member on this bill who made insinuations towards the military. I would just recommend to that member to just take a look at the inquiry into Operation Burnham in Afghanistan, which clearly found no wrongdoing by our SAS soldiers. That needs to be underlined and understood. That member of Parliament has a responsibility to reflect on that.

It is probably important to just outline, in the brief time I have available, the current regulatory system—“The modern approach to democratic oversight assumes that the purpose of the armed forces is to further civilian government policy. While deployment of the armed forces remains a prerogative power, in practice this is exercised on the advice of ministers (ie. Cabinet).” The Minister of Defence facilitates control of the New Zealand Defence Forces, “This reflects the constitutional principle of democratic oversight and the ordinary principles of responsible government.”, which we have seen until this point. While “The Minister is generally involved in strategic decisions rather than operational and tactical decisions”, they still retain “oversight of the operation and administration of the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) and remains responsible to Cabinet and Parliament.”—where we are this evening. They are also indirectly democratically accountable to the public for their decisions. The Minister can decide on their own motion or following a complaint referral to section 24 of the Defence Act 1990 assessment audit of the NZDF or can approve one or more assessments audits as part of the work programme proposed by the Secretary of Defence. Such an assessment audit is done independently of both the New Zealand Defence Force and the Secretary of Defence. The Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee in the House of Representatives has the power to inquire into any matter that it considers needs investigation in the public interest. Practice inquiries and defence matters are carried out by this. Most scrutiny is undertaken through estimates, examinations, and reviews.

The Ombudsman can also investigate any decision, recommendation, act, or omission relating to matters of administration within NZDF. The Controller and Auditor-General can audit the NZDF and provide Parliament and the public assurance that the NZDF is operating and accounting for its use of resources and performance in the way that Parliament intended. The Privacy Commissioner can investigate the NZDF’s refusal of requests for personal information, the misuse of personal information, or breaches of privacy. The Human Rights Commission can inquire generally into any matter if it appears that the matter involves or may involve the infringement of human rights. Also, the Human Rights Commission is designated as the central national preventative mechanisms for the optional protocol to the convention against torture. It does not monitor places of abstention itself, but coordinates activities of the other national preventative mechanisms.

The Registrar of the Court Martial and their role as inspector of the service penal establishments is charged with monitoring the NZDF’s detention facilities. The Human Rights Review Tribunal can hear and determine unlawful discrimination proceedings as well as interference with privacy proceedings. The Health and Disability Commissioner can look into health and disability service complaints. The Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal can hear and determine disciplinary proceedings against health practitioners. The professional conduct bodies can look into conduct of medical professionals and lawyers employed by the NZDF. The civilian justice system—important in civic and criminal law—is also applicable to the New Zealand Defence Force, including serious or grave breaches. WorkSafe New Zealand also has oversight—as does the military justice system, international bodies, and the media. There is already extensive oversight of the NZDF, which is accountable to civilian control.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow. Pō mārie.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.