Thursday, 10 November 2022

THURSDAY, 10 NOVEMBER 2022

THURSDAY, 10 NOVEMBER 2022

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

karakia/prayers

karakia/prayers

Hon JENNY SALESA (Assistant Speaker): E te Atua kaha rawa, ka tuku whakamoemiti atu mātou, mō ngā karakia kua waihotia mai ki runga i a mātou. Ka waiho i ō mātou pānga whaiaro katoa ki te taha, ka mihi 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.

[Almighty God, 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.]

Business Statement

Business Statement

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): Next week, legislation to be considered will include the first reading of the Sustainable Biofuel Obligation Bill, the second readings of the Companies (Levies) Amendment Bill, the Dairy Industry Restructuring (Fonterra Capital Restructuring) Amendment Bill, and Te Rohe o Rongokako Joint Redress Bill, the committee stage of the Security Information in Proceedings Legislation Bill, and the remaining stages of the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill.

There will be an extended sitting on the morning of Wednesday, 16 November. On Thursday, 17 November, there will be a special debate on the report of the Environment Committee on the emissions budgets published in 2022 and the first emissions reduction plan.

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

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

SPEAKER: No petitions have been delivered to the Clerk for presentation. Ministers have delivered papers.

CLERK:

Office of the Children’s Commissioner statement of performance expectations for the financial year ended 30 June 2023

Social Workers Registration Board annual report 2020-21.

SPEAKER: I present an erratum to the report of the Office of the Ombudsman entitled Strategic Intentions 2022-27. Those papers are published under the authority of the House. Select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.

CLERK:

Report of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee on the 2020-21 annual review of the Accreditation Council

report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the Companies (Levies) Amendment Bill

report of the Health Committee on the 2020-21 annual review of the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board

report of the Primary Production Committee on the Dairy Industry Restructuring (Fonterra Capital Restructuring) Amendment Bill.

SPEAKER: The bills are set down for second reading. The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of a bill.

CLERK: Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill, introduction.

SPEAKER: That bill is set down for first reading.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Health

1. BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT) to the Minister of Health: Does he stand by his statement regarding workforce shortages in the health sector that “there is stuff we need to do in the short term around recruitment … and then there is long term stuff, attracting people into the health services, doing the additional training”; if so, does he have targets for how many medical professionals need to be brought into the health sector through recruitment or training, to fix the workforce shortage?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): To the first part of the member’s question, yes. The Government’s first priority in health is addressing the skilled workforce shortages that we have at the moment. As the member will be aware, there is a nationwide health workforce dialogue with the sector, here at Parliament on Saturday, to discuss that very issue, amongst others. To the second part of the member’s question, before a role can be advertised in our public health system, it must be funded. I’m pleased to advise the House that this Government’s record investment in health has seen an extra 8,776 fulltime-equivalent roles funded in our health sector since 2017. I want to see all of the current advertised vacancies filled—that is the target.

Brooke van Velden: If he knows there’s an immediate need for more recruitment, why won’t the Government allow migrant nurses and midwives a fast-track pathway to residency to give them more certainty about their future in New Zealand, boosting recruitment?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: We have a fast-track process for nurses and midwives and other health professionals to get a visa to come and work in our health system, public or private. Since the accredited employer work visa has been open, since the beginning of July, we’ve had nearly 500 visas approved for that particular visa. Prior to that, we had the critical purpose work visa in place that started during the pandemic and closed at the end of July. That has seen thousands of workers coming here, many of whom, having been granted their visa in the early part of this year, are only now arriving. We have an open process to recruit health workers into New Zealand, and they are coming.

Brooke van Velden: Is he aware that if New Zealand had the same number of nurses per capita compared to Australia, we’d have 21,000 more nurses—or 37 percent more—and, if so, when will we see that gap close?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: That figure has not been validated at all by anybody who understands the workforce issues that either Australia has or we have. We currently have—the current nurse complement in our health workforce is around about 30,000. The idea that we would add another 21,000 to it, apart from being an impossible thing to do, is simply not a realistic assessment of what our health needs are.

Brooke van Velden: Is it acceptable that New Zealand has been training 40 percent fewer medical professionals per capita than Australia, and, if not, does he have a target to close the gap?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: We have record numbers of students learning how to be doctors and specialists and learning how to be nurses—record numbers in our schools and we are producing record numbers of nursing graduates. We actually have some issues with attrition rates at the final stages of our nursing courses, and that’s one of the issues that I know Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand and Te Aka Whai Ora – the Māori Health Authority are very keen to address. I am satisfied that those bodies, along with the ministry, along with other stakeholders, including the Nursing Council, are doing everything they can to make sure we maximise the number of nurses that we train here in Aotearoa New Zealand for the benefit of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Brooke van Velden: Why have paramedics been left off the immigration Green List completely, when there’s a shortage of paramedics in our country?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I can’t explain what has happened in relation to paramedics, except that we continue to recruit paramedics. I’m very pleased that in this year’s Budget, in addition to funding a whole swag of new ambulances and rapid-response vehicles, we’ve also funded an additional 250 ambulance crew.

Erica Stanford: Can the Minister explain why gastroenterologists, paediatricians, and oncologists were also left off the Green List, when we’re desperately short of all those specialties?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: As I understand it, they are on the Green List.

Question No. 2—Sport and Recreation

2. SORAYA PEKE-MASON (Labour) to the Minister for Sport and Recreation: Tēnā koe e te Mana Whakawā. I am delighted to stand here to deliver my first question to the honourable Minister for Sport and Recreation. What support has the Government provided for the Women’s Rugby World Cup?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister for Sport and Recreation): It will be four years ago on the weekend from when New Zealand Rugby, backed by the Government, won the rights to host the Women’s Rugby World Cup. The Government has invested $16.9 million in this event. That includes $4.6 million from the Major Events Fund to support the delivery of the tournament, a further investment from the Major Events Fund and Sport New Zealand of $1.7 million to deal with COVID-related costs, and nearly $10 million from Sport New Zealand to upgrade the facilities that athletes are using, which will be now a legacy for all New Zealanders.

Soraya Peke-Mason: What are the economic and social benefits of hosting the tournament?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The tournament, and the international broadcast and media attention that come with that, has raised the profile of women’s sport and women’s rugby and showcased New Zealand as a destination. It shows that we are a country open to the world and events. The tournament has also had spin-off benefits for a range of sectors, particularly in Auckland and Whangārei, including accommodation and transport providers, tourism operators, and hospitality venues. Hosting an international event is also a great experience for volunteers, security personnel, and cleaning and catering staff, with other major events coming to New Zealand, such as the FIFA Women’s World Cup next year. The tournament has also enormous social benefits. The legacy that this will leave for women’s sport and women’s rugby is enormous, and I want to acknowledge that it is built off decades of hard mahi by others in women’s sport, including former Black Ferns.

Soraya Peke-Mason: How can the success of the tournament be measured?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Interest in the tournament has attracted over 140,000 fans across Auckland and Whangārei, the most for any Rugby World Cup. The final between the Black Ferns and the England team will take place in front of a record crowd of over 40,000 at Eden Park on Saturday. The performances the Black Ferns and the other teams have performed here have attracted large TV audiences and unprecedented levels of media and broadcast coverage. The manner and style of play have conveyed the joy and camaraderie of playing the game, and that, too, is a measure of success. But the real success of this tournament will be through its legacy and in inspiring girls and boys to be physically active and know that when they play and when they succeed, it will be seen and it will be valued by all New Zealanders.

Soraya Peke-Mason: How does the support of the Rugby World Cup fit with the Government’s women and girls in sports strategy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: In 2018, this Government launched New Zealand’s first ever women and girls in sport strategy with three themes: participation, leadership, and value and visibility. I am proud of the strides that we have made in promoting women’s sport across New Zealand and across the world. Events such as the Rugby World Cup fit in all three of those themes, and the valuing and visibility I believe that has come from this Rugby World Cup is a turning point for women’s sport and women’s rugby in New Zealand. Mr Speaker, I am sure you’ll indulge me and the rest of the House would support me in wishing the Black Ferns all the best for this weekend. We are so proud of your achievements. We know that this final represents an amazing journey over the last year. This is a group of wāhine toa who every New Zealander should be proud of. Go the Black Ferns.

Question No. 3—Prime Minister

3. CHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Prime Minister: Can I just echo what the Acting Prime Minister said, and say, on behalf of National, go the Black Ferns!

Does she stand by all of her Government’s statements and actions?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Acting Prime Minister): Yes.

Chris Bishop: What responsibility does she take for the fact that average rents in Hamilton have risen by $120 per week since she took office, making it harder and harder for Hamiltonians to get ahead?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No doubt, many of those people who live in Hamilton have been suffering under the cost of living pressures that we’ve seen right around New Zealand. The answer to being able to support them when, with respect, it comes to housing, is to make sure that we actually build housing, including State housing, rather than sell it off, as the previous Government would have done.

Chris Bishop: Why does she think that gang membership in Waikato has grown 70 percent on her watch?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The statistics across New Zealand indicate that one of the driving factors in gang membership rising in New Zealand has been the 501 deportation policy, which, in turn, has fuelled other gangs. On this side of the House, our focus is to support those in Hamilton and the wider Waikato region with not only their cost of living pressures but also making sure that their communities are secure. That’s why having an extra 1,500 police on the beat towards our 1,800 target is an important part of that security; compared with the National Party who froze police numbers, meaning that New Zealanders feel less secure.

Chris Bishop: What explains the fact that serious assaults in Waikato have grown 130 percent in the last five years?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: We know that, overall, crime trends across New Zealand are down. That has been a trend for some time. I notice that the member is clearly very concerned about the prospects of the National Party in Hamilton, and I’m not surprised by that.

Chris Bishop: Why has there been a 60 percent increase in the number of people on jobseeker for longer than a year in Waikato since she became Prime Minister?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What I’m extremely proud of is the fact that, faced with a one-in-100-year economic crisis, this Government stepped in to make sure that New Zealanders stayed in work and delivered a 3.3 percent unemployment rate, that we trained more than 200,000 New Zealanders during that period of time—

Hon Paul Goldsmith: What about the question? Why don’t you answer the question?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, Mr Goldsmith, it’s just this small matter of COVID, which I know Mr Goldsmith wanted to wish away in the midst of his Bermuda Triangle and conveniently looks to ignore. But actually, this country, compared to others, has done well, and we continue to invest to support people in work.

Chris Bishop: Is the $2 million a year being spent on the Freemans Bay “flash house” in Auckland part of the Minister of Finance’s plan to stimulate economic development in the regions, and, if so, when can Kiwis living in the regions expect to start reaping the benefit from 350 Freemans Bay - based staff and consultants?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As discussed—and I obviously reject the depiction of this in the member’s question—when we discussed this yesterday, we talked about the importance of Three Waters as an economic development initiative across New Zealand. We know that there have been hundreds of projects undertaken to improve our water infrastructure. Unlike the National Party, we don’t kick hard issues down the road; we don’t avoid facing up to making sure that we protect New Zealanders from big rates increases. Three waters reform is urgently needed in New Zealand—National can keep ignoring that, but it’s not what needs to happen.

Chris Bishop: How does she think Kiwis in the regions feel about their taxes paying for bureaucrats and consultants to use a huddle room and a large roof deck in Freemans Bay whilst confiscating water assets they paid for?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: That tells you all you need to know—the hyperbole of the National Party to oppose us actually getting on with resolving one of the long-term issues facing New Zealand. The National Party has always been about short-sighted things. The question he needs to put to New Zealanders is: what do they think of a party that would propose tax cuts for the wealthiest New Zealanders at the time of a cost of living crisis? We look forward to debating that issue in Hamilton or anywhere else the member wants to be.

Chris Bishop: How does he think hard-working tradies and farmers feel about paying more for the utes they need to do their jobs so that wealthy people can get discounts on Teslas and BMWs?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: It’s sad, isn’t it—it’s sad, isn’t it. In Mr Bishop’s audition to be leader of the National Party, he’s forgotten when he used to stand up in this House—he used to stand up in this House—as a climate warrior. He used to stand up and say he was the National Party guy who got electric vehicles. Mr Bishop, we need to decarbonise our transport fleet. We’re getting on with it. What would you do?

Question No. 4—Justice

4. ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa) to the Minister of Justice: What changes will be made to improve the anti-money laundering and countering financial terrorism regime?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): On Monday, I announced that the Government is strengthening its regime to combat the harmful effects of money-laundering and financial terrorism, while making it easier for small businesses and consumers to comply. Our country is a safe and easy place to do business and we want to constantly improve that, whilst also doing as much as possible to disrupt the criminal economy.

Arena Williams: What changes are being made to ease compliance requirements for businesses and charities?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: We’ve listened to businesses and charities and heard what wasn’t working for them, so we will take immediate action to improve the regime’s effectiveness by extending the time frame for businesses to submit prescribed transactions reports and exempting registered charities from the obligations they are under when they are providing small loans.

Arena Williams: What changes are being made to ease compliance requirements for rural communities?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: Addressing verification is commonly identified by rural communities and businesses as a source of frustration and a requirement which makes it hard for many people to access the formal financial system. We are making changes to relax the requirement on businesses to verify the addresses of most customers, and for customers which are trusts.

Arena Williams: What are the next steps for this work?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: The statutory review of the Act, which was tabled on Monday, suggested a range of further recommendations that address areas of known risk or vulnerabilities and improve compliance with international money-laundering standards. Consultation and engagement with the private sector was a core focus of the review, and this will continue with co-design of options—in partnership with industry, NGOs, and rural communities—which we intend to take to wider public consultation next year before further decisions are made.

Question No. 5—Education (School Operations)

5. ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays) to the Associate Minister of Education (School Operations): Why are less than 40 percent of students attending school regularly, and what impact, if any, has declining attendance had on student achievement in literacy and numeracy?

Hon JAN TINETTI (Associate Minister of Education (School Operations)): To the first part of the question: the member is referring to the data from term 1 of this year. The data shows that 40 percent of students missed a cumulative of at least one week of school during term 2. This is attributable to the fact that New Zealand was at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic and experiencing higher levels of typical winter illnesses. The health order, at the time, required people to isolate if COVID positive or a household contact, and the public health advice was to stay home if unwell. In regards to the second part of the question, we don’t measure the correlation between regular attendance and literacy and numeracy attainment. However, one can draw reasonable conclusions that if you aren’t attending school regularly, this will have an impact on your learning, which is why, every step of the way throughout the pandemic, the Government has provided targeted resources in support for schools to respond to any disengagement from education their young people faced.

Erica Stanford: How is it that despite her targeted assistance of tens of millions of dollars over the last two years, today’s results show that over a hundred thousand students are still chronically absent from school?

Hon JAN TINETTI: I actually refute what the member’s saying there. The fact that young people are not attending regularly does not mean that they are chronically absent. There are three levels of absence in schools: one is regularly attending and then it goes down. So a young person may have missed a week due to COVID isolation, meaning that they wouldn’t be able to then be regularly attending, but they might have attended all other nine weeks of that term. So to say that they are chronically truant is not right. But what I will say, also, is the fact that those young people and their families followed the health orders was a good thing because if they didn’t, those figures would have been a lot lower.

Erica Stanford: Why is it that after half a decade of her Government, it’s taking more than half a school year on average to get unenrolled students back to school?

Hon JAN TINETTI: We know that we want to see every young child and young person present, participating, and progressing in education, which is why this Government is taking action to support this. One of the aspects that we are doing with that is that the Attendance Service, who works with this cohort, has just received a big funding to help them in that work. This will enable them to get those young people back to school earlier.

Erica Stanford: Why is it that, after five years of her Government, the number of students unenrolled from school for 12 months or more has reached nearly a thousand, a number that has tripled under her Government?

Hon JAN TINETTI: We know that those figures in the last two years have been impacted by COVID, just like everything else. There has been a response to the fact that COVID has impacted across the whole of the community, which is why this Government has put an attendance strategy in place. But what I will also say is that we also need to do, and have started this with the attendance strategy, a campaign to make certain that parents get their kids to school so that they get the education that they deserve. This is not solely on one sector of society; these solutions need to have everybody on board—everybody in this House, everybody outside of this House—because education will give our young people choices.

Erica Stanford: Can she explain how she expects Blue Light services in South Auckland—the Attendance Service—to make any meaningful and effective change to the lives of over 2,000 unenrolled young people that are on their books when their attendance officers have a caseload of 200 students each?

Hon JAN TINETTI: That’s exactly why we have put more money into the attendance services to help with that, and it is exactly why we’re also looking at a redesign of the Attendance Service. I recently visited one of our pilot areas. I’ve seen the difference it makes when we bring those services closer to school, and I’m looking forward to seeing those results pan out in more young people attending education and employment.

Erica Stanford: If her redesign of the Attendance Service still puts unenrolled students with attendance services like Blue Light, how are they going to make any effective change if they have 200 students on their books for every officer employed?

Hon JAN TINETTI: If the member listened to the response to the last question, she will know that this Budget saw a 20 to 26 percent increase in funding for the Attendance Service to help exactly those services, compared to the increase of less than 2 percent under National.

Question No. 6—Commerce and Consumer Affairs

6. NAISI CHEN (Labour) to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs: What announcement has he made about increasing competition in the banking sector?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Today, I announced the good news that the Government will move to increase bank competition and deliver a better deal for New Zealanders through the introduction of open banking. Open banking allows customers to shop around for the best deal. It means banks will also have to work harder to retain their customers, leading to savings for consumers.

Naisi Chen: How will open banking work?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Under open banking, if someone wanted to re-fix their mortgage at a lower interest rate, they could ask their bank to securely share transaction information with a competitor. They could also instruct their bank to share specific data with a financial adviser of their choice, meaning more tailored and timely advice. We believe consumers should have the power to shop around for better deals and make sure they’re getting the best bang for buck out of their investments.

Naisi Chen: When can we expect to see open banking in place?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: It’s anticipated that work to implement open banking will take up to two years. This is not an overnight fix.

Chris Bishop: No, it certainly isn’t.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: We cannot flick a switch and turn on open banking, because we need to get it right. Mr Bishop might believe in imposing extra costs of regulatory burden on business, but, on this side of the House, we understand how to do legislation and regulation properly. ICT systems have to be built. Security needs need to be baked in. We need to understand which form the data is going to be shared. We need to have an accreditation regime in place. We need to have a registry. We need to have monitoring and a disputes resolution scheme. Overseas, it’s taken a bit longer than it’s taken here, but we believe that we can be a fast follower and get this in place.

Naisi Chen: What are the banks saying?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Just like the Government, the banks want open banking to be implemented safely. In a statement earlier today, the New Zealand Bankers’ Association said, “we’ve told the Government that banks need time to enable quality products that will excite New Zealand consumers. This will take some time to implement.” In the interim, and I want to reiterate this—I’ve said it before—there’s nothing to stop the banks acting in more competitive way right now.

Question No. 7—Broadcasting and Media

7. MELISSA LEE (National) to the Minister for Broadcasting and Media: Does he stand by all the Government’s views and actions regarding Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media?

Hon JAN TINETTI (Minister of Internal Affairs) on behalf of the Minister for Broadcasting and Media: On behalf of the Minister, yes.

Melissa Lee: What is the worst case figure outlined in table 37 of the business case for the cost of Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media over the next 30 years, and is it substantially more than $6 billion of new Crown funding as briefed to me by the Minister’s officials last night?

Hon JAN TINETTI: I don’t have the business case in front of me but what I can be clear on is that the total cost of setting up the new entity is $40 million over four years.

Melissa Lee: When the Minister confirmed yesterday that the business case discussed permanently decreased revenue and increased cost to the Crown for the RNZ and TVNZ merger, did he contemplate at any stage any other model than forcing New Zealand taxpayers to spend billions of dollars propping up the new public media entity?

Hon JAN TINETTI: In answer to the last part of that question, I will reiterate that those figures that the member is talking about are wrong. The cost of setting up the new entity is $40 million over four years.

Melissa Lee: Point of order, Mr Speaker. The question wasn’t about setting up the entity.

SPEAKER: If you read the question again—but, I’m pretty sure the last part was addressed.

Melissa Lee: The question was, Mr Speaker: when the Minister confirmed yesterday that the business case discussed permanently decreased revenue and increased costs to the Crown for the RNZ and TVNZ merger, did he contemplate at any stage any other model than forcing the New Zealand taxpayers to spend billions propping up the new public media entity?

SPEAKER: And that was addressed.

Melissa Lee: Does the Minister stand by his statement that “We need a public media entity with the flexibility to meet audiences where they are, utilising the platforms New Zealanders are choosing.”; if so, does that mean Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media (ANZPM) will utilise other streaming platforms or create their own?

Hon JAN TINETTI: Yes.

Melissa Lee: Point of order, Mr Speaker. The question was: does it mean ANZPM will utilise other streaming platforms or create their own? It was an option of two. I quoted a statement that the Minister made and asked the question: does that mean he’s going to do this or that.

SPEAKER: And whatever the question was, the answer was “Yes.” You can’t get more definitive than that.

Melissa Lee: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m glad you think so. Will the merged entity, ANZPM, end up producing public media content provided free to digital streaming platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Netflix, so those platforms will be able to gain advertising revenue from them, as advised to me by his officials last night?

Hon JAN TINETTI: What we do want to see are New Zealand stories for Kiwis, by Kiwis on accessible—accessible—New Zealand platforms. A lot of that work is still to be worked through.

Question No. 8—Trade and Export Growth

8. TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour) to the Minister for Trade and Export Growth: What recent reports has he seen on New Zealand’s sustainable trade?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Minister for Trade and Export Growth): The Sustainable Trade Index launched in Singapore last night by the Hinrich Foundation, the International Institute for Management Development, ranks New Zealand first among 30 economies that undertake international trade in a manner that supports long-term global sustainable development. The index analyses 70 data points grouped into economic, environmental, and societal pillars across 30 economies, including all members of APEC and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. New Zealand’s ranked first in the Sustainable Trade Index and it is an excellent endorsement of Government’s Trade for all Agenda and our success in economic growth, environmental protection, and societal development.

Tāmati Coffey: How does New Zealand’s reputation for sustainable trade benefit our exporters?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: New Zealand’s reputation for sustainability is vital to creating export value. Our standard of living depends upon our ability to trade. That, in turn, depends on adapting to changing markets. Both the trade, environment, and consumer demands are changing in a world that’s challenged by food security and climate change. New Zealand suppliers are facing increasing expectations from overseas purchasers looking to verify and promote the sustainability of their supply chains. This includes major companies like Nestlé, which has committed to halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and to reaching net zero by 2050. New Zealand being ranked first in the Sustainable Trade Index is a strong validation of our approach to sustainable trade and goes to the heart of our global brand.

Tāmati Coffey: What commitments to sustainable trade has this Government made?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: Many, many. The Government is committed to supporting New Zealand exporters who are facing these increasing expectations from purchasers. As I say, they’re looking to verify and promote sustainability in their own supply chains. At a time of increasing protection in world trade, we as a Government are committed to supporting market access and creating new opportunities for New Zealand exporters.

Tāmati Coffey: Given that the primary sector is our largest exporter, how is the Government supporting the primary sector businesses to trade sustainably?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: The Government is focused on supporting the primary sector to trade sustainably—$710 million over four years through the Climate Emergency Response Fund—to accelerate efforts to lower agricultural emissions, to expand the contribution of forestry, and to come up with things like alternative green fuels. We’re currently consulting with the industry on their own proposal, He Waka Eke Noa, and making sure that we can implement this in a way that the farmers and the producers understand why, and that we have a practical outcome that reduces our emissions over time. This Government is committed to a sustainable future for all New Zealand producers and our economy.

Question No. 9—Conservation

9. Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) to the Minister of Conservation: Does she stand by all of her statements and actions?

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Acting Minister of Conservation): Yes.

Hon Jacqui Dean: When she said on 27 October, “Under the Department of Conservation process, huts were dismantled, roofing iron taken off, and timber [taken off].”, was she aware of the Wharekahika Hut, which was burnt to the ground, and shows the whole hut completely burnt, including roofing iron and timber, in Te Urewera?

SPEAKER: Order! Sorry, members may not know but that particular incident is before the courts and is therefore sub judice, and members should not ask—or the Minister should not answer about that case.

Chris Bishop: Point of order, Mr Speaker. That matter is not before the court. As I understand it, what is before the court is an issue of judicial review about the actions of the Department of Conservation (DOC), or the authority for the area. As I understand it, there is no factual dispute about the status or what has happened to the huts in the Ureweras, and what my colleague is asking about is what the Minister of Conservation said in the House last week. Now, Ministers have to be accountable for what Ministers have said in the House. My colleague is simply asking the Acting Minister to account for what the Minister of Conservation has said in the House. That is not a matter that is, as I understand it, a factual dispute before the court, so therefore it doesn’t violate the sub judice rule.

SPEAKER: Well, I’ve got the court’s ruling in front of me, and my understanding of it—and the way I am ruling—is that it is, and that question is out of order.

Chris Bishop: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: A further point of order.

Chris Bishop: Mr Speaker, in doing so, are you taking into account Standing Order 116(3)(a), which “balances the privilege of freedom of speech against the public interest in maintaining confidence in the judicial resolution of disputes,” because members in this Parliament have privilege to ask about important matters—well, they have privilege generally. But, in particular, they have privilege to ask about important matters of public policy, and I would put it to you, sir, that this is an extremely important matter. I do not believe that the resolution of the dispute is impeded in any way by my colleague asking about what the Minister has said in Parliament. I can’t see how it could possibly impede the proper resolution of the matter before the courts, or impede the judicial function generally, for the Minister to be accountable for what she has said in Parliament.

Hon Chris Hipkins: Speaking to that point of order, Mr Speaker, I note that the member didn’t quote Standing Order 116(2)—the Standing Order that comes immediately before that one—that says that if any member wishes to raise something that could be before the courts, they have to do so in writing to the Speaker before doing so.

Chris Bishop: Well, just in response to this, this has been—just for the ventilation of the House, this has been the subject of discussion between the Speaker and the Opposition.

SPEAKER: In response to the point of order, in terms of the free speech that you’re talking about, it’s the very reason why it should be exercised carefully, particularly in relation to court cases. So I am standing by the ruling that I have made that that question is out of order.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Standing Order 116(3)(b), I think, is also very relevant here. Now, I understand your ruling, but I think this is a very important matter of the constitutional separation between the legislature and the judiciary. I also have the court ruling here. The key part of paragraph (b) is the question of the risk of prejudicing a matter before the court. Now, my colleague is not actually arguing or questioning any matter before the court. She is asking about what the Minister knew, when she knew it, and how she found out about it, and how that relates to an answer she gave in this House last month. I think that is a very important matter. The other thing I would say is that the role of the media in this is different from our obligations in this House, but seven different media outlets have reported a matter of fact. Huts in the Te Urewera were burnt down. Now, the question then goes—and that is not disputed by the courts. The question that Jacqui Dean wants to ask the Minister is how that fact compares with statements she made in the House last month. It has nothing to do with the matter before the court.

SPEAKER: Yeah, I’ll—the Hon David Parker.

Hon David Parker: Mr Speaker, these can be difficult issues, and I don’t know enough of the factual circumstance to be able to assist you as to whether you are making a correct ruling or not, but it sounds to me as if the Speaker, with advice from the Clerk, is carefully considering these issues and has been in dialogue with the National Party in advance. I would suggest that if the Speaker is in doubt, the Speaker would be well able to consider being careful here, persisting with his ruling, or with your ruling, and the matter can always be addressed subsequently by the National Party with you beyond question time and raised in a future question time, if the Opposition feels strongly about it, with further consideration at that time.

SPEAKER: OK, I’d like this to be the final word on the matter. Two things: while the member is asking the question—and it is very clear in her mind, as attested to by the Hon Michael Woodhouse—what members won’t know is the nature of the Minister’s answer and whether or not that would be a breach of the sub judice. That’s one point. The second point is that there needs to be mutual respect between the Parliament and the court, and I think, in respect to the court, that that ruling should stand. My original ruling, ruling the question out of order for that purpose, should stand.

Chris Bishop: Point of order.

SPEAKER: If it’s a new point of order, that’s fine. But if it’s not—

Chris Bishop: It’s not new, but—

SPEAKER: Yes, and we could be here for several hours debating the very issue, which I don’t want to do.

Chris Bishop: Well, I’m trying to be helpful. What is the scope of your ruling? Is the ruling that the Opposition is unable to ask any question about the issue of the huts in the Ureweras whilst the substantive application, or judicial review question, is before the court, because, as I understand it, an interim injunction has been granted. It may be some months, sir, before the substantive hearing happens. We are then placed in an invidious position in the Opposition, because this is clearly an issue of public interest and, I would argue, of public policy importance, and the job of this House, sir, is to question the executive about matters of public policy and we want to be able to do that job. So is the scope of your ruling that we are unable to ask questions about this particular matter while the matter is before the courts, because I think that would be problematic.

SPEAKER: I will judge each question on its own merits.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: A new point of order?

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Yes, it is.

SPEAKER: The Hon Michael Woodhouse.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: It is in respect of your ruling, but it goes to a broader question. If I understand what you have said—

SPEAKER: No.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Now, this is really important, Mr Speaker—

SPEAKER: Yes, yes.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: —and I just want to make the point that what you’ve said—

SPEAKER: No, it’s finished.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: —was that the—

SPEAKER: No.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: I think if you heard the—

SPEAKER: That is not a new point of order.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Well, you don’t know, because I haven’t raised it yet.

SPEAKER: Well, the way you started it off, it’s definitely relitigating my ruling.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: OK, I’ll start off in a different way. Is it your ruling—

SPEAKER: OK. A new point of order, the Hon Michael Woodhouse.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Is it now the ruling of the Speaker that a question that is otherwise in order would be rendered out of order because of the manner in which the Minister might reply? The Minister is always free to say it is not in the public interest to answer that question because matters may be subject to court proceedings, but the way you worded your ruling was that the question itself is ruled out, even though it might be in order.

SPEAKER: That’s just relitigating my ruling—

Hon Members: No, it’s not.

SPEAKER: It is. Is there a further supplementary?

Hon Jacqui Dean: When did she become aware that the answer to question No. 7 regarding Te Urewera that she gave to the House on 27 October was incorrect?

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: On behalf of the Minister, it would be inappropriate for me to comment on matters before the courts.

Hon Jacqui Dean: What advice did she receive from her DOC officials before she made the statement in the House: “Let me also be very clear: there was no burning of huts.”?

SPEAKER: The—yeah, I’m going to have to rule that one out of order as well.

Hon Jacqui Dean: Who has been providing her with advice prior to answering questions in the House on the Te Urewera huts?

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: The Department of Conservation.

Question No. 10—Immigration

10. RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) to the Minister of Immigration: Is he confident that current visa settings reflect New Zealand’s relationship with the Pacific?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Immigration): Yes, I am. New Zealand values our relationship with the Pacific and we have welcomed thousands of people to our shores from the Pacific so far this year. Across the immigration system, there are unique pathways that reflect our strong relationship with the region, including the fact that we opened the border to the Pacific earlier than the rest of the world; the Samoan quota, which provides for 1,100 Samoan citizens to apply for residence in New Zealand each year; the Pacific access category, which provides for 650 residence visas available to citizens of Fiji, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Kiribati; the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme; the recently announced sector agreements which allow people from the Pacific to obtain visas for seasonal or part-time jobs; and also the fact that applicants for visitor visas from most Pacific countries pay lower visa application fees than other countries. Our Government’s also acknowledged and apologised for the Dawn Raids. Decisions on individual cases are a matter for immigration officers, and they need to strike a balance and consider cases on their merits. We continue to work with our Pacific neighbours to make sure our immigration settings enhance our relationship with our partners.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Why are so many Pacific Island countries listed as non – visa-waiver countries for the purposes of applying for visitor visas?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: New Zealand has relationships with a whole range of countries, some of which are visa-waiver countries and some are not. Those are matters for bilateral discussions with those countries. It is the case that, around about 20 years ago, New Zealand made a policy decision to have a consistent approach across all Pacific countries, rather than a differential approach that applied up until that point.

Teanau Tuiono: Does he agree with the Minister for Pacific Peoples, who, as reported by Radio Waatea, is unhappy with the current non-visa, and said, “I’ve always believed that the Pacific needs to be treated differently on the basis that our foundational principles for engagement are whanaungatanga, manaakitanga, kaitiakitanga”?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I strongly agree with those values for our engagement with our Pacific neighbours. Indeed, referring back to my primary answer, that is why New Zealand does have a special relationship with the Pacific that is reflected within our visa settings. We have special residency arrangements with Samoa and with our broader Pacific partners. We opened our borders earlier, in recognition of the close, familiar, cultural, and community links that we have with the Pacific. In many respects, we have a relationship that is reflected very well through our immigration settings. We will continue to examine it to ensure that we do reflect those values.

Teanau Tuiono: Then, why do Pacific peoples make up half of total rejections for visitor visas?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: In respect of visitor visa declines, it is important to note that the vast majority of visitor visa applications from the Pacific are, in fact, approved. I went back and checked this matter with my officials after it was recently raised publicly. Between 1 August and 6 October this year, over 85 percent of visitor visa applications from Tonga were approved; from Fiji, Kiribati, and Samoa, over 90 percent were approved; and from Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu, over 95 percent were approved. So I am confident that a fair approach is applied. It is important to note that whenever visitor visa applications are assessed, whatever country they are assessed from, they are assessed on a case by case basis and on the same basis regardless of which country the application is made from.

Teanau Tuiono: Point of order, Mr Speaker. My question was about the rejections—half of the rejections are from the Pacific. The response was about the different things that they were doing about opening up for the visas. I wanted to get to what the question was focusing on: the rejections and why half of them are from the Pacific.

SPEAKER: That was definitely addressed within the Minister’s answer. He actually answered it.

Teanau Tuiono: Why do people from the Pacific face more barriers to visit family in Aotearoa than someone from the US, the UK, and Canada?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I don’t accept the premise of the member’s question. While it is correct that some of the countries that the member has listed are visa-waiver countries, that is a matter for bilateral discussion between the countries that are concerned. Every person applying for a visitor visa from the Pacific has that application assessed in exactly the same way that people from other non – visitor-waiver countries will have their applications assessed. As I have outlined in my previous answer, the vast majority of those applications are approved. As, in fact, I outlined in my primary answer, we enabled people from the Pacific to apply for visas to visit New Zealand, effectively reopening our borders to the Pacific earlier than for all other countries as we reconnected New Zealand in 2022. So I am confident in our approach in this area.

Question No. 11—Customs

11. IBRAHIM OMER (Labour) to the Minister of Customs: What announcements has she made about a modernised border experience for travellers?

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Minister of Customs): The Customs and Excise (Arrival Information) Amendment Bill will improve border management and ensure a smooth experience for travellers touching down in Aotearoa by making improvements to support the implementation of a digital arrival card. The bill amends the Customs and Excise Act 2018 to make the obligations for arrival information clearer. The changes will make it an easier and faster experience for international travellers, including tourists, coming into Aotearoa while also ensuring we can manage border-related risks.

Ibrahim Omer: Why are these changes necessary?

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: As passenger numbers return to normal levels, it’s important that our border processes are as efficient as possible while also helping to make our border safer and smarter. This bill will modernise the border process by allowing for traveller information to be provided digitally and prior to their arrival. This will help front-line officers to focus on potential risk and enable border agencies to assess arrival information more efficiently beforehand.

Ibrahim Omer: How will this improve the experience for travellers coming into Aotearoa?

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: If a traveller makes their declaration prior to arrival on a voluntary basis, they are likely to experience a streamlined process. For example, they might not have to stop to complete the arrival card as they have completed it prior to travel. If there are no risk factors raised from their arrival information, they may not have any contact with a customs officer.

Ibrahim Omer: What is planned to support people who face digital barriers?

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: Work is under way on an accessibility and inclusion strategy to ensure that the digital arrival card meets the needs of a variety of people. A paper form will be available to support people who struggle with the digital system or have no device. In the longer term, it is planned to have things like kiosks to allow people to complete the form on arrival if they do not have a device.

Question No. 12—Police

RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Pāremata ora. My question is to the Minister of Police. Does he stand by his statement that he “wouldn’t take off the table the potential for Parliament to take further action to support the police” in response to a report released by the Independent Police Conduct Authority and the Police Commissioner in September, which found photos and fingerprints of five youth in Wairarapa were taken by police illegally?

SPEAKER: The written question says “Privacy Commissioner”.

12. RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori) to the Minister of Police: Does he stand by his statement that he “wouldn’t take off the table the potential for Parliament to take further action to support the police” in response to a report released by the Independent Police Conduct Authority and the Privacy Commissioner in September, which found photos and fingerprints of five youth in Wairarapa were taken by police illegally?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): Yes, in the context in which those comments were made. While the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) and Privacy Commissioner report highlighted practices that were wrong and needed to stop, that’s also raised wider implications for the police that need to be carefully considered, and that’s what I intend to do.

Rawiri Waititi: Does he accept that the police taking photos of adults and young people—which is illegal—leads to a significant mistrust of police in the community?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I think in some circumstances, yes, that is the case, and the IPCA and Privacy Commissioner report highlighted some examples of that. However, there is also a need for police to be able to do their jobs effectively, and that does involve being able to investigate and resolve crime. And we’ve just got to make sure that we get the balance right there.

Rawiri Waititi: Is his expectation that police are bound by the same laws as everyone else, including the Privacy Act?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Except where the law particularly allows them different powers.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he agree that police need more tools—not fewer tools—to deal with serious youth crime, and, if so, will he give them more tools?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: One of the things that the police are currently doing is working through, with the Privacy Commissioner and the IPCA, the implications of the report that they have released. It may be that police need more tools, but it may also be that agreement can be reached on interpretations of existing law, such that police can continue to do their jobs effectively. I think it’s important that we allow them to go through that process. If in that process it highlights that practices that should be legitimate police practices might otherwise have to stop, then that is something that I wouldn’t rule out bringing proposals before Parliament to address.

Hon David Parker: Does the fact that, in some circumstances, the private sector have wider powers of search and surveillance than the police show the complexity of the issues that the Minister has to work through?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes, absolutely.

Rawiri Waititi: Will he rule out changing the law to allow police to continue their practice of photographing adults and children for looking out of place or suspicious—more than 50 percent of whom have been Māori; if not, why not?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I think we can agree that people looking out of place or looking suspicious shouldn’t be sufficient grounds for those kinds of practices. But there are examples where a blanket prohibition could actually have the reverse outcome of what we’re looking for. It could incentivise police to charge more people rather than pursue alternative resolutions, for example.

Rawiri Waititi: Can he confirm that the police are totally in compliance with a notice to police from the Deputy Privacy Commissioner in December 2021 to stop collecting duplicate photos and biometric prints from young people and delete unlawful collected material?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I can confirm that police are working very, very hard to ensure that they are complying with that notice. One of the findings from the most recent report is that actually training and guidance across the police on these matters could be significantly improved, and I know that police are working hard to give effect to that.

Special Debates

Inquiry into Congestion Pricing in Auckland—Report of Transport and Infrastructure Committee

SHANAN HALBERT (Chairperson of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee): I move, That the House take note of the report of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee on the inquiry into congestion pricing in Auckland.

Auckland’s population is projected to rise to 2 million by early next decade. In order to move 2 million people around our largest city safely and efficiently, we need well-planned, connected infrastructure. As the member of Parliament for Northcote and someone who literally lives and breathes Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland, I hear daily the urgency to address congestion, to unblock our roads, to give time back to families, while alleviating mental health pressures and supporting economic productivity in our largest city in this country.

That requires ambition. We cannot continue to repeat past mistakes of ad hoc planning and a scramble to build infrastructure when it is all too late. The challenges that we experience in playing catch-up now are driving us crazy and that is impacting on our city, yet options like congestion charging need to be seriously considered to support mode shift and to provide funding for us to do this. The question that we ask ourselves is: would you pay the price of a coffee to get to where you need to, faster? Aucklanders know what traffic is like during the school holidays, and that, in fact, is what congestion pricing can achieve for us instantly.

Transport is one of our largest sources of emissions and accounts for 17 percent, or one-sixth, of total greenhouse gas emissions, and, equally, it is an area where we all can make a difference immediately. As a part of this Government, I’m committed to ensuring that all people have a chance to change the way that they travel. I acknowledge that this Government is upgrading New Zealand’s transport system to make it safer, to make it greener and more efficient for now and future generations to come. That is about ensuring that our generations and our communities have good options and tools available for them for the trips that they need to make around our busiest city, and our commitment to infrastructure investment will continue to play a critical role in securing our economy and recovering from the pandemic that we have experienced.

The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is a select committee that I am very proud to be the chair of. We received 435 submissions back in March 2021 and we heard from 41 submitters in Auckland and Wellington, and we also met with colleagues offshore where they have implemented congestion pricing.

Can I acknowledge the former chairperson and now Deputy Speaker, Greg O’Connor, who was part of our team on our select committee; Paul Eagle; Julie Anne Genter; Christopher Luxon; Dr James McDowall; the Hon Mark Mitchell; Terisa Ngobi; and Helen White. We worked constructively as a team to seriously review the opportunities that congestion pricing could play in Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland, and worked through the terms of reference together to ensure that we could get the best outcomes for our people and for our communities.

We made a number of recommendations in this report to this House: firstly, that we progress legislation to enable New Zealand cities to use congestion pricing as a tool in transport planning. Number two was to implement a congestion pricing scheme in Auckland, including, as described in The Congestion Question technical report, a region-wide strategic corridor scheme starting in the central city, where access is charged for and that would apply once per journey in peak times. This would use the automatic number plate recognition—ANPR—technology to identify vehicles that incur a charge. The recommendation would be to undertake broad public engagement to help people understand the cost as well as the benefits of a specific scheme, and that the House would consider whether existing schemes could be used to reduce the inequity that we faced in Auckland caused by implementing a congestion charge—and this came through very clearly from submitters and via the committee.

We recommended that we use any revenue raised by the congestion pricing scheme to mitigate equity impacts on people and communities in Auckland and, in fact, that that money was reinvested in the public and active transport in the region, where the charge would apply. It would undertake research into whether changes to or the removal of the Auckland regional fuel tax may be appropriate if congestion pricing is implemented, and it would investigate the potential for any enabling legislation for congestion pricing to also provide for low-emission zones in our city and closely monitor the effectiveness of any congestion pricing scheme and act promptly to mitigate any unintended congestion in areas not included in the network.

We really thank the submitters in this inquiry for the contribution that they made. They came with energy, but they also came with a robust debate. They saw the opportunity in front of them to de-congest our city—to move around more quickly—but they did come up with key themes that they wanted us to consider, and that particularly was around the inequity that some people in our city face but also some of the challenges that that presented and potential rat-run challenges in the congestion environment.

We believe public input on this matter is important and we want to continue that, and we believe that it is important that information about the benefits of a congestion pricing scheme is shared very widely, because what the public will see first and foremost is the cost that is put in front of them and in our costs of living challenges that our country faces at the moment. We also want to present the opportunity—and I started my presentation in the House today talking about: for the price of a cup of coffee, would you pay that to get yourself or your family to somewhere faster? That is the opportunity that congestion pricing presents to Aucklanders.

On the Government front, congestion pricing is a new initiative for New Zealand. We have spoken offshore to our counterparts, but that means that we want to build a sustained support that will be necessary to demonstrate success through regular monitoring and review points. Schemes submitted for approval would need to set out the monitoring, review, and arrangements.

Regarding the concerns raised by the committee, which I talked about before—the rat-running—the Government agrees that people need to feel confident that congestion will not simply move from a main road into residential areas and that they are not designed for high volumes of traffic. I think that’s a very important point that came up in this inquiry, because people will try to avoid the costs that are put in front of them, but that will impact on our suburban areas. A careful scheme design is required to reduce the risk of rat-running, and monitoring of any scheme with the ability to amend it is essential. The technology solution proposed in The Congestion Question report—the ANPR cameras—is relatively flexible and low-cost in terms of installation, meaning that a scheme could be adjusted to cover the relevant streets if rat-running takes place.

I want to acknowledge finally, in my final minute, the contribution from Te Kaunihera o Tāmaki Makaurau, or Auckland Council, and I acknowledge that we have had an election since then. But I suspect that their contribution and their commitment to congestion pricing remains the same.

Auckland could benefit from a sustainable 8 to 12 percent improvement in network performance in line with school holiday conditions, and I think it’s an important part for Aucklanders that we see the opportunity to reduce trip times for where we’re going at any time of the day and that we reduce demand for peak period and overall traffic volumes. It acts as an incentive to encourage more and more people to use our public transport system in Auckland, and ultimately helps achieve our climate goals for what is one of the biggest challenges in front of our transport sector.

So, without further ado, I’m very pleased with the report that the Transport and Infrastructure Committee sent back to the House. I think there’s a great opportunity for us to consider further in congestion pricing for Aucklanders, and as an MP in Auckland and the member for Northcote, I see the opportunities primarily for my own community. Thank you very much.

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

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Madam Speaker, thank you. I want to thank the member for Northcote for his thoughtful contribution to this very important debate, noting, of course, that he sat on the select committee and considered all the submissions. I did not, unfortunately, have the privilege of sitting on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, although I’ve previously been a member of the committee and previously been a transport spokesperson for the National Party, and now I’m the infrastructure spokesperson.

In this contribution, I want to lay out our position on congestion pricing. I think it’s really good that we are having a special debate on this topic. This is one of these rare issues where there is—I think I’m right in saying—unanimity across the Parliament: congestion pricing. As I understand it, the Labour Party is cautiously supportive of congestion pricing. Certainly, that seems to be the indication from Shanan Halbert and the Minister. The National Party has been in favour of it being introduced in New Zealand. We made that clear back in 2018 and 2019, and at the 2020 election the ACT Party—I believe I’m right in saying—is in favour of it, as are the Greens, although no doubt we’ll hear from resident transport expert Julie Anne Genter in her contribution. So I think I’m right in saying there is unanimity in the Parliament. So, really, the question for the Government is: what are you waiting for? Let’s get on with it.

The history of this is an interesting one. The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) has been issuing reports on congestion pricing since 1993. So we’re going back nearly 30 years—the NZIER has been making the case for better pricing on our roads to manage demand on our roads, and, of course, it was the last National Government through the Auckland Transport Alignment Project that set in place the programme of work that led to the congestion question report. So back in 2015, 2016, 2017 the Auckland Transport Alignment Project carried through into the new Government of 2017 onwards. So this has been a programme of work between central government and local government, in Auckland in particular, that spans the last National Government and the current Labour Government as well.

So the question really is, at some point the Government has to make a decision and say that the time has come. I think we’re almost at that point. The Ministry of Transport and Auckland Council have done all these reports, and they got kicked to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee to kick around, and the committee has issued a very thoughtful and sensible and useful report. But at some point someone has to make a decision. That can’t be us because we’re not in Government—at least not for the moment. [Interruption] I’m trying to be constructive here. We’re not in Government, guys—in case you hadn’t noticed. You like to point it out on a regular basis. You are. So at some point a decision has to be made.

I just want to make it clear that the benefits are vast. All of the economic studies, 90 percent of economists, are in favour of congestion pricing. It’s one of these issues where if you ask an economist if they’re in favour of congestion pricing, the vast bulk will say they are. It’s like free trade. Yes, there are a few economists who decry free trade, but if you ask economists, “Is free trade better or not?”, the vast bulk of them will say, “Yes, absolutely. It’s economically efficient, leads to economic growth. There’s a comparative advantage, etc.” Congestion pricing is in the same boat. If you ask most economists, particularly transport economists, if they are in favour of congestion pricing, they’ll say, “Yes. It leads to more efficient use of the roads, it uses price as a mechanism to manage demand. When roads are free, people overuse the roads. When you put a price on the roads, you create the economic incentive to look for alternatives, or people defer their travel to the times in which they don’t face that charge, or they look for public bus or rail or whatever the particular alternative is.” It’s exactly the way the emissions trading scheme (ETS) works. When you put a price on carbon, over time it sends the right economic signals through the market.

Hon Scott Simpson: Behavioural change.

CHRIS BISHOP: Exactly. As my colleague the Hon Scott Simpson says, it leads to behavioural change—and you’re seeing that play out through the ETS right now. Now that there is a price on carbon and it has flown through the economy, generators in the electricity market are making different decisions. That’s been the case for the last 10 years. You’re seeing major industrial users start to make different decisions around what energy sources they use and around the way in which they do their lighting and energy-efficiency initiatives. Prices work. We just don’t have proper or very effective road pricing on our roads. So is there more we can do with road pricing? Yes, there absolutely is. Is congestion pricing a part of that mix? Yes, it is, and, as Shanan Halbert rightly pointed out, the most comprehensive technical study done in the last couple of years showed an 8 to 12 percent reduction in congestion as a result of properly implemented congestion pricing.

You might think that 8 to 12 percent doesn’t sound like a lot, but it is. It’s the equivalent of school holiday traffic, as Shanan Halbert pointed out. And as the Ministry of Transport advice to the committee said, that would lead to a meaningful lift in transport and economic productivity. What’s the great disease that confronts the New Zealand economy? Productivity—our lack of productivity growth. At the end of the day, that’s what everything is all about when it comes to wages and prosperity and wealth—it’s productivity that drives wages and wealth and prosperity. Congestion pricing will lead to better and more economic use of resources and lead to a lift in productivity.

It’s not the be-all and end-all. It’s not the silver bullet, clearly, and I see Julie Anne Genter nodding furiously. So it’s not the one lever we need to pull or bullet we need to fire to set us on the path to economic nirvana. There is no silver bullet. If there was—well, this Government wouldn’t have pulled it. If there was, the last Government would have pulled it. There isn’t. It’s a whole bunch of a hundred different things we need to do as a country to get our economic growth rate up and to get our economic productivity rate up. This is part of it. This is one of many hundreds of things we have to do.

So, yes, there are questions about when we implement it. Yes, that’s a legitimate question. Clearly, it can’t be tomorrow—we’re not in a position to do it tomorrow, not least because the rail network in Auckland is going to go into managed shutdown next year and in 2024 and that’s a whole other issue that we need to get to the bottom of—how exactly that’s happened; most of the rail network is going to shut down for most of the next two years. That is an issue, and we need to get to the bottom of exactly how that debacle has happened. It’s going to cause chaos in Auckland and it’s a shocker. I personally think we need greater accountability as to how exactly KiwiRail—which has been poorly run for the last few years. It’s a poorly run organisation, and we need to know exactly how that’s been allowed to happen, and we need to know what information was flowing to Ministers and to officials about what’s happened.

So it clearly can’t happen tomorrow and there’s a legitimate question about when it happens. We’ve got the City Rail Link coming—a great project started by the last National Government. We’re very proud of it, and I’m looking forward to seeing that finished. And, of course, we’ve got the Eastern Busway, in Simeon Brown’s electorate, which is taking 20 years to build. It’s taken far too long, and we need to be doing more on busways in Auckland, and, as my good friend Julie Anne Genter always points out to me, the Northern Busway is the single greatest transport project we’ve ever built in New Zealand, and it’s a rare occasion that I agree with her. When the Northern Busway was built it had a benefit cost ratio of 1. They thought it was, basically, about economic. Now 40 percent of people cross the Auckland Harbour Bridge on the Northern Busway. Amazing project. So we need more busways, not the fantasyland economics of Auckland light rail, which will never get built, and not this $30 million tram or—actually light rail is a misnomer. It’s not even light rail any more. It’s called Auckland light rail but it’s not actually light rail, but it will never get built. We don’t need that but we do need more busways and the cost-benefit ratios for those are much better.

So we need more busways and there’s a question about when we do it, but the real question that’s confronting the House in this report on congestion pricing is: when and will we actually do it? That’s really a question for the Government, because—and I’ll end my speech where I started—there is unanimity on the idea. There are questions about exactly how and exactly when, but there are not really questions about whether or not it has to happen. It does, and that is in the Government’s decision-making framework—not us.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I very much agree with the previous speaker; a great contribution from Christopher Bishop. This inquiry was into congestion pricing in Auckland, but I note that the recommendations from all the members of the committee were to progress legislation to enable New Zealand cities to use congestion pricing as a tool in transport planning, therefore not limited to Auckland, and there were some specific recommendations about the form that that would take.

There are some other recommendations I’ll come back to, but firstly, I just want to talk about the goal here. I think we all share the same goal, which is livable communities that support people and goods to move in an efficient way at lower cost with less noise, less pollution, and less greenhouse gas emissions, and especially to enable more space in our city to be used for the things that the city exists for. So like, the city exists for people to come together to trade goods, services, and ideas; for people to live and work and play in. Ultimately, moving around the city as people or as goods—it takes up some of the space. That space that we use for movement isn’t an end in and of itself. So if we can move more people and goods at lower cost with less space and enable more of the city for the things that it exists for, that’s a direct productivity gain to New Zealand.

Congestion pricing is one tool that can help us achieve that, but I would note that congestion is actually not the largest cost incurred to New Zealand by our transport system that is very, very heavily—like, in an unbalanced way—reliant on private cars. The cost of just private ownership of those cars is a burden to many New Zealanders, and if it were possible for them to move around, not having to rely on privately owning as many cars, that again would be a direct productivity gain to New Zealand.

So one of the key recommendations in this report was to use any revenue raised by a congestion pricing scheme to mitigate equity impacts and to reinvest in public and active transport in the region where the charge applies. Now, this is really important, but it’s even more important that we get ahead of the congestion charge. This would probably be where the Greens have been—I think we were probably the first party in this Parliament to have congestion pricing in our transport policy. I do know that a previous transport spokesperson for the National Party Maurice Williamson, I believe, lost his role as transport spokesperson when he floated the idea of congestion pricing back in 2006 or so. Then Steven Joyce took over and kind of stopped any work on it for quite a while. It took until the very end of National’s last term for them to start looking into it.

During that time that National was last in Government, there was absolute minimal investment in KiwiRail, the rail network. It was in a state of managed decline, which would be the reason why we’re now facing two years of shut down in Auckland. I’m not saying that KiwiRail’s without blame here, but the reality is that under nine years of National, the railway network was in a state of managed decline, very little work was done on congestion charging, no work was done on a north-western busway when State Highway 16 was planned to be upgraded, and, therefore, that’s why Auckland is in this situation of not having enough public transport to meet the demand.

The key thing is that if we know that we’re going to be using congestion pricing in Auckland or in Wellington, it completely changes the business case for the next investments we make in those cities, because we know that demand for public transport will increase. We know that the need for small increases to road capacity in some places that are very, very expensive in the cities will not be needed, because we’ll be smoothing out that peak demand.

So when you look at Let’s Get Wellington Moving, which is looking at spending billions of dollars on grade separating cars in some areas of the city, already, the benefit-cost ratio (BCR) for that project is well below 1—like we’re talking 0.2—and that would be even lower if we have congestion pricing. Same for the next additional Waitematā Harbour crossing: if it’s a crossing for cars, it really doesn’t make any sense. The benefit-cost ratio for that project, 0.2, you know, probably before the cost has even gone up.

I hear members to my right yelling about this. They’re the ones who claim to care about economic efficiency here, but they never do when it comes to cars in the centre of a city. Because if we were charging the direct cost for that road capacity, it could not pay for itself. If we are going to have congestion pricing, then we need significantly more investment in public transport in our largest cities. That does leave more of the roading budget to go to the regional areas, which you would think that the National Party would support. But instead they’re the ones arguing for multibillion-dollar low-BCR road projects in the central city. But the Green Party supports this report and looks forward to the legislation.

SIMON COURT (ACT): ACT supports the conclusions of this inquiry into congesting pricing, and we urge the Government to follow through with their tabled response. If you look at what the Government has said in response, they’ve said that legislation to enable congestion charging needs to be introduced into the House in 2022 and passed in this term of Government. So the ACT Party says “Get on with it. We’ll support it.”

The reason they need to do it is because the current revenue model, which relies on road-user charges and petrol taxes, is simply broken. The money collected from truckies and private motorists is never enough to pay for road maintenance, let alone for the growth that we’re expecting in our cities and regions. Around half the money collected from road users is syphoned off for politicians’ pet projects, like a bike bridge that will never be built and an Auckland light rail that no one in Auckland asked for. No one in Auckland asked for Auckland light rail.

Now, the recent cut in fuel excise duties and road-user charges has led to a half-billion-dollar hole in this Government’s transport budget. That means that, without finding other sources of funding, the hole is just going to get deeper, the potholes won’t get filled, and we’re going to end up stuck in traffic for another decade. Apparently that’s not a priority for this Government, because we haven’t heard about the legislation coming to the House that they said should be introduced in 2022. That story is repeated across the country. Congestion costs the New Zealand economy hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Freight which used to take six hours to get from the Port of Lyttelton to Queenstown might take seven. Tradies who used to do three jobs in a day can now do only two in big cities like Auckland, because they’re stuck in traffic. Across 5 million New Zealanders, these costs really add up.

Similarly, our failure to deliver transportation and other infrastructure is holding back housing growth. Councils routinely cite the inability to deliver water infrastructure. Transport infrastructure is a reason to decline resource consents. Even the New Zealand Transport Agency has been in on the act recently, rejecting two big developments in Drury and the Sleepyhead compound in the Waikato. This Government—this Government—the Minister of Transport and their support party, the Greens, are doing everything they can to stop New Zealanders using roads and driving cars.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: You’re so full of it.

SIMON COURT: Even when this Government tries to deliver public transport projects—for the record, the member Julie Anne Genter has said I’m full of it, but I’ll tell you who is full of it: this Government. Even when they’re trying to deliver public transport, the Minister Michael Wood told me, at the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, that the bus stop on the side of the motorway at Te Atatū is quality public transport—a bus stop and a speed hump on the side of the Northwestern Motorway is quality public transport! That’s what this Government is delivering to Aucklanders.

Aucklanders and Kiwis deserve better, and road pricing is the key to delivering better transport networks. ACT proposes that user pricing be delivered to as much infrastructure as possible. In return, fuel taxes and the existing system of road charges will be abolished. The fairest way to fund infrastructure is by charging those who use it. User charges and revenues also provide a valuable signal and an incentive to Governments and the private sector to build more transport infrastructure. In the midst of a cost of living crisis, the Labour Government is unlikely to prioritise building capacity in our road network or fixing potholes. They don’t like roads, and they don’t like cars, and our commute, whether we’re stuck in traffic for 45 minutes or an hour a day, is of no concern to them, but they’re simply deferring the problem; they’re kicking the road-pricing problem down the road until a more responsible and more practical Government that involves ACT at its core is running this country.

That is why ACT supports a move to road pricing, on the basis that it’s cost neutral, that we get better public transport options as well, and a corresponding increase in road capacity in those parts of our major cities and regions where we’re stuck in traffic, and we deserve safer, faster journeys. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): It’s interesting that the House is in agreement that the time for congestion pricing has come. We’ve heard that from the Labour Party, the National Party, the Green Party, and the ACT Party. There are differing reasons behind it, but nevertheless the agreement is that the time for it has come. And it was interesting—I did not sit on the committee but I did read some of the submissions today and I found that both the New Zealand Initiative and Greater Auckland agreed that the time for congestion pricing had come. There is no particular barrier in terms of what people think about congestion pricing. It does seem to be that the moment is arriving, and that’s for good reason.

A couple of weeks ago I was travelling from Matuku Link, a wonderful conservation project in the Waitakere Ranges, to the airport on a Friday afternoon—no, Thursday? Friday? It was an afternoon! I was travelling around about 3.30 or so, and as I travelled down the Northwestern Motorway heading to the airport, I had a comparatively clear journey through the tunnels and on to the airport. But coming along the Northwestern, on the other side of the road as people were heading north out of the city, it was chock-a-block. Car after car after car. All the lanes full and virtually at a standstill. It must have been so hard for all the people sitting in those cars.

This is a regular occurrence on our motorways in Auckland. The congestion is horrendous. But more roads is not the answer, contra the speaker Simon Court, just now—more roads are not the answer. We know what happens when more roads are built. It creates more traffic. It’s a really interesting phenomenon which is now well known to road engineers, that simply building another road or adding another lane just actually over time increases the traffic. And indeed, we can see that with what has happened with the Waterview tunnels.

The answer is better use of the existing roads, trying to get our timing right on them, trying to ensure that people use the roads when they need to, but that perhaps they consider alternative modes of transport, or perhaps they time their journeys differently. That is what congestion pricing is about. Again, contra the earlier speaker, it is not about user pays. It’s very hard to do that with our roads. They are actually a joint asset owned by all of us and they create the capacity for our joint economy and our joint society to function. Trying to turn it into some sort of user-pays notion sort of a misunderstands why we provide some goods as a public good, not as a private thing that everyone buys into individually.

Simeon Brown: Well, then you’d be opposed to congestion charging.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: The point of the congestion charging is not a revenue raising exercise—and this is sitting in the Government response. The point is to change behaviour, to set the prices, and to charge them in such a way that people consider making alternative decisions about how they get from point A to point B. So it is not about user pricing; it is about changing behaviour.

But there are some important matters to consider when we get around to changing behaviour like that. And I refer in particular to the submission from the National Council of Women of New Zealand, who I find write really sensible submissions. They have pointed out in their submission that if the Government decides to proceed with congestion charge pricing and if local areas, local bodies, decide to take up the opportunity to enable congestion pricing, then we need to have some serious consideration of equity issues. Women frequently have to use the roads at particular times, as they are the ones tasked with getting children to and from school or to and from childcare in time to go to work. So perhaps there are particular issues there. People with disabilities often find that they have to use private cars because they cannot access public transport easily. So there are some particular issues there that need to be considered carefully as well.

Now, the answer is not necessarily to not engage in congestion charging. It’s to think carefully about how it’s applied, when it’s applied, and where it is applied. I think also even part of the answer is, of course, to make sure that we have much better public transport. We know the issues with public transport in Auckland at the moment. We know the things that need to be sorted out, and it’s going to take time. But in order to enable congestion pricing to work effectively, we need the public transport as well. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Well, thank you, for the opportunity to take a call on this debate regarding the Transport and Infrastructure Committee’s inquiry into congestion charging. And I think the Government was thinking this would be a great debate to have on a Thursday afternoon, but actually, quite frankly, it’s a bit embarrassing for the Government who have been in office for five years and have actually done nothing when it comes to congestion charging, despite the fact that, when we left office in 2016, we launched the congestion question. We had the first report come back; the next report came back in 2018. This Government then said, “We will put it into the emissions reduction plan.” They’ve consulted on the emissions reduction plan, which has recommended congestion charging. They then shuffled it off to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, said, “Oh, can you do some work as well?”, and they said, “Yep, congestion charging is a good idea.” And then they said, “Well, let’s have a debate about it in Parliament.”

Here we are, having a debate about it in Parliament, but we still don’t know where the legislation is at. We’ve heard about the ambition from the chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. He’s ambitious. That’s great. Fantastic. He’s got ambition. We heard from the previous speaker, Deborah Russell, who said there’s no particular barriers to bringing in congestion charging. Well, the only barrier is the Government—that’s the only barrier. Because, actually, this House is in agreement but we can’t make progress, and I think that’s an indictment on this Labour Government sitting across the other side.

So, as I said, the National Party supports a congestion charge. We know the benefits that this will have on our networks—the increased productivity that our infrastructure spokesperson, Chris Bishop, was talking about earlier. Congestion costs Aucklanders $1.3 billion every single year. So there is not just a cost of putting this in, there is an opportunity cost every single day that this has not been put in place and that this Government continues to sit around and not actually make progress on this.

But, also, they talk a lot about how there needs to be better alternatives. Well, in five years, public transport in Auckland has gone backwards. I note the Mayor of Auckland has put out a statement today where he has made it clear that this is something which is a significant issue, if we’re going to put in place congestion charging, because they’ve just cancelled a thousand bus services a day because this Government won’t let bus drivers into the country to keep our public transport running reliably. A thousand bus services every single day have been cancelled. We’ve got our rail network having a surprise rebuild over the next two years, which is going to mean our rail network is being brought to a halt.

So Aucklanders just do not have confidence in this Government when it comes to transport and infrastructure in New Zealand. All they hear about it is a cycle bridge; $51 million blown up in smoke—$51 million. I know Shanan Halbert would love to have had a cycle bridge across the bridge—he campaigned on it at the last election, but it got cancelled on him. Well, that’s his chances of having a second term gone up in smoke. But the point here is that this Government talks a big game: $29.2 billion on light rail, which has gone absolutely nowhere under this Government. So there’s just literally no progress happening on all of these issues, and they’re embarrassed because they actually haven’t made progress on transport in Auckland.

So we support this because it’s going to work. We support this because it works overseas. We support this because it’s going to increase productivity. But I do just want to rebut a couple of the points being made by other members of the House which say, “Well, if we have congestion charging, we don’t need to invest in new roads, and we don’t need to invest in new infrastructure.” Well, the reality is, Auckland is having a growing population, and, yes, congestion charging will play a role in managing demand, meaning, in many instances, that more people will be able to use the roads, because we’ll be actually managing that demand better because it will be operating more efficiently.

I know the Greens don’t like the idea of more people actually using roads, but congestion charging will allow for more capacity and more ability to use those roads as we spread demand and as we give people alternative choices. But with a growing population, there is still a need for more infrastructure and to meet that demand to give people the choices and the ability to get around, and that is critically important and something which needs to be put into this debate.

There are, of course, questions around equity; there are questions around where that money should go. It’s very clear from the report: there needs to be a clear link from people who pay the congestion charge to the benefit in terms of where that money is being invested. That is something that we are very keen to see where that goes.

Of course, we should be also removing the regional fuel tax because all it’s been is more charges for Aucklanders and no delivery, and New Zealanders are sick and tired of the lack of delivery by this Government.

HELEN WHITE (Labour): I was in the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, which heard the submissions on this matter. I’m delighted that there is unanimity about this issue. I started looking at this issue quite cynically and was quite worried about the equity issues involved. I live in the central city area and I have a little scooter and, as an electric-scooter user, you can avoid a lot of these problems. But I know that’s not true for a family living out at the end of South Auckland; they are having to come in on a motorway that is really congested and it’s very difficult. I was worried about people working shifts who were just not able to come in at those times. I had a lot of those concerns allayed by the very intelligent submissions that we got from a range of people. Other speakers are right; we have had absolutely strong support from some very important stakeholders. They range from the Employers and Manufacturers Association to the Heart of the City; they involve people with economics background and equity backgrounds; Generation Zero. We really had a full cohort of people who were intelligently engaged in this process.

I am sad that the last speaker, Simeon Brown, was so odious in his comments, really. This morning, I was sitting in the transport committee and he was really talking about climate, in a way, playing it down, and seeing the people that were talking to us as alarmist. That worries me—in a leader involved in another party in this way, because leadership is not about accusing people who are genuinely concerned about these things as alarmists. We heard from a lot of submitters who were concerned about the climate, in this submission. Why they considered congestion charging one of the tools in the tool box was because we’re at 17 percent of our emissions in private vehicles. We are at $2 billion a year being lost. That’s the estimate, in productivity, because of our congestion issues. These are all issues that are not alarmist; they’re really important. Actually, it’s really important that this country is led by people who are not downplaying those parts of things, but actually drawing on everyone’s support for them.

So it’s very important, I think, that we look at this matter with an equity lens and a productivity lens. Those things are not exclusive to one another. It’s absolutely right that good productivity means that we are hoping to see greater wages and incomes and thriving communities. That is absolutely right. So it is an equity issue too.

But we also have to make sure that when we build these structures, we really are making sure that the people in South Auckland who need to come in can do so. Now, what we have actually recommended does that. It’s about, probably, looking at the corridors and the peaks. So for people at home who are worried about those issues, we are looking at peak times. We are looking at those corridors. We are looking at stopping rat-running, which is the little ways of escaping that by going through the little streets and kind of ruining those neighbourhoods. We’ve looked at all of that. We’re not the only people who have looked at that. I would like to thank the people who did the work in the congestion question earlier. Some very bright people have contributed a lot to this debate.

Yes, I think we’re getting ready, but, obviously, a very big piece of the puzzle is to make sure that we have enlightened public transport that meets the needs of our disabled and it meets the needs of our many people who will need to move around our city. That’s an important piece of the puzzle.

I think it’s very important that the charges from something like congestion charging, which I am now convinced will smooth traffic flow, is tagged to public transport, so that we’re actually fixing a problem that has grown over years and years by people who say things like others being climate alarmists, when they are not alarmists; they are actually absolutely right. We absolutely need to change the way we work.

Right now, I am very pleased our transport Minister is being pretty committed to that, pretty visionary about that, and, actually, very solid. Thank you.

MELISSA LEE (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise to participate in this debate. Although I’m not part of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, who has actually looked at this very issue, I’d like to commend the work of the members who took part. As I’ve listened to some of the debate, I think everyone in this Chamber agrees that we need to do something. I think that comes from lived experience. I mean, I live in Auckland; I drive a car. If I didn’t have to drive a car, I would actually take public transport if there was public transport available.

In August, I had a visit to Korea, and one of the things that I can say is that South Korea has 10 times the population of New Zealand. It’s more than 50 million people in South Korea. I was in central Seoul and it is so much easier for people to travel in public transport, whether it’s buses or subways, because they have invested in it. Often it is easier to catch a subway train or a bus than catching a taxi on the road. I think, if we had the option, a lot more people would use public transport, and that is the incentive for us to do something about it. And I think National is open to looking at any proposal the Government may have to bring forward in dealing with congestion charging, and actually would support it if it is an incentive to get people to make the shift towards using public transport to reduce congestion.

I have to say, you know, on Tuesday I had leave from Parliament to attend an event where the Navy training ship from Korea was visiting. It was a big deal for the Korean community. I had to attend to actually welcome in the sailors and the officers who are training the sailors with the Korean community. There were little children who took pleasure in missing school to present them with flowers. But the trip from the naval base in Devonport—actually, for me in a taxi from there to the airport, it was diabolical traffic. I nearly missed my flight. I don’t like being late for my flight and I hate it when people call my name at the airport, but it actually happened on Tuesday.

Simeon Brown: It increases your profile, though.

MELISSA LEE: It could potentially boost my profile but for the wrong reason I would have actually thought, Mr Brown.

It took more than an hour and a half to get from the Devonport Naval Base to the airport because of congestion. And, let me tell you, the other congestion that I was appalled at was I was in Simeon Brown’s electorate for a public meeting a little while ago now and from Pakuranga I had a meeting in town right in the city centre and I thought if I gave it an hour and a little bit, it was going to be plenty of time for me to drive from Pakuranga to the city; it took more than two hours to get from Pakuranga to Auckland City. That is diabolical congestion and we need to do something about it.

You know, when people actually say we are aspirational about dealing with our congestion by saying we’re going to spend billions on a cycle bridge, I don’t think that is aspirational. We need to deal with congestion and it has to be multi-pronged. We do need more public transport options. As I said right from the beginning, I am actually jealous of countries that have amazing public transport systems that allow people to take those options. We don’t currently have one, and I wish the Government will actually respond and bring on more options for New Zealanders so they can make the shift away from cars if they could, if they can, and if they choose to. But we also need roads without potholes. We also need plenty of options for people, and not all people in New Zealand can move to electric vehicles. Some of them can’t afford it. Some of them don’t want to afford it because they don’t have electric options for tractors or utes. And I think it is really upon the Government to think about providing options for people. Congestion charging is one, and I’d like to see the piece of legislation brought to this House so we can all consider it and potentially support it unanimously.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to take this call in this special debate. I want to start first by acknowledging the speakers in this debate. It is good to be a part of a debate that is genuinely cross-partisan, in support of a sensible idea. I also want to acknowledge the work of WSP and the Helen Clark Foundation on this excellent report. As an Auckland member who is very interested in congestion charging but is not a member of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, it was very, very helpful to me to appreciate where we’re going with ensuring fair conditions are baked into any system that a Government would impose, in terms of congestion charging. The Auckland members who have spoken on the Government side were from the west, were from the south, were from the north, and were from the east. It makes sense for Auckland MPs to be directly engaged in these issues, which will affect our communities so much. I also want to acknowledge the chair, Shanan Halbert, for highlighting the priorities that came through from submitters to the inquiry, about the need for equity going forward. We need to make this fair, and we need to make it work for people in their lives. I will talk a little bit about what this looks like for people at home: what is an example of how congestion charging is going to work for me and make my life better?

First, there is a little bit of cheek going on in this House, about getting at the Government and under our skin, on this side, for a lack of delivery on this issue, which was first floated by Mayor Len Brown in 2011. It was shut down by Steven Joyce very publicly, and he put a stop to that idea because it simply wasn’t a vote winner. The last Government didn’t do it in 2015 and 2016, when it had an opportunity to. It led to the election and a discussion paper and then was able to grow this sense of bipartisan support on both sides of the House only in Opposition. It’s clear to me that this Government is taking this idea very seriously, because it is a sensible one and it will be a long-term change, but it’s hard to design a policy that is fair across Auckland, that works for our people, and that is led by local communities.

That’s my second point. Let me talk about why the research around the world shows that introducing congestion charging only works in those cities where people really understand it, where local people are able to feed in, where the Government is actively engaging local people, and that means more consultation; that means more co-design than simply waiting for people to feed back in something like an online survey. The Edinburgh and Manchester experiences are good examples of that. In Manchester, a third of residents who were surveyed about a congestion charge in their city before it was implemented thought that it was going to apply to their road, which was actually outside the boundary. Those two cities are examples of where misinformation took root because the Government and local councils and local people weren’t able to have that open dialogue and have the discussion about what was going to work for the city. I think the members of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee have played an important role in getting out there and talking to our communities, and on the Government’s side that means really active engagement in Auckland local communities about this issue. And I commend them for their work on that.

Now, I said I would briefly speak on what congestion charging might mean for someone in South Auckland. Say we had a person who lived in my electorate of Manurewa. He might get up early and get the kids ready for school and then head off to work full time in a factory over in Avondale. It would currently be a very slow drive, particularly around Tip Top Corner, through Ellerslie, and then right through the city. The traffic at the moment is not as bad as what it was pre-COVID-19, but as more people stop working from home there are more cars on the road during that morning commute. It is still taking 40 minutes to get there, and then it can take another 45 minutes to get on from there. And, as Melissa said, Michael doesn’t have the other options to go from Manurewa out to Avondale, especially if he’s a tradie and needs to take his ute and his tools with him. So what does congestion charging mean for him? It means that that will become much easier. It will become much easier to progress through the central city, because a congestion charge will mean that people who can take other options will be incentivised to take other options. He doesn’t go through the CBD, so he doesn’t have to pay the charge, but he would still get the benefits of having to compete with fewer vehicles on the road. It will save him time. It will mean that he gets home earlier. It will mean that he gets to get home before 7 o’clock at night and put his kids to bed. The difference in that is a real change in people’s lives. It will make an important change in South Aucklanders’ lives, and that’s why I support this.

Motion agreed to.

Report noted.

Bills

Statutes Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 27 October.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Kia ora, members. As we continue the second reading of the Statutes Amendment Bill, we are now on call No. 6, which is a Green Party call.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. The Green Party is supporting this Statutes Amendment Bill at the second reading. As I’m sure many people watching this debate at home will know, statutes amendment bills are the sorts of omnibus bills that clean up a whole lot of little things and different bits of legislation.

There’s quite a bit that we could talk to about this, but one of the key changes it makes that people might be interested in is to the Unit Titles Act. Under a temporary provision in the Epidemic Preparedness (COVID-19) Notice 2020, it allowed people to attend body corporate meetings remotely via an audio or audiovisual link. Part 40 of the bill as introduced would amend section 88 of the Unit Titles Act 2010 to make this provision permanent. So it’s just one of those examples of realising during the pandemic that, actually, people being able to attend body corporate meetings via phone or Zoom or other audiovisual link made sense. So this bill will make that change.

It also makes some changes with respect to the South Mangawhai Forest, which was a commercial redress property transferred to the Ngāti Manuhiri Settlement Trust through the Ngāti Manuhiri claims settlement. So this proposed amendment removes an unnecessary encumbrance on a group of identified properties in the South Mangawhai Forest that do not contain protected sites and for which no right of access exists.

There are a few other little rats and mice dealt to in legislative scrutiny, and, ultimately, these statutes amendment bills usually only come to the House if there’s agreement about the changes that are made, I think, across the parties of the House, but that could be wrong, or at least from—yeah. So, yeah, the Green Party will be supporting this bill at second reading.

TONI SEVERIN (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. ACT supports bills that have problems to be solved and to make legislation clear for New Zealanders who are affected by these Acts. So the Statutes Amendment Bill does exactly this: it cleans up, it’s an omnibus bill, it’s a house-cleaning bill that we spoke about back in the first reading. It dots the i’s and crosses the t’s, and this actually goes over 41 different Acts.

I’d like to thank the 16 submitters that were from interested groups and individuals, but I also would like to thank the officials, the Ministry of Justice, and the Office for Māori Crown Relations, and especially the Office of the Clerk—they were very great at helping us through all these different bills that we have that come before us—and, of course, the Parliamentary Counsel Office with their assistance with drafting this bill.

As we said, it’s a house-cleaning and tidying-up bill and, as we said, there were 41 different Acts that were put in here. And my fellow colleague here Julie Anne Genter said about the Unit Titles Act that, because of so many different changes in our lives over the last couple of years, we’ve had to rethink how we do business.

Then also there’s little mice, as we were saying, as the likes of—was it here? Where is it here? Here it is. Part 15—one of the 41 Acts—is the amendment to the Evidence Act 2006. Clause 36, “Principal Act”, states: “This Part amends the Evidence Act 2006.” Clause 37, “Section 202 and cross-heading repealed”, says “Repeal section 202 and the cross-heading above section 202.” I would gather that those that know about this would be probably very happy about it, but, I mean, for myself, I’m unaware of what it really means. Or Part 32, “Amendments to Railways Act 2005”. Clause 99, “Principal Act” says “This Part amends the Railways Act 2005.” Clause 100, “Section 94 amended (Notices)” says “(1). In section 94(1)(b) and (d), delete ‘registered’. (2) In section 94(2), delete ‘or registered post’.” We don’t have registered post. So these are the sorts of things that this bill amends.

But also, I found one really great one that goes back to 1957—65 years old. So this one is Part 26, “Amendment to Oaths and Declarations Act 1957”. Clause 80 of the principal Act states: “This Part amends the Oaths and Declarations Act 1957.” Clauses 81, “Section 9 amended (Declarations made in New Zealand)”, says “After section 9(1)(e), insert: (ea) a Registrar (including the Chief Registrar) or Deputy Registrar of the Māori Land Court; or.”

So being an omnibus bill, as you can see, it covers many different statutes on many different issues. And a lot of the issues that were found in this bill have been well-thought-out because of times changing in New Zealand and things moving on to the new forms of communication, as well as keeping it up to date so that we can make sure that our laws and legislation are current and that people understand what they are entitled to do.

So, again, ACT supports this bill, and we like to have all those things—all those house-cleaning bills—put through. And I’d once again like to thank everyone that was involved in these 41 Acts to make sure they were cleaned up correctly. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour—Banks Peninsula): Thank you, Mr Speaker. As several people have already said during the course of this debate on the Statutes Amendment Bill at this second reading, it’s essentially housekeeping and tidying up bits and pieces. Many are making the type of technical, short, non-controversial amendments to several Acts—41 Acts, I think, as Toni Severin has just reminded us—many of which, if we considered them in isolation by themselves probably wouldn’t necessarily receive sufficient priority to have those changes being made on an individual basis. That, therefore, is the beauty of an omnibus bill: so those things can be cobbled together, and these changes can be made.

I’m not a member of the Governance and Administration Committee, but this is the committee that has examined this bill and done so quite rigorously, I should imagine. As has been said, they received 16 submissions—interestingly, no one in particular wanted to be heard in person, and that probably reflects the non-controversial nature of these changes. The committee itself recommended that this be passed with just a couple of amendments.

It has already been noted that at least one of them was amending the Unit Titles Act 2010. For simplicity, that essentially just means that another bill came through this House earlier on in the year and made those amendments, so that’s no longer necessary. The other one is making an amendment to the Ngāti Manuhiri Claims Settlement Act 2012 so that the statutory encumbrance can be removed from a discrete, particular part of that forest area so that they can take the opportunity of the development opportunity that has come their way.

There are several other specific examples, but without going through them all, I think the one that caught my eye yesterday was, for instance, the Dog Control Act 1996: removing the requirement for a registered veterinarian to provide some sort of written declaration that an imported dog is not a breed listed as a disability dog, and various other examples of things like that. So it is, essentially, an efficient way to use this House’s time to make small and necessary changes. I commend this bill to the House.

SAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): Thank you, Mr Speaker. We will support this bill. As we noted, it’s just minor amendments across a range of Acts, 42 Acts, and that comprises this omnibus bill. So there are 62 amendments in total. Most of them are minor, technical, and—as my colleagues across the House have noted—non-controversial, and in their own right would not otherwise be prioritised or progressed.

We note that the Governance and Administration Committee unanimously supported this bill, noting that there were two amendments—and these have already been discussed, but I will go through them. There was the Unit Titles Act—the removal of Part 40, which relates to a provision to allow people to attend body corporate meetings remotely via an audio or an AV link. This provision is no longer required since the bill was introduced. An amendment giving the same effect has already been made via other legislation.

We’d also comment on the Ngāti Manuhiri Claims Settlement Act of 2012, where Te Arawhiti recommended inserting Part 25A into the Statutes Amendment Bill, which would remove any unnecessary encumbrances on a group of identified properties in the South Mangawhai Forest where the encumbrance is not relevant.

So we support this bill; it improves the quality of our legislation. And as noted, these amendments are non-controversial, they are technical in nature—and hence why they are included in the Statutes Amendment Bill. So I’d like to commend all parties involved in this—so the people on the committee, the people who were engaged in this, and also the different ministries for making these technical and necessary updates. I’d probably also encourage the other side of the House too, to look at other reforms that could be necessary to improve the functioning of our society. I know there are a number of troublesome bills out there—

Angela Roberts: We do that every day!

SAM UFFINDELL: —I was doing so well, wasn’t I, until then—where we could improve the function. We could look at the Resource Management Act: I expect the Government to do that, but I do hope in doing so that there is close discussion with the National Party to make sure that it is as effective as possible and as enduring as possible, because I would hazard a guess that we will probably be back here at a later point reorganising what the Government has put through.

So just summarising on this: this is a fairly non-controversial Statutes Amendment Bill and the second reading will progress from here; it has the unanimous support of all parties in the House, and as a National Party member standing to speak on it, I will commend it. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s my pleasure to stand and take a call on the Statutes Amendment Bill as a non-lawyer—one of the few in the House, it feels, sometimes. I’m always really impressed by the level of detail that comes through in pieces of legislation like this. But, as you know, I’m always looking for a teachable moment, and I think that this is going to be fantastic as a piece of evidence for history students in the future, because what this work does is it helps us to move along and remain nimble and responsive.

I think there’s some really interesting evidence, when we go through the amendments, of how life changes. Everyone’s picked up little bits and pieces that they found intriguing or interesting, and when you look at the Railways Act 2005 and removing the reference to “registered post”, I think it’s a really interesting marker that we have moved on, because, of course, the service is no longer offered. So I think this will be something that I’ll be passing on to my former colleagues in secondary schools when they’re looking at how we mark the progress of our society.

This bill helps us to remain nimble and responsive, and helps our legislation to stand the test of time. I think we need to take note of all of the work that goes into the very detailed scrutiny and the bill that has turned up in response to that, and so I commend this bill to the House.

Dr ANAE NERU LEAVASA (Labour—Takanini): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take a brief call on Statutes Amendment Bill, second reading. I haven’t had the privilege of sitting on the Governance and Administration Committee, but, again, I would like to thank the members of the committee, the chair, and also the Minister for bringing it to the House—Aupito William Sio. You’ve heard from many of our colleagues of what the bill consists of: amendments to Acts—being an omnibus bill, 64 proposals that will amend 41 Acts. I thank the submitters—the 16 submissions that have come through. Just looking at some of them, some that support parts of the bill and those who question some other parts, but, overall, a good support there for the bill.

I just want to make comment on a couple of the amendments on the Table that we received. And again, just looking at the wordings and the technical amendments done—one of them being the Care of Children Act 2004, as we look at replacing the words “domestic violence” with “family violence”. I think it’s just modernising the language that the Ministry of Justice uses. Also, the Land Transport Act (LTA) 1998, looking at replacing the reference to “medical practitioners” with “health practitioners”; as we see in the current days, it’s not all about doctors, it’s about broadening the skillset of our medical profession. So, therefore, using “health practitioners” makes it easier for those who have the scope to do the work under this LTA. I support this bill to the House.

Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Mr Speaker, thank you. As others have said, National will be supporting this legislation, not because of the great, significant changes it makes but because from time to time, I suppose, things need updating.

But before I get into some of the detail of the legislation, I’ve got to say that it is with disappointment. Anybody who’s been following process in the House, not only this term, but let’s just focus on this year, would see that, actually, whilst there are so very many things of importance that we could be or should be fixing in this House for New Zealand at the moment, all the things that aren’t working well, from the law and order challenges to more rules and support for the police to be sorting out the gangs, to be doing something about ram-raiders—the list goes on and it goes on and it goes on—the most progress this Government is making in the House this week, and, indeed, this year, is to amend a number of statutes that are non-controversial. Whilst, I suppose, they could be seen as important, they go nowhere at all to suggest this Government is nimble, as the previous speaker said, or that anything about what we’re doing will make New Zealand a better place or a faster place. So it is with great disappointment that, actually, we are seeing so many members of the Government take pride in this legislation and bury themselves away and hide behind their desks here in this House when things of importance come up, because there is so very little progress on important issues and important areas.

If we look at this legislation, every single one of these things needs to change. There is no question about that. But, actually, the problem that we have is we come to the House and take up time to change legislation, to change statutes for things like this, yet in most pieces of legislation that come before the House, the Government and the Ministers give themselves the right to make important decisions by regulation—significant decisions by regulation—as opposed to saying, “Well, actually, let’s get a regulatory power through many of these small things that are unimportant.” They’re just modernising a regulatory power to say, “Well, you no longer have to have a registered letter because they don’t really exist any more.” We’re taking up the House’s time to pass legislation on that, yet when it comes to other pieces of new legislation, the Government gives themselves the ability to pass regulation or, even worse, for the officials to make decisions in the ministries of things that the Government should be considering because they do have a big impact upon New Zealanders, but in this case we’re not doing that.

An example of this is Part 4, which is around the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act from 2009. The change merely says that a Government agency or an anti - money-laundering (AML) supervisor or officer or regulator may disclose information to each other that they have collected, if they think it’s important, with safeguards. Well, that’s good, and it’s a shame they weren’t able to do that already with the appropriate safeguards. What it doesn’t do is make the system better and it doesn’t look to relieve burden upon New Zealand businesses when they have to meet their obligations under the AML.

An example of this is the new rules the Government are putting in place that say real estate agents have to do due diligence on the person buying a property and where the money comes from and whether or not there could be money-laundering there. Respectively and responsibly, I don’t think that’s something we should be entrusting to real estate agents, but, actually, the bank who is lending money must also go and do that due diligence to make sure the person that they are lending to is a good citizen, they’re not breaking AML rules, they’re not going to be money-laundering, or any of these other things, and the lawyers involved must also do it. So what we have is this Government has put in place, in triplicate, the need for checks by everybody, rather than saying, “Well, the lawyer or the bank has to do it, and so the others can rely upon that.”, but they’ve gone so far to say the poor old real estate agent must do it also.

What this legislation here does today, this change of statutes, is it says information between the Government agencies and AML supervisors could be exchanged. But it doesn’t go anywhere towards relieving the burden upon business to do, what I suggest, in many cases, is the Government’s job, or to make New Zealand safer from people that would seek to use our systems to launder money for ill-gotten gains, to avoid tax, or for financing terrorism; we’re merely saying that it’s now OK to swap a bit of information. So that would have been a much better use of the House’s time to do that also in this legislation or to do that instead of this legislation, but it doesn’t do that.

Look, we support it because we do need to update things from time to time. There is no question. I mean, an example of this was a change not so long ago where everything had to be faxed or, in fact, in many cases—for banks, for insurance companies—they needed things to actually be in writing rather than be able to accept online signatures and so on.

It is a good thing to update. But rather than the piecemeal approach we often see and the pride that Government members take in that because they believe they’re doing a good job and being nimble and making things easier for New Zealanders, what about a piece of legislation that actually updates all of that and says, “Where it says it must be in writing, unless there’s good reason not to, it can be electronic from now on.”, and we wouldn’t have to keep doing this all of the time. We wouldn’t have to take up the House’s time or the committee’s time or submitters’ time to be deciding upon those sorts of things on a case by case basis. One piece of legislation that updates all pieces of legislation would be a great use of the House’s time, and it would also mean that the members opposite could say, without any fear of being ridiculed, laughed at, or criticised, that they are actually being more nimble.

Members of the Government have said that this legislation is so very, very important. I fear that if I speak any longer, I hold up the great progress that they want to rush back to their electorates or the places they are list MPs from and say, “We’ve done a great job of working for you. This week, we’ve earned our salaries.” We will be supporting this, but I’m not sure that I’d commend it to the House.

HELEN WHITE (Labour): Yes, I would like to note the irony of having had the last eight minutes of my life lost to a rant about how we’re wasting time when, in fact, we all unanimously support this. People have given a thorough look at these things, and I have got great confidence in the Governance and Administration Committee, which did its work. I would like to thank them for doing it. I would like to commend the bill to the House, and I’d like to get on with the next bill.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Natural Hazards Insurance Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 9 November.

BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise as the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee to report back our report on the Natural Hazards Insurance Bill. Obviously, the purpose of this bill, as has been canvassed before in previous speeches earlier in the House today, is to modernise the Earthquake Commission scheme so that future New Zealanders do not have to go through the same traumatic experiences as the people of Canterbury. There are a lot of lessons learnt from the Canterbury earthquakes, and as a result of a public inquiry Dame Sylvia Cartwright came out with a number of recommendations to change what was the Earthquake Commission, to strengthen it so that we didn’t have to go through the same things that the Cantabrians did at what was already a traumatic time.

We received 26 submissions in relation to this bill from both interested groups and individuals, and we heard oral advice from 12 submitters at hearings both in Christchurch, Wellington, and via video conference. I’d also like to acknowledge you, Mr Speaker, because I understand it is probably one of the last bills that you had before you were promoted. And although the committee really wanted to go to a landslip at the time, because of scheduling changes we had to be able to take some submissions through video conferencing.

I’d like to also at this time acknowledge our officials who worked on this bill, Treasury, the commission itself, a special mention to our independent specialist adviser Peter Woods, and the Office of the Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel Office. Their advice and the changes that they made to the bill made the drafting much simpler for us as simple people to be able to understand. And therefore it was quite easy to recommend and to accept the changes.

The bill is reported back with a unanimous decision. There’s only one particular clause that didn’t have a unanimous decision, and that’s in relation to clause 2; that was the commencement date. We heard a number of submissions from insurance companies and insurance groups saying that the application date in the bill as introduced was too short. So therefore, the committee, on hearing the submission, decided that we would extend it out for an additional year—the application date. I will leave it to the other side of the House to discuss as to why they didn’t support that.

I also want to talk briefly to one of the claims handling changes that the select committee suggested. The bill proposes that the commission participate in an approved disputes resolution scheme and act consistently with the code of insured persons’ rights—the code. This is in relation to once a person has come through with a claim; it is quite difficult. You’ve already had a major loss and then, if for any particular reason you have a dispute, whether it be between your own insurer or with the Natural Hazards Commission, we wanted to make sure that these particular disputes were handled as quickly as possible, because it is traumatic enough to have received some form of property loss.

So the changes from the Finance and Expenditure Committee included requiring the commission to settle claims as soon as practicable rather than within one year of determining the amount to be paid. We also added a new provision regarding the commission’s recovery of amounts paid in error, including protections for affected claimants. And another particular change made was removing the commission’s ability to impose a one-off charge to enable cover to continue after a claim is settled. The committee also made changes to the information-gathering sections of the bill. We also included particular procedural safeguards for provisions relating to the powers of entry and information gathering and, one for me, for our Inland Revenue people, and also as a previous tax lawyer, we made sure that several changes throughout the bill were to specify which figures in the bill are inclusive or exclusive of GST. I know how much the tax lawyers get concerned when that’s not very clear in the Act.

So therefore, my short contribution today was to say thank you very much to the select committee itself. The cooperation across the board in relation to this bill was really a reflection of how important we all saw that making sure that this particular bill was good for when those traumatic losses happen—that we don’t make it any more difficult. We’re making it futureproof and we’re making it much easier for claimants of losses during the most traumatic time of a natural hazard. And so I commend this bill to the House.

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Mr Speaker, thank you very much. I just rise to say a few words on the Natural Hazards Insurance Bill and build on the contribution made previously by Barbara Edmonds.

As she has said, the bill, when it was introduced, was in response to the inquiry into the many challenges that Christchurch residents, in particular, had in wrestling—I think, would be too generous a word—the Earthquake Commission through that process. A number of the changes from that inquiry have seen their way through this bill, and it targets amendments intended to modernise the insurance scheme, its governing legislative framework and, in particular, to clarify the insurance cover provided by the commission to reduce legal ambiguity and modernise the commission’s institutional structure.

It was debated by the Finance and Expenditure Committee for quite some time. I understand, Mr Speaker, you were involved in that, and I can only imagine some of the challenges that you would have had to navigate with your committee when you were walking through the various definitions.

Before I get to the more serious points, I would just like, for the audience listening, to delve into some of the detail that Parliament has to negotiate on your collective behalves, including a definition of “earthquake”. “Earthquakes” is defined as, “Sudden, rapid breaking and shifting of rock beneath the earth’s surface that results in ground shaking.”

Hon Andrew Little: Sounds pretty good to me.

TODD MULLER: That was expected, Mr Little, to be an appropriate definition, but apparently not. Apparently not. It needed to be refined because this definition was apparently unclear and could lead to arguments over whether an earthquake has occurred. For my simple mind, I would have thought, “Sudden, rapid breaking and shifting of rock beneath the earth’s surface that results in the ground shaking” would probably meet that definition of “earthquake”. But no, it isn’t.

The reason is it could be difficult to prove that rocks have shifted under the ground or that shaking was the result of such action. So the committee, in their wisdom, recommended that the definition become more generalised—goodness me, Mr Speaker, I’m sure you still have nightmares over this stuff—creating greater focus on the ground-shaking elements and broader natural processes that cause the event, which I think is a very good collective judgment from the committee.

But it just carries on as, if I may. Clause 5 defines “flood” as, “The inundation of normally dry land by water due to a storm, a storm surge, a meteotsunami, or the escape or release of water from its normal confines but not inundation due to a tsunami.” Again, that definition was not accepted; it needed to be further refined. After significant debate with the committee members, the term “meteotsunami” was believed to be uncommon—it certainly is; I can’t even say it—and is now deleted from the definition.

“Storm” is another definitional debate that occurred in this committee. Clause 5 defines storm as, “A violent disturbance of the earth’s atmosphere.” In a small print, it says, “And this often also occurs when Andrew Little is speaking about health”—no, that’s unfair. Sorry, I’m bringing him into the debate when that’s not necessary. But it is Thursday afternoon, after all. It says that the committee decided that the term “violent” needed to be removed from the definition. For simplicity, it was redrafted, I kid you not, to use common terms—for example, changing “high winds” to “strong winds”. So that was very good.

Then there was a very, very long committee update on the definition with respect to dwelling and, in particular, a change with respect to “gradual erosion”—that should not be considered a natural hazard. There’s some seriousness in this, though, because there is a critical definition between a “sudden” event and a slow erosion of land that perhaps has a property on it.

Barbara Edmonds, I think, quite effectively summed up the particular, perhaps, more substantive and serious issues that needed to be addressed around claims management, be it direct damage, the commission to recover money paid in error. As you would expect, there was cross-party support and focus on the fact that claims should be settled as soon as practicable, because that was very much one of the challenges for many Cantabrians in the aftermath of that tragic earthquake.

The National Party does have a minor opposition—if you like—a differing view. It only relates to clause 2 and it reflects the feedback, really, from those who are tasked in the insurance space to be able to make this all happen, namely the insurance companies. When you actually look through the scale of highly technical amendments that are envisaged beyond the perhaps more general definitional challenges that I touched on earlier, there is an expectation that this is actually going to be reasonably time-intensive, and there was a request that, perhaps, longer than what was initially provided would be appropriate. Look, the Government’s landed on 12 months after receiving Royal assent; we think 18 months would be better. We had that debate in the select committee and, for completeness, noted that on that point alone, we had a different view.

But this is one of these pieces of legislation which, timely, needs to be done and debated, notwithstanding my comments around some of the lost in the weeds potential of definitional debates that occurs at such times. But I think we have landed collectively in a space that, you know, stands beside and keeps faith with the inquiry that was held post the earthquake and the recommendations that came from it.

So the National Party will continue to support this through to this second reading.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Kia ora and thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a great opportunity to speak, as one of the Finance and Expenditure Committee members, on the Natural Hazards Insurance Bill. Can I kick off by just acknowledging the Hon David Clark, the Minister responsible for the Earthquake Commission, and all of my fellow Finance and Expenditure Committee members for the work that they have done on this particular bill.

This bill intends to improve the existing Earthquake Commission scheme so that by taking into consideration the learnings from the last decade, future New Zealanders don’t have to go through the same traumatic experiences the people of Canterbury did. These improvements include laying down rules for mixed- and multi-use buildings, simplified excesses and calculations, clarifying regulations on repairing buildings and land following a landslip or other land damage, as well as the introduction of a claimant code and a standing dispute resolution service.

This bill is the product of years of efforts and hard work to reform the really impactful part of our insurance sector, particularly in this age of climate change, knowing the climate change challenges that we face and the increased risk that natural hazards and disasters take place.

Albeit on a much a smaller scale than the Christchurch earthquake, you might have heard recently, of course, that we had a big slip in the suburb of Beach Haven in the electorate of Northcote. It was quite a problem for a number of people, and it was the first point of awareness, I guess, where we saw the impacts of climate change upon our local coastal area in Auckland. That happened because of the unexpected heavy rain that battered Auckland Tāmaki-makau-rau, over that long period, and hundreds of cubic metres of land, clay, dirt, sandstone, and vegetation fell away from a family’s new home that they had built.

I guess, on this short call this afternoon, that it is important that we continue to make progress, and I acknowledge the work that has been done on this particular bill. Without further ado, I’d like to commend it to the House.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe, and thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m very pleased to take a call on the Natural Hazards Insurance Bill. One commentator from the insurance industry, Paul Barton, described the bill as—and I quote—“a significant improvement on where we have been. Any changes that simplify the regime and enhance the transparency and responsiveness of the Earthquake Commission and insurers to customers’ needs has got to be a good thing.”

I was very happy to join the Finance and Expenditure Committee in hearing submissions on the bill—thank you, Madam Chair—and as the chair, Barbara Edmonds noted, there were only 26 submissions and we heard, I think, about 12 of those. They were all very thoughtful, considered submissions from the insurance industry, local government, and technical experts, and they all contributed to the committee’s consideration of the bill.

I was particularly pleased to hear from Dame Silvia Cartwright. She answered the committee’s request to talk about the conclusions of the public inquiry into the Earthquake Commission (EQC) which the Labour Government established, because the bill implements 10 of the recommendations from that inquiry. She was able to answer all of our questions and tease out some of the key recommendations.

So, just going back to some of the fundamental principles, the bill does keep the current EQC scheme with its foundation that the Earthquake Commission is the first port of call for damage to residential property as a direct result of natural hazards such as earthquakes or landslides, and the funding to meet those claims, of course, comes from the fire insurance levies and the levy payments that are made when people pay their fire insurance policies. They accumulate in a fund, and then that fund is used to pay the claims and also the commission’s running costs. The commission is backed by a Crown funding guarantee, which means that after a natural disaster, claimants can have the certainty and security that their claims for loss will be paid.

Aotearoa New Zealand is one of the few countries in the world where we have this first-loss natural hazard scheme, and it certainly contributes to people’s and communities’ resilience and that feeling of security. So the bill continues that. The committee made some changes to the purpose of the bill to widen the purpose, but its primary purpose is to reduce the impact that natural hazard events such as floods, earthquakes, and the like have on people, property, and the wider community.

Then the select committee expanded the purpose around contributing to improving awareness and people’s understanding of matters relating to natural hazards and contributing to improving natural hazard risk management, and to providing for improved readiness, resilience, and recovery. When courts interpret the law, having a clear purpose is always helpful, and we know that insurance claims can end up in court.

The former Mayor of Christchurch, the Hon Lianne Dalziel, in her submission described the commission as—and I quote—“an important strand of the lifeline that will enable people to recover from what is often a shocking and disempowering experience.” I certainly hope that people in Nelson who have experienced those enormous landslides as a result of the storm event there have that improved experience with EQC because of the changes in operational procedure that happened as a result of the Canterbury earthquake sequence, even though this bill is not yet in effect.

Certainly, the bill modernises the EQC. It changes its name to Toka Tū Ake—the Natural Hazards Commission, because that reflects the broad range of hazards that the commission currently deals with: earthquake, hydrothermal activity, landslides, tsunami, volcanic activity, floods, storms, or fire from a natural hazard. I just note that for a storm or a flood the commission only covers damage to land, not buildings.

Mr Muller said we got lost in the weeds, but the way these events are defined, like “storm”, like “mixed-use dwelling”, or like “dwelling” is absolutely critical in terms of how claims are interpreted. So the energy and effort that submitters and the committee put into refining those definitions is an important improvement to the bill in my view.

As Lianne Dalziel also said, the Christchurch communities, as a result of the Canterbury earthquake sequence, had what she described as “a trial by fire of a complex, overwhelmed, and inadequate system of settling claims after a major disaster”, and it was imperative that the lessons that were learnt from the Canterbury earthquake sequence weren’t in vain. So that’s really at the heart of this bill: learning those lessons and providing better law so that after future disaster events, it is easier for people to make claims and it is clearer what those definitions are and what the basis for the claim is.

I think one of the major changes, outside of the bill, of course, is that the EQC is no longer the front-line assessor. The claim is lodged with EQC, but it is insurance companies which go out and do that assessment because that was a major cause of delay in the Christchurch quakes.

The bill also has some fundamental principles to improve the process by which claims are dealt with. There’s a clear statutory objective for the commission to ensure that it manages claims so that settlements are fair and timely, that people are treated with fairness and dignity, and also that the commission is sensitive to the pressures that people face after a disaster when their home is uninhabitable. The commission must act in accordance with the code of insured persons’ rights, and claimants can lodge complaints and, if necessary, seek an independent review if that code is breached.

It also provides certainly that if a house is sold, the claim can be assigned, and it requires that claims are settled as soon as practicable, and it includes a clear statement of the commission’s repair standard for buildings and land cover, because it was a major issue in the Canterbury earthquakes just what that repair standard was, with it often being inadequate and people having to go back again. It’s that thorough, consistent assessment of damage which is the basis of the integrity of the process and a good outcome from that whole process.

So the bill is going to provide more certainty and more clarity, and one of the areas where there was a lot of support was the standing dispute resolution scheme that the bill sets up so that claimants can resolve disputes with the insurers outside of the court system. The commission is obliged to participate in that independent dispute resolution scheme, and that was something that the Hon Megan Woods set up with the Greater Christchurch Claims Resolution Service. So that’s now being mandated into law.

There was quite a lot of discussion about mixed-use dwellings, because it’s quite difficult. When you’ve got a commercial use of a building and part of it’s used as a home, people occupying the residential part of it are at a disadvantage compared with stand-alone residential buildings. So there’s clarity there, and it is just making it a whole lot better of a process.

So this bill is an improvement on the existing law. It does seek to use the lessons from the past.

One issue that the Minister briefly referred to was climate adaptation, and we had a very strong submission from three climate adaptation experts, Sylvia Allan, Dr Rob Bell, and Dr Judy Lawrence. They were highlighting the increased risk and exposure of both people and property to sea-level rise and to flooding related to rising seas and more extreme weather events because of climate change. But, as the Minister noted, that’s not in this bill. Certainly, the bill makes it clear that normal processes of gradual erosion aren’t covered, whereas if you get a sudden landslip as a result of a storm, that is. But the climate adaptation bill is coming, and some of those issues really need to be teased out then so that we have equitable solutions where people have to confront the impact that these events have. So the Green Party is very pleased to commend the bill to the House.

DAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Thank you very much to my colleague on the left, Hon Eugenie Sage, for that overview. The bill does replace the Earthquake Commission Act and does change the name of the commission. But I’d like just to spend a moment thinking about the people of Christchurch, who, 11 years on, still have not got their claims resolved. Engineers are fighting over “Should that wall be retained or should it not be retained?” One of the things that I think is a sense of duty in terms of natural hazards is that the Minister should really look, before this law is introduced, to clean up the legacy and history of this organisation, so that we can start afresh and address, whilst taking on board those learnings, the misery that the people have gone through and are still going through. So this is not something that’s just a brand new fix; we need to deal with what are existing legacy issues and we need to deal with them fast.

The Finance and Expenditure Committee did recommend this unanimously, except for clause 2, which was by majority, which I think can definitely be resolved. I’d like to thank the chair, Barbara Edmonds, for an excellent process and to commend the committee for a very collegial approach to this.

There are, however, several elements that are still sort of sticking in my throat, which I thought I’d bring up at this stage, because maybe there’s something that we can do about it. It’s interesting, given the time frames recently, when we passed the conduct of financial institutions regulations, in which the Government insisted on chairs introducing plain language, and strong consumer-based conduct programmes to deliver fair outcomes—I just don’t think this bill is doing that.

I’ve got sort of four points. I believe that the presentation of cover needs to be clearer. One of the big sticking points is just the legalese around insurance policies and them not being straightforward and not being roped on to the right fiscal entity. It’s been dotted randomly throughout the bill but not quite nailed in terms of what that means in terms of traditional language that’s used for insurance. Maybe in the draft, we’ve just got to have a think about that.

So we think adopting a more insurance policy - style approach which covers extensions, exclusions, and conditions, would be a significant improvement and would go a long way to helping people understand the sort of cover that they’ve got. Most of these policies in New Zealand do not have a broker, which is an important consideration, so it’s between the insurance companies and the claimant.

In terms of recognition of agents working on behalf of insurance, I think that’s a very interesting point. But there’s been a reluctance on behalf of the institution here to really recognise that policyholders usually get their families who are members, who they trust, to ring up and try and help them because it’s so overwhelming—such a physical reaction to the circumstance. This needs to be a time when they’re incredibly comforted, and that has not always necessarily happened with the Earthquake Commission recently. So a simple way to recognise how a person is acting on behalf of the policyholder, I think, needs to be recognised, whether they’re contacted by phone—and, as we know, when you’ve got an earthquake situation, even a phone call is a challenge to get through, and an email is certainly impossible.

In terms of the eligibility of mixed-use buildings—looked at again last night. I think this is still too complicated with the few areas where it’s really hard to get what the bill specifies—i.e., the floor area of dwellings, the floor area of any structure. We believe that simplifying this is crucial and suggest adding the total number of residents and units by the number of units in the multi-unit building.

Two final points. On early calculations, this needs to be really straightforward as the industry is not cleared to collect these on behalf of the Government. Currently, one rule applies throughout New Zealand—as Ms Sage pointed out. The perceived exposures to natural disaster is based on community-based pricing. This is a drawback for lower-risk areas. A balance must, in our view, be struck to ensure a high level of insurance continues, given our dependence on that. What we don’t want is a situation where people are disincentivised to under-insure, and that would be a general disaster.

The final thing: just new responsibilities imposed on intermediaries. I think recording books and keeping data for seven years is more in line with the spirit of what we want to do. And on those points, the ACT Party will be supporting the bill but we would like consideration of some of those finer details to still be in the thought process of the Minister and his advisory team. Thank you.

HELEN WHITE (Labour): I was on the Finance and Expenditure Committee which heard this, and it started under the chairpersonship of Dr Duncan Webb and moved to the wonderful Barbara Edmonds. Dr Duncan Webb had been in Christchurch, of course, and had practised in this area. So it was a very helpful addition that we had somebody with that kind of grounded experience in what it was like. But it was probably reinforced for me when we went to Christchurch and we heard submissions in Christchurch, and we went and had a look at some of the sites there. One was actually a sandspit and was not related to the earthquakes, but it was also in trouble because of climate change. So we had a really interesting situation there.

What I found was that the submitters on this bill were fantastic. They were well informed. They were detailed-oriented, often out of the experiences that they have had, and so I really do think that some of those definitions and the thought that we put into them was probably focused by those submitters, quite frankly. We had seen what can go wrong if you don’t get the detail right, and this was a very careful process. I am very glad we went through it so cooperatively, and we really did come up with an excellent result.

I’d like to thank Dame Silvia Cartwright, whom I admire enormously, and who has done the work in the inquiry and really put recommendations to us which we could work into an Act that will affect other parts of the country and other kinds of hazards. In Auckland, of course, we have to worry about things like volcanoes. We all have to worry about the impact of large storms these days.

So I thank the committee for its work, and I thank the submitters for the really wonderful submissions, which we built on in terms of the changes that were made. I thank the officials for the work that they did. I’ve learnt a lot through this process, and I’m very proud of the work that we did as a committee. I commend this bill to the House.

SAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I note that the National Party will be supporting this bill. When the Canterbury earthquake struck in 2011, the Earthquake Commission (EQC) was inadequately prepared, especially for the magnitude of the damage that occurred. So the National Government at the time announced a legislative review of the Earthquake Commission Act and eventually led to a public inquiry which was chaired, or led, by Dame Silvia Cartwright. The inquiry reported back in March 2020, and included within that report around 70 recommendations.

Now, it was quite clear following the earthquakes in Canterbury—and, later, Kaikōura,—that the functionality and range of the Earthquake Commission’s reach needed to be clearly defined. Ultimately, from the commission’s report, it has led to changes, and some caveats that have been discussed at the Finance and Expenditure Committee and subsequent readings. This bill, in principle, adopts the recommendations of the public inquiry and seeks to amend the so-called failings of the EQC.

It’s useful to note that the select committee process has ironed out some of the potential problems from in the first reading, and I would commend everyone involved for their hard work. I hear Barbara Edmonds has been congratulated several times today, and I haven’t been a part of it, but you’ve obviously done a very good job there, Barbara. I noted that the National members there put forward some suggestions around the commencement time frames around insurers, ensuring they had enough time to implement these vast operational changes. Having the legislation come into effect on 1 July 2024 allows them that time.

Now, we realise that the EQC needed to be updated, and we needed to take into consideration the public inquiry which was done in response to Canterbury. It’s important to note that there are effective and secure systems in place for when a natural disaster occurs, and the principle of this bill is to allow those systems and processes to be strengthened. There are various aspects of the bill that we do support. We support aligning the cover under the bill with standard private insurance practices. So this, effectively, means that the commission and insurance firms are working from the same playbook. It reduces room for dispute and reduces room for different interpretations of the bill, because insurers are, effectively, acting as agents for the EQC and, as such, it’s critical not to be operating from two different standards.

We support improving consistency between the rules used to ensure determining around mixed use. That was discussed by my Green Party colleague Eugenie Sage, who went into that and the resulting cover for that building. In the past, there have been difficulties around that that have been experienced in trying to determine whether EQC cover is available, and, if so, what homeowners are entitled to. So the amendments around that should clear that up.

Requiring the commission to participate in disputes resolution is also a positive step and ultimately should lead to faster resolution of any issues.

Extending the commission’s ability to delegate claims settlement functions to private insurers should also increase the speed in which the process is undertaken. This is really important because in almost all instances, as we saw in Canterbury, you’re dealing with people who have gone through, you know, immense physical and mental trauma. They’ve lost their homes—part or all of that—and ensuring that that is appropriately and quickly addressed to provide them with peace of mind in obviously very trying circumstances. But a clear and established and fast route forward is very, very good.

There are various parts of the bill which we do have issue with or would want to seek clarification on. Part of that is increasing the residential dwelling cover from $150,000 to $300,000, and making insurance premiums in high risk areas, such as Canterbury, equal to those in low-risk areas, which is likely to lead to excesses in those low-risk areas—take Dunedin, take Northland—increasing. I commend this bill to the House.

LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE (Labour): It’s great to be final speaker on this bill, the Natural Hazards Insurance Bill, a Government bill, and I wish to take a short call to take the opportunity to thank the Minister and thank the committee members—I wasn’t a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I would like to also acknowledge and thank the submitters and the officials who have carried out the work.

Basically, the purpose of the bill aims to make it easier to recover from natural hazards, and, particularly, I want to acknowledge the Nelson community and the Canterbury community. The bill also clarifies the role of the commission that is covered and provided by the legislation, and, lastly, its purpose is to enhance the ability and flexibility of the legislation. I commend the bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 15 November. Thank you for your work.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 4.57 p.m.